Lying in bed with a cold, although my body was cold, my thoughts were tumbling non-stop. Coinciding with the birth of a faculty member, it made me think about the question: why can a faculty member become a great man?
The main advantage of great men is that they are able to take a long-term view and guide the masses in the right direction at critical moments. So, why can great men see farther and see the future?
The answer is simple: they are best at dispelling the fog of the future with the torch of history. By mastering this law, we ordinary people can also gain insight into the future. Let me tell you a few interesting stories.
First of all, since ancient times, very few internal ministers have been able to establish merit outside. Yue Fei is an exception. He led the army on the Northern Expedition, won successive battles, and broke the Jin army in the decisive Battle of Zhuxian Town, which made the Jin army fearless.
Jin Wushu, the commander of the Jin army, was ready to abandon Bianliang and lead the army to retreat north, but a traitor scholar stopped him and urged Jin Wushu to stay, and said something like this: "Since ancient times, there have been no powerful ministers, and generals can make contributions to outsiders!" ”
This sentence not only has historical penetrating power, but also is a high degree of refinement and summary of historical laws. Although this scholar did not leave his name in the history books, did not make any achievements, and can even be considered mediocre in ability, the torch of history he lit helped the commander of the Jin army to dispel the fog of the future at that moment.
The later history is known to everyone: the Yuejia army became a lone army after the Battle of Zhuxian Town, and the Southern Song Dynasty court forced it to withdraw. The Jin army not only kept Bianliang, but also recovered the lost ground in the early stage without spending a single soldier.
Once, I read a shocking story. What shocked me was not Yue Fei's sighing encounter, but that a small person could actually influence the big man's decision-making with a single sentence!
Under normal circumstances, it is difficult for the little people to have an impact on the decision-making of the big people, and even if the difference in ability and experience between the two sides is not considered, the amount of information mastered by the big people is incomparable to the small people.
However, in this well-known historical allusion, there is a miracle - a literati scholar with mediocre ability, no military affairs, no understanding of economics, and perhaps even little understanding of the intricate political game relationship between the Song and Jin Dynasty at that time, in the case of ability, experience, and information that cannot be compared with the Jin army commander Wushu, just summarizing and refining a certain historical law, surpasses Wushu in predicting the prospect of war.
This is the best vision, this is the insight into the future. And what did all this was that he inadvertently lit a torch of history.
The opinions of Zhang Guotao and the faculty seemed to be more correct from the situation at the time. There are three reasons for this: first, the journey north is difficult, full of snow-capped mountains and meadows, and the march will bring huge losses.
Even if one enters the Shaanxi-Gansu region, it is uncertain whether a base area can be established there. Second, the economy of the Shaanxi and Gansu regions is backward and cannot support a large number of troops. Finally, the Red 4th Army, which went south, fought in Sichuan for many years and was familiar with geography, people's conditions, and enemy conditions.
Therefore, Zhang Guotao's slogan "Eat rice in Chengdu" raised the morale of the Red Army soldiers and moved the cadres. In contrast, the slogan of going north is difficult to motivate.
As a result, the instructor led the Red Army to the north, and although he had the merit of saving the ** Red Army after the Zunyi Conference, he only took 7,000 people with him. The southward troops led by Zhang Guotao exceeded 80,000 people, including part of the Red Front Army.
This disparity in the strength of the army reflected the real attitude within the Red Army towards the northward and southward movements. Why can the instructor resist the ** going south and insist on going north? Because he has an in-depth knowledge of history and knows the different futures of going north and going south.
If you go south, you may have the fate of a corner of peace, while if you go north, you may go to the Central Plains to fight for the world. This is the fundamental reason why the faculty insists on going north. The last history also proved that his choice was correct, and he was favored by fate all the way.
And Chiang Kai-shek, although he was known as an elite within the Kuomintang, his decisions were not wise. For example, he made Nanjing the capital, which was the biggest failure of his life.
If the establishment of the capital in Nanjing in 1927 was due to the needs of the struggle within the party and the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, then after the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, Chiang's prestige reached its historical peak, and the best strategy should be to move the capital to Beijing, rather than return the capital to Nanjing.
There are two reasons for this: first, although Nanjing was the ancient capital of the Six Dynasties in history, it was a short-lived court, the longest Eastern Jin Dynasty only existed for 104 years, and the shortest Southern Qi Dynasty only existed for 23 years.
What is more crucial is that the people who built the capital of Nanjing were all partial security regimes, and there was no unified regime. Even if historical factors are not considered, the modern country chooses Nanjing as the capital, and the political economy has obvious shortcomings.
Second, after the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, it was obvious that the Kuomintang and the Communist Party were fighting for the world, and the battlefield for the world was in the north rather than the south.
Chiang's historical pattern at that time was insufficient, and if he had moved the capital to Beijing (then called Beiping) in 1945, the resources of the Kuomintang would have been concentrated in the north at once, and the war of liberation would not have been as smooth as history.
How to understand China? Many years ago, I read a book that struck me, and that was China on the Col. The book is hundreds of thousands of words, and the main argument is that China is not good.
This book was published in the late 80s, when there were many articles at home and abroad that sang the praises of China, but none of them were as valuable as this book. This book has a complete theoretical framework and rigorous logical reasoning, detailed and authoritative data, and comprehensively demonstrates China's backwardness in all aspects.
In 2005, this book was recommended by Joint Bookstore as one of the books that has had the greatest impact on China in the past 20 years. After reading this book, I was deeply hopeless about China's future, but China's subsequent success proved that all articles that sang about China were slapped in the face.
The problems pointed out in the book were all objective at the time, and the author did not exaggerate them. So why did the country suddenly skyrocket later? I thought about it for a long time, and finally came to the conclusion that China has a unique gene, and as long as we don't have civil strife ourselves, no one can play with us.
In the era of agricultural civilization, we were the global leader, and in the era of industrial civilization, we came from behind and became the crusher of developed countries.
Before talking about the big case, let's share a small anecdote. Computers originated in the West, and the keyboard was designed according to the English alphabet, down to every key. Forcibly typing Chinese characters on such a keyboard was a big problem when I was learning computers.
However, the wisdom of the Chinese is impressive. With the popularity of computers, we have invented various Chinese input methods, the most convenient of which is Pinyin associative input method.
Just by typing down a few pinyin letters, you can quickly generate a large block of text. In contrast, English input is very clumsy, an English word needs at least 5-6 letters, and the same number of letters can only be output.
But our pinyin input method can input a large amount of text, which is incomprehensible under Western rules. This small case is very representative, the United States led by the Western countries to develop their own WTO rules of the game, China has been in the game for 20 years, Chinese enterprises and commodities have won a big victory under the WTO framework, the United States can only use "** as an excuse to suppress Chinese enterprises and commodities."
Therefore, we must have a historical perspective in judging and making decisions on major issues, especially when it comes to reading about China. Right now, we are in a phase of economic transformation, which is a painful process, but it is also the key to driving economic transformation.
Although in 1978-1992, the first in China played an important role in China's economic transformation and won the love of the whole people, but during that period, the domestic people, the army, and cadres were resentful of the economic transformation.
Economic transformation is the price paid by the predecessors for planting trees and the future generations enjoying the shade, but the future generations can enjoy the results, which is the special feature of China's socialist system. Under Western electoral systems, it is almost impossible to have such people to drive economic transformation.
In the face of economic transformation, we are facing many challenges, but these challenges are necessary, and they have laid a solid foundation for the sustainable development of the country and the rejuvenation of the nation. Although there is resistance, it is fortunate that someone is willing to stand up and promote change, and we should look up to the sky, be pragmatic and retreat, and have a historical pattern.