Zhuangzi has always resisted the "sensible" of Confucianism because it is "hypocritical" and untrue.

But today, his disciple Meng Zhong put forward the concept of "fake courage" and vividly explained the view that "'fake courage' is not much different from true courage in some cases", which greatly impacted Zhuangzi.

Because according to what Meng Zhong said in that fable, if the Xue man "obeyed his cowardly nature", the merchant would be harmed by the thief - extended to mean "the weak man helped to increase the evil of the world because of his cowardice", which would not make the world better.

but……

Zhuangzi frowned and picked up his pen to write a few words on a bamboo plaque: Confucianism often speaks nonsense, confusing people and not the truth.

Seeing this, Meng Zhong said tactfully: "Master, I think everything in the world has both 'yin and yang', and everything has both positive and negative pros and cons. Although Confucianism is 'sensible', it is not necessarily worthy of confusion with the world with "benevolence, righteousness, propriety and virtue", but it may not be worthy of it... In the past, a man from Zheng State stole the sheep of the Song people and was captured by the Song people. The neighbors called "Zheng people steal sheep". Are all Zheng people all thieves? I am afraid that it may not be necessary. Zheng State also has a heroic lord like "Duke Zhuang of Zheng" and a virtuous minister like "Zichan (Gongsun Qiao, pioneer of the Legalists)". Moreover, Zheng State was the first country to engrave the national laws on a bronze tripod to make the national laws clear at a glance."

『Duke Zhuang of Zheng…』

Zhuangzi frowned and thought.

As Meng Zhong said, everything has both positive and negative pros and cons, and the world's evaluation of Duke Zhuang of Zheng is very complicated.

First of all, Duke Zhuang of Zheng was an enlightened and powerful lord, good at power and tricks, and neglected etiquette and righteousness. More importantly, as a minister of the Zhou royal family, all princes were ministers of the Zhou royal family, but he was disrespectful to the Zhou royal family. So King Huan of Zhou colluded with Chen, Cai, Guo, and Wei countries to jointly attack Zheng State. Unexpectedly, Duke Zhuang of Zheng led the general "Ji Zhong" - one of the characters in the previous allusion of "Everyone can be as good as you can" - and others defeated the Zhou royal family's coalition forces, which made the Zhou royal family lose face.

Therefore, Zheng became the most powerful vassal state in the Central Plains at that time, and Zheng Zhuang Duke himself was also called the little overlord of the Spring and Autumn Period by later generations.

It is precisely because Duke Zhuang of Zheng was disrespectful to the Zhou royal family that Confucian disciples hated the former and called it one of the main causes of the "collapse of rituals and music" in the era of Duke Zhuang of Zheng. The State of Song, which had always been very respectful to the Zhou royal family, was disliked by Zheng.

This is also one of the main reasons why the wars continued in Zheng and Song countries later.

[PS: In the Warring States Period, the only countries that still expressed their respect for the Zhou royal family and maintained the habit of offering tribute to the court were Song and Lu.]

However, Zheng State was the first country to clearly "inform" the people of national laws.

Before Zheng State, all countries had their own national laws to restrain their citizens, but the national laws at this time were not made public. If someone committed a crime, he might not understand until his death that criminal law he had committed.

What's more, at this time, the national laws have become a means for the powerful to conquer the people and the civilians - anyway, the national laws are not disclosed to the public. If I say you are guilty, then you are guilty.

Therefore, the punishments in various countries were very chaotic at that time.

Under this situation, Zheng State's prime minister "Zichan" decided to reform. With the support of Duke Zhuang of Zheng, he cast a large tripod, cast and carve the Zheng State's criminal letter on this bronze tripod, and then placed the bronze tripod at the door of the palace so that the people of the whole country could see this "criminal letter" and see his Zheng State's criminal letter.

After that, the people of Zheng understood the laws of their own country and sought profits to avoid harm. The powerful and powerful people in Zheng did not dare to use the criminal law to overwhelm the civilians, so Zheng became stronger. Twenty years later, the Jin State also began to imitate it. Zhao Yang and Xun Yin also cast the criminal letters made by Fan Xuanzi on the "punishment tripod" and published their criminal letters to the public.

People's opinions and evaluations of these two things are very different. Taoism and Legalism are very supportive, but Confucius, the Confucian sage, tried his best to oppose it.

After the Jin State, which was also a great country at that time, also launched the "Punishment Cauldron", Confucius, who advocated etiquette and hated Duke Zhuang of Zheng, said to his disciples unhappily: Jin State will probably perish because of this. The people knew the law and only looked at the provisions on the cauldron and did not look at the expressions of the nobles. How could this show the nobles?

However, Jin State did not perish because of this criminal cauldron. Even later, countries followed one after another and finally made the originally secret criminal book public, which greatly prevented some people from using criminal book to make themselves profit. [PS: Therefore, "Zichan" was a pioneer of the Legalists. In an era when he still advocated "ritual governance" at that time, he took great risks to launch this reform.]

"How does Master Zhuang of Zheng evaluate this Master?" Meng Zhong asked Zhuangzi.

Zhuangzi nodded thoughtfully. He had to admit that Duke Zhuang of Zheng was a hero who praised and criticized him. He used tricks to kill his younger brother "Zheng Duan (i.e. Shu Duan)" who had a bad relationship at the beginning.

Duke Zhuang of Zheng and Duan Zheng were brothers, and both of their mothers were "Wu Jiang". The difference was that Wu Jiang was unable to give birth when he was born to Duke Zhuang of Zheng and had suffered a lot of pain before giving birth to him. However, when he was born to Duan Zheng, he had a natural birth.

Therefore, Wu Jiang prefers his youngest son Zheng Duan and hates Duke Zhuang of Zheng.

Zheng Duan relied on his mother's love and was rampant in the country, which made Duke Zhuang of Zheng very dislike. He wanted to kill his younger brother or even his mother, but he was afraid of being subjected to secular responsibilities. So he came up with a plan to allow his younger brother Zheng Duan, which made the latter become more and more arrogant and domineering. In the end, Zheng Duan and his mother Wu Jiang joined forces to try to kill Duke Zhuang of Zheng and seize the throne of Zheng State.

In this way, Duke Zhuang of Zheng legitimately killed his younger brother Zheng Duan with the righteousness of "attacking rebellion", and expelled his mother Wu Jiang, and made an oath of "not to meet each other." [PS: However, a few years later, Duke Zhuang of Zheng really missed his mother, and due to his own oath, he dug a tunnel and met his mother underground (Huangquan). This is the origin of the allusion of "Huangquan Meeting".]

He used tricks to kill his brother and expel his mother. This incident showed the heroic nature of Duke Zhuang of Zheng, but in terms of governing the country, Duke Zhuang of Zheng was a wise king. Under his governance, the State of Zheng was very powerful at that time and was not afraid of Jin and Chu.

If such a hero simply uses "good, evil" or "good or bad" to evaluate, it will be unfair.

Meng Zhong believed that Confucian thought could not be simply defined as "confusing the world and making false statements".

It is undeniable that Confucianism believes that "ritual system is supreme", and Confucius even once covered up his disciple "Zeng Shen".

The cause of this incident was Zeng Shen's father "Zeng Zhan".

One day, it is said that a sheep from a villager ran to Zeng Zhan's yard, and was caught by Zeng Zhan and slaughtered and eaten, but his son Zeng Shen did not report it.

Later, Mr. Ye, the man who "Mr. Ye loves dragons", said to Confucius about this matter: There are very upright people in our place. The father stole sheep, and the son came out to report and expose it.

Confucius replied: There is a difference between the upright people in our place and this kind of integrity. The father conceals it for his son, and the son conceals it for his father. Integrity is here.

Confucianism "respecting etiquette" is so far, it is no wonder that Taoism accuses Confucianism of being "smart and false", while Legalism also looks down on Confucianism.

Later, Confucius' disciple "Zixia" said: Great virtues do not exceed leisure, but small virtues can be used to go in and out.

It is very consistent with the Confucian style. Confucianism has always believed that as a person with a gentleman personality, one should take the overall situation into consideration without being obsessed with details.

But there are also some things worthy of praise in the Confucianism of Confucius, such as the attitude towards "learning", and the "Isn't it a good idea to learn and practice it from time to time" in "The Analects of Confucius", but what is the purpose of learning?

For Confucius himself, his original intention of learning was to become an official and to gain respect from others.

Then in the period of Mencius and Xunzi, Xunzi first proposed the concept of "to apply what you have learned", which finally gave Confucian "learning" a clear direction - use!

Where to use it, it is used to govern the country and to govern people.

When it comes to governing the country and governing people, the Taoist way of governing the country should be first recommended. In terms of governing the country, from the founder of Taoism, Taoism has clearly pointed out the country-governing strategy of "doing nothing but doing nothing" to persuade the monarchs of all countries.

"Wait" does not mean doing nothing, but rather refers to following nature and not doing extra things.

For example, in April and May, when farming should be done, the monarch should not delay the people's farming because of going to war with other countries.

Regarding this point, Mencius also said similar things: Do not take away a hundred acres of land at that time, and a family of eight people will be free from hunger.

The "don't take the time" among them is to warn the monarch to follow nature - let the farmers farm when they should be allowed to farm and not do extra things.

In addition, it can also be extended to the attitude towards the people. In short, let the people do whatever they want to do, and the monarch should not "extra" - that is, to restrain them except for the criminal book.

"Doing everything" does not mean doing everything, but also means doing what you should do in accordance with nature and in accordance with the laws of nature.

Where does this aspect reflect?

For example, if a natural disaster occurs in China, the farmers are unable to get any harvest. At this time, we should follow the nature and open warehouses to help the people, rather than continue to collect land taxes from the people against the will of heaven.

To extend it, we can find ways to improve the moral cultivation of the people.

The monarch does nothing (does not do extra things), and all the ministers do (do more things that conform to the laws of heaven and nature). This is the core idea of ​​governing the country in Taoism.

Compared with Taoist thoughts on governing the country, Taoist thoughts on "governing people" seem particularly "incompatible".

In this regard, Taoism advocates self-discipline and self-improvement. Taoism believes that as long as everyone in the world pays attention to morality, then this world does not need extra things - such as the constraints of Confucian "benevolence, righteousness, propriety and number" and the constraints of Legal criminal law.

But unfortunately, people in the world may not have such awareness.

This is the limitation of Taoist thought, or in other words, what it is praised: Taoist thought only advocates self-discipline and self-improvement, but does not impose its will on others like Confucianism and Legalism.

And so, it is destined that Taoist thoughts are difficult to make a difference in the "world of Taoism" like in contemporary times.

"It's not that I have bad Taoism, but I'm afraid the world is getting worse and people's hearts are not as good as ever."

Meng Zhong said seriously.

Upon hearing this, Zhuangzi looked at Meng Zhong with surprise.
Chapter completed!