Chapter 8 The successes and failures of "putting things right"

Jia Yi was a famous writer and political commentator in the early Han Dynasty. He was selected by Emperor Wenwen of the Han Dynasty when he was young, and he was called to be a doctor, and then he was promoted as a doctor of the Taizhong in less than a year.Ascending to a high position at a young age, the so-called "a tree that is beautiful in the forest, the wind will destroy it", he was immediately unanimously hated by the courtiers, and slander was flying all over the sky. Emperor Wen was forced to demote him as Changsha Wang Taifu. Later, he was recalled to Chang'an. Sent to serve as the Taifu of King Huai of Liang.Jia Yi was so angry and hated that he died at the age of thirty-three, which was deeply regretted and cherished by future generations - Sima Qian even biography him and Qu Yuan in "Historical Records", which also shows the depth of his grievances, and the same Qu Yuan deserved a fight.

This is Jia Yi, who is young and vigorous, not afraid of powerful people, let alone a fake academic authority like Zhang Cang, so in the thirteenth year of Emperor Wenwen of the Han Dynasty (167 BC), he directly wrote to Emperor Wen, saying that according to the five elements, Tuke Water, so my big man should be Tude, in order to overcome the Qin Dynasty of Shuide, it is strongly recommended to change the country's morality immediately, and the clothes turn yellow-this is probably because Emperor Wen kicked him to Changsha, which was still very remote and wild at that time One of the reasons for China, your statement is too counter-trend!

Jia Yi failed completely, but in the second year (166 BC), a native of Lu named Gongsun Chen made another attack.However, with Jia Yi's lessons learned from the past, Gongsun Chen did not dare to force it anymore, but adopted a brand new strategy.In his memorial to Emperor Wen, he predicted that according to the prophecy, a yellow dragon would appear in Chengji in a few days, and yellow matches the soil in the five elements, so the Han Dynasty should follow the soil virtue.When Emperor Wen took a look, he thought it was Zhang Cang's specialty, so he forwarded it to Zhang Cang, who was the prime minister at the time, and asked him to review it.

Zhang Cang is old and cunning. When he saw Zoubiao, he rolled his eyes and said something was wrong—I was the one who insisted on agreeing with Liu Bang and advocating that the Han Dynasty should be a virtue of water. Now this Gongsun minister advocates Tude. It's my old man's desk.It seems that just driving away one Jia Yi, the trend of overturning the case can't be stopped.No, absolutely cannot admit this!So Zhang Cang played, saying that the water virtue of our Han Dynasty was foreshadowed by heaven, that is, "the river broke through the golden embankment".That is to say, the Jindi River, a tributary of the lower reaches of the Yellow River, flooded at the end of the Qin Dynasty. Doesn’t this just mean that the Qin in the west should be Jinde, and the Han in the south should be the virtue of water? ?

He didn't expect that Gongsunchen was very scheming, since he mentioned Huanglong's matter, it would not be empty talk, but a clever arrangement had already been made.Sure enough, not long after, Gongsun Chen's accomplices followed him, saying that the villain had indeed seen such a big and terrifying yellow dragon in Chengji.This time Zhang Cang had a hard time and couldn't tell. He insisted that he saw Huanglong appear, and then flew away. You can't prove that he is lying, he never saw it at all.As a result, public opinion was in an uproar, and everyone said that Zhang Cang was engaging in academic corruption and attacking dissidents, which made the old prime minister lose face.

Just like that, Gongsunchen triumphantly entered the palace to have an audience. Emperor Wen awarded him a doctorate on the spot and ordered the compilation of Tude's calendar; He was forced to return home due to illness. Perhaps Gongsun Chen himself really believed that his calculations were accurate, but he played a trick to fight against fake academic authorities, but he made a very bad start—you know, the cost of claiming to have found auspiciousness Quite low, but the income is very high, so later generations followed suit.So when we open the history books, we can often see a certain year, month, and day, where someone saw a dragon, or saw a phoenix, a unicorn, etc., special reports auspicious, and so on. The root of all kinds of academic fraud is probably in Gongsunchen Here—as for the Korean professor Huang Yuxi and the like, they are just the descendants of Gongsunchen for many generations.

So, because of this, the Han Dynasty "put order out of chaos" and officially changed from water virtue to earth virtue?nor.Because just when Emperor Wen was ready to obey Gongsunchen's order to change his morals, and at the same time everyone was preparing to change their clothes, another incident suddenly happened, which made Longyan furious, and he slapped the table to change his morals. idea. What is the matter?It turned out that there was a man named Xin Yuanping from the state of Zhao, who, like Gongsunchen, belonged to the alchemist or the Yin-Yang school. The flow of breath in the void invisible to others, guessing the will of heaven.Originally, this Xinyuanping had no ambitions, so he could only cheat villagers and foolish women to get some food and drink in the countryside, but when he saw Gongsun Chen's success by instructing others to say that he saw Huanglong, he couldn't help thinking: this way My son can go and has a future.

So Xin Yuanping also hastened to play to Emperor Wen, saying that I saw a colorful look in the northeast of Chang'an, and I should build a temple to worship it. There are all five emperors in blue, white, red, yellow and black.In order to prove that he really has the ability, instead of just rubbing his upper lip and saying casually, he also forged a jade cup with four seal characters engraved on it, "The Lord prolongs life", pretending that it was given to Emperor Wen by an immortal, and offered it up at the same time .According to our previous classification, it is said that seeing the multicolored look is a sign of auspiciousness, and offering a jade cup is a sign of auspiciousness.Wind dust finishing and production.

As soon as Emperor Wen received the jade cup, he couldn't put it down. He had a solid heart and soft ears, so he believed it on the spot. He immediately issued an edict to build the Temple of Five Emperors, and granted Xin Yuanping the title of doctor, rewarding many good things.Xin Yuanping became proud of this, but this guy didn't know how to accept it when he saw it. In order to stabilize Emperor Wen's favor for him, he talked nonsense all day long.As the saying goes, "Walk by the water, how can you not get your shoes wet?" The more this guy brags, the more evil he gets, and more and more flaws. This gives the old Prime Minister Zhang Cang, who is full of depression and plans to resign as soon as possible, a chance to fight back.After a secret investigation, Zhang Cang found the craftsman who helped Xin Yuanping engrave the jade cup, so he immediately wrote a letter to expose it.

The Xinyuanping case soon fell into the hands of Ting Wei Zhang Shizhi.This Zhang Shizhi was also a well-known figure in the early Han Dynasty, and his reputation in later generations is still higher than that of Zhang Cang. He is the best at judging cases, enforcing the law, and sentencing according to the law. Xin Yuanping fell into his hands without any trouble. No matter how many twists and turns, they will all be recruited.Zhang Shizhi swiped his pen: This is a crime of deceiving the emperor and rebelling against the law. According to the law of the Han Dynasty, the three tribes of barbarians cannot be discussed.The so-called "Yi tribe" is equivalent to the common saying that the whole family was beheaded. Not only the prisoners themselves lost their heads, but even the parents, wives and children had to be executed.

That's it, Xin Yuanping's family is finished, but what about Emperor Hanwen?Thinking of his former love and trust for Xin Yuanping, he couldn't help feeling that his pure heart had been mercilessly hurt. From then on, he hated the alchemists and the Yin Yang family to the bone, and became disheartened by all kinds of auspicious omens.The most pitiful thing is that Gongsunchen also suffered from the misfortune of the fish, and immediately fell out of favor, so the matter of changing the water virtue to the soil virtue was nothing.