Chapter 10 3. Consequences of defense

Li Ling was defeated, it was a straw that crushed him.The straw is the shameful informer.I seem to see that in the dark, Li Ling is being led into the distance by an invisible hand, and he can no longer turn back. The place where Li Ling was defeated was only a hundred miles away from Hansai.The news of his defeat and surrender was immediately sent back to the frontier fortress, and the frontier fortress general sent the news back to Chang'an. At this time, Liu Che, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, was waiting quietly.His face was gloomy and his expression was serious.He didn't wait for Li Ling's miraculous return, but prepared for the worst and waited for the news of Li Ling's death in battle.Death in battle seemed to be Li Ling's best confession to himself, his family, and the country.Liu Che thought so.

Accompanying Liu Che to wait for Li Ling's military report were Li Ling's old mother and young wife.It was Liu Che who summoned them and asked a physiognomist to observe the expressions of these two women.The interviewer told Liu Che that Li Ling's mother and wife were in a very stable mood and did not show the mournful look of a dead person. There is no mourning, which shows that they are still quite optimistic.Is it really?Liu Che, whose heart was doubly heavy, seemed to see a trace of flame shaking in the depths of the darkness.He hoped that the emotions of Li Ling's mother and wife would bring good luck to Li Ling and him.

Just when Liu Che was uneasy, the military newspaper came back.Only then did Liu Che learn that Li Ling had surrendered.Now, the problem is big. May I ask, since the war between Han Wu and the Xiongnu, has there been any general who surrendered?No.The Han and Hungarians fought and killed for so many years. If the Han generals won the battle, they would come back with drums and gongs;However, it has never been heard that anyone in Han will surrender. Surrender, to put it mildly, is a matter of one person; to put it higher, it is a matter of an army; to put it further, it is a matter of the face of the country.Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty struggled all his life, practiced the iron fist of the Han Dynasty, and played the mighty and majestic style of the Han Dynasty.However, after decades of hard work, he was completely discredited by Li Ling who surrendered.

Depressed, really depressed. Liu Che was furious.He found someone right away, and someone may have forgotten him.This person was Chen Bule who was sent by Li Ling to report the situation to Liu Che.Earlier, Liu Che rewarded Chen Bule as an official because he ran errands to announce the good news.Faced with Liu Che's scolding, Chen Bule had no choice but to commit suicide. Immediately afterwards, the Han Dynasty called a group of ministers to discuss Li Ling's surrender to the Huns.There was no need to discuss it at all. Above the temple, everyone was beating their chests and drooling at Li Ling.However, among the ministers, there was one person who was like a spectator, calmly watching the performance of his colleagues.This person was spotted by Liu Che who was also watching the performance.

Liu Che didn't think about it, that person didn't think about it, and even God didn't think about it. Liu Che changed a person's fate in just a blink of an eye.A seemingly mediocre person, like a volcanic eruption, shook the entire Han Dynasty. What is fate?Destiny is the trajectory of life and a part of cosmic mechanics.Some people say that the fate of the strong is in their own hands.Because with his own power, he can change the trajectory of an individual's life.The fate of the so-called weak is never in their own hands.Like duckweed in the wind, life and death depend on the sky, and wealth depends on fate.

I have never been an optimist. I firmly believe that the so-called destiny of the strong is that there are very few people who can control the boat of destiny alone and reach the other shore smoothly without the interference of heaven, earth, ghosts and gods.On our planet, the fate of the so-called strong is mostly not in their own hands. In whose hands are they in?In an invisible hand.This invisible hand is not a god, not Yama, but a game. Game is also part of mechanics.It arises from confrontation, and produces force, and finally acts on people.Game theory applies to all life.Human beings have been in the field of game theory since the beginning of time.As long as he is a person, no matter where he is, the game is tightly circled on his head.

As a result of Liu Che's unintentional glance, a game started.And the person who took the initiative to play games with Liu Che was a person of meager strength.This person is Sima Qian, Taishiling. Sima Qian, courtesy name Zichang, was born in Longmen in Xiayang (today's south of Hancheng, Shaanxi).His family history is simple, and below the ancestors, he is basically a historian.Among Sima's ancestors, there was a career transition, but in the generation of Sima Qian's father, he returned to Taishiling and restored his ancestral business. Throughout the ages, the so-called masters have always been precocious animals.Before the age of ten, Sima Qian began to recite ancient prose; at the age of twenty, he traveled around the world.Then he settled in Chang'an and traveled without incident until he was thirty-six years old.

In 110 BC, Sima Qian was about thirty-six years old.This year, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty went to Mount Tai to enshrine Zen. According to the rules, Sima Qian's father, Sima Tan, as a historian, should accompany him.Unexpectedly, he fell ill in Luoyang and missed the Fengchan Conference.Sima Qian had no choice but to accompany his father temporarily.Sima Qian participated in Fengchan and returned to Luoyang. Sima Tan was extremely depressed and estimated that he would not live long.So Sima talked about the old man, and confessed to Sima Qian two things with tears: first, to continue the family ancestral business as a historian;

After Sima Tan finished his last words, he left.Two years later, Sima Qian became Taishi Ling as he wished.Sima Qian, who became Taishi Ling, began to write the famous "Historical Records".For nearly ten years, Sima Qian lived an ordinary and unknown life.Until the moment when he defended Li Ling's defeat. Liu Che asked Sima Qian what he thought of Li Ling's defeat and surrender.Sima Qian was eloquent and eloquent. In summary, there are a total of the following points: Li Ling bid farewell to his parents and wife, and went thousands of miles away to fight the enemy and serve the country. Unexpectedly, he was defeated in the first battle.It really doesn't hurt my back to stand and talk.This is one;

With 5,000 infantry, Li Ling fought decisive battles with the Huns for thousands of miles, and withstood repeated attacks by tens of thousands of enemies. At the last moment of the battle, he had no arrows, and he wanted to fight the Huns with bare hands.This is the second. Summarizing the above two points, Sima Qian came to the conclusion: based on Li Ling's personality, he is not really surrendering; as long as he does not die, he must look for opportunities to repay the country. Sima Qian can be summed up in one sentence: cattle, very cattle.One more sentence: the cow doesn't know that death is coming.Game in the officialdom, speak happily, die happily.We say that Sima Qian's death is imminent, mainly because he not only offended a bunch of ghosts and monsters, but even King Yama.

The so-called bull ghosts and snake gods are those ministers of the Han Dynasty who made sarcastic remarks without knowing the toothache; the so-called Yama King is Liu Che, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty.We can see Sima Qian scolding his colleagues in the Manchu Dynasty.But why did he get into a fight with Liu Che? The problem lies in the eight-character evaluation of Li Ling: Although defeat is glorious, the sun and the moon can learn from each other.Except for Liu Che, our basic understanding is that although Li Ling was defeated, he was defeated with honor and there is nothing to be ashamed of. This has stood the test of the sun. This sentence is obviously defending Li Ling, nothing more.However, Liu Che believed that the problem was not that simple. Many years ago, someone told me that a smart reader should read thick books thinly first, and then read thin books thickly.Many years later, I realized that a truly smart person first learns to pick the bones from the egg, and then uses the bones to kill people invisibly and logically. Sima Qian has bones.For an extremely smart person like Liu Che, picking out a few words with bones in a person with bones is as easy as pie.Sure enough, Liu Che discovered that what Sima Qian said in defense of Li Ling was obviously speaking for Li Ling, but he was actually using Li Ling to scold someone. Who is this guy?Li Guangli, of course.Have you ever remembered that Li Guangli went to war several times, and all of them returned with absolute strength and tragic victories.It looks glorious, but it is actually shameful.It can be described in one sentence: Although the victory is still defeated, the gods and ghosts cry.Now Sima Qian suddenly comes here, although the defeat is glorious, the sun and the moon can learn from each other, exaggerating Li Ling and belittling Li Guangli.Isn't this going to make things difficult for Li Guangli? Don't forget, who made the star Li Guangli?Liu Che.To scold Li Guangli is to scold Liu Che.Even the emperor dared to scold him, he was courting death. In my opinion, the above inferences are simply Liu Che's personal imagination.Perhaps Sima Qian simply wanted to fight for Li Ling.However, Liu Che was able to imagine and pick a big bone out of an egg, so all he could say was that he felt guilty. Guilty to hell.Liu Che was furious, he immediately sentenced Sima Qian to death, and prepared to execute him. In the Han Dynasty, not all capital crimes required death.If not dead, there are two paths to choose from.The first is to pay money and redeem people; the second is to use corruption instead of death.How much to pay, 600,000 yuan.What is corruption, in layman's terms, it means cutting off the penis.If you use a mathematical formula to convert, the male root of the Han Dynasty at that time was equivalent to 600,000 yuan. On the issue of paying money and being circumcised, Sima Qian's thinking is very clear. Even if he becomes a usurer, he still has to borrow money to redeem his life.If the money is borrowed, it can be repaid; if the root is gone, how can it be renewed?Soon, Sima Qian discovered a terrible problem, money was really difficult to borrow. I heard that the saddest thing in life is that money is not spent when people die; I also heard that the saddest thing in life is that money is gone before people die.The saddest thing about Sima Qian is that he is not dead yet, and others just refuse to lend him money. Why not lend him money?The reason is simple, he is poor.In the Han Dynasty, people such as Li Guang, Zhang Qian, and even Gongsun Ao were sentenced to death because of their defeat in battle.But they are all rich people. After paying the money and redeeming their lives, within a few years, they made a comeback and became a hero again. Li Guang and Zhang Qian are rich because their careers are lucrative.Sima Qian was Taishi Ling from generation to generation, in charge of history, astronomy, and calendar.With such a profession, it is considered good to be able to support the whole family, so what kind of money and food do you want to save?Who would dare to borrow hundreds of thousands of dollars for such a lucrative and hopeless job?Even if there is money to borrow, it is estimated that there will be no life waiting for others to pay back the money. If he couldn't borrow money, Sima Qian still had two options: one was to cut the roots with pain; the other was to die.Death seems to be the best choice.A scholar can be killed but not humiliated.Since Confucius and Mencius, this is the most manly sentence that a scholar burst out when facing the desperation of life.Even when Su Wu faced Wei Lv's interrogation, he set an example by attempting to commit suicide and die for the country. For a man with a backbone, to suffer corruption means to live.To live is to mean that the reputation of a lifetime will be wiped out and become a laughingstock for a lifetime.All these things can be described in one word: life is worse than death. Some people are dead, he is still alive; some people are alive, he is dead.This is the famous poet Zang Kejia's interpretation of the values ​​of life and death. Human beings are inherently mortal, either heavier than Mount Tai, or lighter than a feather.This is the most classic interpretation of death by Sima Qian before us.Two thousand years later, Mao Zedong, the tycoon of the people, quoted this quote in praise of a young soldier named Zhang Side. In that moment, to be or not to be, was indeed a question. However, Sima Qian, who had no way out and was extremely sad and angry, raised his noble head and shouted on the edge of the cliff of life: I want to live.To live is not to let the decayed flesh grow, but to live for an extremely noble ideal.This ideal is to study the time between heaven and man, understand the changes of the past and the present, and become the words of the family. Lu Xun said that a true warrior dares to face the bleak life.Sima Qian, he wrote a tragic song with his miserable life.Lu Xun called his song "the swan song of historians, Li Sao without rhyme". The name of this song is "Historical Records".