Chapter 7 Constructing the historical view of blood reward

Interviewer: Mo Li Published time: November 2010 issue of Marie Claire magazine It has been ten years since the "hidden rules" were put forward, and since its reprint in 2009, the sales volume has exceeded 300,000. From no one knows to everyone knows, Wu Si has grasped the most secret and critical front line of the world with his precision and calmness.Ten years later, what did he discover?It took an afternoon to talk about it, and it turns out that these are all related to inner peace. The "Yanhuang Chunqiu" magazine on Yuetan West Street may be the only remaining old-fashioned editorial office of this era: there are books, magazines, and handwritten letters from all over the place, and the air has a stale smell of history, which is cool and humid.Wu Si was in the largest stack of papers, got up and waved to us, and poured water to make tea with an old-fashioned army green iron mesh thermos.This thermos bottle has long been extinct in the market, but it fits perfectly here.

53-year-old Wu Si has been sitting in this office for 13 years. In what may be the "oldest editorial department on earth" (the four consultants are all over 90 years old, the average age of the editorial board is around 80 years old, and the The average age was once more than 70 years old), he was still "Xiao Wu". "Xiao Wu" is known as "the most rational and calm scholar in contemporary China". When writing history, what he writes is not the overlapping of grand scenes, but cold calculations one by one, calculating the price of human life.In his view, there is nothing that cannot be accurately measured, including the most subtle and unpredictable sympathy and sense of justice in human nature.

His "hidden rules" system has been proposed for ten years, and it was republished in 2009. It has sold more than 300,000 copies so far, including more than 30,000 in Taiwan, and it has also been translated into Korean.The number of pages related to this newly coined word on Baidu has changed from zero to 54.3 million.There are 385,000 related pages for the relatively uncommon "blood reward".But fame, he said, "is a settled matter."He has been extremely patient throughout the afternoon, with the same tone and speed, like a pious preacher, in order for more people to hear his voice, he is working hard-he is working hard to build a "Blood Rewards History View Compound" ": There is a six-story building in the courtyard, which has just reached the fourth and a half floors.This is a huge project, and he doesn't know whether it will be completed in his lifetime, but he is still "ambitious": on that day, the blood-rewarded view of history will become the mainstream view of history; what he is doing is "a first-class career."

He waited for the great change to come. On Friday evening, it was raining lightly in Beijing.At the end of the interview, he insisted on sending us to the door, stood up straight, raised his right hand to ear height, and said goodbye. It is difficult to describe Wu Si clearly: an old-fashioned, gentle man; an ambitious, unabashed man; Eliminating unspoken rules is easy, as long as there is an independent judiciary, an open media, and full-time deputies to the people's congress. : The field of your thinking has been jumping, what kind of articles are you writing recently? I was talking about the market recently, and said "The Charcoal Seller", "Who are the two riders? The messenger in yellow and the white shirt. A cart of charcoal, more than a thousand catties, the palace envoy will not regret it. Half a horse of red silk and one zhang of silk, It is tied to the bull's head and filled with charcoal."There are four words under the title: "Bitter palace city also".The market is originally a voluntary and free trade, but "holding the document", reading a red-headed document, and giving some money can take the charcoal away.According to the prices at that time converted into RMB, "half a piece of red yarn and one zhang silk" was equivalent to 760 yuan; a cart of more than a thousand catties of charcoal was equivalent to more than 1,700 yuan.After reading a red-headed document, things worth more than 1,700 yuan were sold for 760 yuan, which is equivalent to a 45% discount.From the Tang Dynasty to today, the price share that power can afford is often around 50%.Borrowing Bai Juyi's words, I call the market where this kind of power intervenes as the palace market—the market where the imperial power intervenes; a version in the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty wrote this "gong market" as the official market, and the official power intervened.The Chinese market has been invaded by the government since ancient times. Only some local consumption links are the real market. Once it involves raw materials, the identity of craftsmen, the style of porcelain, and the different identities of buyers, it becomes complicated. It has been so far. For example, the financial industry restricts the entry of private capital; the state continues to take back mines, realizing the official monopoly, and more and more officials enter and the private sector withdraw.Every year, the Wall Street Journal and the Heritage Foundation evaluate the degree of freedom of economies around the world. Hong Kong ranks first for many years, and most European and American countries score around 80 points. China's score is 52 points, which is lower than the world average of 62 points.

Right now the hottest field where there is an official market should be the real estate market, right?The government has been introducing various policies in an attempt to moderate house prices, but the fact is that house prices have risen instead of falling. I haven't done a special investigation, try to analyze it.First of all, part of the real estate in the mainland is directly cut off by the power. Civil servants can not go to the market to buy a house. Until now, there is a disguised welfare housing distribution. With administrative power, a piece of land is cut off from the market, and then a company is used to build it with administrative power. Buildings, and then set a "reasonable" price, according to the size of the internal power distribution.

That part aside, even in the part that belongs to the market, the visible hand is large, long, and powerful. Theoretically speaking, housing prices in Beijing are so high and profits are so lucrative, so the supply should increase substantially to bring prices down.But this is not the case.The government used its power to control the land supply.Land resources have not been marketized, or in other words, land is still traded in the official market.To change the current situation of the real estate market, the most fundamental thing is to improve the purity of the market.Even if the government still uses its power to take away a large portion, if this large sum of money is used to build low-rent housing, it can also change the existing supply-demand relationship.In addition, many people buy houses to avoid the danger of inflation. If there are more investment channels in the market, including liberalizing private finance and diverting some funds, the relationship between supply and demand will also change, and high housing prices may not be so excessive.

What conditions are needed to eliminate unspoken rules?Or is it impossible to eliminate it domestically? It can be eliminated, as long as the cost of resistance of the victim of the unspoken rules is reduced - there is an independent judiciary, an open media and full-time people's congress representatives.For example, readers in Taiwan told me that the police in Taiwan used to do their utmost to blackmail, but after the Taiwan Liberal Party banned reporting, if the police bullied the people, the people would call the local MPs, and the MPs would mobilize the media. He happily knocked on the door.After a few twists and turns, the police became highly professionalized.In order to attract votes, the media will actively participate in this matter in order to gain attention. The design of this stake has reduced the cost of resistance for the public to just a phone call. Of course, there is nowhere to hide the unspoken rules.However, the mainland has not yet resolved this problem, including the recent law on deputies to the National People's Congress, which forces the deputies to the National People's Congress to only work part-time. If he receives complaints from the people, how can he have the time and interests to drive him to the door?If the public wants to resist the unspoken rules, they can only petition—the cost is simply insurmountable.If this pattern continues, the unspoken rules of corruption and bribery will only become more serious.

When it comes to cost, many people are wondering how you went from an idealist who believes that everyone should be selfless to a cold-looking "computational historian".In your writing, even the sense of justice has become something that can be measured by numbers. Conscience, compassion, and a sense of justice, all carry weight, and they often enter into the calculation of human behavior.Compassion and a sense of justice are something we are born with, and they are undoubtedly fixed in the brain. Compassion grows in an area called F5 in the central premotor cortex of the brain. That area has mirror neurons, which allow us to have "Compassion": Seeing you happy makes me happy too; seeing you being pricked by a needle makes me frown empathetically.Of course, you hurt ten points, and I may only hurt two points.The sense of justice grows in the putamen and caudate nucleus of the midbrain system, which is called the opium reward area. The opium reward area is responsible for all addictive behaviors. Why do you feel addicted to reading martial arts novels, because justice is done.This zone makes us angry about injustice and comforted by justice, even if we don't necessarily benefit from it individually.

Assuming that compassion and a sense of justice play a moderate role in our hearts, it counts as 30 points.Using thirst as an analogy, I am thirsty to 80 points, and you are thirsty to 90 points, should I drink this glass of water or give it to you?It depends on how thirsty I feel you are.You and I are old friends, I can feel your 40 points of thirst; you and I are strangers, I may only feel your 10 points.Although it can be seen from the external performance that you are thirsty to 90 points, I will choose to drink by myself.But when I drank this glass of water, my feeling of thirst was only 30 points, but my sympathy for you reached 40 points. According to the calculation result of neuron activation, sympathy began to urge me to give you the water.Guan Zhong said a long time ago: "The granary knows the etiquette, and the food and clothing are enough to know the honor and disgrace." The intensity of the spiritual functions of sympathy and justice is positively related to the degree of satisfaction of people's material needs.If we have food to eat and water to drink, and our hearts are not noisy but quite calm, the 30 points caused by sympathy will be very prominent, showing that you are knowledgeable and full of compassion; if you are hungry and cold, you can only grab food and drink. I can't show your courtesy and sympathy.This is actually computing that has always existed, and I'm just describing how it works.

How did you come up with the idea of ​​describing it with medical knowledge? I happened to see a book called "Neuron Economics", edited by Wang Dingding, using neurons to discuss economic issues, and immediately felt that I had found what I wanted.I have always wanted to build a building that pays back to the view of history. It is not a castle in the sky, but a strict historical and logical consistency.The starting point of history is the starting point of life, and it can be traced to neurons. Using neurons and other biological knowledge as the basis of the law of blood rewards puts the entire historical view on a solid scientific basis.

This starting point is very solid, but how do you explain those who sacrifice their lives for righteousness? There used to be an old gentleman in this office named Xu Kong, our vice president, who passed away not long ago.Xu Kong fought injustice for others, but he offended the leader and was labeled as a rightist. He received a quarter of his wages in the first 10 years of labor camp, and returned to his hometown to work in agriculture in the next 10 years without a cent.Suffering such a big loss, two months ago Mr. Xu published a book called "Speaking Out Without Regrets-My Rightist Career", and said he has no regrets.Just think about the weight of compassion and justice in his heart!There are indeed saints, and we have them here.But it must be admitted that the proportion of such people in the entire population is very low. Experimental economics has proved that the proportion of such people is quite fixed. No matter what era or environment, I can’t remember the exact number, but it seems to be less than 3%. We should face up to the way the majority behaves. "Most people" have sympathy and a sense of justice, but they will not sacrifice their lives for benevolence or sacrifice their lives for righteousness. They are mainly self-interested, not altruistic.Acknowledging this fact requires changes in the design of both economic policies and political systems. I think you have two things that stand out from the environment. One is your writing style. You used to be in "Farmer's Daily" and now in "Yanhuang Chunqiu". The whole writing environment is quite serious, but your book is very relaxed. . In 1996, I was unemployed and wanted to write a novel at home. I wrote thirty or forty novels with wrong beginnings, so I wanted to find something simple to do, which was to write history.Because I have read a lot of history books before, it is very easy to write, with a little irony - a mockery of myself, a mockery of this era.I sympathize with Emperor Chongzhen with all my heart, but my education is all about class struggle. How can I sympathize with the emperor?Such a contradiction can only be laughed at.Looking back now, I have jumped out of the mainstream view of history at that time, and when I laughed at myself, I was actually laughing at a certain ideology.This is a very safe strategy. Every one of our actions is connected with the process of history, which satisfies people's natural benevolence, righteousness, morality and conscience, and makes them feel at ease at the moment. What new developments have you made in your view of blood reward history? First of all, the "law of blood reward" has a more precise definition, and then use the two tools of unspoken rules and the law of blood reward to analyze Chinese society. It is believed that people who eat blood rewards form a violent group, or a group of destructive forces, which can restrain productivity. Development, productivity can develop smoothly only when it is contained. This constitutes a new view of history, which I call "blood pays history view". If you use it to look at the evolution of Chinese dynasties, you will see the changes since the Qin and Han dynasties. The society is not a feudal society, but a society of "officialism". After the violent group takes over the country, they select a group of officials to be their agents. They hold great power and form a "official group"; not only politically , the economy is also the same, for example, there has always been a government market, and there is also a non-governmental miscellaneous economy.The government took the best things away, and the remaining large bowls of rough porcelain were taken by the people as treasures and fought with violence, forming barriers and the entire market was torn apart.In this way, a hybrid economy with both official violence and civil violence has been formed in Chinese history. This is a few more steps I have taken in terms of social formation, from the political state to the economic state, and I want to go further down, which is to enter the ideological field.Now China’s ideology is no longer Mao Zedong Thought, and Confucianism’s benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom and faith, and the Three Cardinal Guidelines and Five Constant Principles have long been abandoned. It seems that Confucianism is revived, but New Confucianism has not really gained popularity; some trends of thought imported from the West, such as liberalism, are becoming more and more influential. But it has not taken root and is not in line with Chinese history. I think the fourth step is to find a core value. It is the natural development of Confucian benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom and faith, and it has smoothly reached the current liberalism, turning imported products into One that has roots in China. Does it go up to the level of belief? Yes, Chinese people’s beliefs are lacking at present. Can we find a comprehensive thing that incorporates the "law of heaven" mentioned by the Chinese, the historical laws of Marxism-Leninism, and the God of the West, so that people will feel ashamed when they mention it? There is a sense of awe.I thought about a lot of words, saying it is "God", but most Chinese people don't believe it; calling it Tianli, this word has been ruined; finally I found a word that Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism agree on: creation.It can be used for rewards and punishments, and good will be rewarded with good, and evil will be rewarded with evil; secondly, it is well-known to the Chinese and has spirituality. When it comes to cause and effect, it seems to be very close to Buddhism. Confucianism also talks about karma.For example, the head of the Five Classics believes that "a family that accumulates goodness must have lingering celebrations, and a family that accumulates bad things must have surviving disasters"; Confucius also directly talked about the relationship of retribution, "Repay virtue with virtue, and repay grievances with straightness." , I think this is a particularly appropriate relationship between gain and pay.In this way, "good fortune" is the highest arbiter and rewarder and punisher. It can accommodate the principles of heaven, geography, physics and human psychology. concepts connected. So how should modern people understand the word "creation"? The first is to believe that there must be retribution for good and evil, and even if you escape, the group you belong to will also bear the result of this retribution.On a deeper level, external authority is not important, the most important thing is the feeling in your heart.If you fear nature's punishment, even doing good deeds is nothing but slavery; if you desire nature's rewards, even doing good deeds is close to flattery.The code of conduct instilled in people by nature should be: you do good because of the natural sympathy and sense of justice endowed by nature, which satisfies your requirements for sympathy and justice, and doing good itself is the reward.At that time, everyone no longer has to worry about the meaning, and feels at ease now.In addition, every day we are counseling good fortune, every act is connected with the process of history, and the external meaning is also very full. Don't be second-rate, you should do first-rate things every time. There are many people who write history now, what do you think of these people who write history by telling stories?For example, Huang Renyu, Yi Zhongtian, Ten Years of Chopping Firewood, Tang Degang and so on. Huang Renyu had a great influence on me. His writing method is a bit like "Historical Records", using several characters to spell out the unique scenes of that era. Reading it at the time made me feel refreshed.However, his writing style and images are greater than his thoughts, making readers feel as if they know people of that era after reading, but they can't say anything.I have read some of Yi Zhongtian’s books, and in terms of those parts, I think he tells wonderful stories, and he is not purely a storyteller, he has ideals and thoughts; chopping firewood for ten years has a historical pursuit, and I have read it His "Talking about the Water Margin", I think he is more sensitive to the historical analysis framework; Tang Degang's "Seventy Years of the Late Qing Dynasty", I read the first 1/3, and the insights are naturally good, but I feel that he has a strong sense of ridicule. Stylistically, it's slightly uncomfortable. What does writing history mean to you?In fact, there are not many people who really learn about history through "Historical Records". Most people learn about history through current books about history. Can you also do some popular historical writing? Writing history means a new discovery to me.I only write when I find something new and at the same time relevant to the present.I especially enjoy writing with new discoveries. I don’t know the end after I write the beginning, and new scenes appear in front of my eyes constantly along the way. The writing is full of dragons and tigers. The word "Wen Si Quan Chung" is relatively weak, and it is not enough to describe the autonomy and logic of the article. Surprise.To the end, often quite different from what was envisioned, full of creative surprises along the way. When you talk about popular writing, if ten out of a hundred people can write historical stories well, there may only be two who can find new discoveries from history.Since I can do some things that others can't do well, don't spend time on things that many people can do well.Time is so tight, you can't do second-rate things, you should do first-rate things every time. So what effect do you want your discovery to achieve?Imagine if you stood a hundred years later, how would you judge your current work? To put it ambitiously, it is to construct a new and more accurate view of history and use it to replace the current mainstream view of history.To put it figuratively, I want to build a large courtyard called "Historical View of Blood Remuneration". There is a six-story house in the courtyard, and it has now been built to four and a half floors.After the building is finished, it has to be decorated, and I don't know if I can finish it in my life. If you stand a hundred years later, you will probably see it more clearly: I am one of those people-they used to be extreme "left" elements, and after experiencing serious setbacks, they began to look for a new direction, the process of finding It is also a hammer in the east and a stick in the west, but they have seen some correct directions. The core is to face the truth as it is and not be affected by any dogma. They found some rules, and then went astray, trying to build a new dogma, but before a new dogma was erected, some of the things they did were of value to posterity. An interview article mentioned that in the Hong Kong subway, you asked others if they found their home, and what is their home?You said that destination is the sense of stability that you can live seriously. Hong Kong has it, but you haven't found it yet.I think Chinese literati have always attached great importance to this sense of belonging, especially intellectuals of your generation, who have a particularly high density of life experience. What do you think of the ultimate meaning of life? Our generation has experienced a lot, and finally found that the most important thing is whether "I" likes it and whether it can really solve its own problems.Even I am constantly frustrated, have to write examinations from time to time, and dance in shackles. Others seem to think that my life is very miserable, but I think this life is very suitable for me, because I danced smoothly and danced perfectly in shackles. , I can become a first-rate dancer. If everyone takes off their shackles and dances, I will become a third-rate dancer. I use all my knowledge to deal with this environment, and I also know that this environment will provide me with both internal and external meanings. In the past, many people pursued external meanings, which is good, but external things are often unreliable and out of your control.Confucianism has some solutions to this problem.Back then Lu Xun said that he saw generations of people who were very aggressive when they were young, but they all went to Confucianism in the end.I also didn't understand it, but later I found that the core concept of Confucianism lies in inner satisfaction: the destiny is called nature, and the will is called Tao.Zhang Zai's "Xi Ming" is considered to be the most wonderful passage of Confucianism to express the world view, "Qian is called father, Kun is called mother, and I am here to despise Yan, which is in the middle of chaos." Heaven and earth are parents, and I am in the middle. "The people are my compatriots; things are with me." The people are my compatriots, and all things are my kind. Finally, I said: "If I survive, I will go along with it. If I don't, I will rather."When I am alive, I will follow the trend and do what fate or nature tells me to do; when I am dead, I will die steadily.When a person lives to this extent, he has really found his destination.