In our daily communication, we often encounter the situation of quoting ancient sayings and allusions, either to increase the authority of our own words, or to show that we are literate, which is a common thing anyway.
"It's no problem, but you can't mess with the clouds for the ancients."
However, the history of our nation is too long, and this will lead to the problem of the same word but the ambiguity of ancient and modern. In fact, with the advent of the information age, such situations have become more and more frequent and common, such as the word "embarrassment" - its original meaning has always been bright and bright for thousands of years, but it has been given new meanings such as depression, helplessness, and embarrassment in the Internet age, and it also makes people take it for granted that it should be so.
However, in more than ten years, there has been a new interpretation of the word embarrassment, not to mention the vicissitudes of 5,000 years? Therefore, some ancient sayings or allusions that can make people open their mouths may not be what we imagined, but they have only been misinterpreted, and may even be mistaken and wrong.
For example, "Tianxingjian, a gentleman strives for self-improvement" ("Zhou Yi Shangjing") is usually used as inspirational today, probably because the word "Yi" is understood as the meaning of "should". In fact, the original meaning of the word "to" in the ancient language is "use", "take", "put", "will", so the interpretation of the original meaning of this sentence should be that the way of heaven is steady, resolute and unceasing, so the gentleman should follow it, enter the virtue and practice, and never stop. You can't be a hammer in the east and a stick in the west, or be lazy and slack.
But it's not a big deal. After all, the times are progressing and civilization is developing, and it is not an exaggeration to slightly change the original intention of our ancestors to adapt to today's values, which can be regarded as carrying forward on the basis of inheritance.
But this is not the case with some cases of tampering with or misinterpreting ancient words.
The first situation is to make up and then name the ancients. For example, "if people are not for themselves, the heavens and the earth will be destroyed" is often prefixed with "the ancients", but its earliest source seems to be in the line of Hatoyama persuading Li Yuhe to surrender in the modern Peking Opera "Red Lantern". Moreover, such an extreme view has no place in traditional Chinese ethics and morality, and even the Yang Zhu school, which insists on the inherent evil of human nature or advocates "plucking a hair and benefiting the world, not doing it" (Mencius, Volume 13, Heart Chapter Sentence I), would not accept such a negative concept.
People are not for themselves, and the heavens and the earth will be destroyed" is from the mouth of the devil, and it has nothing to do with our ancestors.
The second case is malicious tampering or falsification of ancient sayings. Typical such as "small amount is not a gentleman, no poison is not a husband", its original words are "small amount is not a gentleman, no degree is not a husband", from the second fold of Guan Hanqing's miscellaneous drama "Wangjiang Pavilion", the original meaning is that a person with a small amount of gas is not a gentleman, and a broad mind and generosity can be regarded as a big husband - the difference of one word is enough to make the positive energy of Lao Guan in situ**, how big is this impact, and how bad is it?
Another situation is to take the words out of context, that is, no matter what the ancients wanted to say, just intercept the part they want, and don't care about the rest. For example, when I was a student, there was always a lot of inspirational quotes hanging in the school, and there was always a picture of "My life has an end, and there is no end to knowledge", to encourage the silly children sitting in the classroom to learn the endless sea and work hard. But in fact, the original text is like this:
My life has an end, and there is no end to knowledge. With an end, there is no end, and it is gone! Those who have already known are gone! (Zhuangzi, Inner Chapter, Health Master Third).
See? Zhuang Zhou didn't intend to instill in you the truth of hard study, but taught you to touch fish, and also called it health - life is limited and knowledge is unlimited, and the pursuit of infinity with finite is bound to be harmful to health. Since this is the case, you are still "working hard", are you tired of living?
As one of the stupid kids back then, I was considered a teacher, and I didn't know if this thing was still hanging in the school before I could reason with it?
It's a bit ...... to take it out of context
This kind of out-of-context quoting is knowingly offended. There is another situation that may be unintentional, but the root cause may lie in ignorance, and the typical one is what we are going to call the "Spring and Autumn Unrighteous War" today.
Last year, I wrote an article, mainly to popularize the war etiquette of the Spring and Autumn Period(See "Laughing at Song Xianggong's stupid people, they don't understand what the aristocratic style of the Spring and Autumn Period is").。This article didn't get much attention at the time, but for some reason it has recently drifted back and caused some controversy.
One of the most controversial is that many friends can't understand the rules of war in the Spring and Autumn Period, so they think I'm talking nonsense. And the most mentioned reason is that Mencius once said that "the Spring and Autumn Unrighteous War".
If we do not combine the context, then it is easy to misunderstand the meaning of the "Spring and Autumn Unrighteous War".
It's just that I've heard Yasheng's words before, and I still remember that his old man's original intention didn't seem to be the same thing. I looked it up again, and sure enough:
Spring and Autumn Unrighteous War? He is good at this, and he has it. The conscripts are also up and down, and the enemy countries are not conscripted. (Mencius, Vol. 14, Heart Chapter II).What does that mean? It is that Meng Fuzi believed that all wars that are in line with "righteousness" are all under the felling of the above, such as the Son of Heaven crusading against the princes, the princes conquering and destroying the Qing doctor, or the Qing doctor cleaning up the soldiers. To put it bluntly, the Spring and Autumn War for Supremacy is a war between princes, although the warring sides are big and small, strong and weak, and sometimes there are differences between justice and injustice, but theoretically they are all equal to each other, and according to etiquette, they should not fight. If there is a dispute, you should find Zhou Tianzi to adjudicate, at least Zhou Tianzi has to decide whether to start a war for conquest, instead of rolling up his arms and sleeves and pinching directly. Therefore, the war in the Spring and Autumn Period was characterized by Mencius as an "unrighteous war", not that those guys did not follow the rules and did not pay attention to martial virtues when they fought.
In fact, the reason why Confucius lamented that the Spring and Autumn Period was an era of bad etiquette is to some extent consistent with Mencius's reason:
"There is a way in the world, and the conquest of Lile comes from the Son of Heaven; There is no way in the world, and the conquest of Lile comes from the princes. (Analects, Vol. 8, Ji Shi XVI).In any case, the two saints were sighing at the lack of authority of Zhou Tianzi, believing that any war was illegal and immoral without the approval of the king, who had been reduced to a mud bodhisattva. As for whether the princes respected the traditions and established rules when they fought, these two old men didn't bother to care.
In fact, putting aside the topic of the princes fighting wars and unruly in the Spring and Autumn Period, it is actually unreasonable to just rely on the sage's accusation of "unrighteous warfare in the Spring and Autumn Period" and the collapse of etiquette.
The two old men only cared about the ancient retribution, so they didn't bother to worry about how everyone fought.
The sub-feudal system was not invented by the Western Zhou Dynasty, the "ideal country" in the eyes of the sage, and at the latest in the Yin Shang period, the princes were all over the place, and there were many feudal countries like dogs. And the vassal states do not bird the Son of Heaven at all, only care about the stuffy head to grab money, land and population, not only in the Spring and Autumn Period, since the legendary Three Emperors and Five Emperors have always been commonplace, and the Great Zhou Dynasty and its ancestors are the best among them - Confucius Sage desperately deleted the Six Classics in order to grease and whitewash the Great Zhou Dynasty, but unfortunately it was still impossible to delete it, revealing a lot of small tails. For example, "Houji's grandson, King Shiwei." Juqi Zhiyang, the beginning of the cut of the merchants" ("The Book of Poetry, Lu Song, Gong"), shows that as early as the time of the ancient father, the Shang Dynasty had not yet had time to poison the people, and the Zhou people were already ambitiously expanding their power, intending to usurp the world of Yin Shang.
And after King Wu's war, behind the feudal states touted by Confucianism, there was a bloody and cruel great annexation of the strong to bully the weak and alienate relatives:
"It was also in turmoil, and to Zhou Keshang, the seal of the fifth class, where there were 1,773 or 3,000 times, and the soup was reduced by 1,300. (Li Xian's Note Later Hanshu Zhi 19th Junguo 1).If the historical records are true, it means that there were less than 3,000 vassal states (tribes) in the Yin Shang period, and less than 1,800 were left when the Western Zhou Dynasty was established. At the beginning of the Spring and Autumn Period, the general view is that there were less than 200 countries, and only about 20 survived at the beginning of the Warring States Period, and they continued to be merged into the "Seven Heroes" of Qi, Chu, Qinyan, Zhao, Wei, and Han, and finally unified under the hands of the First Emperor - see? Although the world is the first emperor, its prelude has been slowly opened nearly 1,500 years ago, and it is the countless unjust wars in the mouth of the saints that are persistently promoting this process. Otherwise, no matter how wise and martial His Majesty the First Emperor is, in the face of more than 3,000 small countries (there must be hundreds on the territory of the Qin State), how many Bai Qi does he have to summon to kill?
Moreover, if it weren't for the "unrighteous war" from Yin Shang to the Warring States, what would be the result of the multitude of states? Thinking about the other side of the continent where we are, the answer is obviously chilling.
A casual search revealed nearly 100 vassal states, and it was impossible to achieve great unification without pinching for hundreds of years.
In fact, the annexation wars of the princes in the Spring and Autumn Period were not the most frequent and fierce, but at that time, the feng shui was good, and the saints were piled up, and they just caught up. At the same time, Confucianism likes to worship the past and the present, so they are idle and always talk about the Spring and Autumn Period - if they live in the Warring States and see that the sons of heaven of the Great Zhou Dynasty can't even be mud bodhisattvas, and they start a war and kill people at every turn, what amazing words will come out?
It's like people who lived twenty or thirty years ago must have felt that the lighthouse country on the other side of the ocean was invincible and will always be invincible. But now it seems that this is the case, if it is another twenty or thirty years, it will not even be a serious matter.
Therefore, the most holy saying that the rites are broken and the sub-saints say that the Spring and Autumn Period is unrighteous are actually caused by the ancient thought of "depressed and depressed, I follow the Zhou" ("Analects, Volume 2, Eight Hundred Third"), which are all outdated and outdated things today. Therefore, saints also have the limitations of the times, and we can learn from them on the premise of maintaining respect, and there is no need to talk about it as a golden rule.
Let's talk about the unrighteous war in the Spring and Autumn Period from the perspective of war etiquette in the Spring and Autumn Period.
In fact, from today's point of view, the war in the Spring and Autumn Period is beautiful and simple, like a fairy tale.
Many people are inexplicably surprised by the Spring and Autumn War Ceremony, and even think that it was made up by later generations, because it is completely different from the later form of warfare that completely ignores martial virtue and uses everything to the extreme. At that time, the war was full of aristocratic demeanor and respect for etiquette and rules, so you could ignore the success or failure of the war, you could sacrifice your own life, and it was as "beautiful" as a fairy tale
"At that time, although the international community was constantly fighting each other, the general trend was to emphasize peace and keep faith. The elegance of diplomacy fully demonstrated the cultural cultivation and understanding of the general aristocracy at that time. That is, in the war, they can still not lose their humane, polite, and trustworthy qualities, and sometimes it becomes a kind of humor unique at that time. (Outline of National History, Part II, Chapter 4).Therefore, at that time, wars could not be fought against agricultural time, could not take advantage of people's danger (such as the outbreak of plague, civil strife in the enemy country, or the death of the king, it was not allowed to go to war), it was not allowed to use favorable factors such as climate and geography, and it was not allowed to kill civilians. Once the fight starts, there are also a lot of rules, such as "no drums and no columns", that is, to use a dignified array against the banner of righteousness, and the tactics that are common in later generations such as ambushes, sneak attacks, and half-crossing attacks are resolutely prohibited; For example, "the gentleman is not seriously injured, and he is not a bird", that is, he cannot attack the wounded soldiers, he cannot hurt the elderly, and at the same time, he cannot take advantage of the danger of others, and even if the enemy has an unexpected situation, he has to help (in the battle of Yi, the Chu army helped the Jin army repair the chariot, and continued to pinch after repairing).
There are even more unbelievable. For example, when encountering the enemy's monarch on the battlefield, not only can he not capture the thief and capture the king first, but also get out of the car and salute and then avoid it; For example, in the duel between the commanders of the two armies or nobles, according to etiquette, the "war chess system" must be adopted - that is, if the first one does not kill the other party, he has to wait for others to cut (shoot) back before he can do it again, and if he hangs up because ......of this, then you are unluckyAnother example is that the winning side of the war cannot chase after it, and can only chase 50 steps, at most 100 steps must be stopped, otherwise it is a victory, and you can sit and wait to be drowned by the spitting stars.
I made a mistake about that joke and laughed at the source of fifty steps and a hundred steps, go back and read Mencius
In fact, what I said above is just a drop in the bucket of the complicated and redundant Spring and Autumn War Ceremony. In fact, the rules of war at that time were very similar to the rules of today's competitive sports such as football and basketball, and as long as you participated in them, you had to abide by them, or you would be punished. It's just that fouls in sports competitions are at most judged as "physical violations", "technical offenses" or bright red and yellow cards, but in the Spring and Autumn Period, if you don't follow the rules in the war, it may be a loss of reputation, people hate dogs, and you can't get your power and status guaranteed, and it may also lead to a group beating of the righteous "United **", who will do this when the brain is in water?
For example, Song Xianggong, who has been ridiculed for thousands of years, is actually not hypocritical, and all his performances in the Battle of Hongshui are in line with the rules of war at that time. The reason why he became a laughing stock through the ages is just that later generations only judge heroes by success or failure, in fact, at that time, Song Zifu was praised by others:
"Therefore, the gentleman is not a drum and does not form a column, and he does not forget the great gift when he is facing a major event, and he has a king but no minister, thinking that although the war of King Wen is not enough, it is nothing more than that. (The Legend of the Ram in the Spring and Autumn Period, the Twenty-second Year of the Duke of Xu).Therefore, there is no need to question the Spring and Autumn War Rite, and it cannot be concluded that it does not exist because some people do not know and do not understand. If that were the case, then we would have to go to the illiterate to find the truth.
The Spring and Autumn War Rite is basically the same as the rules of modern competitive sports.
And if such a war full of ceremonial beauty and elegance has become an unjust war, then how should we evaluate the war that has no taboos and no bottom line in the future?
The formation and fashion of the Spring and Autumn War Rite has its historical roots.
After Zhou Ke Yin Shang, there were two great feudalisms, which basically laid the state form of the Western Zhou Dynasty - that is, the feudal clan, the heroes and the remnants of the previous dynasty in the four directions, Zhou Tianzi is not said to be the supreme of the same, but the leader of the co-lord nature, and has no direct jurisdiction over the land that is not Wangji, but the vassal states must have the obligation to pay tribute, military protection, and obey orders to Zhou Tianzi, which is the legal basis of "there is a way in the world, and the conquest of Lile comes from the Son of Heaven".
But this kind of ruling structure is difficult to sustain for a long time.
The feudal system, which developed from tribal alliances, was an unstable ruling structure.
The benefits of the sub-envelope system are obvious. With the level of civilization and technology at that time, it was simply unrealistic for Zhou Tianzi to establish a unified form of state ruled directly by the royal family, and the best means was to achieve the goal of expanding the power of the royal family, suppressing the remnants of the previous dynasty and expanding the territory through feudal princes.
But after a long time, the problem came - the strength, size, and kinship between the vassal states that were divided out of the country were constantly changing, but the rituals, titles, and corresponding status and power (at least nominally) given by the Son of Heaven would not change in any way, so how could the new entrants be willing, even the old nobles would not be satisfied, right? In addition, the Chu State, which claimed to be the king without authorization, called "I am a barbarian, and I don't have a relationship with China" ("Historical Records, Volume 40, Chu Family Tenth"), and the Chu State claimed to be the king without permission, and it is strange that the vassal states do not pinch each other.
However, when fighting a war is a war, it is always a matter of shrinking its hands, especially when it is difficult to make a dead hand. Why is that? In addition to the immature theories of warfare at that time, the technical level was not high, and the population size was not large, there were two very important reasons. One is that the authority of Zhou Tianzi is still there, and the major vassal states have neither the possibility nor the courage to give birth to the idea of replacing him, and even the unruly Chu State has to regularly call the ministers and pay tribute, and they have to help the Son of Heaven crusade against the unsubordinate. In this case, the purpose of fighting between major powers is nothing more than to grab a piece of territory, fight for hegemony or even just to save face, and naturally lack the motivation and interest to kill the red eye. The second is that most of the vassal states were originally related to each other, and even if they were not relatives originally, they became relatives after hundreds of years of marriage. In the Spring and Autumn Period, the main forces of the war were all nobles, and the commoners only played the role of coaxing the seedlings, so that the battle might be very interesting - for example, the enemy that a Jin nobleman encountered on the battlefield could be his seventh uncle and grandfather in Chu State, or the cousin of the seventh aunt and eight aunts, or his eldest brother or brother-in-law - why did he have to kill the other party in this case? Aren't you afraid of winning the battle and going home to be beaten by the old lady all over the yard, kicked out of bed by the wife to kneel on the washboard?
Relatives beat relatives, it's not good to kill them.
What's more, the "international" situation at that time was usually still holding bronze swords to cut each other today, and they could get together the next day to rub a few rounds of mahjong ......So if I give you a stumbling block today, tomorrow you give me lime and make another piece of hi skin, it will be embarrassing, right? After all, everyone is an aristocrat, and what they pay attention to is style and "posture", so there is no need to make things so ugly.
Therefore, in the Spring and Autumn Period, fighting wars and playing "tricks" means that there is no actual need and no motivation to drive. On the contrary, if you kill too much or even engage in conspiracy, you will be condemned and despised by **, and you may lose more than you gain, who wants to do such a stupid thing?
It is also in this situation that friendship is emphasized.
First, the second spring and autumn salute of the competition came into being, and was generally welcomed and observed.
The famous Duke of Qi Huan, Lu Xiaobai, is a Ming monarch who is very good at using rules, so he played the signboard of respecting the king and winning a very high evaluation - "Nanyi and Beidi are in exchange, China is endless, Huan Gong saves China and fights Yidi" ("The Legend of the Spring and Autumn Ram, the Fourth Year of the Duke of Xu"), and even Confucius praised him as "righteous but not righteous" ("Analects, Volume 7, Xianwen 14"). Under the shadow of such an aura, few people noticed that he destroyed the country during his reign of 43 years.35 No one could come out on top in the Spring and Autumn Period.
Song Xianggong and Song Zifu are a counterexample. The reason why he had to abide by the rules in the Battle of Hongshui, "although he died in the country, he did not drum and did not form a column" ("Zuo Chuan: The Twenty-second Year of the Duke of Xu") is because he had violated the rules before - imprisoned the monarch of Teng for no reason, killed the monarch of Yi State, and planned to crusade against Cao Guo who had not provoked him. As a result, Song Zifu's perverse behavior aroused public anger, and he was captured alive by the "righteous" King Chu Cheng. So as long as he still wants to dominate, or even just wants to save the country, he doesn't dare to break the rules anymore.
According to the values of the time, Song Xianggong was by no means a hypocrisy.
So why was the Spring and Autumn War Ceremony, which had such a lofty and stable status, suddenly abandoned?
Because times have changed.
At the end of the Spring and Autumn Period, as the authority of Zhou Tianzi was increasingly lost, the careful thinking of the major princes began to gradually sprout, that is, to replace it.
The simplest and most brutal way to replace it is war. However, under the rules of war in the Spring and Autumn Period, those small countries that were vulnerable were easy to say, but as long as a big country like Jin and Chu did not have civil strife, even if it was fought for hundreds or thousands of years, the result might still be the same virtue as it is now. So what's the point?
Where there is demand, there will be supply. So the soldier saint Sun Wu was born, and a "Sun Tzu's Art of War" began to smash the original war mode and rules like competitive sports:
"Soldiers, the major affairs of the country, the place of death and life, and the way of survival, must not be ignored and ......Soldiers, treacherous ways. Therefore, it can be shown but cannot be used, it is not used to show it, it is near and it is far away, and it is far away and it is shown to be near. Profit and temptation, chaos and take, real and prepared, strong and avoid, angry and scratch, humble and arrogant, hard work, kiss and leave. Attack it unprepared, take it by surprise. (The Art of War: The First Calculation).This made the original war tied, this can't do that, the major princes who are not allowed to chase after winning the war are simply like discovering a new world. And after trying a few battles according to Sun Wu's playing style, it felt ......Don't be too cool!
It's like playing a football game, and suddenly the referee is gone, and you can go on the field with a dagger, hammer or even a machine gun, so who cares about passing the pass? As long as you have more money and equipment, wouldn't you score as many goals as you want?
The war after the Spring and Autumn Period is no different from a football game without rules and referees.
Who wants referees at this time? Who wants rules? As a result, there is no bottom line in the war, and there is no longer the grace of the nobility and the elegance of etiquette on the battlefield.
In the history of the world, the large-scale use of chariots, which requires extremely harsh battlefield conditions, was only in the Spring and Autumn Period of China. Why? Because our long history has given birth to a high degree of civilization, and a high degree of civilization has given birth to elegant etiquette, which has made the form of combat such as vehicle warfare popular. Otherwise, as long as a few shallow ditches were dug on the battlefield or a chaotic stone formation, it was enough to make a thousand-time country like Jin Chu disappear in an instant.
Couldn't our ancestors have thought of it? It's not because of etiquette and self-esteem, so they can't do such a thing.
But on the other hand, if the Spring and Autumn War Rite has been indestructible, no matter how ambitious and wise the First Emperor is, I am afraid that he will not be able to dominate the world, right?