Chapter 27 Chapter Four

Now, let us return to Dong Zhongshu.After completing the countermeasures, he feels quite good about himself, and is very satisfied with the ideas, viewpoints and suggested measures.The fact is exactly the same. Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty not only rewarded the "Three Strategies of Heaven and Man", but also adopted them in a timely and strict manner.However, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty did not reuse him because of this, and did not even arrange a position in the central government. Instead, he was sent to Jiangdu, a princely country, as a prime minister. The purpose of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty in recruiting virtuous men was to recruit them according to their quality to assist him in his administration.Dong Zhongshu ranked first, and he has good strategies and theories, but why didn't he get the emperor's reuse?This really puzzled Dong Zhongshu.What he has been looking forward to all his life is to one day be able to enter the center of power and show his grand plans.After finally looking forward to an opportunity that he thinks he can play and display, the emperor only admires him, but he is unwilling to entrust him with a big responsibility.As a result, an uncontrollable sense of loss and melancholy surged through his heart.

He couldn't figure it out, maybe it was because of King Jiangdu?Jiangdu in the Han Dynasty, which is today's Yangzhou City, Jiangsu Province.Liu Fei, the king of Yi who was sealed there, was the half-brother of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty. He liked force, advocated adventure, and was arrogant, with a bit of rebellious taste.It is very likely that Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty sent him to be Jiang Duxiang because he wanted to use Confucian etiquette to restrain and correct King Yi's mistakes, so as to maintain the centralized rule of the central government.In this way, it can also be considered that this is another form of reuse by Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty.Only by explaining in this way can he get a little comfort and balance in his heart.

Dong Zhongshu couldn't disobey the king's order and the emperor's imperial edict, so he had to leave Chang'an full of thoughts and rush to Jiangdu to take up his post. As soon as he took office, he used the Confucian etiquette he was familiar with to restrain Yi Wang Liu Fei, and advised him to follow the Confucian hierarchy and concept of superiority and inferiority.Dong Zhongshu has become famous all over the world since he came up with the "Three Strategies of Heaven and Man". King Yi didn't dare to be rude to him, so he had to show respect and pretend to accept advice humbly.For a while, Wang and Xiang could live in peace.

In order to explore the essence of Gongyang Studies in the Spring and Autumn Period, in addition to Confucian classics, Dong Zhongshu also dabbled in the works of Fa, Mo, Tao, Ming, Yin and Yang and other schools of thought to integrate them, especially the theory of Yin and Yang and the Five Elements. In-depth research and unique insights.Therefore, in addition to governing officials as a politician, he often used the theory of Yin-Yang and Five Elements to deal with political affairs, the most famous of which was Jiangdu to pray for rain and stop rain. During Dong Zhongshu's second year as Prime Minister in Jiangdu, there was a sudden heavy rain in the territory. For a while, the rivers were filled and the farmland was soaked, but the heavy rain continued without any sign of stopping.If the heavy rain continues, not only will the crops be damaged and yields will be reduced, but if it is not done well, there will be floods and floods.The common people were in a hurry, the ministers were also in a hurry, and Dong Zhongshu was even more anxious.In desperation, he thought of the theory of yin and yang that he had studied all these years. At this moment, in this situation, why not apply it?So, after some deduction, Dong Zhongshu came up with a way to stop the rain based on the principle of mutual generation and restraint in the five elements of yin and yang.He believes that continuous rain is due to excessive yin energy and weak yang energy.If you want to stop the rain, you have to promote yang energy and restrain yin energy so that the forces of yin and yang are balanced.He believed in the theory of interaction between heaven and man, that heaven and man are one body, as long as there is an action in the world, heaven will respond, and vice versa.Women are yin and men are yang, yang is opened and yin is closed, "women want to hide and hide, husbands want to be harmonious and happy", in this way, yin and yang can be balanced, and the rain will stop naturally.Therefore, Dong Zhongshu asked the officials to hide their wives at home. Women should not come out and walk around casually, and all wells should be covered to prevent the leakage of Yin Qi; To promote masculinity; to clean up the shrine, and to sacrifice sacrifices, and Wu Zhu prayed to God to stop the rain.According to Dong Zhongshu's prearrangement, this event will take place for three days.However, it was only the second day that the sky that had been gloomy all the time seemed to really feel it. Suddenly, the clouds stopped and the rain stopped, and it was sunny.The people naturally cheered, and Dong Zhongshu's reputation spread to every corner of Jiangdu Kingdom.

Dong Zhongshu was lucky, his witchcraft-like pretense just happened to catch up with the moment when the rain was about to stop, and he won a lot of applause.Even more fortunately, since then, he has continued to use the five-element principle of mutual generation and mutual restraint to pray for rain. Followed the path, and the result was successful again.His stopping rain and praying for rain are respectively selected at the time when the long rain will be sunny and the long rain will be rainy, so it is quite effective.This kind of efficaciousness and his set of Yin-Yang, Five Elements and Heaven-man interaction are completely different things, but this kind of coincidence happened to him.Therefore, under the circumstances that scientific knowledge could not explain, Dong Zhongshu was full of piety, and had to seriously think about the inner relationship between heaven, earth, and human beings, thus forming a set of corresponding concepts, which profoundly affected his understanding of Confucianism. transformation.

Dong Zhongshu managed Jiangdu, and through his hard work, he has indeed achieved a prosperous scene of political prosperity, harmonious people, and economic prosperity.However, not only was his political achievements not appreciated by Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, but he was offended and demoted because of Liu Fei, the king of Jiangdu. Dong Zhongshu wanted to use the Confucian theory of benevolence, righteousness, and morality to influence and restrain King Yi, but Liu Fei's martial temperament from childhood was far beyond what Dong Zhongshu could change with a few innocuous words.At that time, the relationship between the Han and the Huns deteriorated, and the Huns harassed the border of the Han Dynasty many times. Liu Fei, who was brave and martial, took the initiative to ask Ying many times to lead troops to attack the Huns, but Emperor Wu never agreed.Liu Fei made great military achievements in quelling the chaos of the Seven Kingdoms of Wu and Chu, and he has a group of brave and resourceful people under him, who have always posed a potential threat to the Han court.Usually, he doesn't buy Emperor Wu's account very much, and he has a taste of going his own way.In the fifth year of Yuanguang (130 BC), Liu Fei, the king of Yi, wrote to Emperor Wu again, requesting to send troops to attack the Xiongnu, so as to calm the long-standing resentment in the hearts of the Han people.Emperor Wu was very disgusted with his repeated interference in government affairs, but he couldn't do anything about it for a while, so he vented all his grievances on Dong Zhongshu's head: At the beginning, he had high hopes and sent you to be Jiangdu Prime Minister, didn't he just hope that he could rectify the situation? , Advise King Yi to follow the rules and be loyal to the court?Not only has King Ke Yi not changed, but he has even worsened. How did you become a prime minister? !As soon as Emperor Wu of the Han became angry, he removed Dong Zhongshu from his position as Prime Minister of Jiangdu, recalled him to Chang'an, and demoted him to Zhongdafu—an idle position without fixed responsibilities.

When Dong Zhongshu returned to Chang'an, he couldn't stay idle.Taking the emperor's salary, of course he had to work. Without specific government affairs, he passed on his set of "Spring and Autumn" political theory to the close ministers of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, King Wuqiu Shou and Prince Liu Sui, and others. Discussion and research on the combination of sheep theory and social and political practice. Dong Zhongshu was inspired by the "efficiency" activities of praying for rain and stopping rain, and generalized this way of thinking. Based on "Spring and Autumn", he connected natural emergencies with social political reality, and deduced each other. , mutual verification.Unexpectedly, he almost got killed because of this.

One night in the second year of Yuan Shuo (127 B.C.), Dong Zhongshu somehow remembered the fire incidents that occurred in the Gaomiao in Liaodong and the Gaoyuan side hall in Changling in the past few years. Taking this as an example, we used the theory of catastrophe in "Spring and Autumn" to analyze and deduce it.He believes that the reason for the extraordinary incident of the burning of the ancestral temple is that the government's long-standing abuses have not been eliminated, and the royal clan is arrogant and extravagant.The rescue measure is to uphold the will of God, clear up the government of the Ming Dynasty, and eradicate those who exercise authority inside and outside the court.He took notes while analyzing and reasoning, and even stayed up all night before writing a draft.Then he went outside, breathing in the fresh morning air, basking in the first light, and continued to ponder as he strolled.

Coincidentally, a colleague who had a close relationship with Dong Zhongshu, Zhu Fuyan, a Chinese doctor, came to visit him early in the morning.The servant asked the master's father to wait, so he couldn't help but walk slowly into Dong Zhongshu's study, glanced at the desk, and found a manuscript that had just been drafted.After taking a look, he couldn't help but be terrified by the content on it.Slightly calm, the father Yan, who had a villainous mentality, thought that his chance to make a fortune had finally come, so he secretly stuffed the draft of "Records of Disasters and Misfortunes" into his bosom and left without saying goodbye, and then secretly reported to the court to sue Dong Zhongshu.

After reading the draft, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty didn't want to deal with it rashly, so he came up with a perfect plan to urgently call on the virtuous men of the dynasty to circulate the draft for their opinions.The draft was neither signed nor transcribed, and the handwriting was random, making it difficult to distinguish who made it.When it was passed on to Dong Zhongshu's student Lu Bushu, he certainly didn't know that this "Tale of Disasters and Misfortunes" was written by his mentor, so he figured out the emperor's psychology and criticized the content, thinking that the author did not know the truth and made trouble on the surface. Quoting classics is actually a blasphemy and distortion of classics.Other scholars also unanimously echoed and agreed with Lu Bushu's attack.As a result, Dong Zhongshu was thrown into prison.In terms of the crimes of deceiving the public with deceitful words and slandering the superior by subordinates, according to the criminal law at that time, Dong Zhongshu could be sentenced to death.Later, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty issued an edict to pardon him because of his outstanding "Three Strategies of Heaven and Man".

Soon, Dong Zhongshu was reinstated and the official was restored to his original post.At this time, Liu Fei, the king of Jiangdu, passed away, and the new lord Liu Jian succeeded to the throne. Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty sent Dong Zhongshu back to Jiangdu to be the prime minister again to assist the young lord.Liu Jian has been doing a lot of evil since he was a child, and he didn't listen to Dong Zhongshu's advice and assistance at all.In order to learn the lesson of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty's anger last time, Dong Zhongshu took the initiative to ask for transfer and transfer to Jiaoxi Kingdom as his prime minister.Although Jiaoxi Wang Liu Duan was able to treat him kindly, the cooperation between the two was not pleasant.Later, Dong Zhongshu saw that Liu Duan was arrogant and tyrannical and plotting wrongdoing, but he couldn't turn it around. If he was not careful, he might cause death and family extinction.If you can't afford to provoke, you can afford to hide. Thinking of the ups and downs of the officialdom that has been with you all these years, Dong Zhongshu is already disheartened about his career in politics.So, he handed in his resignation to Emperor Wu and asked to return home.This year, he was seventy-seven years old. Dong Zhongshu’s political experience seems to have many similarities with Confucius. Confucius and his disciples encountered obstacles everywhere, and were often “entangled” by expulsion, siege and starvation; while Dong Zhongshu was not reused, and he could not get along with others wherever he went. , unable to get along harmoniously, and as a result, Kong had great ambitions and had to retire voluntarily.Strictly speaking, academics and politics are two horses running on different paths, and if Confucius and Dong Zhongshu insisted on pulling them together to create a "cooperating with each other", only academics will suffer in the end.Their embarrassing path to politics also proves that Confucianism and politics are out of date.However, they didn't understand the reason, and they only wanted to serve the king and the court.He was not successful in politics, and he pinned his hopes on the later Confucians. After Dong Zhongshu returned to his hometown in Chang'an, he "doesn't ask about his family's property, but focuses on studying and writing books."Different from his study and study of knowledge in his early years, Dong Zhongshu focused on writing in his later years, transcribing his life's research results and life crystallization into words. Most of his writings were written after he resigned from office and stayed at home.If Dong Zhongshu died of old age in the officialdom, the concluding texts that have been handed down to this day, such as "Chunqiu Fanlu", may have been "aborted" before they came out.From this point of view, scholars think that they are lucky if they don't meet. However, even after Dong Zhongshu was old, he still couldn't forget his career as an official.Among them, the sentences such as "time comes late, but goes quickly", "heart worries, unexpected rewards" and other sentences are the true expression of his inner feelings. Around the fifth year of Yuanfeng (106 BC), Dong Zhongshu died at home at the age of ninety, and finished a life that was both lively and lonely, rough and flat, great and sad.