Liuyang City is located on the border between Hunan and Jiangxi in the eastern part of Hunan Province. It is a special place that combines rich and colorful ritual culture with strong national spirit. The ancient music of Liuyang Confucian Temple for worshipping Confucius, a national intangible cultural heritage, is spread here. The ancient music of Liuyang Confucian Temple for worshipping Confucius originated from the ancient "Shao Music". It was modified and enriched on the basis of the ancient music circulated in ancient times. It has the characteristics of Liuyang, so it is also called "Liuyang Ancient Music". It is dedicated to worshiping Confucius, the founder of Confucian culture. In terms of form, it integrates music, song, dance and ritual. Its music and dance procedures are complete, rich in connotation and unique in form. The music and dance activities have lasted for more than 200 years, with a profound culture and profound historical influence. In the ninth year of Emperor Daoguang's reign (1829), Liuyang County Magistrate Du Jinjian was ordered to promote music. He invited Qiu Zhiliang (also known as Gushi), a student of the county, to teach the production of ancient music. After many years of practice, he made a set of ancient musical instruments. He also raised funds to build a ritual music bureau and recruited 13-year-old students to study. As a result, Liuyang ancient music, which integrates music, dance, song and ritual, came into being. There were also civil and martial dances to cooperate with the singing students. There were nearly 200 musicians and dancers. It can be said that the eight sounds played together, danced and sang, and the scene was grand. The musicians and dancers all wore blue shirts and cloud scarves, and they were combined with etiquette. During the Xianfeng and Tongzhi periods of the Qing Dynasty, in order to promote ancient music and worship Confucius, Zeng Guofan specially sent people to Liuyang to invite Qiu Gushi's son Qiu Qingluo and others to teach music. Soon, Heilongjiang, Yunnan, Xinjiang, Shandong and other places sent people to Liuyang to learn music. The sacrificial music of the Confucius Temple in Qufu, Shandong also adopted the Liuyang ancient music score. In the 15th year of Emperor Guangxu's reign (1889), Minister Weng Tonghe presented Qiu Zhiliang's "Lüyin Huikao" to the emperor for review. At the same time, Zeng Jize, the vice minister of the Ministry of Revenue, requested that Qiu Zhiliang be enshrined in the local sage temple and was approved. As a result, Liuyang ancient music became famous all over the world, and it was known as "Chinese music and ancient rituals are in Liuyang". During the Anti-Japanese War, the Hunan Provincial Government specially summoned Liuyang music and dance students to participate in the October 10th meeting in Leiyang. In 1949, the complete set of Liuyang ancient music, dance, and gifts were still well protected. In 1956, Professor Yang Yinliu of the Central Institute of National Music came to Liuyang to witness the charm of ancient music and said that Liuyang ancient music was a rare living fossil of Chinese ancient music. In 1962, the Ministry of Culture allocated funds to rescue and excavate Liuyang ancient music. The Liuyang Ancient Music Excavation Working Committee was established that year. After nearly two years of excavation, sorting and restoration, the ancient music scores and instruments were excavated, and the book "Ancient Music Data Collection" was compiled. Students who played ancient music were trained to practice. The Provincial People's Art Museum sent people to take photos and record them for inheritance. The repaired set of musical instruments was sent to the Provincial Museum for collection. The music of the Liuyang Confucian Temple Confucius Sacrifice has "eight sounds", which are made of eight raw materials: gourd, soil, leather, wood, stone, gold, silk, and bamboo. There are gourd Xun, soil Xun, leather drum, 柷, 敔 (wood), stone chime, chime (metal), qin, flute and other instruments. Through the combination of percussion, blowing and playing, the scale is played. Its melody is elegant, quiet and gentle, which makes people have endless aftertaste. During the reign of Emperor Daoguang of the Qing Dynasty, the practice of playing music three times a year was restored, namely, the Ding days of the first ten days of the second lunar month and the first ten days of the eighth lunar month, and the 27th day of the eighth lunar month, Confucius’ birthday, which are called the Spring, Autumn, and Birthday Festivals. The ancient music and dance for worshipping Confucius in Liuyang Confucian Temple consists of six chapters: (1) the chapter of welcoming the god Zhaohe; (2) the chapter of the first offering Yonghe; (3) the chapter of the second offering Xihe; (4) the chapter of the final offering Yuanhe; (5) the chapter of the Changhe of the removal of food; and (6) the chapter of sending off the god Dehe. There are also the Twelve Poems of Fengya: "The Deer Sings", "Four Horses", "The Magnificent Flower", "There is a Good Fish in the South", "There is a Terrace in the South Mountain", "Guanju", "The Tanxi of Kudzu", "Picking the Ear of Corolla", "The Magpie Has a Nest", "Picking the Fan", and "Picking the Apple". The ancient music for worshipping Confucius in Liuyang Confucian Temple is a large-scale music for worshipping Confucius that integrates music, song, dance and ritual. The music and dance performances are unique in style. 64 people perform the dance, which is grand and spectacular. The "eight sounds" are fully played, including 1 Yong bell, 1 Te bell, 24 chime bells, 1 wooden instruments, 1 柷 and 敔, 1 stone instruments, 1 Teqing, 24 chime bells, 2 earthen instruments, 1 mouth drum, 1 Ying drum, 1 Ying drum, 2 Bofu, 1 鼗鼓, 2 gourd instruments, 6 seven-stringed harps, 2 se, 2 phoenix flutes, 6 Dongxiao, 6 Longdi, 2 Sheng, 4 Xi, and a total of about 100 instruments. There are also 32 dancing instruments of Zhai, Lu, Gan, and Qi. The music is played in harmony with the instrumentation. There is no conductor, only two flags are set up. The music starts when the flag is raised and stops when the flag is lowered. There are also two flags, which are instruments to lead the dance. The monographs on ancient music include Qiu Zhiliang's "Lüyin Huikao", which has eight volumes and more than 100,000 words; "Ding Ji Li Yue Beikao"; Liu Renxi's "Qin Zhi Shenqiu"; Liu Boyuan's "Xingfu Guoyue Issues". The main characteristics of the ancient music of Liuyang Confucian Temple: 1. The ancient music of Liuyang Confucian Temple integrates music, dance, ritual and song, and multiple cultural arts are combined to form a whole. There is no conductor during the performance. The musicians and dancers rely on their usual practice to become proficient. They only listen to the songs set up by the praisers, and watch the rising dragon flags start the music and the lowering dragon flags stop the music. The instrumental music is used to start the music and the 敔 stops the music. Play and dance according to specific procedures. 2. Correction of the standard instrument Fengxiao. Influenced by Sima Qian's "Lü Shu Pian", the phoenix flute has been misplaced since the Han Dynasty, and the sound of the performance is not harmonious. Qiu Zhiliang noticed this problem. After many practices, he found that the phoenix flute has been misplaced, which is a misunderstanding. Only authoritative opinions are respected. Qiu Zhiliang corrected the lü and lü pipes, rearranged them, and played them harmoniously with music. This flute can also be tuned, which solves the difficulty of using twelve other lü pipes to set the tone. During the reign of Emperor Guangxu, Gong Shou, who was the Hunan instructor at the time, called Qiu Zhiliang's "Lü Yin Hui Kao" "refuting Han Confucianism". 3. The eight types of ancient musical instruments handed down from ancient music no longer have gourd instruments. The ancient gourd music "竽" is a bamboo tube supported by a gourd, but later it was replaced by wood, so the eight sounds lacked the harmonious sound of the gourd. Qiu Zhiliang planted small gourds and dried the pulp to make gourd Xun to make up the eight sounds. 4. Modify and enrich the music. Qiu Zhiliang changed the original rigid score of one cavity and one voice, one word and four beats into one beat and three eyes, and used syncopation, dotted extension and rotating rhythm embellishment to enrich the content of the score and make the music more pleasant. At the same time, the folk "gongche notation" was used to record the music, which opened the door for ancient music to go to the people. This score spread throughout the country and even to Japan and Southeast Asia. 5. Under the principle of the law system, Qiu Zhiliang used pipe to tune the music of Confucius sacrifice in Liuyang Confucian Temple, and used 14 different pitch modes, such as the slow first, second, fourth and sixth strings of the feather mode, which is not the same slow first, second, fourth and sixth strings of the Qingyu mode, because the same tight string or slow string and tight and slow change on the seventh string, and the same string is used as the palace tune, but the sound is different. For the pitch on the string, it is the same as the tuning method of general piano score, only with many different names of the tuning modes, but no absolute pitch difference, which is another feature of Qiu's seven-string tuning method. In 2008, the ancient music of Confucius worship in Liuyang Confucian Temple was identified as the second batch of intangible cultural heritage list items of Hunan Province; in 2014, it was included in the fourth batch of national intangible cultural heritage list of China.