"Rabbits do not eat grass by the nest" This saying friends must be very familiar, the surface meaning is very simple, that is, rabbits will not eat the grass next to their nests, because they are worried about their own smell exposure, and now they are used by people to say that they should "be good with their neighbors" and not do bad things at the door of their homes. However, its original meaning is not like this, and its second half of the sentence is 10 people 9 do not know, do not believe you look down.
This sentence comes from "Hu Xueyan's Complete Biography • Pingbu Qingyun", Hu Xueyan said: "You can rest assured, 'rabbits don't eat nest grass', if you have this thought, I will not be the first to tell you." There is another story about this saying.
Hu Xueyan, born in 1823, is a famous "red-topped merchant" in modern China, and also a representative figure of Huishang (Huishang is one of the three major merchant schools in China, as well as Jinshang and Chaoshang), and he is also a politician.
The principle of "officials and businessmen do not separate families" needless to say, if you want to make the business bigger and stronger, it is ultimately inseparable from the relationship with the official field, such as in the late Qing Dynasty in China, Jinshang can control many officials to a certain extent, and even influence the government's decision-making. Especially at that time, Empress Dowager Cixi was extravagant and wasteful, and the national treasury was "used up" by her, and even embezzled military funds, so these rich merchants were the government's best "friends", and Hu Xueyan was such a "friend".
In the eleventh year of Qing Xianfeng (1861), Hu Xueyan took the initiative to help the Qing army, and it was both to send grain and buy arms, and spent 11.95 million taels of silver to buy them. He even formed the "Changjie Army" for Zuo Zongtang, who was particularly touched, and later Hu Xueyan also helped the government to inquire about information from all walks of life in Shanghai, do intelligence work, and see what these rich and high-ranking people were thinking, and report it to Zuo Zongtang.
The government was particularly satisfied with him, and Hu Xueyan later became an official to 2 pins, rewarding him with a "yellow coat", and the official hat could be worn with 2 poinsettia tops, and later also called him a "red top businessman", that is, "official businessman", part-time civil servant and businessman.
At that time, there were not many people like Hu Xueyan who mixed so well. Other people accidentally lost all, Hu Xueyan's old friend also encountered "things", urgently need to hide from the wind, so he remembered this "reliable" giant business friend, entrusted him to help take care of his wife and children, and waited for him to survive this time, but his wife is young and beautiful, as a man he is certainly not at ease, Hu Xueyan saw his hesitation.
Immediately patted his chest and said to his friend: "You can rest assured, 'rabbits don't eat nest grass', I want to have a mind for your wife, I will be the first to tell you!" After the friend listened, he was very relieved and left, and as a result, his wife was immediately taken away by Hu Xueyan!
Because the next sentence of "rabbits don't eat grass by the nest" is - "Why should you run all over the mountain when there is grass on the side of the nest", then since you have sent your wife to my house, I don't have to go out to find it, that friend is really miserable, the wife is gone, and he is probably gone, because this person has disappeared since then, it is likely to be killed.
However, this giant merchant Hu Xueyan, who ate the "nest edge grass", finally ended up being dismissed from his post and confiscating his family property, and the money he earned for decades was suddenly gone, and he finally died in poverty and grief.
With the passage of time, the meaning of "rabbits do not eat nest grass" has gradually changed, and there are not many people who know the next sentence, but after reading this article, I believe friends will remember!