Chapter 96 Chapter 96 The Practical Value of "Long"

"Qing Barnyard Banknotes" records such a story: There is an official who likes to chant the wind and the moon, and dances with ink. Come and show him.The official boasted that he was very talented, so he edited and deleted these poems one by one, and his comments naturally had a condescending and dismissive air.Suddenly one day, someone from the Ministry of Punishment came, without any explanation, put a big chain around the official's neck, and dragged him straight to the prison.When the jailers tortured him, the unlucky official found out that many of the articles his subordinates revised were written by the emperor, and his brother did not know what to do, so he criticized him and caused a catastrophe. .

So the official's seat was replaced by his cunning subordinates.There is also a saying in official circles about this kind of thing, which is called "I didn't understand it". The reason why I didn't understand it was because the relationship between officials and subordinates can only be dignity and respect, and other emotions must never be mixed in.This is because when you are thinking about gaining power over your boss, your subordinates are thinking about gaining power over you. Although not every subordinate thinks this way, as long as one person has a different mind, you will be overwhelmed. .

If you must explain clearly "what is power", that is, try to make yourself a part of power, or the spokesperson of power.For example, during the reign of Emperor Wuzong of the Ming Dynasty, Liu Jin, the eunuch, saw that Emperor Wuzong was stubborn and obsessed with fun, so he took the opportunity to gain power and control the government.The great Confucian Wang Yangming wrote a letter of condemnation, but Liu Jin falsely passed on the edict of the Son of Heaven, ordered Wang Yangming to go to the palace, stripped Wang Yangming of his clothes, beat him with forty court sticks, and then sent him to the army.Knowing that Liu Jin would not give up, Wang Yangming would definitely send assassins to chase him down. When he came to a river, he took off his shoes and put them by the river, and wrote a suicide note.Soon, the assassin really caught up, and seeing that Wang Yangming had thrown himself into the river, he took his shoes and the suicide note, and went back to report.

The great Confucian Wang Yangming, who is well-versed in both literature and martial arts, is famous all over the world, and he is an outstanding person who has never been born since Confucius.And Liu Jin was just an eunuch, and when the eunuch took power, even Wang Yangming had no choice but to save his own life.It can be seen that this matter of power is no small matter. However, in history, none of those who manipulated power came to a good end.This is because power is originally a public tool, and it is the focus of the world's most attention. Don't say that a person with no talent or virtue takes power. Extremely demanding.Therefore, those who exercise power regard the people of the world as their enemies, and it is basically impossible for them to have a stable future.

Even though they know this truth, some people still throw moths into the flames and seek their own death.This is because the temptation brought by power is so great that it even overwhelms the survival instinct in human nature.In the Wu Zhou Dynasty, Wu Zetian seized the Li family for himself, so he got Zhang Changzong, the noodle head, for himself, raised him in the palace, and played as much as he wanted.From then on, Zhang Changzong also had power, and his arrogance suddenly rose to the sky. Many people who sought officials came with generous gifts, and Zhang Changzong accepted them all, and then greeted the officials of the Ministry of Officials and ordered arrangements.The officials of the Ministry of Civil Affairs did not dare to disobey, but obediently obeyed.

Once, after a person surnamed Xue gave Zhang Changzong a generous gift, Zhang Changzong called officials from the Ministry of Officials and ordered him to be assigned an official position.The official of the Ministry of Officials asked: "May I ask what is the name of this person?" Zhang Changzong was stunned. It turned out that he only cared about receiving money from others, but forgot his name. He only remembered that the person who gave the gift was named Xue.If Zhang Changzong is really doing things for others, since he can't remember the name, he told the officials of the official department: "Don't worry about the name, go back and check the list of officials. Anyone whose surname is Xue, you can just promote it. Can't go wrong."

The officials of the Ministry of Officials had no choice but to promote all the officials surnamed Xue after returning. On that day, more than 3,000 officials surnamed Xue in Wu Zhou were all promoted. Because Zhang Changzong was too ostentatious and aroused everyone's hatred, some people advised him to keep a low profile and calm down, so as to avoid being held accountable after Wu Zetian's death.But Zhang Changzong understood the reason why he was able to gain power. He replied: "If one person loses power, even thousands of people cannot help him up. If it is a time when one person gains power , even if there are thousands of people, it is impossible to touch him."

Zhang Changzong's words revealed the essence of power.Gein power is not about the number of people, but a pyramid-shaped social organization structure. The characteristic of this structure is that the minority suppresses the majority.As long as you can get close to the upper layer of this structure, it means that you have power and can exercise power at will. However, power also requires a legal order that can be accepted by the public.All those who failed to exercise power were due to problems with this legal system. If the power in a person's hands lacks a reasonable legal system, the public will never obey, even though they are helpless.And that meant brutal revenge.

Therefore, those who exercise power must solve the problem of the legal system. Zhang Changzong, the first face of Wu Zetian, is because the legal system has not been resolved, so when the Li royal family made a comeback, his head was removed first.So the key to gaining power is to give one's own behavior a kind of legitimacy. At the end of the Western Han Dynasty, in order to seize the Han family, Wang Mang racked his brains and ordered people to get many auspicious objects, saying that it was reasonable for him to seize the Han family.When Wu Zetian seized the Li family, he also used this method, but this method was difficult to gain people's approval due to the lack of sufficient violence.Therefore, few people who exercised power in ancient times were able to resolve this problem.

But there was an unnamed official who solved this problem skillfully.This official was born in the Ming Dynasty, and his name has been lost. It is only recorded in the history books that after he took office, the local officials came to congratulate him one after another.After all the officials had given gifts, he suddenly turned his face and said sharply: "What do you mean? Could it be that you want to bribe me? I was ordered by the emperor to guard one side. How could I accept you?" This little favor from me?" Hearing his stern words, all the officials were stupefied with fright, hurriedly separated themselves, and explained: "This is not a bribe, nor is it a gift, this is a local custom..." The official did not appreciate it at all, and sternly Said: "If there is such a custom in the local area, you are officials, and you are paid by the court. You are supposed to educate the people and change customs. How can you follow the trend? Come, seal up all these gifts with me, and I will give you Put all these bad deeds here, let you know how shameless you are!"

Therefore, the officials put all the generous gifts from their subordinates into ten large cabinets, and these ten large cabinets were placed in the official office.He also threatened that if any subordinate dared to do anything wrong, he would use the gifts in this cabinet as evidence-bribing the boss privately.This action frightened all the gift givers. After that, they never dared to slack off, worked hard, and performed desperately, hoping that their superiors would not hand over their gifts to the Ministry of Punishment.As a result, the local government was in great order, and all the people praised it.The official's reputation spread accordingly. As a matter of course, this official was quickly promoted.On the day of his promotion, he set off to leave and ordered someone to carry his belongings. At the end of the move, there were still ten cabinets containing gifts in the official office.Everyone asked how to deal with these cabinets.The official asked back: "Why did the subordinates send these ten cabinets as a gift?" Everyone said: "Because this is a local custom." So the official said: "Since it is a local custom, of course we should Do as the Romans do, move these cabinets away together." Until this time, all the talents suddenly realized that they had met an expert.Look at this guy, he wants everything, he wants a good reputation of incorruptibility, he wants some dedicated subordinates, he wants local governance that doesn't pick up anything left at night, and he wants to continue to be promoted to a higher position.In addition, he also wanted a gift of ten cabinets.And everything he wanted, he got. This is the pinnacle of dominance.