Chapter 16 Baikengpo

Long-term unity must be divided, and long-term division must be united. Finally, when the three points return to Jin, what virtue should the Sima family have? According to Liu Xin's new theory of five virtues, Wei is earth virtue, and Sima Jin who accepted Cao Wei's abdication should be gold virtue, advocating white, because native metal is born.However, things were not that simple. In the second year of Taishi (AD 266) of Emperor Wu of Jin Dynasty, a group of old bureaucrats wrote a letter saying that our Great Jin Dynasty had accepted Wei Chan, and we should learn from Emperor Shun’s tradition of accepting Emperor Yao’s abdication and inherit Tude and yellow vest of the previous generation.Please note that according to the old "Five Virtues Ending and Beginning Theory", Yao and Shun counted as one dynasty, all of them were earth virtues, but according to Liu Xin's new theory of five virtues, Tang Yao was fire virtue, Yu Shun was earth virtue, and there was no inheritance at all-this It is clearly the counterattack of the old school against the new school.

It seems that Sima Yan doesn't care much about virtue. As long as we have virtue, it doesn't matter what virtue is. Since the old gentlemen have said so, let's make it so.But who would have thought that this would cause an uproar, and idlers of the new school wrote to refute it one after another, especially Sun Sheng, a great historian who wrote "Wei Shi Chun Qiu", "Wei Shi Chun Qiu" and "Jin Yang Qiu" had the most violent attitude Well, Sun Sheng directly brought up the "law of heaven" to talk about things, saying that what you do is against the law of heaven. If the Jin Dynasty prospered in place of Wei, it should be Jinde that replaced Tude.Once the big hat was buttoned, the old gentlemen had no choice but to admit it, and Sima Yan also "followed the good", and from then on everyone wore white clothes-it was more labor-saving than wearing a yellow vest.

Once the theory of virtue rises, there will naturally be people from "Hard" offering auspicious signs to match the argument, and this time is no exception.It is said that during the period of Emperor Wei Ming, someone found a large white stone in the Liugu Valley of Jinshan, Shandan County, Zhangye. Yin Shushui." There are thirty-five big characters in total, and I can read all the characters, but it takes someone who can read it well to be called a ghost.Emperor Wei Ming couldn't read it, but he looked horizontally and vertically, and found the three characters "Dou Da Cao" at a glance. The word "count".After Sima Yan accepted Cao Wei's abdication, a man named Cheng Yi mentioned the incident and said to Sima Yan: "There is a word 'big' on this stone, which means extremely prosperous; there is a word 'gold' on it." , is exactly the virtue of my Jin Dynasty; there is also a character 'Zhong', which means that it is just in time for rendezvous; there is also a word 'Ji', which of course means auspiciousness. This stone clearly implies that Your Majesty, you are creating a great The Jin Dynasty followed God's will, and it will be auspicious!"

Well, it's easy for him, he neither read nor understood, he just picked four auspicious characters to say, and pretended not to see the remaining thirty-one characters. Careful friends may want to ask, this Kinder contradicts the "facts".The Shu Han is the virtue of fire, and fire not only does not produce gold, but restrains gold. How could it be that the Three Kingdoms returned to Jin instead of Jin returning to Shu Han?Well, it's easy to explain, because it wasn't Jin who conquered Shu, but Wei.Although the Sima family had already controlled the government at that time, it was still under Cao Wei in name, and the emperor was still Cao Huan. Therefore, from the perspective of the five virtues, the destruction of Shu happened to be "fire gave birth to soil"; Virtue has been defeated, and the Sima family has won the world, inheriting Jinde, "gold overcomes wood", so the Jin army will have no disadvantages when they attack Soochow.The theory of the five virtues is indeed vain, but as long as you put your heart into it, you can always find a reason—although we are not great Confucianists, we can still make it right.

There is another interesting story about the virtues of the Jin Dynasty.Let’s say that during the Jianxing period, when Jin Mindi Sima Ye was in power, a nursery rhyme suddenly spread in the south of the Yangtze River: "The scorpion is like a white pit, and the collection is held as a pot. Yangzhou is broken and defeated, and Wu Xing covers the pot." What is said here is " "Pit" is not an earth pit or a mud pit, but a pottery container whose mouth is made of metal, so it belongs to "gold". The Sima family of the Western Jin Dynasty who "golden virtue is still white".The basic meaning of the nursery rhyme is that, with the sound of "娇", this "Baikeng" (that is, the Sima family in the Western Jin Dynasty) is about to die, and everyone has to put the pieces together to make a 甒 (a kind of wine vessel with a cover). Re-use, in the place of Wuxing (belonging to Yangzhou), it is used to cover the bottle (small bottle).

Sure enough, in the fourth year of Jianxing (AD 316), the Xiongnu general Liu Yao captured Chang'an, Sima Ye surrendered, and the Western Jin Dynasty perished-"Bai Keng Po"; then the clan and Langya king Sima Rui established the Eastern Jin Dynasty in Yangzhou. ——"Run-down exchange". Nursery rhymes have always been the most common type of prophecy.On the one hand, this kid doesn’t understand anything. It’s easiest to teach a kid to make up a nonsense that rhymes with the same rhyme and catches the tongue. Could not find source.On the other hand, the reason is that children don't understand anything, so adults think that certain words spoken by children really represent God's will.Let's take this nursery rhyme "Bai Keng Po" as an example. It has five words and four sentences, and it also rhymes. It is really catchy, and children must like to talk about it everywhere.

More importantly, this nursery rhyme is full of gods and spirits, which is specious. Before Liu Yao entered Chang'an, even if someone guessed that "Baikengpo" refers to the demise of the Western Jin Dynasty, they would not be able to guess what would happen to "Yangzhou" and "Wuxing" thing.And anyone who wants to attach what has happened to the vague prophecy and rumors, who can turn his head, can do it, that is, the lie is too good to be true.Don’t you see, until today, there are still many people forging and explaining strange books like "Tui Bei Tu", saying that the Tang Dynasty people had foreseen the Japanese invasion of China.

After the death of the Western Jin Dynasty, the following history will be very troublesome. Although there were many sayings about the Five Virtues in the past, and the old school and the new school attacked each other, they basically followed each other from generation to generation, and there was barely a spectrum.But since the demise of the Western Jin Dynasty, this score has been completely messed up, because the "five random China" opened the period of great division known in history as the Eastern Jin Dynasty, the Sixteen Kingdoms and the Northern and Southern Dynasties.At that time, the north and the south were opposed, the kingdoms sprang up, and China was in chaos. Everyone had a "virtue", and each other supported and restrained each other. It was really chaotic to grandma's house.

The most direct result of the "five chaos in China" was the annihilation of the Western Jin Dynasty, and the driving of the Sima family and the great clans of the Central Plains to the south of the Yangtze River.The ethnic minority brothers who tossed in the Central Plains successively claimed that they had inherited the orthodoxy of the Western Jin Dynasty and should continue to rank according to the five virtues; while the Eastern Jin Dynasty in the south of the Yangtze River and the subsequent Song, Qi, Liang, and Chen dynasties believed that they were the true roots of China , the most qualified to participate in the cycle of five virtues, those barbarians in the north are all usurpers and false dynasties.As a result, the chain of the Five Virtues split into two, forming two branches, one south and one north.

Let's start with the north side first.