There is no shortage of beautiful scenery, sweet and nourishing springs, and brilliant talents. In the great river of history, talents are born from generations, some of them were born in primitive tribes in ancient times, some were born in the Warring States, which is known as a chaotic world, and the figure we want to talk about today was born in the Han Wudi period of the Western Han Dynasty.
Oriental Shuo
He was born in 161 BC in Pingyuan County, and should now be in Dezhou City in Shandong Province, and the specific district and county is Lingcheng District. Some experts believe that the date of his death is in 93 BC, but many people have different degrees of opposition to this date, which is caused by the unclear time of recording and the fragmentation of historical materials. According to historical data and his contributions, people call him a powerful writer, politician and theorist during the Western Han WuDidi period. He was originally just a commoner, but because Emperor Wu of Han was thirsty for talents and recruited sages, he wrote a long letter to introduce himself, and Emperor Wu thought that he was an ambitious and talented person through his long text, so he later left him in the imperial court, although he was in a mediocre official position at the beginning, or even very unsatisfactory, but he did not throw temper and complain, but adopted a series of wise methods to obtain the emperor's "attention", thus making him later from the initial "Lang" official, Slowly became Chang Shilang and Taizhong Doctor.
It may be because there were many talents at that time, or his propositions were not "emperor's thoughts", so even if he was very good, Emperor Wu did not reuse him later, but just put him around and did not reuse him.
Many people in the view of Dongfang Shuo, always blindly use the "colored eyes" to look at, they think that Emperor Wu is the yardstick for measuring and evaluating talents at that time, if some people at that time were entrusted by Emperor Wu to use, then this person has talent, but if a person has not been reused by Emperor Wu in his life, it means that he is incompetent and not a talent in people's mouths. In fact, such a method of evaluation is a mistake, because the king's non-adoption is sometimes not because the person's ability is insufficient, but for a variety of reasons.
It is like in the Warring States period, a senior Confucian to lobby and prepare for a strong Qin state, the king of the Qin state naturally will not apply such a set of ideas in their own country, because at this time they need to become strong, need to become capable, so they naturally can not listen to the Confucian strategy of "an state and a fixed country".
At this time, what the Qin state needed was a harsh "Legalist Thought", because if it wanted to make a country strong, it was necessary to have the idea of "strong medicine to get rid of it".
But we cannot say that "Confucianism" is wrong and incompetent for such reasons, because of the interface problem and the problem of whether it matches or not. This is like when the Confucians were moderately advocated in a unified country, they were more scientific and effective than the ideas of the Dharma.
The power of Dongfang Shuo
When many people introduce Dongfang Shuo, they all introduce how he relied on his ingenuity to let Emperor Wu know, and what I am talking about today is a little-known thing.
According to historical records, Dongfang Shuo did not know whether it was because he was happy or because he was sad, so he drank too much one night, and the more confused he drank and drank, and the more urine he felt, at this time he was drunk, so he actually used the palace as his own latrine, only to see him unzip his pants while holding the wall to urinate. It is said that if no one saw this behavior, it would be good, after all, there was no monitoring in ancient times, but it was very unfortunate that this behavior of his was actually seen by an official, who may be jealous that he often accompanied the emperor, so he took this opportunity to impeach him, and after learning about this matter, Emperor Wu also ordered him to be demoted to a commoner. It just so happened that at this time, Emperor Wu's sister's son was arrested for killing people, after all, "The Son of Heaven broke the law and committed the same crime as the common people", Emperor Wu did not want to mess with the rules because he was his nephew, but because his sister had some entrustment before his death, Emperor Wu was very distressed.
At this time, Dongfang Shuo, who had not yet been deposed, appeared, and he picked up a glass of wine to toast Emperor Wu's birthday, and explained to the emperor that drinking alcohol can dispel people's emotions and achieve the effect of health. Because the clever Dongfang Shuo had already seen through the emperor's troubles because of his nephew's affair, plus he had only made mistakes because of drinking before, in order to make up for his future and win the emperor's favor, he wanted to use "wine" to praise and express Emperor Wu's integrity, and on the other hand, he wanted Emperor Wu to dispel his worries. Later, Emperor Wu listened to his thoughts and immediately reinstated him as an official.