Kissinger once said that Chinese always well protected by the bravest of them. In other words, China can produce heroes every moment.
In our cognition, especially the heroes of ancient times, they are often the pioneers, brave to shoulder heavy burdens, and save the nation from danger. In fact, in the long river of Chinese history, the various benchmark figures that appear can also be called heroes.
For example, as we will say below, he is famous for his donations, and his act of donating money once made the country doubt his character. So who is he?
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="5" > huge war attrition</h1>
Before revealing our protagonist, let's take a look at the background in which he was at the time. Ever since the Han Dynasty's policy toward the Xiongnu changed from peace to war, spending money was like flowing water.
Not to mention the normal military expenditure, after the great victory of Wei Qing's talent, the imperial court took out more than 3.2 million taels of gold as a reward, please open your eyes and see clearly that it is gold!
What is the concept of this money? According to the purchasing power of the Han Dynasty at that time, 1 two gold is roughly equal to more than 600 copper coins, and more than 3.2 million two gold is 190,000 copper coins, equivalent to 2 billion!
At that time, the sum of all the officials' salaries in a year was only 30 million copper coins, which meant that a big war bonus alone was enough for all officials to pay 70 years' wages!
This was only the early stage of the war, and Huo's method of warfare was "cavalry against cavalry", which meant that the "Huo Family Army" needed a larger number of horses. The number and quality of horses in the Central Plains cannot be compared with the grasslands.
In order to increase the number of horses, Emperor Wudi of the Han Dynasty forcibly relocated hundreds of thousands of people from the Central Plains to raise horses in the Kansai region. When I first arrived in Kansai, it was difficult to survive, and I could only rely on government subsidies for food and housing, which was a big expense.
The average loss of horses by the Han army in each major battle was between tens of thousands. It is known that the price of each war horse is about 1 million copper coins, each horse needs to be accompanied by 3 ox carts to pull feed, and the price of each cow is about 50,000 yuan...
In short, the decades-long Han-Hungarian war dragged the Han Dynasty economy to collapse not without reason.
Faced with a gradually empty treasury, Emperor Wudi of the Han Dynasty could only recover funds by selling titles. The knighthood sold almost to the point of finding that the finances were still tight, and further harvested leeks by issuing commemorative coins.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="15" >2</h1>
Our hero appeared, and his name was Bu Shi. The Bu family is engaged in animal husbandry, the family property is not small, after bu's younger brother became an adult, the older brother only took 100 sheep, and the rest of the property was left to the younger brother.
With these 100 sheep, Bu Shi made a comeback and accumulated a lot of wealth. His younger brother sat on the mountain and ate the sky, and in the end he could only rely on his brother for relief several times. It can be seen from this that Bu Shi is a farmer with a business mind.
In the most intense years of the war, Bu Shi expressed to the imperial court that he was willing to donate half of his family property for military use, which attracted the attention of the top level of the imperial court.
Bu style
At that time, there was no concept of "the world rises and falls, and the pirate has the responsibility", and those who can bear the feelings of home and country are often aristocrats or intellectuals who are on the upper level of the scholar. Bu's identity is that of ordinary people, even if the people's consciousness is high, there is no one who is willing to donate. Think about it, at that time, the people were already high standards for being able to feed themselves, and who had spare money to take care of others.
Therefore, from a conventional point of view, the government concluded that Bu Shi had wolf ambitions. They took the initiative to find Bu Shi and asked: Do you want to become an official? You first talk about what kind of official you want to be, and we will discuss it.
Bu Shi shook his head: I don't want an official.
The official also asked: Is it because there is an unjust case in the family that cannot be resolved? What a case we help!
No, there are no cases.
Everyone is confused: then why do you donate so much money?
Bu Shi said: I think that the country should do our part to fight the war, if everyone can do their own modest efforts, then the Xiongnu will be defeated!
This dialogue was presented to the table of Emperor Liu Che of the Han Dynasty, and the emperor's first reaction after reading it was: This is a liar!
Liu Che believed that everyone in the world was scrambling to hide their family's money and wealth from others, and now that there was such a selfless and selfless person, there must be an ulterior motive.
In order to be proper, he also asked Gongsun Hong, the chancellor, who also thought that Bu Shi might be an outlaw who wanted to exonerate himself, and also advised Emperor Wu of Han not to accept Bu Shi's donations.
The emperor agreed.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="30" > third, the opportunity is coming</h1>
Bu Shi's first donation failed in the emperor's deep suspicions, but he was not discouraged, because the country really had no money.
In 121 BC, the Xiongnu Hun Evil King surrendered to the Han Dynasty, and in order to increase his momentum, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty rewarded the descendants with a lot of money and materials, so much that they almost emptied the national treasury. For this reason, the ministers also quarreled with the emperor.
In 120 BC, a flood broke out in the Central Plains, and when the state opened the warehouse to release grain, it found that there was no grain to put in the warehouse, and the imperial court allocated other grain depots to find no grain to adjust. Because there are so many victims who can only immigrate, the cost of immigration is an unaffordable expense.
The imperial court, which held the "rice cooker" in its hands, had to pinch its nose and manage the rich to borrow money. Bu Shi was very happy, and he took out 200,000 yuan at a time and donated it directly to Henan County.
At this time, money was a life-saving straw, and Henan Taishou did not care whether Bu Shi was a wolf or not, and immediately accepted the donation. After the disaster, Henan Taishou reported the deeds of Bu Shi.
Emperor Wudi of Han looked at it, and this was not the "outlaw" he had been before. At this time, Liu Che no longer doubted the true intentions of Bu Shi, because the economy of the Han Empire was on the verge of collapse, and he needed to set an example and call on the people of the whole country to tide over the difficulties with him.
It is not so much that Bu Shi has fulfilled his willingness to donate, but rather that the emperor needs to take advantage of the value of Bu Shi more.
The imperial court first gave him the title of Zuo Shuchang, gave him 10 acres of land, and at the same time announced to the world: Calling on the people to come and learn the spirit of "pi fu has responsibility" in the Bu style.
It was not enough to just have a fictitious title, Bu Shi started from the Lang official of the royal garden, went to several counties as a parent official, and eventually became the Minister of State of Qi with the step by step promotion.
The official movement is not yet finished. In 112 BC, these new nobles who had purchased titles were required to make offerings according to the rules, including fine wine and gold, mainly for sacrifice. Emperor Wu of Han did not ignore it as usual, but suddenly set up a supervisory committee to supervise the quality of the tribute.
This investigation does not matter, the gold is short of two pounds, the color is insufficient; the tribute wine is shoddy, and it is not even wine.
The emperor was furious, and the new upstarts who had gone wrong were stripped of their titles one by one, killing 106 people at once. In the past few years, the person responsible for the acceptance work has always been Zhao Zhou. Zhao Chengxiang could not find an excuse for himself to fool the emperor, and finally had to commit suicide in fear of sin.
Shi Qing became the new chancellor, and the vacant position of Imperial Counselor, Liu Che chose to give it to Bu Shi. A people who came from sheep herding did not have the merit of founding the country, and finally ranked three dukes, it has to be said that it is a miracle.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="44" >4</h1>
Good people may not be able to be good officials, because many jobs cannot be done well by relying on a sincere and enthusiastic heart. Bu Shi, who became the Imperial Master, found that the country had many problems to be corrected, such as the emperor's work of seeking immortals, large rewards, and foreign conquests, each of which cost countless silver dollars.
This is only a project that costs money, for those projects that make money, as a former listed boss of an animal husbandry company, Bu Shi also obviously found that there are policy flaws in it. As a result, he was very disapproving of Sang Hongyang, the chief economist of Emperor Wu of Han.
However, in the eyes of Emperor Wu of Han, Sang Hongyang was the god of wealth, and to oppose him was to oppose himself, and Liu Che's dissatisfaction with Bu Shi gradually accumulated.
One year there was a great drought, and the emperor asked how it was good. Bu Shi said: Boil the Sanghong sheep, and the Dragon King will rain. This dialogue is very famous, but it also closes the political career of Bu Shi. Bu Shi, who had been degraded once before, was once again snubbed and eventually died in office in obscurity.
Author: Our special guest author Kan Dashan
References: "The Three Faces of Emperor Wudi of Han", "Emperor Wudi of Han and His Time"