"Since ancient times, meat-eaters have been pursuing long-term peace and stability so that themselves and their descendants can become meat-eaters for a long time, but they do not realize that what they do is exactly what pushes them into the abyss.
They want long-term peace and stability, but they never practice it in action. They talk happily, but they are constantly doing things that will lead to death. Such things happen again and again, and there are so many people in the world.
Things that rise and fall.”
"And the solution to all this lies in the ideals of our ancestors. Ministers should not be spared from punishment, good deeds should not be spared, officials should not be intimate, and the law should not neglect love. If we can insist on doing this, why
Are you worried that the country will not be able to maintain long-term peace and stability?"
At the compilation meeting of "Jia De Tong Yi", Liu Bei served as the host and delivered a speech in person.
He explained his dissatisfaction with Confucianism and his appreciation for part of Legalism's teachings, and announced his decision to use this part of Legalism's teachings to replace the corresponding parts of Confucianism and abandon it completely.
Naturally, Liu Bei did not intend to completely restore Legalism. He also made profound criticisms of some of Legalism's views. Some contents of Legalism were unacceptable to him.
For example, in the Legalist view, enriching the country and enriching the people, and strengthening the country and strengthening the people are opposites. They cannot have both. Therefore, they must serve the ruler thoroughly. All they think about is to expand the power of the ruler and strengthen their rule.
The authority of the author has been put in a very embarrassing position.
On this issue, Legalism advocates unlimited expansion of state power while narrowing the interests of the people. This is the biggest ideological crisis of Legalism.
A rich country does not necessarily make the people rich, and a strong country does not necessarily make the people strong. Legalism puts the country and the people on opposite sides, making the actual relationship between the two essentially hostile rather than interdependent.
Legalists are not aware of this simple issue of opposition and unity.
They placed too much emphasis on the significance of rulers, had too strong opinions, and had an overly strict concept of national wealth, which led to the weakness of the people to the point where they could no longer survive.
Perhaps it was the unprecedentedly powerful national military power during the Warring States Period that made them believe that it was impossible for the people to oppose the state. Perhaps it was because there were no huge peasant uprisings in that era, so they did not realize that once people reached the point where they could no longer survive, an outbreak would occur.
Out of infinite power.
No matter how ferocious a ruler's rule is, it will collapse when it is targeted by this force.
The peasant uprising at the end of Qin Dynasty would be so raging, and this old legalist concept inherited from the Warring States Period may also be one of the important contributors.
They fought out of the Shura Fields of the Warring States Period, filled with murderous intent. They were too strong and too lenient. They took the country's state of exception to its extreme without paying attention to people's livelihood at the same time. As a result, the entire national building began to collapse from the bottom up, and eventually it collapsed.
Out of control.
This is the biggest problem with Legalism, and it is also something Liu Bei cannot accept.
Therefore, at this point, Liu Bei believed that the Confucian concept of tolerance and benevolence should be adopted to modify and strengthen it, and modify the overly fierce and ruthless side of Legalism.
In a sense, Confucianism can replace Legalism, which is also the reason why the rulers realized the ferocious power of peasant uprisings. The Qin Empire, which unified all the wastelands, could collapse suddenly. How could they not be afraid?
It's right to be afraid, but it's wrong to abandon it when you're afraid and throw away the good ones too.
He proposed at the editorial meeting that the prosperity of the country and the prosperity of the people are not antagonistic, but should complement each other. The country and the people should have a collaborative relationship in seeking development.
In the face of things that can bring benefits, the state organizes, guides, and plays a leadership role, and the people do their best, and if they have money and strength, they participate together, win together, and then share the benefits in a fair way. No one is left behind.
A prosperous and powerful country means that the people can also become prosperous and powerful at the same time. If the country gains power, the people can also gain the country's power and share the benefits of the country's prosperity.
The relationship between the country and the people is not a binary opposition, but a relationship of interdependence, mutual help, and joint support.
Therefore, Liu Bei advocated that on this issue, some of the legalist ideas should be adopted to limit the legalist thinking and resolve the self-contradictions of the legalists.
That is to say, strict laws are formulated to restrain the power of meat-eaters, and meat-eaters cannot be allowed to plunder indefinitely among limited interests. The law is elevated to the most important position in a country, and the law is used as the standard of judgment and is enacted throughout the world, so that
Everyone is convinced.
Human greed is obviously also a major problem. Legalism proposes to use severe punishments and laws to restrain human nature. As long as the laws are in place, there is no problem that cannot be solved.
But at this point, Liu Bei agreed with some Confucian thinking and felt that laws that were too strong would be counterproductive, and it was better to ease things than to block them.
Blind blocking cannot block human nature.
However, at this point, not only Legalism, but Confucianism also entered an endless cycle and a dead end.
Legalism pays attention to the ultimate rules, but Confucianism fiddles with the ultimate moral restraint, tossing up the terrifying concept of preserving natural principles and destroying human desires, which ultimately led to the overall rigidity and complete bankruptcy of Confucianism.
In Liu Bei's view, this is not without a solution.
Among the fixed interests, do not let the meat eaters get too much. If the meat eaters are dissatisfied, the people will also be dissatisfied sooner or later. Then we should work hard to make the fixed interests bigger and the cake bigger, so that we can be within the fixed range.
, to satisfy people’s desires in stages.
At the same time, the country will become stronger and stronger, rising step by step, growing step by step.
Many people found Liu Bei's idea novel, surprising, and even happy, and were willing to support it. However, at the editing meeting, Zheng Xuan raised a question.
He believed that Qin's defeat was violent and the uneven distribution of interests was also a major problem. What Liu Bei said made sense. The prosperity of the country and the prosperity of the people were indeed not completely opposite. It was also necessary to use severe punishments to restrain meat eaters.
But Liu Bei's solution has some problems.
The land in the world is not unlimited, and the wealth in the world is not unlimited. The land and wealth will eventually be exhausted. At that time, faced with people's ever-expanding desires and the reality that they cannot continue to be distributed, the contradiction between the two is enough to destroy anyone.
nation.
Zheng Xuan even suggested that this was the reason for the demise of Qin.
After they unified the six countries, they stopped fighting. The huge interest groups trained by the farming system could not be satisfied. In order to satisfy their own interests, they began to fight each other more fiercely and compete for power, causing serious internal conflicts.
The unlimited competition and fighting within the limited scope of interests eventually indirectly led to the collapse of the Qin Empire's rule. The Qin State was destroyed by this serious internal contradiction. All appearances stemmed from this large internal contradiction.
The Han Dynasty can now adopt the method proposed by Liu Bei to ease the conflict, but one day, when the Han Dynasty goes on the same path as the Qin State, what should we do?
How to guide?
What can be used to guide?
"My emperor is wise, but future generations must not ignore the lessons learned from past mistakes."
Zheng Xuan's opposition was very mild.
In response to Zheng Xuan's mild objection, Liu Bei explained in detail the most critical point of his views just now.
That is to make the cake bigger, break out of the one-third of an acre of the fourteen states of the Han Dynasty, and go all out to explore outwards to find more land suitable for survival and reproduction.
In other words, the national policy of the Third Empire of the Han Dynasty should be an export-oriented national policy and follow an export-oriented path, rather than being limited to this three-acre area.
"Their vision was limited to the land of China, to those known places, but they did not realize that the world is vast, and there are many more places that they have not yet discovered. When the Han Dynasty opened up the Western Regions, I think they had this idea.
.
To the west of the Western Region, there is Anxi and Guishuang. Further west, there is the legendary Qin Kingdom. To the south, there is the Shendu Kingdom. To the east, there is the land of Liaodong. Across the sea, there is also the legendary Japanese Kingdom.
There are people and land in the place, why can't it be used for development and rewards?
We Han people have been relocating to their homeland since ancient times. I understand this truth, but what I think is, since the land of China can no longer satisfy us and will collapse due to internal conflicts in a hundred or two hundred years, why can't we move further outwards?"
Zheng Xuan obviously didn't expect Liu Bei to ask this question. After thinking about it for a while, he thought of the loophole in this question.
"Your Majesty, I think that it's not that our ancestors didn't want to go, but that they couldn't go out. The road is too long, too dangerous, and too dangerous. If you risk your life and go out, you don't know what you will get. What if you die in a foreign country?"
What can I do if I find a lonely ghost?
For the country, how can it maintain the needs of people's greed if they pay too much and get nothing in return? At that time, there will be no way out, and there will be no more things to profit from inside, so the big man will still have to step forward.
Follow the old path of the pre-Qin Dynasty."
When Zheng Xuan said this, he was somewhat sincere.
But Liu Bei did not agree with this concept of being stubborn.
"Zheng Shangshu, I don't quite agree with this statement."
Liu Bei shook his head: "Now we all know that the land of Jizhou and Hebei is a blessed land, the land of Yizhou, Sichuan and Shu is also a blessed land, and the Central Plains Qingxu and Yanyu are blessed lands, but hundreds of years ago King Wu of Zhou conquered the Yin and Shang Dynasties
This was not the case when the People's Republic of China was founded.
I read history books and know that at that time, Hebei, Sichuan, Sichuan, and Qingxu were all barbaric lands, full of poisonous insects and ferocious beasts, and barbarians. Why has it become a fertile land now? Because generation after generation.
A generation of ancestors left Guanzhong and Luoyang at that time.
King Wu established feudal states and arranged for nobles and meritorious ministers to go to various places to establish feudal states. When many countries in later generations, including the Seven Heroes of the Warring States Period, were first established, many countries did not even have a decent city, and the ground was full of weeds.
Swamps, woods, and savages.
How did they do it? Starting from the first generation of monarchs, they practiced slash-and-burn farming. It was real slash-and-burn farming. They used knives to compete with barbarians for land, burned weeds and woods with fire to obtain cultivated land, and then drained water, cultivated and sown seeds bit by bit.
Weeding and weeding were repeated for hundreds of years to create the fertile land it is today.
As you all know, the Zhou Dynasty has been inherited for 800 years, and the Emperor of Zhou has ruled the world for 800 years. However, it was only a dozen years after Qin unified the world, and the Han Dynasty unified it. Without the genius of Emperor Guangwu, I am afraid there would not be the 400 people we have now.
Years ago, why could neither Qin nor Han outgrow the Zhou family?
I think the root of this is here. The Zhou people dared to open up, enfeoffed, forged ahead, and braved great dangers. Generation after generation, they finally turned the barbaric land into a sacred land, satisfying the royal family and nobles.
and the needs of the people.
Today, we enjoy the legacy of our predecessors and the wealth left behind by their hard work, but we have forgotten the pioneering spirit of our predecessors. When we see the sea, we shrink back, when we see the grassland, we shrink, and when we see the desert, we shrink.
Retreat, retreat when you see the miasma.
Cowardly, they only know that they have repeatedly fought, plundered, fought among themselves, and killed each other on this three-thirds of an acre. What is the final result? The Qin Dynasty collapsed in just a dozen years, and the Han Dynasty had two crises, which barely lasted for 400 years.
Years ago, how could the Zhou Dynasty have the style of ruling the world for eight hundred years?
Dare to open up, it will take at least 800 years, and stay in the same place for at least 400 years, and as short as more than ten years. The gap between the two is so huge, can't you see it? Zheng Shangshu, can't you
Can’t you see it either?”
Taking other things as an example, Zheng Xuan really has nothing to fear, but judging from the years he has enjoyed the country, he really has something to say.
If we take this theory one step further, we will come to the conclusion that this is really the case.
People are pioneering and enterprising, constantly acquiring more territory to make the pie bigger, and new benefits are constantly being obtained that can alleviate conflicts, so even if it is chaos, even if it is the chaos of the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, it can last for eight hundred years.
At least eight hundred years in name.
If we don't forge ahead, we will continue to involute this three-thirds of an acre of land. No matter how intensively we cultivate it, the longest it will be can't be as long as the Han Dynasty. If the shortest is shortest, we have to refer to the Qin Dynasty after its unification.
Could it be that this is really true?
Zheng Xuan could not put forward more effective objections, but he was still worried about the prospects proposed by Liu Bei. He believed that blindly expanding outward would cause greater casualties if greater benefits were not obtained in time, and the impact would also be
Very big.
Moreover, if this policy is not carried out well, it may fall into a situation where "although the country is large, it will always perish if it is warlike".
"Your Majesty, although the country is large, it will always be prone to war. Once your strategy is not controlled well, it is easy to fall into such misunderstandings and be misunderstood by future generations. It may cause more problems than it is now. If you don't do more
Thinking about it?"
After Liu Bei heard this, he thought for a moment and slowly shook his head.
"Of course there is a problem with being warlike, but we are not warlike. We are fighting to gain more land for survival through war. We are not fighting for war's sake. The two have completely different meanings. I don't think we can simply apply them.
The words of the ancients.
Since we know that the road ahead is impassable, we should walk and see the unknown road. If we walk successfully, everything will be fine. If we don't walk successfully, we can also give future generations more experience. Blindly walking on the road traveled by our predecessors is the right way to go.
meaningless."
After Zheng Xuan heard this, he had nothing to say.
He could not refute the concept put forward by Liu Bei. Likewise, he also knew that Liu Bei had the final say on this matter.
In this case, there's nothing wrong with following his wishes, right?
So the content of this part was recorded according to what Liu Bei said, adding to the application of Legalist thought in this period, and directly citing cases from the period of King Wu of Zhou Dynasty.
Incidentally, I mention ancient sages such as Jiang Taigong and Zhou Gong to increase the reliability of this discussion.
Next, Liu Bei also proposed his appreciation of Taoist thought of conformity and Mohist ingenuity. At the same time, he criticized the Taoist thought of ingenuity and the Mohist thought of universal love and non-aggression.
Come out and whip the corpse together from three sides.