Chapter 25 Five, to the Northern and Southern Dynasties

The mission of rebuilding core values ​​and realizing cultural revival should, logically, be undertaken by the gentry.Because they are the intellectual elite and the masters of the post-Han era.If the new culture cannot be built by them, who should, who can it be? It's a pity that the gentry can't afford this job. The gentry clan, which originated in the Eastern Han Dynasty and continued to the early Tang Dynasty, is a unique historical phenomenon in the Chinese Empire, which is not found in other nations and civilizations.Whether it is European knights or Japanese samurai, they are just independent classes, not ruling classes.Only the Chinese gentry became the ruling class, and the time was mainly in the Wei and Jin Dynasties.

It is a pity that this class is very incompetent, because the way they rule is not to rule, neither to claim nor to act.Some people didn't even know what kind of official position they held for a long time, or deliberately pretended not to know. For example, Wang Huizhi. Wang Huizhi's job was to join the army (equivalent to a staff officer). At first, he was under the tent of Da Sima Huan Wen, and later he joined the army as a cavalry soldier of Huan Wen's younger brother, General Huan Chong.But no matter where they are, they are unkempt, disheveled, and useless. Once, Huan Chong came to inspect the work.

Huan Chong asked: "Which official office do you work in?" Huizhi replied: I often see people leading horses, it seems to be Ma Cao. Huan Chong asked again, "How many horses are there?" Huizhi's answer: Don't ask about the horse. Huan Chong asked again: "How many horses have died recently?" Huizhi replied: If you don't know life, how can you know death. Both sentences come from and involve two things.The first thing happened was that the stables caught fire. Confucius only asked whether the people were injured, not whether the horses were injured.The second thing is that Zilu asked what death is, and Confucius replied: If you don't know life, how can you know death.Wang Huizhi's two quotations are both deliberately taken out of context and showing off his cleverness.

Huan Chong was helpless about this, but Huizhi was even more unrestrained. Once he even got into Huan Chong's car and said how could the officer have the car to himself!Huan Chong had nothing to do with him, so he had to say to Wang Hui when he saw him: You have been here for a long time, work hard, and I will promote you as soon as possible! Wang Huizhi didn't answer, just looked at the high place, and then propped his face on his hands and said: "Go to Xishan early in the morning, the air there is very fresh." Hehe, this is the style of the Wei and Jin Dynasties. This kind of demeanor is of course misleading the country and the people, and it is also digging its own grave.Just imagine, if a regime claims to belong to a certain class, but people in this class treat it with cynical attitudes, shouldn’t it die?

Can't stop it. In fact, the death of the two Jin Dynasties was due to illness, and the cause of the disease lay in the gentry.The difference between the gentry and the nobles is that the nobles rely on hereditary titles by blood, while the gentry monopolize official careers by their family status.The system that guarantees this privilege is called Jiupin Zhongzheng System. The Jiupin Zhongzheng System is also called the Jiupin Official Personnel Law.Specifically, official positions are divided into nine grades, called official grades; the basic conditions and comprehensive evaluation of candidates are also divided into nine grades, called rural grades.The person who evaluates the township is called Zhongzheng (Zhongzheng official), and the official department of the imperial court gives the official grade according to the township grade evaluated by Zhongzheng.This is the recommendation system, which is not only different from the imperial examinations in the Han Dynasty, but also different from the imperial examinations after the Sui and Tang Dynasties.

Recommendation is an invention of Chen Qun during the Cao Wei period, and the evaluation of rural products also depends on various conditions and personal performance.But in the Eastern Jin Dynasty, they only looked at the door.The door is the door and the place, that is, the family and the prefect (native place).For example, the Taiyuan Wang family is a famous family in the Western Jin Dynasty, and the Langya Wang family is a famous family in the Eastern Jin Dynasty.Wang Huizhi can be arrogant and rude in front of Huan Chong, because he belongs to the Langya Wang clan and is a member of Wang Dao's clan.

Family status and prestige determine a person's fate.The children of famous families can be given a higher official rank without any assessment, which is called "Second Rank of Family and Land" (the first rank is always vacant).On the contrary, poor families and common people can only be low-level officials.The resulting situation is called "the upper rank has no disadvantaged family, and the lower rank has no powerful family". So what? The empire has no incentive mechanism, and the individual has no goal to strive for.A child from an aristocratic family has the qualifications to be an official almost immediately after birth, so why bother to work hard?Therefore, even if you serve as an official, it will not benefit one party.If someone works hard, he is laughed at, ridiculed, and considered tacky.

As for the rise and fall of the country, naturally there is no need and no concern.Because their prosperity and wealth are determined by the family status and prestige of the county, not the grace of the dynasty and the emperor, so why care about the life and death of the empire?Therefore, most of the high-ranking gentry only know that they have a family, but they don't know that they have a country.In the face of a national crisis, the first thing that comes to mind is the protection of the family, not the defense of the country. Wang Yan's Three Caves of the Cunning Rabbit and the Vendor Qiurong are proofs.

What's interesting is that the empire didn't seem to expect these guys to defend itself. Most of the children from the aristocratic families were awarded high-ranking positions by the imperial court, with high status, good treatment, few affairs, and light responsibilities.The complicated and hard work is all handed over to the poor families of the common people.Over time, the upper class is filled with incompetent people.Apart from talking about harming the country and corrupting the country, they can do nothing but be parasites. However, the perks and privileges are not lacking at all.According to the Land Occupation Order promulgated by the Western Jin Dynasty, officials could occupy suburban fields according to their ranks.Fifty hectares of the first grade, which are gradually reduced to ten hectares of the ninth grade.More importantly, before the decree was promulgated, the excess land occupied by the rich clans did not need to be cleared, and those who did not occupy enough could be made up "according to the law". I really don't know whether the imperial center's attitude towards corruption is to curb or encourage it.

At least, it is also acquiescence. The result of social injustice is that the Jin Dynasty decayed more quickly than the Eastern Han Dynasty.Sima Yao, the third last emperor of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, Emperor Xiaowu, was even murdered by his favorite concubine Zhang Guiren when he was thirty-five years old.The reason is that the lecherous Emperor Xiaowu joked to the thirty-year-old her: At your age, you should be abolished. As a result, he himself was killed first that night. Sima Yao, who was murdered, was actually the last emperor of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, because after that, Emperor An was so demented that he couldn't distinguish between cold and heat, and Emperor Gong was killed by Liu Yu.Emperor Xiaowu himself seemed to be sensitively aware that the end was approaching.Not long before he was killed, a comet appeared in the sky, which was an ominous omen in the eyes of the ancients.So Emperor Xiaowu said: Toast you a glass of wine, comet, comet!How can there be a long live emperor since ancient times!

Of course, there will be no Long live dynasty either. At this time, if Confucian ethics still has authority, things may be easier to handle.Because although Confucian ethics has many problems, it is the spiritual pillar of the country and the nation.The Wei and Jin Dynasties only had the concept of family status, but no spiritual support.The truth, freedom, and beauty they pursue are only the patents and privileges of a few people, and it is impossible for them to become the consensus of the whole people, so how can they support the building of the empire? The result of the collapse of the pillars is spiritual emptiness and psychological abnormalities, such as alcoholism and drug abuse, plus extravagance and fighting for wealth.The most outrageous thing is that Sima Yan, Emperor Wu of Jin Dynasty, gave him a two-foot-high coral tree in order to help his uncle Bi Kuo.When Shi Chong, a rich man in Luoyang, saw it, he smashed it dismissively, and then put out his own coral tree for the uncle of the country to choose, which was taller and more beautiful. Isn't it abnormal to show off your wealth like this? It's not surprising to be abnormal, because the gentry who started their careers by monopolizing official careers are actually cultural upstarts.Nouveau riche want to show off their wealth, so together with the self-satisfied generosity, nobility and free and easy of celebrities, they all have the meaning of showing off and flaunting.The truth, freedom and beauty they pursue can only be realized through feigned madness, drunkenness and femininity of men, which shows that this class has no confidence at all. The gentry are destined to be just passers-by of civilization. This is not the same as the doctors and scholars in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States Periods.The latter is a vigorous new force, representing the ascendant landlord class, and only the upper class of landlords is decaying.At this time, Chinese civilization can of course achieve self-repair and self-renewal through a bottom-up approach.But even so, they still have to rely on the Chinese barbarians, such as Qi, Chu, and Qin. Therefore, the establishment of a new culture could not only rely on the gentry and landlord class, or even rely on the Han nationality alone.All the facts prove that politics needs a new system, civilization needs new life, and a nation needs new blood.Turmoil and fragmentation simply mean new integration, and the premise of integration is integration. The history of China is bound to go towards the Northern and Southern Dynasties.