Background introduction to "Kingdom"

From the so-called "Japanese pirates" and "two wars" mentioned many times in the play, it can be seen that the time setting of the play is roughly at the beginning of the 17th century, when the Imjin Japanese and Dingyou rebellions ended not long after the end of Li's Joseon (marked). The point, this setting directly determines the setting of many characters in the play). As for the setting of the concubine of the prince Li Cang, and the setting of the "mistress of the middle palace" who is obviously younger than himself but is his nominal mother, it can also be seen that the character image of the prince Li Cang refers to the obvious traces of Gwanghae-jun.

Like Chinese historical dramas, there are many specific nouns from the Joseon Dynasty of the Lee family in "Kingdom". If you have a good background in Korean history, you can understand the connotation of these terms, and it is also very helpful to understand the plot.

Chapter 1: "Tiger Catching Army" and "Prince Yiwei Division" as supporting male characters.

The male supporting role is the fuse of the whole film. He cooked the dead people infected with the zombie virus and fed them to the patients.

And because of his excellent marksmanship, he was suspected of his true identity by the prince and others, thinking that such a skill could only be possessed by the "Tiger Catching Army" specially set up by North Korea to catch tigers.

So, does the Tiger Catching Army really exist, and what kind of organization is it? What does the character setting of the supporting role have to do with the real historical background?

The number of tiger-jaw soldiers is only 300, and the number of soldiers who shoot them must be in the middle. Therefore, the number of tigers caught in a year is more than 100, so Hu Cao’s loss is also up to 80 zhang. This army is extremely elite. —— "Diary of Seungjeongwon" 1679

This is an earlier record about the Tiger Catching Army. The background of the play is the early 17th century, and the record in the "Seungjeongwon Diary" is in the middle and late 17th century, which is quite close in time.

It is also from this record that we can see that at that time, the North Korean tiger catching army of only 300 people could catch more than 100 tigers every year, and its combat effectiveness can be imagined. "Shooting must hit" and "extremely elite" can also match the male supporting role in the play who makes good use of muskets, and can't play dead no matter what, and it matches the setting of seven in and seven out from the zombie encirclement.

The fact that the male supporting role was later responsible for teaching the local army to practice muskets is still fresh in everyone's memory. At that time, unlike the Tiger Catching Army, the general combat effectiveness of North Korean officers and soldiers was very low, otherwise Japanese pirates would not have swept the capital within a month, not to mention the terrifying zombies.

However, the reason for this situation is by no means as simple as the reason everyone thinks, such as "the officers and soldiers are neglected in training, and they eat all day and wait to die". In 1680, Li Shihua, a military envoy of peace in North Korea, gave us a glimpse of the clues:

Archers don’t know how to bend bows and arrows, and gunners don’t know how to hide and store pills. How can they be called soldiers? And they are both in the same army, and the Jingzhuang Military Team and the Guarding Cards, etc., which belong to the Chenying, are prepared for one year. In addition to the body cloth, there are all kinds of errands, not one of the same.

The tiger catching army that the patrol camp belongs to, the annual payment is only a piece of cloth, and he has no chores.

In the case of Ping An Road, at that time, the tiger catching army in Ping An Road paid the imperial court a piece of cloth per person every year, and they had the privilege of being exempted from all other errands.

But the other officers and soldiers were miserable. The annual tax paid was two pieces of cloth per person, which was twice that of the tiger-catching army, and they also had to undertake various miscellaneous duties assigned by the court. In this way, how can the regular army have time to practice again? This led to "the archer does not know how to bend the bow and the arrow, and the fire gunman does not know the magic of hiding and placing pills."

The reason why the tiger catching army was favored by the imperial court was naturally that the tigers they caught were mainly for the living needs of the royal family and nobles. Even if there are tigers in the mountain forest where the king's tomb is located, there will be tiger catching troops set up.

Therefore, there are certainly personal reasons for the strength of the male supporting role, but it is more determined by the system of Lee's North Korea at that time.

Everyone is a product of the big background, and the sense of fate suddenly exploded.

The other main supporting actor in the play is the military attache beside the prince Li Cang, and Zuo Yiwei, the "Prince Yiwei Division", can be regarded as a personal senior bodyguard to protect the prince.

Don't look at this man's rude appearance, but he is first-class gentle towards his pregnant wife. In the play, he repeatedly stole the prince's tribute food, such as Luozhou water pears, and took them home to replenish his wife's body. Because of this, he was coerced by the prince, and the prince promised to give him meat pie to take home, and finally agreed to accompany the prince to investigate the truth of the living dead.

But don't you think it's strange that a military attache beside the heir of a country, why a plate of meat pie can make him promise to die?

Here, we must mention a strange feature of Lee's North Korea, the low salary of officials.

According to the official system of the Li Dynasty, "Zuo Yiwei" was a five-rank official, and in our eyes, it was also a mid-level official. But how much is the salary of a five-rank official in North Korea? According to the change table of the salary of the Korean officials of the Li family in the past dynasties, as well as the setting in the early 17th century when the Japanese rebellion had just ended, the annual salary of the male supporting role should be remembered as the annual salary. After all the rice, wheat and bean cloth are converted into the same unit, under normal circumstances It is 42 stones (1 stone 15 buckets). For the 42 stone salary, it was awarded four times.

What, you ask me why I don't give out copper coins and silver? Sorry, North Korea's monetary economy is extremely low, and the main equivalent has always been cloth and food. With such a low salary, how can officials survive? The local officials are simple, with low salaries, but they can set up various extortionate taxes to exploit the common people (in the late Li Dynasty, only one-third of the ten-ten tax went into the national treasury, and the rest was full of personal pockets).

In the history of Joseon, there was a Beijing official who asked to be released to stay in Kaesong on the grounds that his family was poor and had a mother to support, and obtained the consent of the king. It can be seen that the local officials are also collectively acquiesced.

As for the Beijing officials, even the salaries of Zhengyipin officials are not very high, but they can get the filial piety of local officials from all over the world, and they can live happily. However, you are a military attache beside the "concubine" prince who may step down at any time. Whoever wants to curry favor with you, who wants to curry favor with me will also curry favor with other teachers and concubine!

Of course, if some people can eat it, it means that some people can't. Even high-ranking officials in Beijing may not always be wealthy. Like Wen Jinying, who once played the wife of the wife of Simou Shizi, Huiqinggong Hong, her grandfather in history was Li Cao Juingshu (Libu Shangshu), but as soon as the grandfather died, the family immediately fell. When she entered the palace to run for the concubine, she didn't even have the money to hire a carriage to make new clothes.

Therefore, it is to be expected that the senior bodyguard of Shizi, who is dumbfounded and can't receive any extra money, has a terrible life at home. What's more, the play is also set in the early 17th century when the Japanese pirates had just experienced the ravages of Japanese pirates, and it was even more difficult for prices to soar.

And he was also bound by the fate of officials under Li's North Korea system and walked into this whirlpool of the living dead. Fate comes again. If his salary can afford meat and his wife can eat well every day, no one will follow the prince.

It is worth mentioning that in history, because of the heavy oppression of the Korean nobles of the Lee family. So when the Japanese army came, many Koreans regarded them as their saviors and turned against them. King Gyeongsangseong of Korea was looted and looted before the Japanese army occupied the rebels. And the people are also very wise, they know that before robbing treasures, they will burn up the household registration materials of slaves and maids in the warehouse.

Therefore, the defeat of the Japanese pirates did not represent the victory of the Lee family in Korea. It was just a victory for the nobles of the Li Dynasty. In addition to bearing the consequences of the war, the people also live a life of endless exploitation by them. This is also the fate of another group in the play.

If the people can live well and have something to eat, then the male partner will not cook the dead flesh for them as food, and then the zombie virus will not spread.

Chapter 2: The heroine's "medical woman" status and destiny

As the first batch of investigators of zombie infectious diseases, our heroine is full of dedication and justice (the standard setting for heroines), and also has professional skills. She is a local medical woman in Lee's North Korea and has superb medical skills.

But there is such a scene, I think everyone remembers, after Doctor Shu gave the Dongnae Mansion's pulse, she said very directly whether you had pain in your penis, suspected that he had gonorrhea, etc., and made him adore her Dongnae House. So are very embarrassed.

In ancient times, especially in the strict Li family Korea, it was really shocking that a woman would say such a thing. But it is understandable for the doctor girl to be so straightforward. Of course, the reason is not because of her status as a doctor, but a function of the doctor girl in the Joseon Dynasty of the Li family - "official prostitute".

At the beginning of the 16th century, about 100 years ago, the well-known tyrant of the North Korean family, Lord Yanshan, broke the medical girl system and ordered medical girls to learn "the way of serving" from prostitutes. Since then, many medical girls have become A plaything for aristocrats to vent their sexual desires. After the overthrow of King Yeonsan and the accession of Joseon Jongjong, Jongjong began to vigorously rectify this bad style of using medical girls as medical prostitutes, and even occupying medical girls as concubines (so the background of the story of "Da Jang Geum" is set in Zhongzong. time makes sense), unfortunately with little success.

Thirty years after Zhongzong ascended the throne (in 1535), there was still a case where officials from the Huimin Administration brought dozens of medical women to hang out all night. Even in the early 19th century, medical women were simply called "pharmacy prostitutes".

As a doctor girl in the early 17th century, even our heroine was a white lotus flower that was not harassed by nobles. But the chaos in this industry must have deeply affected her behavior and style of doing things. It is very reasonable to be able to talk about men's private housing issues so plainly.

The stupid and cute Donglai mansion has a very reasonable basis for pursuing our heroine, and it is normal to marry home as a concubine.

Chapter 3: The protagonist, the protagonist, Li Cang's prototype "Kwanghae-kun"

Friends who have watched a lot of Korean costume dramas should be able to understand how strict the "division of descendants" in ancient Joseon was. The children of concubines are simply slaves at home. In the royal family, although most of the princes are decent, but you basically don't think about the right of inheritance. For more than 500 years, Li's Joseon state, the first person to be established as the crown prince as a concubine, is the prince of the Joseon Dynasty, Gwanghae-kun (the prototype of the male protagonist) during the Japanese Rebellion.

The thing is, when the Japanese call, if the king is caught, the whole country will be finished, so it is necessary to canonize the prince and divide it into two governments to be safe. However, at that time, King Xuanzu of Joseon had no direct son, and the eldest son Linhaijun was very absurd and irritable, and he could only take the second son Gwanghaejun as the heir.

The setting of Lee Cang in the play is very similar to Gwanghae in terms of time and identity. To tell the truth, if you are the son of the previous queen, even if the concubine has another son, your status is as stable as a rock. How can you be a son of the Yuan queen? But who told you to be a concubine? Once the queen gives birth to a direct son, your name will not be right. If you want to abolish you, it will be justifiable.

That's why the step-concubine in the play dared to have a fake pregnancy, conspired with her father, and made the deceased king become a living dead. After she found a suitable baby boy, she announced that the queen had given birth to a direct son, thus holding the country in her own hands.

Chapter 4: The poor side of Lee's Joseon, the helplessness of small towns

There is a plot in the play that people are very concerned about. The refugees who fled north are blocked by the shepherd outside the city. The reason is that the city is small and cannot hold so many people at all, and can only save the lives of people in the city.

When it comes to big cities, like Chang'an in the Tang Dynasty, everyone is very familiar with it. But when it comes to small towns, especially the relatively unfamiliar Lee's Korea, no one should have an intuitive concept of how small a town can be.

Fortunately, historians have given us statistics long ago.

The largest city in the Joseon Dynasty was Pyongyang, with a circumference of 28,800 feet (16.5 miles). The smallest is Xianyang Yicheng, with a circumference of 735 feet (0.5 li). About 80% of the city's circumference is within 1,000-5,000 feet, and 80% are cities with a circumference of 0.57-2.85li, calculated on the basis of 1 li = 1,740 feet in Lee's Joseon. Compared with the Northern Zhili and Shandong regions of the Ming Dynasty, they all belonged to the smallest county level (3 li), or smaller.

So it is no wonder that the shepherds refused to let the refugees in. How many people can such a small city accommodate? (If the setting is that perimeter of 0.5 miles, hahahaha). Because of this, the shepherd was also charged with irresponsibility by the prince, and was suspended and driven away, which is really wrong.

Chapter 5: "Number Plate Law", the unique identity proof of the Joseon Dynasty

In the second episode, the prince and the military attache discovered a large number of zombies in a sleeping state in the infirmary. In order not to reveal the identity of the prince who visited Weifu privately, the military attache explained to the yamen who came to search, saying that this was his younger brother, and he forgot to bring his license plate when he went out in a hurry, please don’t take it offense.

So what is a "number plate"? Why do you need to explain it when you go out without a number plate?

According to the records of the "Records of the Joseon Dynasty", the number plate is a system established by King Taizong of the Joseon Dynasty in the period of Li Fangyuan, Emperor Taizong of the Joseon Dynasty. Chinese citizens are required to carry a sign engraved with their name, place of origin, identity and facial features. In this way, people can be prevented from exile to other places, and the population of the country can be determined.

On the other hand, those who dare not bear the sign will be punished. Those who dare to modify the identity information of the number plate without permission will also be sentenced. Those who dare to lend their number plates to others will also be punished. Therefore, not long after the implementation of the number plate system in Taizong's time, it was abolished because of excessive harassment of the people.

Deputy Zuo spokesperson Hong Rufang said to him: "The establishment of the number plate was originally for the people to not be able to move, and it was also said that it was easy for the common people in exile to obtain it. Now the exiles can't get it; Criminals are often referred to by the number plate, saying they have no license, not changing the license plate, not engraving the license plate, saying that the license plate is forged, losing the license plate, or changing the license plate. It doesn't help the country, please stop."

It was not until King Sejo of Joseon ascended the throne that he renegotiated the implementation of the number plate law, stipulating that "those who do not wear the card after receiving the card, and those who lose the honor, shall be given fifty guards.

The material of the number plate is also related to the status of the person. Sanpintang Shangguan and above use ivory number plates, officials below Tang Shangguan use mountain grapefruit wood number plates, and ordinary people, soldiers, minor officials and untouchables use miscellaneous wood white plates.

Therefore, if the prince Li Cang, as an ordinary person who does not go out with a number plate, needs to hit at least 50 times with a bamboo board under normal circumstances, it is no wonder that the military attache has to use his identity as a Hanyang official to put pressure on the junior officials to say goodbye. Calculate this.

Chapter 6: The super bug in the play

In this play, after the king was made into a living dead by the queen, he was imprisoned in the palace [Kangning Hall]. In the first episode, where the prince is kneeling outside the door of the queen's bedroom, begging his stepmother to let him see his father, the queen lives in the [Tongming Hall].

Why do you say this is a big bug? Because the Kangnyeongjeon of Lee's Joseon is in Gyeongbokgung Palace, and Tongmyeongjeon is in Changgyeonggong Palace. In other words, if this is the case, the king and the queen are separated. In addition, the pavilion where the princess was talking to her father, and the lotus pond where the corpse was thrown are located in Changdeokgung, which is separated by a wall from Changgyeonggung.

The funniest thing is that if this script is really followed, the prince will be the first to get the moon. In the play, the living place of the prince's son Li Cang is Shishantang, but it is in Gyeongbokgung Palace, which is obviously closer to the king.

So, why did you transport the maid who was bitten to death by the zombie king in Gyeongbokgung Palace all the way to the Changdeok Palace pond to throw her body? ? ?