Chapter 17 Section 5: From an obedient citizen to a cunning beast

From a humble poor peasant to a noble emperor, the process is not as simple as an apple turning from green to red.For Zhu Chongba, the distance between the collapsed thatched house on the south bank of the Huaihe River and the magnificent Fengtian Temple in Nanjing City is as far as light years.If that smart poor boy Zhu Chongba is a piece of iron ore with good grade but buried deep in the remote mountains, then there are a few chances that turned this very common ore into a special one. Steel: The social turmoil at the end of the Yuan Dynasty was like a major earthquake, shaking this piece of ore out of the ground.After three years of wandering, he smelted this dutiful peasant child from a piece of dirt-like ore into a piece of black pig iron, and his body and mind became hard and cold.And the years of war that followed were like a melting pot of blood and fire, allowing Zhu Yuanzhang to be smelted into steel.

For Zhu Yuanzhang personally, the miracle of going from abject poverty to emperor happened to him was an extremely small probability event that was almost impossible.Ten thousand kinds of chances and coincidences made him the commoner emperor.However, for Chinese history, from a hooligan to the founding emperor is almost a rule.In the glorious thousands of years of history, the founding emperors of all dynasties, except for the first emperor Qin Shihuang and the founding emperors with ethnic minorities such as the Northern Wei, Sui and Tang Dynasties, were almost all born in Jianghu. surprised?That's the truth.If you read it well, Chinese history often gives people such unexpected conclusions.Wang Xuetai, an expert in the study of ancient literature, gave us the following examples in "Vagabonds and Chinese Society":

Han Gaozu was an out-and-out hooligan, as recorded in Sima Qian's vivid "Historical Records": (Gaozu) was idle since he was a child, and he didn't care about his family's production and homework.When he became an adult, he became a petty official, hanging shoulder to shoulder with those yamen servants all day long. Liu Bang's family member, Liu Bei, was a mat-weaving peddler with little education. "The First Lord didn't like reading very much. He likes dogs, horses, music, and beautiful clothes...he speaks little, is good at serving others, and doesn't show his emotions and anger. He likes to make friends with heroes, and he is eager to be attached to him when he is young." His quality is quite similar to that of today's gangsters. The leader, so he can get acquainted with Guan Zhang and start trouble together.

Liu Yu, the first founding emperor of the Southern Dynasties, "had a humble family background, lived in Jingkou, and had been selling shoes for a long time. He was a fierce man, only literate, and broke his family because of his gambling, and was extremely destitute." During the Five Dynasties, the five founding emperors were all from rogue soldiers.Most of the founding kings of the Ten Kingdoms are also like this. For example, Wang Jian, the former Shu emperor, "has few rascals, but slaughters cattle, steals donkeys, and sells salt privately. People in the village call him "the eight kings of thieves""; , do not like to make a living, and sell salt as a career."

The official history conceals the origin of Zhao Kuangyin, the founding emperor of the Song Dynasty. In fact, he was also born as a vagabond.Kuang Yin was young and wandered all over the world, and he gradually made a fortune after joining the army. ...Reading the biographies of these founding emperors, you will find a common feature: they all had a process of hooliganization or diaspora on their way from the lowest social strata of peasants and urban poor to emperors. Therefore, the importance of wandering for three years to the future emperor Zhu Yuanzhang cannot be overemphasized. This is a major joint in Zhu Yuanzhang's life, a procedure that he must go through from abject poverty to emperor, a training and an exam.The change from a farmer to a wandering monk is not only a change of clothes, but also a qualitative change of heart: from an honest farmer to a daring hooligan.Rogues are the emperor's chrysalis.

The obedient people in China are a unique species in the world.The peasants of past dynasties in China were firmly tied to the land by countless ropes.Layers of control by bureaucrats at all levels, strict constraints of the clan system, continuous education of village rules and regulations, and no space for making a living except for the land, farmers are like trees, growing on the land and bearing fruit every year. The government picked it up.Due to the continuous evolution of the ignorant rule of the past, they are short-sighted, closed-minded, and conservative.They are afraid of the emperor, officials, violence, ghosts and gods, they are afraid of everything.They have no aggressive spirit and always passively bear their fate.

After the Opium War, Western observers who came to China had the deepest impression on the Chinese people at that time that they chose to be patient in the face of any unreasonable phenomena. "This kind of endurance leads to the most tragic sight to be seen in China: the rich people have an endless amount of food, which is easy to grab, while thousands of people nearby starve to death silently. Chinese people have become accustomed to this phenomenon.” Foreigners are surprised that those hungry and desperate refugees during the famine years “did not unite and ask local officials for some assistance.”Foreigners asked these disaster victims repeatedly, and the answer they got was: "Don't dare."

(Arthur Smith's "Chinese Temperament") Therefore, it is impossible to expect these tame animals whose minds and claws have been removed to leave traces in history.There is only one way to make them grow teeth and claws again, and that is to cut off the ropes on them, exile them outside of normal society, outside the enlightenment of imperial power, clan power, and the three cardinal principles and five constant principles. Put on the scales again in the wind, rain and frost, and restore the original wildness.And the incompetent rulers of all ages have been doing just that.Their imbecile rule drove a large number of peasants out of the land, and they could only live on vagabonds, just like Zhu Yuanzhang.

Once put on Linjia, they are destined to lead the way in history.The minds and vision of other social classes can easily be firmly controlled by a few acres of land and a few books.However, people in the Jianghu are uniquely endowed with complex experiences and an understanding of the psychology of people at all levels of society.Long-term wandering around the rivers and lakes gave them shrewd minds, making it easier for them to penetrate the secrets of Chinese society and grasp the hidden rules of Chinese society more deeply. In 1959, when Mao Zedong talked about Liu Bang's success, he said: "Liu Bang was able to defeat Xiang Yu because Liu Bang was different from Xiang Yu, who was born in a noble family. He was more familiar with social life and understood the psychology of the people."

Because they have no identity and status in normal society, homeless people do not have the obstacle of shame. They do things unconventional, dare to do things that ordinary people dare not do, are good at brain teasers, and dare to run red lights or go around red lights.Xiang Yu used Liu Bang's old father to coerce Liu Bang to surrender, but Liu Bang said: "You and I were sworn brothers, and my father is your father. If you must boil and kill your father, then I hope you will share a piece of meat soup with me!" Xiang Yu never thought that Liu Bang would give such an answer, so the threat he thought would definitely work had to be cancelled.This is a classic example of the rogue triumphing over the nobility.

The long-term wind and frost gave them a black heart. They have strong willpower and barbarism that ordinary people do not have. These are often decisive forces in troubled times.They can kill without blinking an eye, and they can cut off the wrists of a strong man in order to survive.Those well-educated intellectuals may be equally shrewd, but their endowments are weak, they don't have the courage to break the edge, they don't have a thick skin and a black heart, so they can only be the assistants and counselors of these green forest heroes, and eat by their side A little bit of leftovers that they fall off.Therefore, although the founding emperors of all dynasties used intellectuals, most of them looked down on them.When Liu Bang saw that the scholar was wearing a correct hat, he asked someone to take it off and urinated in it.Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhang Xianzhong killed scholars like nothing, humiliated and tortured civil officials like slaves. With brains, cheeks and black hearts, they have initially possessed the ability to succeed in a society of vicious competition.Coupled with the opportunity bestowed by God, they will certainly shake the world and leave their names in history.