Chapter 23 3. Deformed Independence

In the fifth year of Yongjia in the Western Jin Dynasty (AD 311), Shi Le, a general of the Xiongnu Han Dynasty, defeated the Jin army in Kuxian (now Luyi, Henan). None of the more than 100,000 soldiers of the Jin army was spared, and all the princes and ministers were captured, including them. Marshal. The marshal's name is Wang Yan. Wang Yan, styled Yifu, was born in Linyi, Langxie. He was Wang Rong's cousin and one of the representatives of famous scholars in the Wei and Jin Dynasties.His skin was so white that it was hard to distinguish his hands from the white jade handle of the stag tail.He is also very beautiful. Wang Dun said that Wang Yan sat with everyone, like pearls and jade among tiles and stones.

What's more, Wang Yan's demeanor is also very good. Wang Rong's so-called "Jade trees in Qionglin are naturally foreign objects in the wind and dust" are talking about him, and Wang Dao said that he is tall and handsome, like standing on a wall.Therefore, Wang Yan has a high prestige among scholars, and has even become a benchmark for celebrities. When people mention him, they are almost full of praise. However, Wang Yan, who stands on the wall, has no strength of character after being captured.Shi Le asked him why the Jin army was defeated, but he replied that he didn't care about it, and advised the Hu people to take the opportunity to proclaim themselves emperor.Shi Le, who was born as a slave, was very angry at such blaming others and selling himself for refuge.He said: Taiwei is famous all over the world and holds a high position. How can he say that he has no responsibility?I think the chief culprit of destroying the world is your old man!

As a result, Wang Yan, whose whole body was limp, was helped out. But Shi Le didn't want to kill him, because Wang Yan was so beautiful.After hesitating again and again, Shi Le asked his subordinates with compassion in his heart: This general will rule the world, but I have never seen such a handsome man, can he be spared? The subordinate said: He won't work for us, what's the use of keeping him? Shi Le said, "You can't even use a knife." Wang Yan finally failed to escape death like Yu Liang and Li Shimei. His beauty only bought him a way of death: being crushed to death by a wall knocked down at night.Before he died, Wang Yan regretted and said: If I had been able to work hard on state affairs and not be obsessed with talking, I would not be where I am today!

No wonder Huan Wen believed that this person was responsible for the fall of the north. It's hard to say that the demise of the Western Jin Dynasty should be blamed on Wang Yan's empty talk for harming the country. In fact, this dynasty has been damned since its birth.At least, Sima Yan who restored the feudal system, Jananfeng who caused the Eight Kings Rebellion, and their ancestors who engaged in conspiracy and court coups during the Cao Wei period were also the source of disaster. But Wang Yan's duality is also beyond doubt. As a benchmark of celebrities, Wang Yan is undoubtedly beautiful.It is said that when Shan Tao saw him as a child, he was surprised and said: Whose woman can give birth to such a child!Wang Yan is also unrestrained.Because he hated his wife for being greedy for money, he vowed never to mention the word "money".The wife didn't believe it, so she ordered the maid to surround the bed with money.Wang Yan's solution was to shout: Come on!Take these things away!

Not clear?noble. However, the lofty Wang Yan is actually snobbish.His daughter was originally married to the prince Sima Yu as a concubine, but Sima Yu was persecuted by Empress Jia. Wang Rong immediately went to the court to ask for a divorce.After he became the minister, he didn't care about the safety of the country, but tried his best to keep a way out for himself, and he smugly said that the cunning rabbit had to have three holes.It is not surprising that he is greedy for life, afraid of death, and treacherous for glory. It seems that the pursuit of truth in the Wei and Jin Dynasties was also permeated with hypocrisy.Or to be precise, the characteristics of the Wei and Jin era are full of contradictions: beautiful and ugly, noble and greedy, chic and snobbish, elegant and vulgar, real and hypocritical.This is like the Japanese that Westerners can’t understand: they are aggressive yet gentle, open-minded yet old-fashioned, advocating force but extremely beautiful, arrogant and self-respecting yet polite.

That's right, chrysanthemums and knives. It’s just that in Japan, chrysanthemums are the royal family emblem, and swords are symbols of warriors. In the Wei and Jin Dynasties, both chrysanthemums and swords were in the hands of nobles. in the barracks.Because even the royal family of the Jin Dynasty was originally a gentry, and they regarded themselves and were proud of the gentry. The gentry are the masters of the Wei and Jin Dynasties. Indeed, there are gentry in China, just as there are knights in Europe and samurai in Japan.They are all relatively independent classes, with a strong sense of circle, and have their own set of value systems, codes of conduct, moral concepts and aesthetic standards.For example, respecting women is a virtue (European knights), fulfilling responsibilities is a bounden duty (Japanese samurai), and pure blood is noble (Wei and Jin gentry).

However, the gentry of the Wei and Jin Dynasties were different from European knights and Japanese samurai.The latter cared more about their own personal identity and professional marks, but the gentry paid much attention to the status, blood and tradition of the family.For this reason, a knight who left the legion became a swordsman, a warrior who lost his suzerain became a rogue, and a soldier of the Wei and Jin Dynasties who came from a poor family or had a poor family was nothing. Therefore, the independence of the gentry inevitably has a dual nature. In fact, since the end of the Han Dynasty, the scholar-bureaucrat class has been seeking independence.This is of course because they want to oppose foreign relatives and eunuchs interfering in politics, but also because in their view, they are the ones who can best maintain cultural values.This is their historical mission and social responsibility, so they should not give in to the emperor.

This cannot be tolerated by imperial politics, so there is a disaster of party imprisonment.That is to say, in a world where power is centralized at the center and the emperor centralizes power, no one is allowed to form a party.But it is forbidden to form a party, but it cannot be forbidden, and even encouraged.Therefore, if a family has been an official for generations and continues to reproduce, they become a family.When there are more and more aristocratic families, the gentry becomes independent. Of course, independence is achieved in a family way. No one can stop this trend, not to mention that Sima Rui's Eastern Jin Dynasty was originally established with the support of aristocratic families.As a result, the gentry began to contend against the imperial power, and the gentry and the royal family ruled the world together.As for fields other than political life, the sky is high and the emperor is far away, so there is relatively free space for cultural development.This is one of the reasons why Wei and Jin became another period of active thinking after the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods.

Unfortunately, this independence is deformed. Deformity has two meanings.First, the gentry is only relatively independent as a whole and a group, and individuals in the gentry are not independent.Second, the independence of the gentry as a group is not guaranteed by laws and systems.The ruler of the empire can easily destroy his family, even if he is a famous family.On this issue, those who raise the butcher's knife have no scruples.Because the nine clans have been wiped out, there are still hundreds of clans. Therefore, the gentry actually had no sense of security in the Wei and Jin Dynasties.Moreover, just because they ruled the world with the royal family, they feel less insecure than other people who are not qualified to participate in politics, even though that era is said to be theirs.

This is really a paradox. The absurdity of the times must have caused psychological distortions, and the Wei and Jin gentry felt the impermanence of life more than anyone else.What's more, without the independence of the individual, there is no independence of personality; without the independence of personality, there is no freedom of will.As a result, there are only endless entanglements and troubles.Because they are independent, but they don't know where to stand; they are free, but they don't know where to go. Well, it doesn't matter if you don't want to. People without thought, he must worry about.Conversely, immediate worries cannot be resolved, so long-term concerns can only be resorted to.So metaphysics came into being and became popular.Because metaphysics is metaphysics, it is in Xuanyuan.Xuanyuan has no political risks, but has opened up a vast world for the gallop of ideas. How can it not be popular?

More importantly, metaphysics provided a theoretical basis for the core values ​​pursued by the Wei and Jin Dynasties.According to the views of He Yan and Wang Bi, nothing is the foundation of all things, and nothing is the highest truth.If you want not to be hypocritical, you can only be nothingness.To have nothing is of course true; to do nothing is to do everything, which is freedom.Free and true, also beautiful.As for whether it is independent or not, it can be ignored for the time being. This is the reason why metaphysics replaced Confucianism. But this is ironic.Because the gentry became the gentry, the reason is that Confucianism is the only one.Only by being familiar with Confucian classics can one be an official for generations.Therefore, in order to monopolize the official career, it is necessary to adhere to the Confucian line and let the gentry become the ruling class.Now, the gentry occupy the superstructure, but Confucianism has lost the position of public opinion, isn't it paradoxical?With such absurdity, how can people's hearts not be disturbed? Of course it is.However, chaos has meaning.