Chapter 13 Sima Qianqi

Sima Qian had a new crime called "crime of framing the king": deceiving the emperor out of nothing.Sentenced to death, waiting to beheaded.It was a difficult day, and Iron Man washed his face with tears.The book is not finished, and there is a daughter who lacks a man, how will this incense be passed on?Two matters of concern are unresolved, and death is never a thing of the past.However, he survived the desperate situation, and Emperor Wu was happy again for some reason, and gave amnesty to the world.Everyone on death row was ecstatic, including our Sima Qian.However, the person who announced the decree immediately announced an additional condition: to spend money to buy the whole body and get out of prison, the amount is 500,000 yuan.Those who can't make up this number will cut off their "potential" to save their lives.This is the so-called castration, also known as corruption punishment, women's genitals are closed, and men's powers are circumcised.In ancient Chinese, the testicles of humans and animals are called potential.

Five hundred thousand dollars is an astronomical figure to Sima Qian.The family ran around for him, knocking on doors everywhere to borrow money, and seeing cold faces when they hit a wall.He had few friends in the first place, and some relatives and friends even avoided him.It's not all because people's feelings are like paper, relatives and friends are afraid of getting hurt, and the tragedy of Li Ling's genocide is still vivid in his mind.Sima Qian was imprisoned because of Li Ling. If Emperor Wu turned his face, they would be held accountable for raising money for Sima Qian.

Sima Qian was castrated, and the seven-foot man lost his testicles.For "Historical Records", he chose to live.He divided life into ten grades, the first is the honor of not dishonoring the ancestors, the tenth is to accept the castration and humiliate the ancestors, and the ninth is to die after cutting off the limbs.The execution place is called "Silkworm Room", which means a warm room for raising silkworms, because the tortured people are afraid of the wind and cold.The executioner showed his sharp knife and an obscene smile, and Sima Qian's heart-piercing scream called out the great shame of the great man of EMI.

Sima moved out of prison and was promoted. Emperor Wu arranged this talented person by his side and named him Zhongshu Ling, which is equivalent to a personal secretary.Many people admire him, including his friend Ren An.He is qualified to enter and exit the palace, to be close to the emperor, and to walk among colorful women.Emperor Wu used his pen and ink kung fu, and didn't worry about his kung fu as a man, because it didn't exist anymore, it was removed, and the operation was clean and neat.The eunuchs of all dynasties had operations that were not thorough enough. They hung out with women in the palace, like Zhao Gao, and left illegitimate children among the people: the palace maid ran out after pregnancy.Emperor Wu felt very at ease with Sima Qian, calling him back and forth, including calling him on the dragon bed, while the penis was still in the concubine's body.Sima Qian has always despised eunuchs, but now he is even worse than eunuchs.He has the self-esteem of a man, and self-esteem brings shame, while eunuchs have no shame. "Bao Ren An Shu" used a word: madness. ——The pain and contradictions in the heart are enough to make people crazy.

When I read Lu Xun before, I had an impression: the huge tension of words comes from high-intensity extrusion, like underground fossil energy.Emotions, situations, thoughts, make outstanding language take shape in extrusion.Sima Qian's writing was scalding hot, and after cooling down, he put it into the fire and was pressed again.The long period of bewilderment and burning inside made his words as hard and beautiful as diamonds. In "Bao Ren An Shu", he described his situation and state of mind after being tortured: "I return nine times a day, and when I live, I suddenly feel like I am dying, and when I go out, I don't know where I am going. Every time I read this shame, I sweat. Also stained with clothes."

He tried to be respectful at work, smiling at the emperor and his women. That's usually the case with people who are "all gone" and everything is normal.After get off work, he writes behind closed doors.Refuse all socializing and socializing. Sima Qian began writing "Historical Records" at about forty-two years old.Now he is nearly fifty years old and has been writing for seven or eight years.Maybe his previous articles were relatively peaceful, but since he was castrated, his style of writing has changed, full of combativeness. The combativeness comes from humiliation, from many things smoldering in the heart.

However, "Historical Records" is by no means a personal writing. Sima Qian's long-term education and experience enabled him to stand higher, with both fighting spirit and fairness; both clear standpoints and calm and objective descriptions.Some of his articles contain elements of so-called "zero-degree writing".But the freezing point itself is the boiling point, like what Lu Xun called "the ice of fire", where the surface is calm and the magma is rushing underneath. Read "Historical Records", this is a key point. A writer who is not well-educated will be limited by his personal life experience.For the people below, it is not enough to talk about privacy, but also to talk about his absolute privacy, to post nude photos on the Internet, and to publish dynamic human body CDs... Next is the mating map?

Self-cultivation is nothing else, self-cultivation is to grasp the propriety.The so-called sense of proportion is revealed in the process of continuous transcendence.It’s not that chasing fame and fortune is not good at all, but that taking advantage of certain chaos in the social transformation period, we are bound to lose the height and breadth of our existence left by our ancestors, and we will move forward under the banner of progress. Animals on par. The connotation of Chinese traditional culture carried by "Historical Records" is in all aspects.It is not only a great work of history and literature, but also an encyclopedia in the classical sense.It writes about the time before the Western Han Dynasty, but it goes far beyond today and points directly to the future we may have.

Safransky once described Heidegger as saying: Heidegger returned to ancient Greek thought in order to win a run-up and jump into the present. How well said. Do we have the ability to go back to Sima Qian? It is not difficult to read "Historical Records", and people today have detailed annotations.I remember a few years ago, Mr. Wei Xinhong once mentioned that when he was studying at Peking University, he was amazed that the writing in "Historical Records" more than 2,000 years ago was so concise and vivid.Especially the seventy "Biographies" and some "Benji", all kinds of biographers, that is, the protagonists the biographies aim at, are all fresh and vivid, and it is really hearty to read.It can even be said this way: If a Chinese with a certain level of culture does not read Sima Qian and his books, it is really... regrettable.

In Europe, ordinary people are familiar with their history and culture. We then read Sima Qian's life experience. For about another ten years, he lived a peaceful life like a eunuch, with a turmoil in his chest, and his writing shook the world and wept ghosts and gods.In order to tell the historical truth, he disguised himself.Emperor Wu no longer asked him what he was doing at home.The emperor encountered civil strife in his later years. Prince Li, who had always been gentle, rebelled. The father and son fought and fought bloody battles in Chang'an City for five days and five nights.The incident also involved Sima Qian's friend Ren An.

Prince Li was born to Queen Wei's husband, and has always been highly valued by Emperor Wu.But Emperor Wu had a new favorite, Mrs. Gouyi, not only the queen fell out of favor, but also Prince Li was in turmoil.Mrs. Gouyi was pregnant for 14 months, and she gave birth to a son named Fuling. The palace where she lived was conferred the title of "Mother Yao's Gate" by Emperor Wu. This has a lot of meaning: Did Emperor Wu compare Fuling to Emperor Yao?All the officials began to use their brains, some people alienated Prince Li, some people slandered Prince Li, and turned to praise Yao's mother.Emperor Wu didn't explain it, and he became more and more unpredictable in his later years.People at the top of totalitarianism are often like this, and he must be like this. There is a villain named Jiang Chong who makes history slightly deviate from the direction.He and Prince Li have always been at odds, and now, the opportunity has come. Emperor Wu believed in alchemists, and there were many witches in the palace.Many concubines took the emperor as an example, and they would find witches at every turn to bless themselves and curse their opponents.In the war between women and women, the weapons are puppets buried in the ground.Someone's name is written on the puppet, and the witch casts a curse, and that person will get a strange disease.The woman who fell out of favor even cursed the emperor. After the incident, Emperor Wu killed hundreds of people in the inner palace in a rage, but since then he became suspicious and felt that the sky was full of wooden men who wanted to chase and kill him.He moved to Ganquan Palace and ordered his confidant Jiang Chong to conduct investigations inside and outside the capital, with the assistance of a group of cruel officials.Whoever dug up the wooden man, ransacked and beheaded all over the house, and beheaded tens of thousands within a few months.It can be seen that the wind of witchcraft has blown from the palace to the people.Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty soaked in hot springs to raise dragon bodies, and there was no smell of blood.Jiang Chong attacked Prince Li, and the East Palace quietly buried a large number of puppets, dug them out and reported to the emperor.At the same time, use all means to prevent Prince Li from going to Ganquan Palace. At this time, Prince Li made a mistake: falsely preaching the imperial decree, and sent troops to hunt and kill Jiang Chong.Emperor Wu thought that he was treasonous and ordered the prime minister to send troops to attack.Prince Li lost his way of retreat, and if he did not fight back, he would have to fight back. The two sides fought in the dark in Chang'an City, and the streets and alleys were full of blood. The door of Sima Qian's room was closed.After five days and five nights of killing outside, he gradually calmed down amidst the shouting and killing, and wrote his book.And as far as I know, during World War II, a Polish scientist did the same thing. When the Germans came to his door, he continued to do his research. Ren An has an army in his hands. He is experienced and does not move.He refused to obey Prince Li's order.In order to protect himself, he sticks to neutrality, but things in the world often have variables. There is a word called predicting things like gods, but its foundation is unpredictable things in the world.As a result of the bloody battle, the prince was defeated and committed suicide together with his mother Wei Zifu.When Emperor Wu learned the truth afterwards, he killed all those who hunted and killed the prince, including the prime minister. It is estimated that the number was not small.Ren An did not save Prince Li and was thrown into death row. In prison, he wrote a letter to Sima Qian, who was "holding an important position" in Zhongshu Ling, for help. It took Sima Qian a long time to reply. It's not like his usual style of being a human being.At the beginning, he stood up for Li Ling who had no relationship with him, but now he is a good friend but keeps silent.Getting into trouble and getting scared?possible.But he thinks more about the book at hand, in which he has spent half his life, and he is very aware of its value. In "Preface to Tai Shi Gong", he compared himself with Confucius who revised "Spring and Autumn".Compared with its weight attached to Greater China, individual lives are insignificant.What's more, he is a "remaining prisoner", neither male nor female, and he has to serve Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty who ordered him to be castrated.He took a pen and wrote "Reporting to Ren Anshu" to express his heart.This 3,000-word article is filled with shame and anger.A man whose body has been castrated is uncommonly indomitable in spirit. Where does the fighting nature of "Historical Records" come from?From Sima Qian's remnant body. The "remnants of punishment" put everything aside. The life of his friends and the high pressure of the imperial power could not make him stop writing, or write words that were castrated by power.Measured by orthodox standards, "Historical Records" is unqualified, because he actually wrote all kinds of people into history, and openly challenged the imperial power with folk values.Ming rulers and foolish rulers, virtuous officials and rebellious officials, obedient officials and cruel officials, gentlemen and villains... He established a whole set of value systems and standards of right and wrong, and injected emotional colors that future generations of historians would avoid.He also does not taboo for his lords, emperors, generals, good and bad.The emperor is unhappy, let him be unhappy, whether it is a living emperor or a dead emperor. At that time, in terms of self-cultivation and experience, no one except Sima Qian could take on the important task of writing history.Heaven has sent a great mission to the people, suffering from their aspirations, cutting off their power, and the incompleteness of the body wins the soundness of the spirit. Thanks to Sima Qian.The context he has passed on to us is flowing with blood.The context is the blood. From this point of view, it is not unrighteous for him to refuse Ren An's request and not to stab someone in the ribs for his good friend. Ren An stayed in prison for several months and narrowly escaped the death penalty.A few years later, he was killed by Emperor Wu because of the old crime of not saving Prince Li. In the second year, Sima Qian, who finished writing "Historical Records", disappeared in history.He was fifty-six years old this year, in 90 BC.After the age of fifty-six, there is no longer any record of him in the history books.His death has become a mystery, and there are various speculations.Some people say that the book he wrote was presented to Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, and he lost his life.Some people say that he disappeared in the famous mountains and rivers with his book. The person who clears the fog of history for us hides himself in the depths of the fog.