Huqin is one of the Chinese national musical instruments. It is a stringed musical instrument that uses bowed strings to rub the strings to make them vibrate to produce sound. It comes from the northern ethnic groups.

Tang and Song Dynasties
The huqin is both a stringed and a stringed instrument, with both playing methods. Ouyang Xiu, a literati in the Northern Song Dynasty who was the same era as Chen Yang, wrote in his poem "Wen Huqin Works in the Examination Court": "Huqin is originally composed of Hu people's music, and Xinu plays double tears." The playing method is plucking, and there is no meaning of "rolling it with bamboo pieces". In another poem, there is quite a detailed record: "When Xi people made a qin, he immediately went straight, and the strings were very clear and strong with double cocoons. When the high hall heard the wind and snow, the seated guests returned low. The sound is suspected to be the most, and the poor hands are not interrupted, who says that the sound of silk is not as good as that of bamboo." This is obviously the two-stringed plucked instrument Huqin. It can be seen that in the Tang and Song dynasties, Huqin was in the transition period from playing stringed instruments to pulling stringed instruments.

Song Dynasty
Huqin is also called Jiqin. Gao Cheng in the Song Dynasty wrote "The Chronicle of Things" in 1080 AD: "Du Zhi's preface says: In the late Qin Dynasty, when the people suffered the Great Wall battle, they were drummed with strings and drums, and remembered as the beginning of the pipa. The handle is more than a foot long. However, the string is struck at the head of the drum and belongs to the end of the handle, which is very different from the pipa, and its shape is now a qin. At the time of the Northern Song Dynasty, the sound was still produced by plucking the strings, rather than the stringed instruments that produced the sound by rolling the strings. In Song Dynasty Chen Yuanliang's "Shi Lin Guang Ji" (Volume 8), it is clearly recorded that the jiqin is a stringed instrument. The text says: "Jiqin was originally made by Jikang, hence the name Jiqin. The second string is rolled with bamboo pieces, and its sound is clear." To attribute the Jiqin to the system of Jikang in the 3rd century AD is obviously one of the pseudo-trusted to the ancients. Kind of attached to the association, this may be Chen's imitation of his saying "Ruan Xian made Ruan". Both are from the Song Dynasty, and they are also the same as the description of Jiqin, but they record two different playing methods. This fully shows that Jiqin in Song Dynasty was still in the transitional stage from playing stringed instruments to pulling stringed instruments.

Late Song Dynasty
The northern frontier areas of China have begun to use horsetails as bowed and rubbed instruments. In the frescoes of the tenth cave of the Yulin Grottoes in Shaanxi, there is a picture of a flying instrument playing the frontispiece, two strings, two strings, and cylindrical qin barrels with a ponytail bow. The age of this cave is about the period of Western Xia (1038-1227 AD), that is, it intersects with the Song Dynasty in the Central Plains. On the scripture building of Yanshan Temple in Fanzhi County, Shanxi Province (the "Pagoda of Grand Master Guangji"), there is a line engraved with musical instruments. One person is sitting cross-legged, holding a ponytail bow and playing. Relevant scholars believe that Fanzhi was under the jurisdiction of Mongolia before the Yuan Dynasty, and the Dayuan was used as the era name. . The images of musical instruments in the above two places are similar to today's erhu. This musical instrument, which uses a horsetail bow instead of a bamboo piece to rub the strings, is the creation of the ethnic minorities who have lived a nomadic life for a long time in northern China. It is a milestone in the development of the stringed instrument. During the Southern Song Dynasty, Huqin-like stringed instruments began to develop. A large number of silk strings for musical instruments in China also began when the Southern Song Dynasty moved the capital to Lin'an (now Hangzhou), so silk strings are called "Hang strings". In the notes and novels of literati at that time, it was also mentioned from time to time. In the story of "Jin Yan Yu Chun meets Chun Niang" in "New Words from the Green Window", it was written: "Jin Yan and He Yu went out of the city for a spring tour in the west, and saw a gorgeous courtyard. , is Wang Taiwei Village. Sitting on the pavilion with wine, Yan took the second string and rolled it, and Yu took the xiaoguan ensemble." This "two string" is a stringed instrument very similar in shape to the huqin.

Ming Dynasty
Huqin-like stringed instruments have been improved and developed with the rise of drama and quyi, and the performance forms are also various. From the picture scroll of "Lintang Autumn Banquet" by You Ziqiu in the first year of Jiajing in Ming Dynasty (AD 1522), we can see an ensemble form composed of three instruments: huqin, flute and clapboard. The huqin has a dragon head, a rolled neck, two strings, and a ponytail bow, and it has a thousand pounds to fix the length of the strings. This is not found in the huqin diagram in Chen Yang's "Book of Music", but it also retains the huqin's shorter barrel, axis orientation and string tying method. Compared with the Erxian in the Southern Song Dynasty "Green Window Xinyu", it has made great progress, and is closer to today's Korean Huqin and the popular Nanyin Erxian in Fujian. The Korean musician Chengyao compiled the ancient Korean book "Music Learning Guidelines" (1494 preface), which contains: "Huqin is made of sandalwood (scraped green skin), or black bamboo, sea bamboo bow and horse tail string, rolled with turpentine. Press Use the left hand, roll the right hand, and only play local music." It can be seen that the huqin was introduced to Korea in the Ming Dynasty. In the Qing Dynasty, the huqin was used in the court's Valka music and Qinglong music, and the former also used four pieces of huqin to play. According to folklore, the huqin was introduced into the Jingbo Lake area of Mudanjiang and Tokyo City through the hands of the East Hu people. [2] Later, it became a stringed instrument loved by the Korean people.