Lü Buwei (292 BC – 235 BC), surnamed Jiang, was a native of Puyang (present-day Hua County, Henan Province). A businessman, politician, and thinker in the last years of the Warring States period, he was the 23rd grandson of Jiang Ziya.
Lü Buwei did business in Yang Zhai in his early years, and after discovering the Proton Yiren of the Qin State who was "strange and habitable", he actively supported the Yiren to return to the country and take the throne, becoming the King of Qin Zhuangxiang, and Lü Buwei was worshipped as Xiangguo.
After the death of King Xiang of Qinzhuang, he also welcomed the crown prince Yingzheng to the throne, and commanded the Qin army to attack everywhere as the "middle father", making a major contribution to the cause of Qin Shi Huang's annexation of the Six Kingdoms. Later, Lü Buwei was implicated in the rebellion of the Yan Yi clique, returned to China, and his family exiled to Shu County, where he committed suicide by drinking alcohol on the way.
Regarding lü buwei's story, most of the readers and friends are also very familiar with it, so the author asks, how to evaluate Lü Buwei?
There is an idiom called the coffin conclusive theory, that is, the right and wrong of a person can often only be commented on more objectively after the death of this person, otherwise, it is "zhou gong fear rumor day, wang mang humble and not usurped." (Bai Juyi, "Five Songs of Speech, Part III")
However, this conclusive idiom does not apply much to Lü Buwei, because after Lü Buwei's death, people in history have always had great differences in his evaluation.
From the Han Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty, people mostly adopted a dismissive attitude toward Lü Buwei.
Some people called him a "villain"; some people said that he was a "rioter"; and some even hung up Lü Buwei and Liang Shangjun.
At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the great Confucian Fang Xiaoru also specifically listed Lü Buwei's three major mistakes: "Taking advantage of the situation of the great Jia to take advantage of the strange goods in the city; causing the rich and the noble to act imprudently; and those whose deeds are not enough." ”
Xu Shidong of the Qing Dynasty (1814-1873, bibliophile) used the metaphor of "bee venom" to Lü Buwei.
It was not until the 1940s that Mr. Guo Moruo, based on his own research, proposed for the first time that Lü Buwei was "a great statesman in Chinese history."
Since the reform and opening up, a group of historians represented by Ren Jiyu (1916-2009) have defined Lü Buwei as a politician and thinker with great achievements in the Qin and Han dynasties.
In this way, Lü Buwei is no longer a businessman and speculator in history, but a leader in China's history who can be remembered by future generations in the political, business, and ideological circles at the same time.
The ancients regarded "morality, meritorious service, and speech" as the three immortals of life. Li De and Lü Buwei did not seem to have done it, but in terms of meritorious service and speech, Lü Buwei completely did it.
Lü Buwei, as an ordinary businessman, used his wealth to establish the monarch of the Qin State twice, and in the more than ten years of his tenure as the Prime Minister of the Qin State, he took over the baton of the Qin people's predecessors, continued to expand the territory on a large scale, marched triumphantly in the great cause of unifying the world, and laid the final foundation for Qin Shi Huang to destroy the Six Kingdoms and achieve the imperial cause.
Lü Buwei also prepared for the Qin state to govern the country after unifying the world, and his masterpiece "Lü Shi Chunqiu" came out, which laid his position in the ideological history of our country.
"Lü's Spring and Autumn" represents Lü Buwei's governing strategy and cultural policy: with the change of law and the legal system as the core, the rule of law and cultivation of the legal family, the Confucian etiquette and benevolent government, the Taoist rule of inaction and power, the righteous rule and frugality of the Mo family, and the current politics of the Yin and Yang family, the correct name of the famous family, etc., are integrated into one, forming a fairly complete political theory system that adapts to the needs of the "great unification", under the premise of favoring the monarchy, not respecting one family and one faction, and trying to surpass the sons, integrate the hundred families, and encompass all ideas, strategies, and governance techniques.
If Qin Shi Huang had not been dismissed because of people, but had borrowed the reasonable content of the Lü Shi Chunqiu, the Great Qin Empire that he had ruled over the world would never have died in a short life.
Mr. Guo Moruo also once said: "If we follow Lü Buwei's line, the Qin state will still unify China, and after reunification, it will not collapse rapidly and completely in just fifteen years." ”
Lü Buwei has strong ability, high means, wisdom and boldness. He became a man of money and women, and eventually he also died because of money and women, which is the so-called "success is also Xiao He, and defeat is also Xiao He."
Lü Buwei as a businessman, he is successful, as a politician, but he is immature, because he has never understood a simple truth: he is only a supporting role in the Qin state regime, his surname is Lü, not surnamed Yin, in the political situation of the Qin state, the protagonist is an increasingly mature young man Yingzheng, no matter how powerful the power is, after all, it is not greater than the royal power.
Perhaps, Mr. Sima Qian said in the epilogue of the "Biography of Lü Buwei lie": "Confucius's so-called 'hearers' are his Lü Zihu? Mr. Sima Qian fixed Lü Buwei's life realm in the following way: he is a "hearer" rather than a "master", which seems to have a certain reason.
To add, Confucius's views on "Wen" and "Da" are published in the section of the Analects of Yan Yuan, in its twelfth section, as follows:
Zi Zhang asked, "Shi He Rusi can be said to be da yi?" Zi Yue: "Ho Zha, what is the so-called attainer?" Zi Zhang said to him: "I will smell it in the state, and I will smell it at home." Zi Yue: "It is Wen Ye, Fei Da Ye." Fuda is also a man of straightness and righteousness, who observes his words and looks at the colors, and who cares about the following. In BangPida, at home It will be reached. Those who hear of it, take the color and act in violation of it, and there is no doubt about it. It must be heard in the state, and it must be heard at home. ”
Confucius believed that "the person who has attained the goal" is to be upright in character, to act according to morality, to be good at observing others, and to know how to be humble, and such a person will be able to reach the court and at home; the "hearer" is to seem to be very benevolent on the surface, but in action it is another thing, but he considers himself a benevolent person, and this kind of person has a certain reputation in the court and at home. Compared with the "master", the "hearer" is already a lower realm.
This article refers to: "Alternative Interpretation of the Top Monarchs of the Overbearing Qin Dynasty", "History"