The talented teenager has always been a very high-end talent in various industries around the world who wants to recruit under his command, which can be described as the elite of the elite. According to statistics, there are 20-30 talented teenagers in the world every year recruited by China's famous national brand Huawei to consolidate the standing of Huawei Group, and even Huawei President Ren Zhengfei once said: "These genius teenagers are like 'loach', drilling our organization and activating our team." In fact, there were many talented teenagers in ancient China, and people called them "prodigies".
▲Huawei President Ren Zhengfei delivered a speech
Throughout Chinese history, I think everyone will search for one or two prodigies they know well from their minds, who have great talents at a young age, and their ideological culture at a young age is far superior to that of their peers. In ancient China, in order to effectively use the talents of prodigies to consolidate their rule, the ruling class began to carry out an official, top-down prodigy selection system from the Han Dynasty. But the number of prodigies is not as ubiquitous as ordinary people, so for thousands of years, they are still synonymous with prodigies. In the long history of our country for thousands of years, there have been three prodigies recognized by the world, but looking at their lives, none of them have been able to successfully reach adulthood.
▲Statue of Xiangqiao
The first prodigy was called Xiang Qiu (tuó), a prodigy of the Ju kingdom during the Spring and Autumn Period, who was quite knowledgeable and insightful, and did not fall into the ordinary. According to later records, the birth of Xiang Qiao is also quite legendary. In a remote but handsome Yuan family village in Juguo, there lived a family with the surname Xiang, his wife Wei, and the husband and wife raised their eyebrows, living a life of male cultivators and women weaving and leisurely. One day, when his wife Wei Shi was going up the mountain to collect medicine, she suddenly felt a pain in her abdomen, and soon gave birth to a boy. When the husband heard about this, he ran to greet him, and when he saw that the boy's heavenly court was full and the ground was round, he named him XiangQi, which means the pocket of the bridge. It is worth mentioning that the fame of Xiang Qi is inseparable from a celebrity in the land of Qilu at that time, he is The Confucian Saint - Confucius. I believe that everyone has heard the allusion of "Xi Zhongni, Shi Xiangqiao" in the "Three Character Classic", and Xiang Qi, who is only 7 years old, has become the teacher of the great sage Confucius.
▲Restoration of Confucius lecture scene
It turned out that when Confucius traveled around the world and came to Juguo, he suddenly saw a child painting on the ground, drawing a well-structured city. In order to avoid stepping on the city, Confucius took a detour, but Xiao Xiangqiao said to Confucius: "To build a city, it is beneficial to walk; around the city, what is the use of building a city?" Confucius said, "How can I get by by painting such a small city gate?" Xiao Xiangqiao was not in a hurry, drawing in the air with his hand, and said to Yanzhou City in the distance: "Sir, the city has been drawn, please continue to move forward." Confucius was greatly surprised to hear Xiao Xiang's words and was shocked by his ideological pattern, and Confucius, who was a corporal of Li Xian, worshiped him as a teacher. In this way, the story of Confucius worshipping Xiang Qiao as a teacher spread ten times and ten hundred times, and the famous Xiang Qi became a talent that various princely states scrambled to recruit, for fear that Xiang Qi would be used by other countries. Unfortunately, the monarch of the State of Qi recruited Xiang Qi to join the dynasty as an official, but Xiang Qi was unwilling, and a generation of prodigies were brutally killed by the emperor of the State of Qi.
▲ Ganluo stills
The second prodigy was named Ganluo, the grandson of Ganmao, the famous minister of the Qin state during the Warring States period. Ganluo had great talent when he was young, and at the age of 12, he became a protégé of Lü Buwei, the chancellor of the Qin state. At that time, when the State of Qin was preparing to attack the State of Zhao, Ganluo sent an envoy to the State of Zhao on behalf of the State of Qin, and took several cities and pools of the State of Zhao without spending a single soldier, saving the people of the two countries from the disaster of life and death. After Ganluo returned to China, he was honored by the King of Qin as Shangqing (同丞相). However, just when he achieved fame, Ganluo suddenly died violently, and there was no relevant record left in the history books.
▲ Cao Chong called the elephant restoration statue
The third prodigy is called Cao Chong. Presumably, most of you are familiar with the story of "Cao Chong calling the elephant". As Cao Cao's youngest son, Cao Chong was intelligent and sensitive since childhood, favored by Cao Cao, and always intended to let Cao Chong inherit his position, but the clever Cao Chong died at the age of 13. The history books record that "in the thirteenth year of the year, Jian'an fell ill for thirteen years, and Taizu personally asked for his life." And death, mourning. "Thirteen years after Jian'an, Cao Chong was infected with a disease, Cao Cao's treatment was fruitless, and Cao Chong finally left him, only 13 years old. After Cao Chong's death, Cao Cao said to his eldest son Cao Pi, "My misfortune is also ru's luck." Because of this sentence, posterity speculated that Cao Pi murdered his younger brother Cao Chong in order to seek the throne.
▲Interior view of the cao cao family tomb
None of these gifted and talented prodigies lived to adulthood, and in fact they were more or less related to the political struggles of the time, and most of them were probably victims of political interests. Just thinking about it, such a genius died young because of his own intelligence, which is really breathtaking and emotional.
Resources:
Genealogy of the Xiang Clan of Runan, Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms, History, Volume 71, Biography of Ganmao Lie, Xi