Chapter 13 Chapter Thirteen Three Family Misfortunes in the Life of Confucius

Everyone knows that "losing a mother in childhood, widowing a spouse in middle age, and losing a son in old age" are the three major misfortunes in life. As everyone knows, Confucius, who was hailed by later generations as "one sage through the ages", almost collided with these three unbearable life full of heart. As we all know, Confucius is Confucius of the State of Lu. In fact, Confucius’ ancestral home was in the State of Song (the capital is now Shangqiu City, Henan Province).The State of Song was a vassal state entrusted by King Wu of Zhou to Wei Ziqi (the elder brother of King Shang Zhou), a nobleman of the Shang Dynasty who supported the Zhou regime, and Confucius was a descendant of the royal family of the Shang Dynasty.

The ancestors of Confucius moved from the State of Song to the State of Lu to escape political persecution, and settled in Zouyi (near Nishan, Qufu City, Shandong Province today).Confucius' father, Shulianghe, was an official in Suyi. He had made many military exploits and was famous among the princes for his bravery. According to "Confucius's Family Words", Shulianghe first married the daughter of the Shi family from the state of Lu, and gave birth to nine daughters but no son.Later, he married a concubine and gave birth to a son named Mengpi, but Mengpi was disabled and crippled.According to the requirements of the society at that time, such a son could not be "inherited".Therefore, Shu Lianghe in his later years married the young Yan Zhengzai again.

In 551 BC, Yan Zhengzai gave birth to Confucius for Shulianghe, but unfortunately, the elderly Shulianghe died when Confucius was three years old and was buried in Fangshan, Qufu. Life.But Confucius’ miserable fate did not end here. When he was about seventeen years old, his mother Yan Zhengzai also died of illness and left him, leaving him alone in the world where princes were fighting for hegemony and wars were raging. At the age of nineteen, Confucius, who had lived alone for two years, got married. His new wife was from the state of Song, and her surname was Qi Guan.In the second year, Qiguan gave birth to a son for Confucius. The then king Lu Zhaogong sent a carp to express his congratulations, so Confucius named his son Kongli, with the word Boyu.

It is a pity that Qi Guan is not the real confidant of Confucius.When choosing Confucius as her husband in the first place, it was due to his fancy. Qi Guan himself did not confess it, so of course we can only guess based on the later facts.Maybe at that time she thought that Confucius would rise to the top sooner or later, so she resolutely married Confucius, who was alone and helpless with both parents dead, but Confucius was really not that kind of official figure. At one o'clock, she had been suffering with Confucius for many years.When Qi Guan's belief in Confucius's ascension to the sky was finally shattered, she couldn't go on with this hard life, so she finally chose to leave.

It would be incorrect to say that Confucius was widowed in middle age, but Qi Guan’s departure should have hit Confucius as hard as the loss of his wife in middle age. He sighed helplessly to his children: "It's going to rain, mother is going to get married, let her go!" In 483 BC, Confucius, who had traveled around the world but made no achievements, returned to Lu State. At this time, he was already sixty-nine years old.Although Confucius still wanted to be in politics, he was still not appointed, so he had to continue teaching and educating people and sorting out documents.

In this year, Confucius encountered another great misfortune in his life—his son Kong Li passed away before him, and the pain of sending a white-haired man to a black-haired man will not be relieved because Confucius is a sage and sage , because after all, he is not a monk who left the world of mortals and cut off his six roots! Four years later, in 479 BC, the great and unfortunate Confucius died of illness in the State of Lu and was buried in the north of Lu City.Although Confucius was not able to escape the misfortune that ordinary people may encounter in life, he surpassed the ordinary people after his death and became a teacher for all ages and a sage through the ages.