Chapter 10 The Royal Magic Stick Appears

The color of Tuxing is yellow, so the officials of the Tude Dynasty had to wear yellow robes, but this yellow is neither apricot yellow nor bright yellow. According to the printing and dyeing technology of the Han Dynasty, it is estimated that it is not possible to make such a bright material. The color of the clothes is ocher yellow, to put it bluntly, it is earthy yellow.To make a digression, the main colors of officials' robes became more and more complex, and even different colors had to be used according to the rank of the official. This word is also exclusive), and later the emperor changed to ocher red robes, and it was changed to the exclusive bright yellow in the Qing Dynasty.

The Han Dynasty finally determined that its own virtue was Tude, and the big guys changed to yellow robes, so is the problem solved satisfactorily?It's very frustrating, the problem has not been resolved, but just when the Western Han Dynasty was about to end, there was another wave of waves on the flat ground.And this wave not only caused a huge shock at that time, but also had a profound impact on later generations for thousands of years. The instigators were Liu Xiang and Liu Xin, father and son. These fathers and sons are probably the most famous guys in the Western Han Dynasty except for a few emperors.Liu Xiang, whose real name is Liu Gengsheng and courtesy name Zizheng, is the fourth grandson of Chu Yuan King Liu Jiao (Liu Bang's half-brother).We know that the "Wu Chu Seven Kingdoms Rebellion" broke out during the reign of Emperor Jing of the Han Dynasty. At that time, the king of Chu was Liu Wu. Because he participated in the rebellion, he was desperate and committed suicide after being defeated. Fan, let Liu Wu's younger brother Liu Li inherit the throne.Liu Li was passed on for another four generations. When Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty arrived, this generation of Chu King Liu Yanshou planned to rebel again, but the result was not as good as his great-uncle grandpa. escaped, or was wiped out.

The state of Chu was destroyed, but the princes and grandsons of Liujiao's family were not dead, and finally a talented and loyal Liu Xiang emerged.In the era of Emperor Han Yuan, Liu Xiang served as Zongzheng, that is, the Minister of Royal Affairs, and in the era of Emperor Han Cheng, he was also Doctor Guanglu, who can be regarded as a senior official at the deputy state level.Later generations gave Liu Xiang a lot of hats, including classics, bibliographers, and writers. He has compiled several books such as "Bie Lu" and "Warring States Policy", and he can be regarded as a great writer.Liu Xin is Liu Xiang's son, and he is also a strong man. Not only does he have good grades in liberal arts, but he is also unambiguous in science. He has studied pi and plans to revise the calendar that has begun to lose shape.

At this time, the Western Han Dynasty was completely dominated by Confucianism. Emperor Xuan of the Han Dynasty once said: "My family's original system is a mixture of domineering and kingly ways. How can we just advocate morality? Those Confucian scholars like to use the past to satirize the present. How can it be reused?" But in the era of his son, Emperor Han Yuan, he completely ignored Lao Tzu's words, and revered Confucianism to an unbelievable degree.The father and son Liu Xiang and Liu Xin are great Confucianists themselves, and after catching up with the trend of the times, Liu Xin completely adopted Dong Zhongshu's "Three Traditions Theory" when revising the calendar and compiled a "Three Traditions Calendar". And it was officially recognized, and it was officially implemented in the second year of Suihe, Emperor Cheng of the Han Dynasty (7 BC).

Since Liu Xin admired Dong Zhongshu so much, he himself was regarded as a Confucian master at the time, so he was naturally dissatisfied with the "Five Virtues Ending and Beginning Theory" originally calculated or fabricated by the Yin-Yang School - it even contradicted the "Three Traditions Theory" , is tolerable, which is unbearable - so he racked his brains to find out the loopholes in the theory of the five virtues. Based on some research done by his father Liu Xiang based on the same reason, Liu Xin soon made a big hit. Victory, thus completely burying the little bit of influence that the Onmyojis had on the official theory of virtue.

Han Confucianism is different from Confucius' Confucianism and Mencius' Confucianism.Confucius once said, "Close to ghosts and gods, but far away", and also said, "The way of heaven is far away, and the way of humanity is near". .Mencius is similar. The words like heaven and kingly way in his mouth are all empty words, and he never goes to the bottom of it.But when it came to Han Confucianism represented by Dong Zhongshu, Confucianism absorbed a large number of theories of alchemists and Yin-Yang schools, began to talk about "interaction between heaven and man", and also began to conduct large-scale research and manufacture superstitions on a large scale.Liu Xiang, Liu Xin, father and son, as the disciples and grandchildren of the old master Dong, are of course not exempt from the common customs. Both father and son are very fond of "the study of prophecy".

We have explained "prophecy", but it was mainly fabricated by alchemists at that time. ", is a series of textbooks newly compiled by the traditional Confucian classics of the Han Confucian Association, which is opposite to the "Jing" book, so it is called "Wei". To put it bluntly, "the science of prophecy and weft" is to apply superstition to Confucianism, so as to revise the old saying of Confucius: the way of humanity is close, but the way of heaven is not far away. Master, you are too lazy to talk about it, but we can study it all to understand.

Some people made statistics based on the records of "Hanshu·Wuxingzhi", and calculated all kinds of natural and man-made disasters, supernatural events and auspicious omens speculated by Liu Xiang and his son. There are a total of 182 cases, and 226 related theories have been published. , was the most fun among Confucian scholars in the Han Dynasty, and others couldn't catch up even by flying.Let's put it in perspective, these two people are old masters who have accumulated for many years, and they can develop into a cult with just a few more disciples.So how can such a father and son not be obsessed with the five elements and five virtues?Even if the similar remarks contradicted the instructions of the old master Dong, they would try to revise them as much as possible, and they would not completely overthrow the five elements and five virtues with one stick.

Therefore, Liu Xin didn't directly judge that Zou Yan and his disciples and grandchildren were all wrong, and that the "Five Virtues always said" was completely bankrupt. Instead, he desperately rummaged through the pile of old papers, and added desperately to formulate deduction. Root out. As long as there is something wrong with the "Five Virtues Always Talking", as long as that point is revised, the two theories of the Five Virtues and the Three Traditions can be perfectly integrated into one, instead of rigidly adhering The two theories are brought together. In fact, Liu Xiang probably had already found the breakthrough, but it was Liu Xin who finally perfected this new set of fusion theory.It turned out that when the father and son were studying hard, they suddenly discovered the phrase "the emperor comes from the earthquake", and the more they thought about it, the more wrong it became.Think about it, the yin and yang family all say that the first generation of people is the Yellow Emperor, and the discussion of virtue starts from the Yellow Emperor, but according to the theory of the five elements, the position of the Yellow Emperor is in the center, which belongs to the earth, and the shock position in the eight trigrams refers to It is the east, and it belongs to wood. Isn't this contradictory?So Liu Xiang and his son quickly went to read Dong Zhongshu's works again, and between the lines, they finally found the crux of the problem - it turned out that the yin and yang people made a mistake, and the old master Dong was always right, but he didn't make it clear.

They deduced that the "di" in "Di Yu Zhen" did not refer to the Yellow Emperor, but Fuxi. Because Fuxi was always located in the east, "Baoxi (Fuxi) first received wood virtue". After a long period of research, Liu Xin came to the final conclusion that "the theory of the five virtues always begins" is correct in theory, but it is wrong in terms of specific research. Let us Confucian scholars say that Yin-Yang Schools are not good at learning, but they went the wrong way when they touched the door. First of all, virtue should be counted from Fuxi, not from Huangdi. Fuxi's era should be before Huangdi.Secondly, Zou Yan said that virtue is "the five elements win each other", that is to say, the order of the five virtues has always been that the latter virtue overcomes the former virtue. ", that is to say, the order of the five virtues is always such that the former gives birth to the latter.Because Emperor Xuan of the Han Dynasty also said that "hegemony and kingly ways are mixed and used", from the beginning of Emperor Han Yuan, he only talked about kingly ways, kingly ways, how can one be so bloody and subdued one by one?We need to be more gentle and honest, and more harmonious. The demise of the old dynasty was not caused by the new dynasty, but the end of the historical mission. The birth of the orthodox new dynasty was born in accordance with virtue. , there should be no violence at all.

Of course, facts are facts, and theories are theories after all. There are always places where theories do not match the facts. Some people modify the theory according to the facts, while others modify the facts according to the theory-Liu Xiang and his son belong to the latter category .They calculated and calculated, but still found loopholes, and finally had to bring up Zhang Cang's old saying: Qin Dynasty did not rule the country by virtue, but by strict punishment and law, so it is not qualified to be counted as a "German" country, only It can be called "Run Tong".Leap is extra, such as leap year and leap month, so the Qin Dynasty is extra, and it cannot be counted in the calculation of the rotation of the five virtues. Furthermore, according to the "Three Traditions", the orthodox dynasty should set November, December or January as the first month, but the Qin Dynasty chose October as the first month. Doesn't it mean that it is not orthodox? So based on these three points of understanding, Liu Xin completed a book called "Shi Jing", which put the theoretical framework of Zou Yan and Dong Zhongshu on it, and then combined them into one to redesign a more magnificent lineage of virtue. surface.In this table, Fuxi is the first one to do his part. He inherited the Suiren family who had not yet established a country by drilling wood to make fire, so he should be regarded as Mude; Yandi inherited Fuxi, and wood made fire, so Yandi is Huode Emperor Yan is the Shennong family); then fire produces earth, and the Yellow Emperor is earth virtue; Shaohao inherits earth with metal virtue.According to this law, the past is deduced all the way down. Emperor Zhuanxu used the virtue of water to inherit gold, and Emperor Kumu inherited water. In Tang Yao, Huo De, Yu Shun Tu De, Xia Yu Jin De, and Chengtang Shui De, when King Wu of Zhou, water gave birth to wood, so the Zhou Dynasty It is Mude.The Qin Dynasty ignored it, so the Han Dynasty directly inherited the Zhou Dynasty, and the wood made fire, so the Han Dynasty should be the virtue of fire (accurately, Qin did not ignore it, but the level is lower than other dynasties). You see, in this way, the matter of Emperor Gaozu beheading the White Snake uprising was completely revealed. This is the most accurate omen from heaven.The Han Dynasty was the virtue of fire, so Liu Bang was the "Children of the Red Emperor", and it fit perfectly.Liu Xin's "New Theory of Five Virtues" came out hot. Of course, Liu Xin's tricks are not without loopholes. For example, Grandmaster Dong once said that the Shang Dynasty was "orthodox and white", then it should be Jinde, and the Zhou Dynasty was "orthodox and red", then it should be Jinde. Huo De, the new dynasty is the Han Dynasty "Zheng Hei Tong", then it should be Shui De, how did it become Shang Dynasty Shui De, Zhou Dynasty Mu De, Han Dynasty Huo De in Liu Xin's place?It turned out that he simply separated the colors of the three traditions from the colors of the five virtues.Later, there was a weft book called "The Essence of Spring and Autumn", which explained it very clearly—— In the Zhou Dynasty, the virtue of wood was the king, and fire was the son of wood, so the red color of fire was used; in the Shang Dynasty, the virtue of water was called the king, and gold was the mother of water, so the white color of gold was used; in the Xia Dynasty, the virtue of gold was called the king, and water was gold. son of water, so the blackness of water... Well, the mix-and-match of the Three Traditions and the Five Virtues has made the problem more complicated and confusing. For us today, the new theory of Liu Xiang, Liu Xin and his son cannot be said to be right or wrong, and Zou Yan's original "five virtues always say", just like one is American football and the other is English football. Football, anyway, is not the law of the natural formation of heaven and earth, but a theory created by man.But at the time, this was a major event related to the dignity of a dynasty.I think it took more than a hundred years for the Han Dynasty to change from the virtue of water to the virtue of soil. Fortunately, it happened that Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty was planning to "remove all schools of thought and respect Confucianism" and establish a new order in the field of thought. It was the final decision.Now nearly a hundred years have passed, and everyone is used to wearing yellow vests. There is no reason to believe in the saying of "Han Yinghuo De" easily. Isn't that causing trouble for yourself?Now even if a street is renamed, a new brand has to be made and a new map has to be made, and all the troubles will cost a lot of money, not to mention changing the whole country?So Liu Xin tried his best to preach, but the court resolutely refused to nod, and not many people followed suit, so this big matter was simply left aside. If Liu Xin was a good old man with no ambitions or desires, the outcome of his new theory would probably be the same as Jia Yi’s performance to Emperor Wenwen of the Han Dynasty, and he would be swept into the garbage dump of the court. As for whether there will be Gongsun in the future Those who continue to hold high the banner of revolution, such as ministers and Sima Qian, will be found out again, which is really uncertain.However, Liu Xin is determined not to give up—if this theory is officially recognized, master, I will be able to chat better than "Tan Tianyan". Desperate to fight for? There are no masters here, there is a place for masters to stay, the court is full of bastards, who don't know how to inlay gold and jade, we have to sell this knowledge to people who really have vision.So Liu Xin lobbied and made arrangements everywhere. Don't tell me, he really found a bosom friend, and it didn't take long for this bosom friend to ascend to the sky and grasp the real power of the court.