There is a poem in Buddhism that mimics Zhuangzi's tone and writes:
"Bodhi has no tree, nor is spiegel a platform.
Originally there was nothing, where to stir up dust! ”
Man's identity, for man himself, is like dust, it is not important in itself, only its own struggle is the most important. The beggar and the emperor are the two extreme identities of society. However, in ancient China, there were really 2 people who had both been beggars and emperors, but the process was very different, one was from a beggar to an emperor, and the other was from an emperor to a beggar.
The person who became the emperor from a beggar was, of course, the famous Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang. Zhu Yuanzhang was born in 1328, when China was in extreme poverty, coupled with natural disasters for many years, the Red Turban Army revolted continuously, so the people's life was very hard. Zhu Yuanzhang's parents were both peasants, and they were extremely poor peasants, who had no land of their own, and could only work for the landlords to make a living. Zhu Yuanzhang had to herd cattle for the landlord himself at a young age to barely fill his stomach.
However, this was not the most difficult period of time for Zhu Yuanzhang, he at least had a parent who shielded him from the wind and rain. In 1343, Zhu Yuanzhang's parents, who were only 15 years old, died of the plague, and with the help of well-wishers, he hastily buried his parents, and he had to become a monk to eat together. But who knew that the monk also did not long, and within a few months, the abbot of the temple sent him out to "change his fate", in fact, he let Zhu Yuanzhang, a teenage child, go to beg for food by himself.
After experiencing repeated starvation deaths, Zhu Yuanzhang joined the Red Turban Army at the age of 25 after listening to the introduction of his childhood friend Tang He. Because Zhu Yuanzhang was hard-working, good at learning, and resourceful and courageous, he soon emerged in the Yellow Turban Army and had his own team. After unremitting efforts, the Ming Dynasty was finally established in 1367 and became the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty.
Zhu Yuanzhang's life is a life of struggle and a life of inspiration. Whether it was his friends or his enemies, those who supported him or those who opposed him, after hearing Zhu Yuanzhang's counterattack life, they could not help but express heartfelt admiration. But in contrast, another person who went from emperor to beggar is very despicable. This man's name was Gao Wei, and he had done all kinds of ridiculous things in his life, and he still sounded indignant.
Gao Wei was born in 556 AD and was the crown prince of the State of Qi during the Southern and Northern Dynasties. The history of the northern Qi country is a strange history, such as the empress dowager opening a brothel, the queen prostitution and such things, that is, the Northern Qi dynasty did it. And Gao Wei was the son of Empress Dowager Hu, the empress dowager who opened the brothel, and his succession to the throne as emperor was also very interesting.
In March 565, due to the appearance of a comet, Gao Wei's father heard that it was "the elephant of removing the old cloth and the new", so he ceded the throne to him. However, at this time, his father was still in power personally, he was only the nominal emperor, so the "big drama" of Gao Wei's life had not yet officially begun. After 4 years, Gao Wei's father finally died, and Gao Wei finally began the road of official death in life.
At first, Gao Wei was still very normal, and after he personally took power, he granted amnesty to the world. Raise all the officials in the world to two levels, and pardon and release all slaves and slaves everywhere. It feels as if a new generation of Ming Juns is already eager to try. However, Gao Wei, who loved literature and loved beautiful women, soon felt that the emperor's life was too boring, the world was so big, and he wanted to play something new. Let's start by experiencing life.
He built a "vegetable market" in the palace, specifically imitating the appearance of poor people buying and buying things in the vegetable market; he also let his soldiers pretend to be enemy troops, and built a small city to imitate the appearance of siege in war, Gao Wei personally led the army to "resist" the enemy's invasion, and sometimes he really shot people with arrows, and the soldiers were miserable; this is not called strange, Gao Wei's most unique hobby is "playing a beggar".
He built a poor village in Hualin Garden, lived in it in rags, and begged all the way down the street. At this time, soldiers disguised as rich men or well-meaning people would give him all kinds of "supplies", and he would run around with these things in a shawl, which was the reason why his emperor became a beggar.
Gao Wei's absurdity is far more than that, and his most famous thing is "jade body horizontal Chen". He has a very beautiful concubine named Feng Xiaopi, and listening to this name, he also knows that Feng Xiaopi looks like "I see Yu Pity"! It is said that Feng Xiaopi's skin can be broken, and the breath exhaled is particularly good. Therefore, no matter what Gao Wei did, he hugged the scantily clad Feng Xiaopi on his body and put his hands up and down, even when discussing the government of the dynasty, which made the ministers blush and ashamed.
Not only that, Gao Wei believes that "solo music is not as good as crowd music", and he feels that Feng Xiaopi is so beautiful, he should not be the only one to see. So he placed Feng Xiaopi's naked jade body on a table, and from time to time made some "hot" movements, so that the ministers lined up to watch. Of course, it's not free, watch a paid thousand two gold at a time. This is the origin of the idiom "jade body horizontal Chen".
In 577, Gao Wei was captured by the Northern Zhou Dynasty, and in the same year he was executed for treason, and finally did not even become a beggar.