Chapter 40 The second section establishes education with "filial piety" and "Twenty-Four Filial Piety"

The Chinese attach great importance to filial piety, which is directly related to the implementation of the long-standing patriarchal political system in China and the autocratic rule regardless of family and country.Secondly, it is also directly related to the underdeveloped productivity of small farmers' natural economy, the long-term inability of material production to meet people's living needs, and the fact that the elderly and children are all supported by adult family members.As early as Confucius, he raised filial piety to a theoretical level, believing that filial piety is not only the life obligation of respecting the elders and loving the young, but also the core of ethics and morality, but also the foundation of political morality, and the soul of governing the country and the world.Following Confucius, the rulers and thinkers of all dynasties tried their best to advocate filial piety, advocated "governing the world with filial piety", and demanded that filial piety should be used to establish education, so as to cultivate "loyal ministers" who respect their parents at home, live in harmony with the countryside when they go out, and are loyal to their superiors as officials and even the "father of the emperor". Filial son".

The Confucians in the Han Dynasty believed that "the way of enlightening the son to serve his father" was "the foundation of teaching" ("Book of Rites · Jitong").In common people's homes, the so-called filial piety education generally includes the following aspects.One is to absolutely respect the parental authority of the father, take the parent's will as the will, take the parent's right and wrong as right and wrong, and take the parent's likes and dislikes as likes and dislikes. Set your eyes on your sleeping place." "Love what parents love, and respect what parents respect" ("Book of Rites Internal Rules").The second is to absolutely regard the words of parents as the truth, and must resolutely obey them.If the parents have any obvious faults, they should "comfort and remonstrate softly". "If you don't follow the advice", you still have to "be respectful and filial".Even if the parents are unhappy, or even "bleeding", you still can't "resent", don't criticize the parents, under any circumstances, you must give the good name to the parents, and you will always bear the fault yourself.The so-called "goodness is called relatives, and badness is called self" ("Han Feizi Loyalty and Filial Piety").The third is to try our best to respectfully serve and support our parents, and do our best, even sacrificing ourselves and our children, to satisfy our parents' wishes.If the parents are sick, the children have to serve the bedside day and night, and the soup and medicine have to be tasted by the parents before they can drink it; if it is summer or winter, the children should be sympathetic to the warmth and coldness of the parents; When life is in danger, the children have to sacrifice their lives to save each other, and even die for their parents.All these and so on must be implemented in concrete daily life.The fourth is that the parents have passed away, and the children must "not change from their father's way for three years", guard the tomb, and often offer sacrifices.A poor child, if the family is unable to bury his parents, he will sell himself to a rich family as a slave. Even if his daughter sells herself to a brothel, she must bury her parents' remains.

Establishing education with filial piety is fundamentally the result of vigorously advocated by feudal rulers, and it is objectively conducive to the stability of individual families.Because it can strengthen the blood and ethics relationship between parents and children through the education of family filial piety, and ensure the reproduction of the population.The stability of the family and the reproduction of the population are the prerequisites for the implementation of the feudal state tax system and the basis for the implementation of the feudal autocratic rule. In the homes of ordinary people in ancient China, there are many teaching materials for filial piety education, such as "Book of Filial Piety", "Book of Rites", "Family Rituals", "Guidelines for Disciples", "Four Books for Women", and "Thousand Characters for Boudoir Training". , "Improving Daughter's Sutra", "Twenty-Four Filial Piety" and so on, have been invented in all dynasties.Among them, "Twenty-Four Filial Piety" is the most typical and had a great influence after the Yuan Dynasty.

"Twenty-Four Filial Piety" was first compiled in the Yuan Dynasty. It is selected from 24 filial sons from Yu, Zhou, Han, Wei, Jin, Tang, Song and other dynasties, all of which are widely representative.These filial sons range from emperors, officials and officials to common people, and most of them are common people.The age of dutiful sons ranges from the elderly over 70 years old to children who are just sensible.Both genders are male and female.The deeds of the selected filial sons are also very typical, some of which have strong superstition and Buddhist karma. Twenty-four filial sons, they are Yu Shun who "moved the sky with filial piety", and his filial deeds moved the sky to send elephants to work for him and birds to work for it; Playing on the side of the baby for the baby; the son of Shan [Shanshan] who "serves the deer's milk to the relatives", he went to the mountains to go to the deer herd to get deer milk for his blind parents; Zeng Shen, who was "heartbroken from biting his fingers", whose mother was worried and at a loss for the visitors, gnawed his fingers to make Zeng Shen feel heartbroken and went home with a salary; Min Ziqian, who "singled with his mother", his His stepmother abused him and didn't make cotton clothes for him in winter, but he endured the cold without complaining; Liu Heng, Emperor Wen of the Han Dynasty who "tasted the decoction by himself", took care of his mother when she was sick, and didn't untie her clothes for three years. His mother was not allowed to drink; Cai Shun, who "picked up mulberry for his relatives", picked up mulberries to support his mother when he was fleeing famine, and even moved the red eyebrow army to help his mother and son; Guo Ju, who "buried his son for his mother", because of His family had food difficulties and was too poor to support his mother, and his son divided his mother's food, so he resolutely buried his son alive and got a pot of gold; Dong Yong, who "sold himself to bury his father", sold himself as a slave to borrow money after his father died. The father was buried, and the gods were moved to marry; Ding Lan, who "carved wood to serve her relatives", lost her parents at a young age and was not supported, so she carved a wooden statue for filial piety; , often drew water from the river six or seven miles away. Later, a spring suddenly appeared next to the house, and a pair of carps jumped out of the spring water; He left the oranges to his mother when he was only six years old; Huang Xiang, who "fans the pillow to warm the quilt", lost his mother when he was nine years old. Jiang Ge, a "servant for his mother", encountered a thief when his mother was fleeing. He begged the thief not to kill him, and let him be a servant to support his mother; He was afraid of thunder when he was alive, and was buried in the mountains after his death.Whenever there was wind and rain, he would go to his mother's tomb and kneel down and cry to tell her not to be afraid; Meng Zong, who "cries bamboo shoots", his mother was seriously ill, and he wanted to eat bamboo shoot soup in winter. He had no choice but to go to the bamboo forest and cry , unexpectedly cracked several bamboo shoots; Wang Xiang, who "lie on the ice and ask for carp", undressed and lay on the ice to ask for fish for his stepmother on a freezing day, the ice melted and a pair of carps jumped out; "Father" Yang Xiang, when he was 14 years old, he worked with his father in the field, and his father was taken away by a tiger. He desperately grabbed the tiger's neck and rescued his father; Poor and without a mosquito net, he sleeps on the bed and let the mosquitoes suck, so as not to let the mosquitoes bite his parents; there are also Gengqianlou who "taste the excrement and worry about it"; Zhu Shouchang, etc., who are looking for their mothers, are all typical examples of filial sons and are highly praised by feudal rulers.