The two sentences that Chinese like to say are "rich but three generations" and "the gentleman's ze, the fifth generation will be beheaded".
However, the Pei family in Suzhou, represented by the architect I.M. Pei, has been prosperous for 15 generations. Since the middle of the Ming Dynasty, the ancestor of the Pei family, Bei Lantang, moved from Zhejiang to Suzhou and became the first ancestor of the Pei family in Suzhou, this family has continued to flourish for more than 500 years.
*Group photo of the Pei family during the period, the first on the left is the architect I.M. Pei.
As early as the ** period, I.M. Pei, the fifteenth generation of the Pei family in Suzhou and still young at the time, once asked his grandfather, the financial tycoon Belita, about the continuity of the family.
To this, Belithai borrowed the Analects and replied:
For politics and morality, such as Beichen, live in its place, and the stars arch it. ”
The original meaning of this sentence expounded by Confucius to ** was that those who govern should practice the rule of virtue, so that like the North Star, even if they live in peace, the other stars will guard it in an orderly manner. However, Bei Litai uses this sentence to talk about morality, life, and family, which seems to be vast and boundless, but its intention is profound, but it is permeated with the mystery of why Suzhou Pei has been able to flourish for 500 years.
Because only simple and top-notch wisdom is enough to support a family, go through the ups and downs of history, and sit and watch the clouds rise and fall when it is passed on forever.
In other words, the families that fail are often similar, but those who succeed at the top always have their own inheritance.
In fact, in addition to political, economic and other variables, "family" is also a composition and element with great influence on Chinese history.
In the vast course of Chinese historical evolution, as an individual person forms a family, the family derives a family, the family constitutes an ethnic group, and the ethnic group constitutes a nation, and then forms the basic elements and subjects of a country.
In this regard, the Qian family, which has been prosperous for more than a thousand years, is very worthy of reference for their concept of self-cultivation and governance.
As the old saying goes: moral heirlooms, more than ten generations; ploughing and reading heirlooms, second; Poetry and books are heirlooms, followed by others; Rich heirloom, but three generations.
Qian Biao (852-932), the monarch of Wu Yue during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, his family ranked second in the world in the "Hundred Family Surnames" compiled by the Song Dynasty as early as the Song Dynasty. Since then, for more than 1,000 years, the Qian family has produced many celebrities, and until the contemporary generation, the descendants represented by the "three money" (Qian Xuesen, Qian Weichang, and Qian Sanqiang) are still full of talents, which is extremely rare.
In this regard, "Qian's Family Motto" gives some answers: "Although children and grandchildren are stupid, poetry and books must be read." ”
The father of the famous scientist Qian Weichang died early, and many neighbors persuaded Qian Weichang's mother to tell her son to do handicrafts as soon as possible to make money to subsidize the family. But she said very firmly: "No matter how hard and tired I am, I still want my children to study, because our Qian family's family style and ancient precepts require this, and I must leave a few seeds of reading for our Qian family." ”
Although the children and grandchildren are foolish, poetry and books must be read. It can be said that this family motto shows that the Qian family attaches great importance to the tradition of education, and it is an important guarantee for the generation of talents of the Qian family in the past generations.
But it is not enough to just be able to read, in the realm, the "Qian Family Motto" clearly requires children and grandchildren:
Don't seek benefits in one body, and those who benefit in the world will seek it. ”
This sentence comes from the national chapter of the Qian family motto, and it is obvious that this is to teach the family members to be useful to the country and society, and not to draw on personal self-interest.
Qian Xuesen, Qian Weichang, Qian Sanqiang and other "three money" scientists before and after the founding of New China, abandoning fame and fortune, resolutely returned to China to serve the motherland, for example, one of the "three money" Qian Sanqiang and his wife He Zehui, after marrying in France in 1946, studied nuclear fission together. Their publication caused a huge sensation in the international scientific community, and many at the time called them "the Chinese Curie couple".
However, when everyone thought that Qian Sanqiang and his wife would stay in Europe to conduct research and attack the Nobel Prize, they resolutely decided to return to China.
Qian Sanqiang later explained the motivation for their return to China, which was moving. He said:
Returning to poverty, backwardness, and war-torn China, I am afraid that it will be difficult to make a difference in scientific experiments. However, what is clearer is that although science knows no borders, scientists have a homeland. It is precisely because the motherland is poor and backward that it is all the more necessary for scientists to work hard to change its appearance. When we left our homeland and traveled across the ocean, we went to Europe to study in order to learn today's science and technology, so that we could go back to serve the motherland. How can we change our original intentions? We should return to our motherland and work with other scientists to make the new science of the atomic nucleus take root, blossom, and bear fruit on the soil of our motherland.
In June 1948, Qian Sanqiang and his wife returned to their motherland after 11 years of absence with their infant children.
Qian Sanqiang and his wife and children.
The same choice was repeated in Qian Xuesen a few years later. When he decided to return to China and was placed under house arrest and threatened by the United States, he always expressed his heart with "I am Chinese, of course loyal to the Chinese people", and finally returned to the poor and white motherland after hardships and dangers.
Such a family is not just a "farming heirloom", but a "moral heirloom", not for the sake of profit, but for the benefit of the family and the country, such a family can really be called China's top family.
Human life is finite, and to transcend this finite life, we must rely on family inheritance.
Throughout history, it can be seen that Chinese families have mainly experienced four periods of development.
From the Western Zhou Dynasty to the Spring and Autumn Period, China implemented the patriarchal system, and at that time, Zhou Tianzi was the co-lord of the world and the "suzerain of the world"; In the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the patriarchal system began to disintegrate, and individual families and small families began to become independent from the clan.
After the development of the family entered the second stage, from the Eastern Han Dynasty to the Sui and Tang dynasties, the typical form of the family was the gate lord clan. The small families and small families that were originally disintegrated and separated in the late Spring and Autumn Period were gradually replaced by the big families represented by the gate lord clan at this time. After the great turmoil of the late Han Dynasty and the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, small families needed to unite and resist external changes in a greater form.
Although after the end of the Northern and Southern Dynasties, the power of the family was gradually weakened, but they still had a huge influence in the history and society of the Sui and Tang dynasties.
The third evolution of the traditional family began in the Song Dynasty and continued to the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties. Prior to this, the imperial examination system implemented from the Tang Dynasty to the promotion of the Hanmen Shu clan, as well as the deliberate suppression and attack of the imperial power, as well as the alternating blows of the war and peasant war at the end of the Tang Dynasty, made since the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, the family that could dance with the imperial power gradually disintegrated and disappeared, after entering the Song Dynasty, due to the two Song Dynasty advocated the rule of culture and the implementation of large-scale imperial examinations, the fair selection of the imperial examination system, so that a large number of children from the civilian class can achieve class mobility, and enter the upper echelons of the country.
As a result, from the Song Dynasty onwards, on the basis of the disintegration of the traditional family clans, popular and secular families, which were mainly linked and promoted by blood, region, and fame in the imperial examinations, began to rise, and gradually formed the family structure of today's rural Chinese society. In the following millennium, China's rural structure has remained stable despite the turmoil and impact of the times, thus becoming the underlying foundation of the Chinese nation from generation to generation.
Because, as long as there is a family, the grassroots bloodline of this nation will always exist, no matter how the upper class changes, you can rely on the grassroots family to recombine and build a new stable society.
After the two Opium Wars in the 19th century, the Chinese Empire began the process of modernization. In the process, some of China's coastal areas were the first to urbanize, which had a new impact on families that traditionally relied on agriculture and rural organizations. The rise of the new family in the late Qing Dynasty, such as the Zeng Guofan family, the Pei I.M. Ming family, the Yining Chen family, etc., are all in the context of the integration of China and the West, the traditional character of the Chinese nation, and the latest international righteousness, charity and public welfare, etc., so as to cultivate the outstanding children of the family heirloom and serve the family and country, this family evolution from the mid-19th century can be called the fourth great evolution of the Chinese family in the three thousand years since the Western Zhou Dynasty.
Zeng Guofan. The top families in China that we are talking about today are more about the popular and secular families that have continued from the Song Dynasty to the present day by connecting and improving by blood, region, and fame in the imperial examinations, which is also the grassroots structure that has continued to maintain a stable level of Chinese rural society for a thousand years.
But looking back on history, we also need to project our vision further, so in the book "Inheritance: The History of China Behind the Century-old Family", Ai Gongzi starts from the exposition of the world's first family "Confucius Family", and divides the whole book into four chapters, including "Expanding the Territory: Heroes and Relatives of the Two Han Dynasty", "* Era: The Gate Valve Family from the Wei and Jin Dynasties to the Sui and Tang Dynasties", "Imperial Examinations, Culture and Military Exploits: Family Inheritance in the Song, Ming and Qing Dynasties" and "From Tradition to Modernity: The Transformation of the Family since the Late Qing Dynasty", and selects 38 families as cases. By explaining their rise and fall, it provides insight into one aspect of Chinese history, as well as the family mottos and codes that these families have inherited.
Because personal success can only be maintained for a while, and only the success of the family can ensure the inheritance of meritorious deeds.
In the Ming and Qing dynasties, there were more than 800 people in the Ming and Qing dynasties, and 133 people were admitted to the Jinshi, Juren, and Gongsheng.
For this reason, in the Qing Dynasty, Emperor Kangxi once wrote an inscription for the Cha family in Haining: "Since the Tang and Song dynasties, there are several families in the south of the Yangtze River", and gave the plaque "Jia Rui Tang" to the Cha family.
In 1948, Jin Yong, who came from Haining's Cha family, moved to Hong Kong, and for the next 70 years, Jin Yong has been based in Hong Kong, working and living there, but he has never forgotten his hometown: Haining.
Jin Yong when he was young.
After 42 years away from his hometown, in 1992, Jin Yong returned to his hometown of Haining, Zhejiang, and since then, he has returned to his hometown many times, once he said affectionately: "If a person leaves home for a long time, the longer he lives outside, the deeper the feeling of nostalgia for his hometown ......."I always want to get old and come back to this place to live. ”
Speaking of which, no matter where human beings go, they can never forget their hometown and family bloodline.
Because everyone has to answer two ultimate questions:
I'm from **? Going to **?
In the depths of human hearts, nostalgia permeates and family sorrows. And what these two soul questions hide is a deeper mystery.
Since the First Opium War in the forties of the nineteenth century, China has gradually evolved from agriculture to industrialization and modernization in the past 200 years, and the traditional family structure based on agriculture has faced a violent impact and deconstruction. According to the data of the seventh national population census released in May 2021, the national population reached 14117.8 billion people, of which 9 live in cities and towns019.9 billion people, accounting for 6389%；Whereas the population living in rural areas is 5097.9 billion people, accounting for 3611%。
China's urbanization is still advancing. According to the experience of European and American countries, when China enters the mature stage, the proportion of China's urban population may even reach more than 80% of the total population. However, in the process of migrating from the countryside to the city, we often feel the loneliness and helplessness of the individual.
Why do you feel this way? One of the most important reasons is that in the city, we leave the traditional familiar village and family, and enter a society of strangers from a society of acquaintances. This kind of switching can make us feel insecure and lonely.
In Ai Gongzi's hometown of Chaoshan, Guangdong, people will refer to the first generation of the family who have migrated to another place to settle down as the first ancestor. Today, hundreds of millions of Chinese are leaving their traditional villages and families to become the ancestors of a city. As the first generation to spread out the leaves, we actually need to answer a good question for future generations, which is the aforementioned question of the soul and context of "I came from ** and want to go to **".
Not everyone can have a prominent family background like Jin Yong, but whether our family is a famous family or an ordinary grassroots, in the wave of China's urbanization, from an agricultural society, acquaintance society, family society, into the industrial society, stranger society in the urbanization process, as Chinese who inherit the past and the future, while returning to our hometown and seeking family origins, what should we prepare for ourselves and our future generations? What is the answer?
So, that's why we wrote and recommended this book "Inheritance: A History of China Behind a Century-old Family".
In the vast historical process of urbanization and globalization, we need to pause in our busy world, re-examine the origin of our family, and absorb the wisdom of those top families in history, learn from their way of life, and learn their way of running a family.
Because of the simple truth of benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom and faith, it is infiltrated in the tutors of many top families. We look back on the past and study those families of the sages in order to help ourselves, our families, and the nation as a whole, to continue to innovate and forge ahead into the future.
Among the four ancient civilizations, China is the only country whose civilization has never been broken, and the reason is that the Chinese nation is a family unit and has been passed down from generation to generation.
Therefore, we recommend the book "Inheritance: A History of China Behind a Century-old Family", not only to spread those simple and profound family wisdom, but also to hope that in the historical process of moving from rural to urban, from agriculture to industrialization, and from China to the world, we can refocus and think about our responsibilities and responsibilities for our families, ethnic groups and nations, and for the past, present and future.
Don't forget, we come from the ** and go to the **.