The Art of Huang Lao was named after the legendary Yellow Emperor and Lao Tzu as founders. As a philosophical thought, the art of Huang Lao began in the Warring States and flourished in the Western Han Dynasty.
1. Its claims had a certain influence in the early Han Dynasty, and as a result, there was a prosperous era of "wenjing rule" in Chinese history. Liu Bang was the first person in history to use the technique of Huang Laozhi to govern the country. Because the rulers of the early Han Dynasty admired the art of Huang Lao, they implemented the policy of ruling by doing nothing and resting with the people, which effectively promoted the social and economic prosperity of the early Han Dynasty.
2. The "Huang Lao Zhi Shu" of the early Han Dynasty is no longer the original appearance of Taoist thought, but is based on Taoist thought as the backbone and compatible with the ideas of other schools. Huang Laozhi was the main ruling ideology during the 60 years of the early Han Dynasty.
3. Since the unification of the Qin Dynasty, china's mainstream ideology has undergone corresponding great changes. The culture of Dharma (Qin), Taoism (early Han Dynasty), and Confucianism (after the Han and Tang Dynasties) successively became the mainstream ideology of the "Great Unification" society.
4. Traditional Taoist thought gives us metaphysical views, focusing on exploring the universe and ultimate values. "Lü's Spring and Autumn" and "Huainanzi" are representative works of Huang Laozhi's art.
5. Of course, any kind of thought and theory will be limited by the times. The ending of the King of Huainan undoubtedly symbolizes the final decline of the Huang Lao's art. The replacement of Huang Lao by Confucianism is a bloody process. Since then, Huang Laozhi has left the center of ideology.
6. In "On the Essentials of the Six Schools", Sima Tan once made a general summary of the Taoists at the time of the Qin and Han Dynasties: "Taoists do nothing, but also know that there is nothing to do", "its technique is based on nothingness, and it is used for following the law", "The goodness of Confucianism and ink is the key to the method of picking up names".
7. The "Huang Lao Zhi Shu" advocated by several emperors in the early years of the Western Han Dynasty was deposed during the period of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, and Dong Zhongshu's proposal to "depose the Hundred Families and Respect Confucianism Alone" was actually the main depose of the "Huang Lao Zhi Shu".
8. China's cultural history, before the Qin and Han Dynasties, was shrouded in all cultural thought by the three schools of Confucianism, Ink and Taoism. After the Tang and Song dynasties, they changed one family and became the three schools of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, which in turn shrouded Chinese cultural thought until the early days of the Republic of China. After the May Fourth Movement, there was a change in the mainstream of Chinese culture.
9. A perusal of China's thousands of years of history reveals a secret: that is, every dynasty, at its peak, had a common secret in the governance of political affairs, that is, "to use Huang Lao internally and Confucianism externally." This has been the case since the Han and Tang dynasties, and then during the founding periods of the Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties. The inner true and practical leadership ideology is the study of Huang Laozhi, that is, the Taoist thought in traditional Chinese culture. What is flaunted on the outside, that is, expressed in propaganda and education, is the culture of Confucius and Mencius and Confucianism. But this is just a slogan, just a signboard, also called "hanging sheep's head to sell dog meat", which means that it is one set of talks, and another set is done.
10. The relationship between Confucianism and Taoism seems to contradict each other on the surface, but in essence the two complement each other. If you have to dig up roots, then Taoism is closer to metaphysical Tao, and it is smarter than Confucianism. But if we leave the foundation of Confucianism, Taoism loses its essence and becomes a form. Therefore, the internal use of Huang Lao is to take the purity and indifference of Taoism as the purpose, and the external demonstration of Confucianism is to take benevolence and morality as the call. On the surface, there is a bit of inconsistency between the inside and the outside, but in fact, the two are not contradictory and inseparable.