Chapter 20 Wang Mang, God of Public Relations Management

Wang Mang and his short-lived empire have always been cast aside by those who study history as losers. However, the most important reason why these people have prejudices and ignore many magical aspects of Wang Mang's political career is that they all have a deep-rooted The so-called "authentic" concept: Although these people live in modern times, they still have the remnants of the Han and Tang "principal families" at their core. Not long after the government was restructured, even if the country was declared subjugated, it would be considered incompetent. Therefore, from any aspect, Wang Mang is a complete bad guy and a loser.If you insist on learning something from him, you can only use the phrase "take history as a mirror" to put him in the team that provides lessons so that later generations will not repeat the same mistakes.

In fact, judging from Wang Mang's personal struggle experience, he is by no means as unbearable as the ordinary white-collar workers imagined.Wang Mang has extensive knowledge, loves the ancients and respects learning, and he is a true Confucian student. Therefore, he can be said to be the only intellectual in history who seized power and sat on the throne of the emperor.Everyone remembers the famous saying of "his old man": if a scholar rebels, he will fail in three years.The example of Wang Mang is a counter-evidence to this famous saying.Mr. Wang Mang, as a powerless ink-drinking scholar, did not rely on a palace coup or a mutiny. He took the path of peaceful rise. Not only did he succeed in seizing power, but the process was so gentle and elegant. Without losing the elegance, in our opinion today, it can only be described as "beautiful" or "cool".

From the Spring and Autumn Period, the Warring States Period to the Qin Dynasty, the political arena has always been a market of free competition, or a bus without a conductor, whether it is a gangster or a lord, whoever it is Whoever can do it will go, and whoever can squeeze in is a hero.So in the past few hundred years of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States, although there were too many competitors and the rules were messed up, just like the current youth idol dramas, although it is an obvious departure from the traditional drama theory, a few pure idols have no strength at all. Just as some people fiddled with each other and made a lot of noise, the free market-like political stage has always been very lively.Lao Zhuang, Confucius and Mencius, the spiritual godfather of our Chinese people, stepped onto the stage of history at that time and became famous.During this period of time, there were even too many great people, so that some good people felt that they were not good enough because they were squeezed out, and they only hated that they could not be born a few hundred years later.

But in the Han Dynasty, since the Western Han Dynasty accepted Dong Zhongshu’s suggestion of “abolishing Confucianism” and adopted the way of Confucius and Mencius as the way of governing the country, the historical process of Chinese politics took a big turn and embarked on a strange road.Only by learning the ways of Confucius and Mencius can one be an official, which is equivalent to assigning a conductor to the political bus. Everyone can no longer squeeze in with their own strength as before, but has to queue up to check tickets and get on the bus. This point is somewhat similar to the so-called management knowledge that we are most happy to discuss today, or to enlarge it a little bit, all the knowledge of economics is mentioned in various ways in various media.And this knowledge, especially the knowledge about business management, basically all comes from the West, because they have a much longer capitalist era than ours, and have a longer experience of capitalists exploiting (in today's words, management) workers , also has a more complete research theory system, so the business management theory from the West dominates the world, and consulting companies such as McKinsey, with the attitude of a master, brandish a big stick and look down upon the world.

However, the situation in China is exactly equivalent to the Warring States period before Dong Zhongshu appeared. Although a hundred schools of thought contend, none of them can stand out and prove that their theories are the most practical, correct, and able to lead enterprises to the road of long-term stability.Therefore, Western academic representatives like McKinsey have become the protagonists of the following story in China: One day, a farmer was driving a flock of sheep on the grassland. He met a man and said to him, "I can tell you how many sheep are in your flock." He used satellite positioning technology and new network technology to send the information to the database at the headquarters... Moments later, he told the farmers that there were 1,460 sheep in total.

The farmer nodded in agreement.He then asked the farmer to give him a sheep as a reward, and the farmer agreed. But the farmer said, "If I could tell you which company you belong to, can you give me back the sheep?" The man nodded. "You're from McKinsey & Company," said the farmer. The man was surprised and asked how the farmer knew. The farmer said: "Three reasons are enough for me to know that you belong to McKinsey & Company: 1. I didn't invite you, so you came to the door by yourself; 2. You told me something I already knew, and you still charged me; 3. , I can see at a glance that you don't understand our business at all, and what you are holding is not a sheep at all, but a shepherd dog."

Wang Mang is like the farmer in the story. He has no awe for a dominant ideology. He examines it and studies it. After seeing through the essence of this ideology, he knows how to use it. Viewpoint, serve yourself. According to the new logic of Confucius and Mencius that "he is good and I am good", we must pay attention to "gentleness, courtesy and thrift". That is to say, if you want to get on the bus, you have to wait in line; According to the standard of qualified passengers, you have to give up your seat to the people behind you.If we visualize this logic, we will see that at a bus stop, everyone pushes the people behind them to the front, and squeezes themselves back.This image is a bit strange, but it is not unreasonable and groundless. If you recall the chaotic scene of us Chinese rushing to sit at the wine table, we will understand that in the Han Dynasty, people That's how it behaves, it's a bit too good, it's a bit unreasonable.

Wang Mang read the Tao of Confucius and Mencius since he was a child, and understood the essence of it. He immediately understood that in the politics of the Han Dynasty under the rule of Confucianism and Mencius, the political power field had reversed. official.Moreover, Wang Mang's excellence lies in that he did not stop at this theorem, but made a bold inference based on it: If everyone adheres to the logic of "gentleness, courtesy and frugality", the person who is at the end of the line Most likely to be the first ones in the car!Let's call it the "Wang Mang Conjecture".

Throughout most of his political career, Wang Mang has spared no effort to prove his bold conjecture, and proved himself right.Among us Chinese, those of a certain age know the "Goldbach conjecture". It was proposed by a foreigner, and Chen Jingrun spent many years of work, but he couldn't confirm it in the end. It seems that it is only a short distance away from 1+1. One step away is actually still separated by thousands of mountains and rivers on the 1+2, looking at the ocean and sighing.Although Wang Mang's conjecture was not as difficult as Goldbach's, it was bold enough to risk his own life or the future he regarded as his life.

But from another perspective, according to the principle of putting politics in command, Wang Mang’s conjecture should be included in the category of political philosophy and mathematical logic. Using himself as a test subject, he confirmed his conjectures one by one on his future political path, which shows what a remarkable genius Wang Mang is. Today, Wang Mang is not only the one who used his wit to get back his own The sheep did not embarrass the old farmer of McKinsey, he will become the first Chinese president of McKinsey! Geniuses are always born in the right soil. Even if the most beautiful roses bloom on the wrong planet, only a sad and bourgeois little prince can appreciate them, and they cannot achieve great things.Wang Mang's aunt, Wang Zhengjun, married the Liu family and later became the Empress Dowager.From then on, the Wang family became prominent: Wang Mang’s uncles and uncles were all enshrined as marquises, but Wang Mang’s father, Wang Man, was the only one among the eight brothers who was not enshrined as marquises because of his early death. The last stream, that is, the tail of the long snake team of politics.

According to the description in Li, although Wang Mang was related to the royal family when he was young, he was quite "humble" compared with other relatives.If you were an ordinary person, maybe you wouldn’t think much about it, or relying on a certain powerful uncle to bully the market and snatch the women from the people, just like the yamen that often appear in those classical novels, or just whining, cynical, lamenting that I was born with a talent Useless.But Wang Mang was a good student since he was a child. He was familiar with the classics of Confucius and Mencius, coupled with his genius understanding, he found a bright road out of the bleak prospects.This shows that reading is still very useful. Now some self-proclaimed so-called management masters and workplace experts, in the first chapter of his book, tell readers in a simple and intriguing way that, judging from his research results, top students who graduated from prestigious schools can only be institutionalized. Internal talents develop slowly in a relatively rigid system that lags behind the changes of the times, while low talents are much more likely to become wealthy talents. Because reform needs to break the rules, only bad students have great achievements .And the classic argument used by the master to prove his theory that reading is useless is to listen to the stories of Gates and Dell who broke the cocoon.But I don’t know if the so-called master is aware of an obvious problem, that is, how big is the IQ gap between those who are admitted to Harvard and those who do not go to Harvard, and those who go to a day university at their own expense.I believe that the theory that reading is useless is only a unique social phenomenon that appeared in the early days of reform and opening up when the social situation was still unstable. The more books you read, the less money you will make, that is just futile. Fortunately, in Wang Mang's era, although it is not known whether anyone wrote inspirational books, it seems that no one misled readers under the banner of an expert.So while Wang Mang continued to study, he summed up his Wang Mang conjecture, and made up his mind to realize the great conjecture buried in his heart: he was a three-good student when he was a child—the three here is a false finger, and the three good means everything is good—he He is humble, polite, thrifty and hardworking. He worships celebrities as his teachers, studies with an open mind, and studies scriptures hard.Although his father died young, he still left his widowed mother and sister-in-law as filial piety, and he was also responsible for educating the children of his deceased brother.Wang Mang also made many friends, and he couldn't let go of his uncles and uncles who held power in the government. He respected them even more than their own sons.In 22 BC, Wang Mang's uncle, Wang Feng, who was also a political tycoon of the court at that time, was ill and recuperated at home. Wang Mang served him for several months and basically never left. He tasted the medicine himself so as not to burn his uncle. He undressed and rested, so that in the end, his body smelled bad, his hair and beard were messy, and he looked like a wild dog.This made Wang Feng extremely moved. Wang Mang's hard work was not in vain. When Wang Feng was dying, he asked the Empress Dowager and Emperor Cheng to appoint Wang Mang as an official post, and both the Empress Dowager and Emperor Cheng agreed.Soon, Wang Mang became Huang Menlang. Although the official rank was very low, it was an official position next to the emperor, and there were many opportunities for promotion.Sure enough, it didn't take long for Emperor Cheng to promote Wang Mang to be a captain of Shesheng, with a rank of two thousand stones, which is equivalent to a local sheriff, and his official position is already very high.At this time, Wang Mang was only 24 years old, from an "outstanding youth" to a promising young cadre. In 16 BC, another focus of Wang Mang's work, his uncle Chengdu Hou Wangshang requested that his household be entrusted to Wang Mang.At the same time, many celebrities also jointly signed a letter, praising Wang Mang's character and talent (making friends has achieved results).Emperor Cheng of the Han Dynasty followed suit and granted Wang Mang the title of Marquis of the new capital, with 1,500 households in Shiyi, and was promoted to the servant of Doctor Guanglu, the captain of cavalry.Captain Qi is a military officer, while Dr. Guanglu is a civil servant, who can participate in major affairs of the government. As for the servant, he can even serve the emperor.It is estimated that such an arrangement, just like the comprehensive training of cadres today, is a preparation for future promotion. At this time, Wang Mang was only in his thirties, so he should be considered at the forefront of the political ranks, and he was quite satisfied.But people have inertia, just like a habitual criminal who can't help but do it again after being released. It is also difficult to stop the car when you are used to being a "good person", a student who is a good student, an outstanding youth, a model worker, etc. of.After people get used to "carrying", not "carrying" will make them feel uncomfortable.He is more humble, more filial, more frugal, and more "renrui".He continued to make friends with celebrities, "mingled with" all the ministers, and often distributed his family wealth to help poor guests. This shows that being a "good person" has benefits, and it is a huge benefit.Especially the Han Dynasty under the shadow of Confucius and Mencius.From the emperor to the common people, who doesn't want to choose a good person to be in charge of the government?Wang Mang measures the subtlety of the pulse of society and sees the essence of things. Wang Mang's self-packaging was so successful that his early political career went smoothly.Soon, Wang Gen, the uncle of General Ren Da Sima, recommended Wang Mang to replace him as regent.In 8 BC, Emperor Cheng promoted Wang Mang to Da Sima.At this time, Wang Mang was less than forty years old. After Wang Mang became an important minister, he continued to maintain his low-key and overly good image. He recruited virtuous people to serve as officials, and distributed all the money rewarded by the emperor to everyone, but he was extremely frugal.Not only did he demand this from himself, but he also strictly restrained his family members.Once, his mother was ill, and the ministers asked their wives to visit the mansion one after another. Wang Mang's wife also came to greet him outside the door, but because she was dressed so plainly and frugally, she was regarded as a servant of the Wang Mansion's family by all the wives.The history books have doubts about the model he made, because after he took power and became emperor, he was no longer so frugal, but became extravagant.In the ritual book "Zhou Guan", there are "six palaces" and "nine concubines, world wives, and female imperial concubines". There are a total of 117 concubines, making their inner curtains like an Arab harem.Maybe there are some special problems behind this glorious image of Wang Mang, such as lust.When he was the chief Sima, someone discovered that he secretly bought a pretty female slave while dressing his family in tattered clothes. When they questioned him, he said without changing his face that such-and-such The general has not had a child for many years, and he has no offspring all year round. Yunyun, which I bought to give to him at this time, smoothed over this matter. Wang Mang is a good person cautiously, but he is also like a duck swimming, calm on the surface, but the two little feet underneath are clinging tightly. His biggest competitor at the time was Chun Yuchang.Chun Yuchang was a Wei Wei and a servant, and he was very favored in front of Emperor Cheng, and he was greatly trusted and reused.Chunyu Chang's methods of currying favor were no less than Wang Mang's. He made friends with princes, state shepherds, and prefects abroad, and the money they bribed him and the rewards given by the emperor accumulated huge amounts.But he indulged in sensuality all day long, and was so bold as to sexually harass Empress Xu in the palace.Wang Mang was jealous of Chunyu Chang's favor, so he secretly inquired about his bad things.When Wang Mang was taking care of Quyang Hou Wanggen's illness, he took the opportunity to say ("Shuo" is called "Bai" in historical books): "Chunyu Chang was very happy to see the general who had been ill for a long time. He thought that he should replace the general and assist the government. He even talked about appointing officials and setting up offices to literati and nobles." Then he told Chunyu Chang's crimes one by one. Wang Gen said angrily: "If there is such a thing, why didn't you tell me!" Wang Mang said: "I don't know what the general is thinking, so I dare not say it." Wang Gen said: "Go and tell the Queen Mother!" ("Qubai East Palace!") Wang Mang asked to see the queen mother, and told in detail that Chunyu Changjiao was extravagant and obscene, wanted to replace Quyanghou, had an affair with the sister of the deposed queen Xu, and received bribes such as Xu's clothes.The queen mother also said angrily: "This child is so presumptuous! Go and sue the emperor!" ("Go, Emperor Bai!") Wang Mang also reported to Emperor Cheng. Because Chunyu Chang was a relative of the Empress Dowager, Emperor Cheng dismissed him from his official position, but he was not punished and sent him back to the feudal state.In this way, Wang Mang "white" came and went "white", and wiped out his opponent. However, the ranks of the officialdom do not always proceed in an orderly and logical manner. Under the affectionate veil of "gentleness, respectfulness and thriftiness", there will always be another set of activities similar to street fights.In political infighting, Wang Mang once squeezed his political opponents such as Chun Yuchang away, and was once unable to do so, and was once defeated.In 7 BC, Emperor Cheng died, but Emperor Cheng had no son. As a result, Liu Xin, the grandson of Emperor Yuan, came to the throne, who was Emperor Ai of Han.In order to stabilize the government, the Queen Mother asked Wang Mang to resign from office. So Wang Mang repeatedly asked the emperor to resign, and finally got permission.Wang Mang then lived idle in the capital for two years. During this period, the emperor specially sent Zhonghuangmen to Wang Mang's house for errands.Every ten days, give a meal.The emperor issued another edict to increase the beneficiary households under Wang Mang's name.Moreover, although Wang Mang has lost his official position, he can meet the emperor on the 1st and 15th of every month, and the etiquette during the meeting is the same as that of Sangong. Two years later, Wang Mang finally left the capital and returned to his fief in Nanyang.This must be a big failure for Wang Mang. He lost his official position and stayed away from the emperor. It was worse than being sent back to the end of the political echelon, simply being squeezed out of the team.No matter how good the emperor was to him, it was impossible for him to come to Nanyang to meet him on the first and fifteenth of every month.Wang Mang, according to Beijingers, just stood there to cool off. But Wang Mang did not get depressed. One very important reason was that he firmly believed that this was only a temporary arrangement, because he had "someone in the center", and the existence of his aunt Wang Zhengjun, who was also the Empress Dowager, provided the conditions for his reinstatement.Therefore, Wang Mang is paving the way for his future in the long run while resting.He is more courteous to celebrities and has more extensive contact with various forces.At the same time, he summed up his experience and lessons, probably revising and perfecting his own queuing theory.He realized that he must respond flexibly in the process of climbing up the political echelon.When he was at the bottom of the ranks, because he didn't have much power, he didn't pose a threat to others, and he was a good person, a role model, a model, and an outstanding youth, so everyone was willing to pull him forward.But once he stood at the front of the team, at the high end of the political ecological chain, the wrestling and killing between people became cruel.Here, the principle of "gentle, courteous, courteous and thrifty" has been reversed.Wang Mang understood that the heights are extremely cold, and to keep the position of Da Sima, it is not enough to be a good person, one has to improve one's combat effectiveness. During this period, Wang Mang's son killed a slave. This was not a big deal at the time, because the law stipulates that the master has the right to life and death against the slave. Make your son commit suicide.To be fair, being Wang Mang's family member is really unfortunate, because this guy can send his wife and children to the guillotine for political future at every turn.In contrast, it is a piece of cake to be treated as a domestic slave if you don't have enough food or clothing.Wang Mang not only killed this son, but later, he also killed the eldest son Wang Yu.Wang Yu was afraid that he would be retaliated against in the future and opposed Wang Mang's suppression of other dignitaries, so he wanted to create a strange phenomenon to intimidate his father so that he would be afraid.Wang Yu asked people to smear Wang Mang's house with blood at night, but unfortunately, the gatekeeper found out. Wang Mang arrested Wang Yu and sent him to prison, where he died of poison.Wang Yu's wife, Lu Yanzheng, was pregnant and imprisoned. She was killed after giving birth to a child.It is said that "the next generation is relatives", the grandfather should love the grandson more.But later, after Wang Mang became the emperor, his grandson secretly made the emperor's clothes by himself, and used the emperor's addiction at home, but he killed him immediately after he found out. Wang Mang's "righteous extermination of relatives" was so smooth that his relatives were very politically aware.Si Wei and Chen Chong reported: Wang Guang, the son of Wang Mang's elder brother, bought a murderer and killed him. Wang Mang was furious and severely reprimanded him.When Wang Guang returned home, his mother said to him, "How do you compare yourself to Wang Yu?" Are you closer than your own son?After saying that, the girls committed suicide very consciously! Wang Mang actually did not stay in Nanyang for too long, because many ministers in the capital interceded for this well-recognized good man and asked to restore his official position.It just so happened that there was another solar eclipse this year.A solar eclipse was a scary thing in ancient times. Humans didn't know its principle, so they regarded it as an expression of God's anger and glaring, a sign that the whole country would be punished.Therefore, once a solar eclipse occurs, it means that the emperor's political affairs and central policies have made mistakes, and the result has angered God.Even Han Gaozu Empress Lv was such a ruthless person. When she ruled the country and her rule was quite stable, a solar eclipse came, and she immediately reviewed it, thinking that what she did was against the harmony of heaven, so God made the next day. Shi came to reprimand her and remind her.Emperor Ai couldn't bear what Queen Lu was afraid of, so this time it became a good excuse for the ministers who interceded for Wang Mang.Emperor Ai of the Han had no choice but to issue an edict to recall Wang Mang to the capital. One year after Wang Mang returned to Beijing, Emperor Ai of the Han Dynasty died, and he had no son. As a result, Wang Mang became the assistant minister of the new emperor Han Ping with the support of his aunt, the Empress Dowager, and returned to the political circle easily. This made Wang Mang greatly increase his confidence in his theory, and at the same time his political appetite has quietly expanded... Wang Mang began to operate his own image project on another level.In the spring of one year, Wang Mang hinted at the local officials in Yizhou and ordered the barbarians outside the Great Wall to call themselves the Yueshang tribe and present a white pheasant and two black pheasants to the emperor.Wang Mang reported the matter to the Empress Dowager, and suggested that the Empress Dowager issue an edict to sacrifice the ancestral temple with white pheasants.So the officials praised Wang Mang's merits and virtues, thinking that he was "like the auspiciousness of the white pheasant obtained by Zhou Gong Ji Dan. Ji Dan was called "Zhou Gong" when he was alive, so Wang Mang should also be given the name "An Han" Duke', and increase his fief households, commensurate with the title of duke." The Yue Chang clan, according to later research, is a tribe that existed in southern Vietnam.Vietnam has been covered by tropical jungles since ancient times. Even during the Vietnam War, the Americans frantically sprinkled "Agent Orange" and only wiped out one-sixth of Vietnam's tropical jungles.It can be seen that the geographical conditions of Vietnam are complex.What's more, the Han Dynasty was two thousand years ago. It is estimated that the so-called Yueshang clan was still a small tribe isolated in the dense jungle. It is said that the people who came to offer pheasants communicated with the Han people through several translations.We have to marvel at Wang Mang's knowledge of such a wealth of archaeological and anthropological knowledge. Even by today's standards, he is really a great scholar.This also shows that no amount of knowledge will become a burden-if you use the place. The empress dowager ordered Wang Mang to be named "An Han Gong", and the tortuous process in the middle was also annoying.At the beginning, Wang Mang resolutely refused to accept it, and demanded to reward several other ministers.The empress dowager insisted again, and Wang Mang wrote four more letters to insist on giving in, and also said that he would not go to court because of illness to express his determination.The courtiers on the left and right said to the queen mother: "It's better not to change Wang Mang's willingness to be humble, but to reward Kong Guang and others in terms of merit." Wang Mang was willing to get up.According to Wang Mang's opinion, the Empress Dowager issued an edict to reward several ministers except Wang Mang, but Wang Mang still hid at home and did not go to court.The officials also said: "Although Wang Mang is self-denying and modest, the court should reward the ministers who should be commended in time to show that they value meritorious service and not to disappoint the officials and the people!" , Wang Mang, the Marquis of Xindu, is the Taifu, in charge of the affairs of the four assistants, and he is called "An Han Gong"." So Wang Mang was terrified, and had to get up, accepting the titles of Tai Tuo and An Han Gong. Wang Mang's style of holding the pipa and half covering his face is disgusting, but it has always been very effective. Wang Mang wanted to marry his daughter to Emperor Ping as the queen to consolidate his power.But he didn't say it directly, but suggested that the emperor widely select suitable women to be queens.The Empress Dowager handed over the matter to the relevant competent authorities, and the competent officials submitted a list of all the daughters. Most of the women from the Wang family were selected.Wang Mang was afraid that the daughters of other members of the Wang family would compete with his own daughter to be the queen, so he wrote a letter saying: "I have no noble morals, and my daughter's aptitude is inferior. She is not suitable to be selected with all the women." The Empress Dowager thought that he was sincere and humble, so she issued an edict: "Women from the Wang family belong to my natal family, so they should not participate in the selection." This is actually to prevent close relatives from marrying and giving birth to mentally handicapped children. Decide. Since Wang Mang is erudite, he probably also has some knowledge about prenatal and postnatal care.But he doesn't care about that now.He secretly mobilized more than a thousand civilians, students, officials and officials above to wait at the gate of the palace to write letters every day.The officials, some of them went to the court, and some of them prostrated themselves at the door of the palace office, and they all demanded: "Duke An Han's great achievements are so brilliant, and now his daughter should be made queen. Why did you only reject Duke An Han?" Who will the people of the world put their expectations on! We hope that the daughter of Duke An Han will be the mother of the world!" Wang Mang then sent Chang Shi and other officials to persuade and stop Gong Qing and other students. Petition, but more and more people petitioned.The empress dowager had no choice but to follow the advice of the minister and choose Wang Mang's daughter as the queen.Wang Mang defended himself again and said: "All women should be selected widely." Gong Qing argued: "If you choose other women, there will be two orthodox, which should not be." Wang Mang had to say: "Please look at my daughter. " While making Wang Mang the Duke of An Han, he was actually rewarded with more land, but Wang Mang repeatedly kowtowed and shed tears, desperately refusing to accept it.In the end, it led to a vigorous above-mentioned movement throughout the country-there were 487,572 people before and after the letter, and the princes, kings, ministers, princes and royal families who were interviewed all kowtowed and said: Hurry up and reward Duke An Han." You must know that the total population of the Han Dynasty was only 50 million, and the statistics of the number of people in the letter are so accurate, it is really dumbfounding. A major turning point for Wang Mang's journey to the throne of the emperor was "Jiuxi". "Nine tins" are nine symbolic things rewarded to Wang Mang, including green knee caps and dragon crowns, dresses, sabers decorated with gold and jade, shoes with protruding toes, carts with bells and horses, decorated with nine bundles. A large dragon flag with tape, leather hat and pleated white shirt, military chariot and horses, red bow and arrows, black bow and arrows, a red axe on the left, a Qi ax with gold ornaments on the right , a set of armor and a helmet, two bottles of fine wine, two jade spoons, two pieces of ninth-grade sapphire, etc., actually counted far more than nine items.This is also based on ancient etiquette, which symbolizes the royal family's incomparable trust and respect for him.Why not just call it "Jiuci"?Of course, this is to increase the difficulty for ordinary people to understand, so as to show that this is an important ceremony in ancient times.This time Wang Mang did not refuse, and immediately kowtowed to accept.Interestingly, since then, before the treacherous officials of all dynasties wanted to usurp power, they asked the emperor for "nine tins". With these supreme honors, Wang Mang is already at the pinnacle of power, and can basically call the wind and rain.He no longer needs to expend a lot of energy to be a good person, because after years of construction, his example of a good person has been erected like a skyscraper, and coupled with the monopoly of power, no one can shake his position.The following road to becoming emperor is easy. Wang Mang proclaimed himself emperor, using an extremely low-cost method, which was to create one after another "fate".Talismans are mysterious objects with the will of heaven engraved on them.Its cost is low, but its power is huge. Since ancient times, this thing has flocked out in troubled times.Meng Tong, the magistrate of Wugong County, dredged the well and dug a white stone with a round top and a square bottom. On the stone were written vermilion characters, which read, "Declaration of King Mangkun, Duke of Anhan, as Emperor".The rise of Fu Ming began from then on.Wang Mang sent the ministers to report the matter to the Empress Dowager, but the Empress Dowager disagreed, but it was too late, because Wang Mang's power had actually surpassed that of the emperor's family.So an edict was issued to make Wang Mang the emperor, which means acting as the emperor.It is also called "false emperor" on some other occasions.Such a stone gave Wang Mang the real power to be emperor.But Wang Mang was not satisfied, he began to consider officially ascending the throne. Liu Jing, the Marquis of Guangrao, reported that a new well had sprung up in Qi County, Hu Yun, a general with thousands of chariots, reported that a stone ox was found in Ba County, and Zang Hong, a member of the Taibao, reported that a fairy stone was found in Fufengyong County.Wang Mang accepted them all, and then used them to scare his aunt, the Empress Dowager, and said: "In the middle of July, a township head in Linzi County, Shandong had a few dreams, in which a voice said to him: 'I am The messenger of Tiangong. Tiangong sent me to tell the pavilion chief: the acting emperor should be the real emperor. If you don’t believe me, there will be a new well in this post pavilion.’ The pavilion chief got up in the morning to check the pavilion, and there was indeed a new well.” The production process of the whole society's fate is being stepped up.All kinds of speculators came out.Aizhang, a native of Zitong County, studied in Chang'an. He has always had bad conduct and likes to talk big.Seeing that Wang Mang was regent, he made a copper cabinet and made two labels, one of which was written "The Picture of the Golden Chamber of the Emperor's Xingxi", and the other was "The Book of the Red Emperor's Xingxi to the Yellow Emperor's Golden Policy".The so-called XX is the name of Emperor Gao.The policy book said that Wang Mang is the real son of heaven, and the empress dowager should act according to the will of heaven.Both the map and the policy book clearly stated who Wang Mang's ministers should be, and this guy took the opportunity to stuff his name in it, a total of eleven people, and even stated their future official positions.The copper cabinet naturally ended up at Wang Mang's place.Wang Mang took this cabinet as an issue, and told his aunt Wang Zhengjun straightforwardly that he wanted to be the real emperor. After Wang Mang's intention to be the real emperor was exposed, the Empress Dowager was taken aback, but she could no longer control Wang Mang, and the court was full of people who spoke for Wang Mang.In AD 8, Wang Mang successfully ascended the throne under the enthusiastic persuasion of his party members, announced to replace Han, and changed the name of the country to "Xin". So far, Wang Mang's emperor's dream has finally come true, and his political path has reached a peak. Although we all know his absurd reforms, his powerless resistance to the heroes, and his tragic end, who says a hero must be a hero? To start well and finish well?Judging from Wang Mang's trajectory in the officialdom, he was simply a genius of that era.He had an insight into the secret of success in that era, and he made bold assumptions, actively practiced, and succeeded quickly.Wang Mang's success is the success of climbing through the complex layers of the bureaucratic system and finally reaching the apex, and the success of actively mobilizing various social resources for self-hype. The secret is that in a highly hierarchical team, no matter where you are In terms of position, you must try to make the people below you push you forward, and the people in front pull you. With this push and pull, your crawling speed will be very fast.To this day, this iron law still has practical significance, because until today, grades still appear everywhere in companies, offices of government agencies, workshops of factories and mines, departments of universities, grades of primary and secondary schools, and even kindergartens. inside.Our society is so crowded, so we have to queue up for various events, queue up to buy a house, queue up for promotion...as long as we are still in the queue, as long as we don't give up climbing one more step in the crowded ladder of life Wang Mang will always be a role model for us to learn from.