Chapter 26 Chapter 26 Official Admonition 2: Being Smart Will Mistake You

If it is said that the first iron rule of officialdom is that ability cannot be relied upon.Then, the second iron law is: cleverness will miss you. In the officialdom, the most taboo thing is to show one's intelligence.In "The Analects of Confucius?In Wei Zheng Pian II, Zi Zhang, a student of Confucius, wanted to learn the skills of entering the officialdom, so he asked Confucius for advice. Confucius told him: Zizhang learned about Qianlu, and the master said: "If you hear a lot of doubts, but be cautious about what you say, you will be few; if you see many deficiencies, and be careful about what you do, you will have few regrets. If you speak few words and do few regrets, you will be rewarded."

This passage means that when Zizhang asked Confucius about the skills of being an official, Confucius said: "Listen to what others say, and when you hear something that is wrong, don't say anything, because it may be you who are wrong. If you If you have to say something, then only say what is 100% correct, but if you have 1% doubts, don’t say it. Only in this way can you make fewer mistakes. Also, when others do things, you should read more and see what you think is wrong. place, don’t be smart and point it out to others, no matter what you mean is right or wrong, you probably won’t leave a good impression on others. In a word, as long as you don’t cause trouble because of talking too much, and don’t regret doing something wrong , then it will no longer be a problem for you to get promoted and get rich."

Confucius' words are really scheming and scheming, and the thick and black are at home.You know, in life, the most taboo thing is to compete smarter with others. If the other party is smarter than you, then your showing off is tantamount to showing off your ugliness and making you laugh.And if your opponent is not as smart as you, then he will not be able to realize this at all, and will also think that you are stupid and stupid.In short, no matter what you do, as long as you show signs of being smarter than others, you will inevitably leave a very bad impression. The officialdom is full of dangers, and it is often a mistake to take one more step. If you do one more thing, you will bring inexplicable troubles because you are smart.

During the Kaiyuan period of the Tang Dynasty, Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty went to Mount Tai to enshrine Zen, passing through Licheng, Shandong.Du Feng, the magistrate of Licheng County, was in charge of the reception.So he thought, there are so many people traveling with the emperor, mighty and mighty, all over the mountains and plains, with so many people, it is inevitable that some unexpected things will happen, for example, some people will suddenly die of a sudden illness on the way... Thinking about it this way, Du Feng immediately ordered people to buy thirty coffins and put them in the emperor's palace.At this time, a governor came to inspect the work and found that thirty coffins were neatly arranged in the palace. He was stunned and cursed: "What does Du Feng mean? The emperor came here to enshrine Zen, but he prepared it for the emperor. So many coffins..." In anger, Du Feng was about to be punished on the spot, but Du Feng was terrified, and got under his wife's bed in fear, and escaped.

Du Feng pretended to be clever and took the work one step further, which almost caused his death.As the saying goes, like a father, like a son, I don't have a clear mind, and Du Feng's son, Du Zhong, is also a master who thinks too much about everything. At that time, Du Zhong joined the army in Yanzhou and was responsible for supplying horse feed for Tang Xuanzong's brigade.So Du Zhong thought, the emperor has so many royal horses, how much beans should he eat a day?If you wait until the emperor arrives and cook beans again, it will definitely be too late. It is better to cook some beans first... So Du Zhong ordered someone to boil more than two thousand stones of beans, and put them in the cellar while they were still warm. up.When Tang Xuanzong's large number of imperial horses arrived and wanted to eat beans, he opened the cellar cover and saw that the cooked beans were already moldy and smelly.

The Du family's father and son were all extremely stupid people, but they didn't realize this, so when they were showing off their cleverness, they made big mistakes and caused big troubles.However, even a truly smart person should not show off because of this, otherwise, he will also get into trouble. There is a poem by Su Dongpo in the Northern Song Dynasty, which said: "Others adopted their sons hoping to be smart, but I wasted my whole life for being smart." This poem by Su Dongpo reveals the endless grievances of being too talented and being slandered by others.You must know that most people in this world are mediocre in intelligence. If you are exceptionally intelligent, it will inevitably make others feel uncomfortable. If you are not careful, you will easily be schemed by villains.Su Dongpo was famous all over the world for his poetic talent, but he fell into a trap set by his political opponents. This was the Wutai Poetry Case. The political opponents framed Su Dongpo for writing poems to slander the emperor, so Su Dongpo was imprisoned.

A generation of great writers fell into an iron prison, and they were as frightened as ordinary people.In particular, the literary prison is the crime of Luo Zhi, which is a typical free evidence. If the emperor really thinks that Su Dongpo is satirizing him, it means that he can't explain it clearly.At that time, Su Dongpo was very worried that he would be executed, so he made an agreement with his family that if the sentence was a capital crime, he would send a fish when delivering the food, so that he could be mentally prepared... One day, the family who delivered the food had something to do. , entrusted another person to deliver food to the prison, but the other person didn't know the agreement, so he sent Su Dongpo a vinegared carp. As a result, Su Dongpo was terrified when he saw this fish, and shouted loudly. howling.

Even more tragic than Su Dongpo was Lu You, a great poet in the Southern Song Dynasty.At that time, Lu You participated in the imperial examination and won the first place.Unexpectedly, this first name has already been assigned to Qin Hui's grandson, Qin Xun, but Lu You pushed Qin Xun to the second place, which angered Qin Hui, a power traitor. There is no chance to show off your ambitions. In short, whether it is the workplace or the officialdom, there are as many mediocre people as possible.Whether you think you are smart or you are really smart, there is no need to show it too much.As Confucius taught, penetrate the essence of thick blackness. When others are stupid, just stand by and watch, and don’t talk too much to remind the other party. If you remind the other party, instead of being grateful, it will arouse the other party’s heart resentment.The most correct way is to be thick-skinned, dark-hearted, and wait to see other people's jokes.Believe me, no matter how thick-skinned you are and how dark-hearted you are, you will never be able to see it as a joke for others, because others may not be more stupid than us.