Chapter 17 One Seven Kings

The previous topic discussed management in general, and it said that the most relevant management is political, that is, the management of state affairs.Up to now, among organizations with human beings as their elements, the unit with the largest scope, greatest power, and clearest form is political, and the common name is "country".In recent years, there has been the United Nations, which is a consultative body based on the state, and has no power or power greater than that of the state. Therefore, when talking about organizations, the most important thing is the state.Therefore, it is the management of state affairs that is most related to everyone's solidarity.

To manage, to have power.The performance of the role of authority is that, for people in the organization, it can express: do this, don't do that.A certain kind of expression, whether it is right or wrong, whether it works or not, will be discussed later.It is only said here that the management power comes from the perspective of "reason", because it is "should" exist, because there is no management; it is "must" from the perspective of "history", because management activities are decisions , as time goes on, will give birth to the habit of order and obedience, or further, legal constraints, and even creed constraints,

In an organization, a few people (can be as few as one) are ordered, and the majority are ordered. From the perspective of history, it has a long history and has always been like this.From a theoretical point of view, you will encounter good and bad problems.Or from the positive point of view, ordering and accepting orders have a purpose, and it is good if it matches the purpose, and it is bad if it goes against it; it is right to achieve good things, and wrong to do otherwise.What is the purpose?It can be said differently, but all in all, it is the common sense needs of ordinary people: people within the scope of the organization live a happy life, at least it is tolerable.How can it be as good as it is, and it can be tolerated?Who can say specifically, it might as well understand from the comparative aspect, such as diet, it is better to have food than to have no food, and it is better to eat what you like than what you don’t like; men and women, it is better to be together than to be separated: with wealth, it is better to be safe than unsafe; In the future, it is better to have hope than to have no hope; and so on.Obviously, or after reading history and events, you will find that it is not easy.It's not easy, the fact that the performance is dry is that the measures and the goals cannot be coordinated.This deviation can be slight or serious.Minor, tolerable, serious, and unbearable, they all add up to big and small political issues.It is this kind of problem that ancient and modern Chinese and foreign people talk about governing the country, and they want to solve this kind of problem.

There are general and scattered problems.How to ensure that political measures must be reasonable and have good results is urgent.For example, how to ensure that the farmland is not afraid of floods and droughts, the commercial supply is smooth, the secondary education is popularized, etc., are scattered.Scattered is the order, the general is the outline.The key points are comprehensive, so when talking about the general plan of governing the country, we always focus on the general, and often sum it up in one sentence. In ancient times, it was called why theory, and today it is called why doctrine.

An important doctrine, in the name of Confucianism, is "Wang Dao".The solution is for the king to practice benevolent government, or to rule the world with benevolence and righteousness; what he seeks is to maintain life and die without regret.To have no regrets is to live a happy life.This idea was conceived under the constraints of reality.The reality is that the government is in the hands of the king, and the situation is that the king can be a hero to create the current situation. Therefore, it is assumed that "if" the king is willing to follow the king's way, the common people will be blessed from heaven, and all problems will be solved.

This idea, if the color of the times is lightened, can be called "sage politics".Because the person in charge is a sage, first, he will accept Mencius's deeper principles about kingship: "The people are the most important, followed by social stupidity, and the king is the least." Second, there will be a kind heart of "the benevolent loves others" , willing to practice benevolent government.Three, it must be wise and wise, knowing what to do can make people live and die without regret.In short, when the sages are above, the ordinary people can "empty their hearts and fill their stomachs" and sing the song of "work at sunrise and rest at sunset" in the soil.

The problem comes from the fact that there is an "if" before the sage.What if it is not inevitable, that is, there is the possibility of not being a wise man?The method of Confucius and Mencius is persuasion plus temptation. "First, work hard", "Never tired", "Why do kings call benefits, there is only benevolence and righteousness".It is an exhortation; "Government with virtue, such as Beichen, where the stars live together (arch) it", "At this time, the country of Wancheng is doing benevolent government, and the people are happy with it. The person who works hard will be doubled." This is a lure.This method has two sides: from the ideal side, it is Guideism, which is righteous; from the practical side, it is kowtowism, which is weak.Weakness means no protection. It’s up to you to say what you say, and it’s up to him to accept it or not; the fact is that you rarely accept it, and in the end you have to sigh "The way is not working, you know it", and then "return".This is the fate of Confucius and Mencius' kowtowing doctrine, and it also shows the fragility of the ideal of virtuous politics.

Compared with the idealists of Confucius and Mencius, some schools of Jiuliu are pragmatic, not that scholars are committed to Taoism, but scholars are committed to profit.Such as strategists (in fact, they are just strategists, not worthy of being called families), Su Qin, Zhang Yi and others.It is to rely on clever words to change appearances and seals. What you want is for the king to get big benefits, and share some small benefits for yourself, and no longer ask whether benevolence is benevolent or not, righteousness or injustice.Military strategists, such as Sun Wu and Wu Qi, are naturally like this. They work hard for the monarch, and what they want is to capture the city and seize the territory.The Legalists, Han Fei, Li Si and others, have increased their abilities but their morality has declined, because they have penetrated deeper, their techniques are more pungent, and they have a large set of theories.During the Warring States Period, Legalism was based in Qin, the land of tigers and wolves in the west, and the result (of course there were other conditions) was the destruction of the six eastern countries and the unification of Qin.When a king is promoted to emperor, he is called supreme or holy. In name, it is the victory of sage politics, because those who get the power are all sages; It depends on whether you can "get it immediately", or whether it is born to a concubine, and there are no idealists like Confucius and Mencius who think of persuasion and temptation.

Of course, the common sense needs of ordinary people, whether to live a satisfactory or tolerable life, will not change due to the expansion of the monarchy.The distance between hope and reality has increased, how to make up for it?One way is to glean.There are full-time admonishing officials in the court; in theory seven or ideally, non-full-time officials, even ordinary people, can also speak.But these are all ideals, how about reality?Three scenarios can come to mind.One is that it is up to you to say or not to say something, and it is up to him to accept or not.As a result, the efficacy of this medicine becomes, according to logic, 50%, it may be reduced to less than 10% according to common sense, because power and personal superstition always go together. It is rare in old and new history to refuse to accept it afterward.The second situation is even worse. A large number of historical facts prove that the general style of words and phrases is that this is not good for the country, and that is good for the country.We all know that the so-called country and the king are always inseparable. No matter how crowning the words are, they are still legalists in their bones, and everything is for the benefit of the king.So the third situation arises, the vast majority of people do not forget their own interests, in order to rise to the top and avoid disasters, they talk less and kowtow more.In short, for the sake of ordinary people, there is very little hope of satisfying hunger by picking up this picture cake.Picking up relics is a gentle way, if it doesn't work, you may squeeze another way, or the second way to make up for it, take a risk, popularly known as rebellion.This method also has two sides. The desirable side is that no matter whether it succeeds or not, it can relieve the hatred in the heart.The unsatisfactory side is that, except for a moment of chaos and the sky falling on everyone, fortunately, he succeeded. The throne changed hands, and it will return to its original state in a short time.So, in history, there are always rebellions and times of peace, and how is it going on?Because there is a third way to make up for it, that is, both the ordered and the ordered must live.What the oracles want is the highest-level work, such as bells and dings, three jobs in the harem, etc., all have to come from the blood and sweat of the little people, if the little people can't live.There is no source of source, so, in order to maintain the highest level of work.We have to leave some way for Xiaomin to survive.As for those who are ordered, it’s not like they don’t want to be high, but they can’t be high, so they have to be low, content with contentment and happiness as long as they can live, at least forbearance is high.In this way, our history parallels the ideal of kingship or sage politics, and we can write the first four, seventeenth, twenty-first, twenty-fourth, twenty-fifth, and even more.

Naturally, time has changed, the world cannot be the same, and the politics of the wise cannot remain unchanged.What has changed is that what Mencius said, "The people are the most important, followed by social stupidity, and the ruler is the least", has gradually but not slowly turned into the actual "the ruler is the most important, social stupidity is second, and the people are the least".The reason for this is that in the actual battle between the ideal of the kingly way and the unlimited power of the monarch, within two or three rounds, the ideal is almost wiped out.The winner's income is the infinite expansion of power and the infinite improvement of status.It can also be described in detail from shallow to deep.Qian is to intervene in people and things, that is, life and death are often said.This kind of activity, started by Qin Shihuang at the latest, can be described as varied.Whatever you want, you can kill whoever you want, not to mention, you can burn books and confuse scholars while alive, and waste the people's fat and anointment after death, making great terracotta warriors and horses.In the following two thousand years, countless quasi-Qin Shihuang of all kinds did endless bad things, until the muddle-headed and sinister old lady of the Nala family at the end of the Qing Dynasty was able to kill the six gentlemen with a single nod, and used the Boxers to lose money and humiliate the country , After his death, Dongling was buried and many treasures were taken away.Moderate is to intervene in the law.All dynasties have laws, which restrain the ordinary people, and the king may not abide by them; further, his golden words are the laws, and the laws can be changed.What is explored is the virtue of meddling, which is the old-fashioned principle that the ruler should be the minister.A minister, to put it simply, is a subject, so the meaning of the king as a giant guide is that the king can do whatever he wants, and the common people "should" obey their orders. "Should" is different from "can only". Take the persecution of the king as an example. If you have no strength to resist, you can only accept it. You feel it but your heart is not dead. If you think you should suffer, but you don't want to resist, you feel your body but your heart is dead. The saying goes, mourning There is nothing greater than death of heart, such as the death of a king who humiliates his ministers, the death of a king who kneels down to thank him for his gratitude, the bastard who is a villain but still has to be regarded as a saint, and the creed that is persecuted but still has to be sung, etc., are all sorrows than heart death.But they all think that their minds are clear, because respecting the emperor has become a virtue, and the moral law is something that Kant feels more and more in awe of, who can resist it?The consequences of unlimited power are so terrible,

This dire consequence may not have been expected by the kingly theorists, because it cannot be known five hundred years later.If you can survive for a few five hundred years, everyone will see and realize that instead of thinking too much about the unlimited power of the monarchy, you just want to solve the problem by kowtow.