One of the four traitorous ministers in ancient China left an idiom that is now well known
As the saying goes: "Good things don't go out, bad things spread far and wide". In ancient China, there were far more histories of corrupt officials and corrupt officials than those of heroes and loyal subjects.
These treacherous ministers, their stories became not only allusions, but also idioms as history changed. The four people mentioned today stood out among the ancient traitors and became "models".
The first was Zhao Gao, a eunuch next to Qin Shi Huang. After his death, he colluded with Li Si to tamper with the edict and pass the throne to Hu Hai, the second Qin. Since then, Zhao Gao, who is above ten thousand people under one person, has greater power in the country.
Over time, Zhao Gao became rebellious and wanted to become emperor. To find out exactly how many ministers supported him, he brought a herd of deer and told the emperor and the hundred officials that it was a horse. The naïve Qin II refuted Zhao Gao on the spot, and some ministers did not dare to express their opinions below. They either echoed Zhao Gao like horses or remained silent. The officials who said they were deer died tragically. The idiom in this story refers to deer as horses, meaning to reverse right and wrong.
The second is Qin Juniper. The design story of Qin Juniper's framing of the anti-Jin hero Yue Fei is well known. Later, Qin Ju died of illness. It is said that after his death, he was sent by the ghost to the eighteenth floor of hell. When he saw these souls from above, he would say to them, "Please tell my wife that the plot to kill Yue Fei in the East Window has been exposed!" ”
Because Qin Juniper and his wife killed Yue Fei after the East Window Incident, the East Window Incident metaphor conspiracy was exposed.
The third was Li Linfu, who was the chancellor of Tang Xuanzong, but had no talent. The most disgusting thing is that he is very jealous and likes to reject others. When dealing with other officials, Li Linfu was always friendly and kind, but he was never a superficial figure.
Many officials were deceived by his appearance and suffered a lot. It was also because of Li Linfu's mediocrity that he mistreated the Hu people and Tibetan generals, which led to the rise of the Lushan army and sowed the seeds for the subsequent disaster. The idiom "The idiom of the honey belly sword is precisely what he says about people like him.
The fourth person had two people, named Zhou Xing and Lai Junchen. They took advantage of wu Zetian's anti-purge to falsely accuse and torture confessions and kill innocent military and civilian officials. Until one day, Wu Zetian received a letter about Zhou Xing, saying that he was planning a rebellion, so Wu Zetian arranged for Junchen to arrest Zhou Xing.
Lai Junchen has been working with Zhou Xing for a long time. He knew in his heart what Kind of Goods Zhou Xing was. He was old and calculating, and Zhou Xing would not admit guilt with only a whistleblower letter. Therefore, he specially invited Zhou Xing to dinner. At the banquet, Lai Junchen made up a prisoner who would rather die than yield, and wanted to ask Zhou Xing how to deal with it. Zhou Xing drank some wine and came up with a punishment method, boiling the water in the urn and letting the prisoners take a bath. After listening, Lai Junchen forced him to confess according to what Zhou Xing said.
Since then, the idiom of inviting a king into an urn has been widely circulated.
Of course, there are many idioms about traitors, but these four are the most widely circulated, and the Chinese idiom can be said to be quite charming, only four short words, a vivid historical picture unfolds before our eyes.