Chapter 9 5. Painful choice

In the blink of an eye, at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Dong Zhuo was already 52 years old. The hero is old, and he is no longer the heroic style of the past. Just when Dong Zhuo was bathing in blood and performing a tragic heroic epic, the bohemian Cao Cao grew up and became even more tasteless. Relying on his father's power, the young Cao Cao became a partner with Yuan Shao, doing evil all day long and doing all kinds of bad things.One day when these two evil young men went out, they saw a family getting married. Guess what these two guys did?Holding knives at night, they jumped into other people's yards and hijacked the bride.

After the two of them had done bad things to the bride, they ran away in a hurry, but Yuan Shao panicked when he fled, and rushed into the bushes.As the Buddhist scriptures say, the suffering in life is like thorns, if the heart does not move, it will not be bitter, and if the heart moves, it must be stabbed.Yuan Shao, who fell into the thorn bushes, truly experienced this philosophy.He was in the middle of the thorns, and he was fine if he didn't move. When he moved his body, he was immediately pricked by the thorns and burst into tears. It's so sad now, seeing that he is about to catch up, but what should I do?

In desperation, the young Cao Cao yelled, "Come on, the gangster who raped the bride is here..." Hearing the shout, Yuan Shao was anxious, fearing that someone would catch him and beat him to death, he unexpectedly got out from the thorn bushes with a "chuckle".The chasers came after hearing the sound, but the two bad guys had already climbed over the wall and fled. This story, for some unknown reason, is not quoted in the Book, but it is recorded in the Older Book.The author tells this story to show the extraordinary wit of the young Cao Cao, but what we see is Cao Cao's unsightly character.

So a thorny problem was placed in front of us. There are two people here: one is born in a poor family, a young man who is a hero in the world, serves the country regardless of pay, is considerate to the soldiers, does not take any rewards, and shares them with his subordinates; The second generation of eunuchs who entered the house and robbed the bride were evil young men. If you had to choose between these two, which one would you choose? If you don't know that the first one is Dong Zhuo and the second one is Cao Cao, there is no doubt about this choice.But you know now that your choice may become difficult and painful.

The pain of choice comes from our obscure understanding of human nature. Usually, our understanding of human nature tends to be on the bright side.It is believed that human nature tends to be kind, bright, and altruistic.That's exactly what Dong Zhuo thought, so he was a young knight-errant, and he didn't hesitate to kill the only farm cattle in his family to entertain his friends.For the sake of the country and the people, he paid and sacrificed without any remuneration, without complaint or regret.This kind-hearted character brought success to his life, won the appreciation of the court and gained power.

The power of the empire is not subject to any supervision, and it only needs to be responsible to the superior.As far as Dong Zhuo is concerned, when he discovered that power can bring him a lot of pleasure, before he paid too much without any reward because he knew nothing about power, his psychology suddenly lost his balance. At this time, Dong Zhuo will find that he has been deceived by others, that he was deceived to bleed and sacrifice, while the person who deceived him is clinging to the wings of power, enjoying his life wantonly.Why?Why is it Dong Zhuo who pays, but someone else enjoys it?

Once this thought is moved, it will never be restored. After that, Dong Zhuo was no longer the heroic spirit of the past, especially when he was 52 years old and lost the battle with the Yellow Turban Army, was punished by the court, and his duties were exhausted, his psychology was even more unbalanced. I have shed so much blood and sacrificed so much, and I have not listened to a fair evaluation from you people.It was just a small defeat, and I was dismissed from office.From now on, if I become stupid again and work my life for you for nothing, my surname will not be Dong! The dark power in human nature firmly grasped Dong Zhuo.This legendary chivalrous man in his boyhood is rapidly moving towards his opposite.

On the other hand, Cao Cao is a master of human nature.He knows that there is a good side and an evil side in human nature. The good side needs to be persisted, and the seductive power of evil cannot be exaggerated.Only when a person has experienced many temptations in his youth and knows what these temptations are, will he not be easily tempted when he becomes an adult. The more impoverished a person is, the less he has tasted power, the easier it is to be seduced as an adult.On the contrary, if you have tasted these temptations, the pleasure brought by dark temptations will decrease, which objectively increases your ability to resist temptations.

But you can’t say too much about this principle, let alone explain it too clearly and thoroughly.You made it so clear that young children all use this as an excuse to ignore their studies and ask to taste temptation first, so what should we do? Not to mention ordinary people, even Liu Bei Liu Xuande with big ears.When the 36-year-old Dong Zhuo was galloping on the battlefield, Liu Bei was already 7 years old. This little thing with hands hanging over his knees pointed to the big tree in front of his house and said: "When I become emperor in the future, I will use this big tree When my canopy..."

Even the 7-year-old Liu Bei knows how wonderful the taste of the emperor is, but you want the adult Dong Zhuo to resist this temptation, how is this possible?