Julu
Julu Commandery (鉅鹿郡) was a historical commandery of China. During the Tang dynasty, it was one of the twenty-four commanderies of Hebei Circuit.[1]
History[edit | edit source]
When the jiedushi An Lushan rebelled from Fanyang in 755,[2] he led his 150,000 strong army[3] down on a southward march against the Tang eastern capital of Luoyang. Along the way, he intimidated virtually all the commanderies of Hebei into submission,[3] but he refused to spare Julu on the basis of a superstition.[1] The commandery name Jùlù (鉅鹿) means 'iron deer', but since lù (鹿, 'deer') is homophonic with the lù (祿) in Lushan's name, a pun on jù Lù (拒祿), meaning 'repel Lu' could be construed.[note 1] Lushan took offence at this and used it as a pretext to order Julu city razed to the ground.[1]
Yan Jiming and the Hidden One Li E arrived shortly after the city's destruction, where they witnessed the suffering of its surviving inhabitants. They spoke to one of them, who explained that the Yeluohe garrison keeping guard at the nearby beacon tower had continued to plunder what little they had left every nights.[1]
Gallery[edit | edit source]
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Concept art of Julu Commandery -
Translated concept art of Julu Commandery
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Appearances[edit | edit source]
Notes[edit | edit source]
- ↑ The pronunciations here are in the modern Mandarin language, which would not have been spoken by the individuals in this time period. Their linguistic variety would have corresponded more with Middle Chinese. The Middle Chinese pronunciations of 鉅鹿 'iron deer' and 拒祿 'repel Lu' based on the reconstructions by one Chinese linguist, Zhengzhang Shangfang, are both /ɡɨʌˣ.luk̚/ while for Lushan's name, it would be /luk.ʃˠɛn/. Further hint at the actual pronunciation may be gleamed from the modern Cantonese pronunciations, romanized in the Jyutping system as geoi⁶luk⁶, keoi⁵ luk⁶, and Luk⁶saan¹ respectively. In this case, the pun happens to transfer perfectly in Mandarin.
References[edit | edit source]
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