Chapter 7 Chapter Two

I have always talked about Qin and Han and Qin and Han, but it is actually inappropriate to talk about it in a row, because Qin and Han are not closely connected, and there is a gap in the middle. At the end of the third year of Qin II (207 BC), Zhao Gao murdered the second Huhai, and then Qin Shihuang's nephew Ziying killed Zhao Gao.But at this time, the Liu San'er we mentioned at the beginning has led the army to break through Wuguan and is approaching Xianyang, the capital of Qin.So Ziying no longer dared to call Qin III, but took a step back and called King Qin, hoping to survive by returning the land of the Guandong princes—that is to say, the Qin Dynasty was gone at this time, but the Han Dynasty was far from established.

Only forty-six days after Ziying became king of Qin, Liu San'er rushed into Xianyang and destroyed Qin, but he failed to establish the Han Dynasty quickly.More than a month later, Xiang Yu led a coalition of princes into Xianyang, slaughtered Ziying, and then drove Liu San'er to a remote village in the west, and made him King of Han.After being king of Han for four full years, Liu San'er finally proclaimed himself emperor and established the Han Dynasty, known as the Western Han Dynasty in history.Therefore, there was a nearly five-year gap between Qin and Han, which was called "the struggle between Chu and Han" in history, but in fact, it can also be called "Western Chu Dynasty".

Let's say that in the second year of King Han (207 BC), Liu San'er had probably changed his name to Liu Bang at this time, and he was fighting fierce battles with Xiang Yu, the titular co-lord of the world and the overlord of Western Chu. Liu Bang still can't see the dawn of victory at this time. Not long ago, he took advantage of Xiang Yu's expedition to Qidi to launch a big raid and took down Pengcheng, the capital of Western Chu. Killed a corpse piled up like a mountain, blood flowed like a river, even his wife and children were captured by the enemy, and he fled back to Guanzhong by rolling and crawling.But this man is heartless, and he doesn’t set up a mat to hang a piece of gall to find a chance to take revenge. Instead, he lies leisurely in the old palace of the Qin Dynasty, shaking his head and asking his subordinates: "This... what the Qin Dynasty confessed back then... What kind of gods are they?"

His subordinates told him that the Qin Dynasty worshiped the four heavenly emperors, blue, white, red, and yellow.Liu Bang frowned and thought for a while, then said: "I heard that there should be five emperors in total, why are there only four?" Everyone said they had never heard of it, and they didn't know, Liu Bang said that there seemed to be a black emperor, I have to wait for my real man to come and help him build the ancestral hall. In ancient times, there were many tribes, and almost every tribe had a god. Even if it was not as good as the eight million Tianjin gods in Japanese mythology, there were always thousands, not necessarily tens of thousands.Later, some gods followed their tribes to perish, some gods followed their tribes to prosper, and more gods followed their tribes to integrate into the mythology system of other tribes.When the theory of Yin-Yang and Five Elements came into being and the five directions were allotted to the five elements, there appeared the saying of the Five Heavenly Emperors, that is, the Qingdi in the east, the White Emperor in the west, the Xuandi in the north, the Red Emperor in the south, and the Yellow Emperor in the center.Later, a large number of ancient gods were simply put into these empty emperor titles: Qingdi is the Taigao clan or Fuxi clan, Baidi is the Shaohao clan, Xuandi is the Zhuanxu clan, Red Emperor is the Yandi Shennong clan, and Huangdi is the Xuanyuan clan .It is hard to say when this system was finalized, but it can be seen that when Chu and Han were fighting, at least the name of the short Wufang Tiandi had already been decided.

Ever since, Liu Bang began to build a temple to worship the Black Emperor. His act of wasting people and money was almost meaningless at the time, but it would have a profound impact on the future. Liu Bang was beaten badly by Xiang Yu for a time, but the turnaround was quick, because Xiang Yu's own poor employment and enfeoffment policies, coupled with the extremely erratic strategy of thinking where to fight, finally ruined himself.In 203 BC, Chu and Han, who were thinking that they could not fight, finally sat down to negotiate and decided to use the gap as a boundary to draw a dividing line on the map of China. It was agreed that the western meridian belonged to Han and the eastern meridian belonged to Chu.But who would have thought that as soon as Xiang Yu turned around, Liu Bang's reinforcements would arrive, so he rushed forward and completely disabled the Chu army at Gaixia.Xiang Yu fled to Wujiang, his spirit had collapsed, and he simply wiped his neck to die.

In this way, Liu San'er, a former small country civil servant, became Han Gaozu in one step, and the Western Han Dynasty was finally established. This new dynasty, which emerged from a remote countryside, had no rules when it was first established, because Liu Bang thought the set of etiquette of the Qin Dynasty was too cumbersome, so he ordered it to be abolished.As a result, in the court hall, the officials acted recklessly, drinking and showing credit, and when they were in a hurry, they drew their swords to chop the pillars, scaring the emperor sitting on it to death.Fortunately, at this time, a Confucian scholar named Shusun Tong stepped forward to rescue him, saying that this was a government discussion, not a party in a tavern, and he had to set court rituals so that everyone could follow the rules.Liu Bang said yes, you can try to set a relatively simple routine. Everyone is a country boy, and it is too complicated for anyone to understand.

So Shusun Tong took a large number of his disciples and began to formulate the court rituals, and then he worked hard to teach the officials.Then when it was time to go to court, the big guys all behaved well, where they should stand, no one spoke loudly, no one drew their swords and slashed wildly, even if the emperor gave wine, they all came to toast in a certain order first Emperor, then drink.Liu Bang was happy now, and said: "Until today, I didn't know that being an emperor is so honorable." If the rules are not fixed, they are not fixed. If Liu Bang is satisfied with one set of rules, he will inevitably want to create another set.As a result, the sycophants seized the opportunity and played one after another, helping the dynasty to come up with all kinds of meaningless superficial projects, so someone remembered the matter of virtue, and asked Liu Bang, what kind of virtue do you think we have?

Liu Bang was born in the underworld, not as good as Xiang Yu, Zhang Liang and other high-ranking children. His quality is really not high, so he took it for granted after hearing this.What did he take for granted?He remembered that he had built a temple for Heidi back then, so he said foolishly: "Look, Heidi waited for me to build a temple for him back then, which means that the destiny is with me, and the virtue of water is still black. It’s Shui De, everyone continue to wear black clothes.” "Boom!" Ninety-nine of the hundred people beside him fell down. Liu Bang opened his mouth and said that we should use water virtue. On the one hand, this shows that he is uneducated, and on the other hand, it also shows that the story of the White Snake Uprising has not yet been fabricated at this time.Otherwise, the prophecy of God has been given a long time ago. You Liu Bang is the son of the Red Emperor, and red is the color of fire in the five elements, so of course the Han Dynasty you established should be the virtue of fire.Even if water overcomes fire, the Qin Dynasty of water virtue was annihilated by the Han Dynasty of fire virtue.

why?You think, Qin Chao is the virtue of water, and now the old Liu family is a victorious country, even if they don't find a virtue that can overcome water, they can't follow Qin Chao.What's more, the Qin Dynasty was dealing with water affairs. According to Sima Qian's conclusion later, it was "resolute and brutal, everything depends on the law, and there is no benevolence and righteousness in cutting down." The laws and regulations are also extremely cumbersome and strict.At this time, the common people are most annoyed and hate these things, otherwise Liu Bang would not have "contracted in three chapters" as soon as he entered Xianyang, and cut down the thick stack of laws and regulations of the Qin Dynasty to leave three.Now that Liu Bang still wants to choose Shui De, isn't that tantamount to declaring to the whole world that we are all in the same group as Bao Qin?This man has lost his hair.

So after hearing Liu Bang's words, the officials looked at each other in blank dismay, not knowing what to say.However, although ninety-nine people around fell down, there was still one person who did not fall down. This person was Zhang Cang, the newly named Marquis of Beiping. He stood up, cleared his throat, and began to speak at length. This Zhang Cang, who had previously served as the censor of the Qin Dynasty, was proficient in astronomy and calendar, and was regarded as a high-level intellectual. He must be familiar with the five virtues that even Qin Shihuang believed in.So did he stand up to refute Liu Bang?How could it be possible, the emperor's words were golden words, how could he be wrong?Besides, this kind of thing has nothing to do with the economy and the people's livelihood. Just follow the emperor's words and continue to talk about it. The statement is a bit crooked. We can help straighten it out.

So Zhang Cang pretended to make some calculations, and then seriously explained to Liu Bang: "Baoqin is not a dynasty at all, but a intercalary system under the Zhou Dynasty. Xia, Shang, and Zhou have hundreds of years. It’s only been a decade or so, how can it be considered a dynasty? Our Han Dynasty was born in an orthodox manner, and we directly inherited the Zhengshuo of the Zhou Dynasty. Great, what His Majesty said is not wrong at all!" Liu Bang is very happy now, hey, I didn't expect that I was really wrong when I said it casually!You see, even Mr. Zhang, who is so educated, agrees.So the virtue of the Han Dynasty was settled in this way, it was the virtue of water, and Liu Bang specially built a Tianshui temple in Shangyu County, lest others would not know that he was the dynasty of water virtue. Although Zhang Cang's excuse is far-fetched, it has set a vicious precedent for countless dynasties in later generations.In the future, people will often use similar arguments as a reason to ignore the unpleasant previous dynasty and inherit a more glorious dynasty, which fully demonstrates the flexibility and plasticity of the "Five Virtues, End and Beginning Theory". In fact, Sima Qian said that the virtue of water is "resolute and profound, everything is determined by the law, and benevolence and justice are not cut down", which is the cause of the opposite effect.It was not because the Qin Dynasty recognized the virtue of water that the punishment was harsh, but because of the harsh punishment and law, Sima Qian believed that the virtue of water was that virtue (friends in the north can read it softly).At the beginning, Professor Zou was vague about which five good moral words in the world should be defined as the five virtues. They only correspond to the five elements, and his later disciples have not been able to figure out this issue, or Not going to figure it out at all. Therefore, according to the five elements, the nature of water is "softness and ability to go down". You can also say that the virtue of water represents humility, or it represents softness over rigidity.Considering the problem from another angle, the Qin Dynasty's policy was fierce and overbearing. According to the characteristics of the Five Elements, it is not wrong to insist that it is Fire Virtue or Jin Virtue.The Han Dynasty also faced the same problem. The five virtues of metal, wood, water, fire, and earth, if you want to install any of them, you can find fallacies. Liu Bang took it for granted, and you really can’t say that he must be wrong. Let’s bring the topic back to the absurd story of Liu Bang beheading the white snake that Sima Qian grandly recorded in the "Historical Records". Chao should be Shang Hong's fire virtue.So how did the reason come about?It's very simple, because the west belongs to gold, while the state of Qin is located in the west, the south belongs to fire, and the state of Chu is located in the south, so the "white emperor son" is used to describe the Qin emperor, and the "red emperor son" is used to describe the original Chu people. Liu Bang.This absurd story has no effect on Liu Bang's determination of what kind of virtue the Han Dynasty belonged to, but no one expected that this story would be turned up again more than a hundred years after the completion of "Historical Records". Let's not mention it for the time being. It can be seen from this that it is not a big problem for Liu Bang to casually decide that the Han Dynasty is any one virtue. The sycophants can always find various reasons to prove that "Your Majesty is holy", but for the common people, they may not know that the Qin Dynasty is He used to consider himself a water virtue, and of course he would not equate the Qin Dynasty's tyranny with Liu Bang's water virtue.However, fallacies also have the problem of seemingly round or not. Gongsun Long can say "a white horse is not a horse", but he cannot say that a white ox is a horse, or a white horse is a donkey. This kind of super flexibility is difficult to be recognized by some casual people who believe in death.So when both Liu Bang and Empress Lu died, it can be said that after the founding period of the Western Han Dynasty ended, someone finally dared to stand up and oppose it. This person is the famous Jia Yi.