In history, there are many people who have introduced themselves in order to become officials and get ahead, and the ways of self-recommendation are also various. There are those who have succeeded in directly answering correctly and directly by self-praise on the spot; there are those who have indirectly introduced themselves through "dry poetry", such as Meng Haoran and Du Fu; there are even those who directly recommend themselves to the powerful in the form of "self-recommendation letters", such as Dongfang Shuo, Li Bai, Su Xun, etc.; there are also people like Jiang Taigong, Zhuge Liang, and other hidden plots, who have used extremely obscure classic plans. Imagine if Jiang Taigong had no heart, how could he have ingeniously fished with a straight hook? If Zhuge Liang had no heart, how could he compare himself to Zhongle Yi, and how could he have the "Longzhong Pair" that pointed out the country and the mountains and was full of talent? Therefore, we can only understand that this is actually an extremely clever way of self-recommendation.
There are many self-proposers in the ancients, what do they rely on? It depends on courage and talent. With talent and a big mind, self-recommendation has confidence. But it is not enough to have courage without courage, and both are indispensable. Just imagine, in the ancient hierarchical bureaucracy, for a person who is unknown and cannot find a way to go through the relationship, it is impossible to do without enough courage to rely on a piece of paper to go straight to the clouds. Of course, the courage to introduce yourself is based on confidence in your own talents. Just like setting up a stall to sell goods, you have the courage to shout out, and at the same time, you must ensure that what you drink is a good thing, otherwise you will lose money and make money. The ancients recommended themselves as successful, really indispensable courage and talent, the so-called talent is absolutely worth courage. Here I might as well give two examples:
We know that Dongfang Shuo is a very talented person. Lu Xun mentioned the Oriental Shuoqi in "From the Hundred Grass Garden to the Sanwei Bookhouse", calling him "also very knowledgeable". Dongfang Shuo felt that he had no talent to learn, just in the early years of the Han Wu Emperor took the opportunity of the current dynasty to recruit talents to the bus office, his self-recommendation book was sprinkled with 3,000 pieces of bamboo Jane, Emperor Wu of Han took two months to read it, and his talent and writing skills can be seen in a class. In the self-recommendation book, Dongfang Shuo praised his talents and learning, saying that he was only in his early 20s, and he had learned literature and history, swordplay, poetry, and martial arts. Moreover, if I am a list of talents, brave, agile, incorruptible, faithful and exemplary figures in equal measure, is there any reason not to be a minister of heaven? You see, from the self-recommendation book alone, I read that Dongfang Shuoqi has courage, self-confidence and extraordinary talent. From the fact that Dongfang Shuo is indeed a learned person. Emperor Wu of Han read his self-recommendation book and also felt that Dongfang Shuo was extraordinary, and later he was made a constant attendant and also served as a Taizhong doctor.
Let's take another example that is not well known. In the Tang Dynasty, there was a man named Zhen Banqian, who had not been promoted for many years as a petty official, and later wrote a letter of recommendation directly to Wu Zetian under the guidance of others. This cover letter is also very long. In the self-recommendation book, Zhao Banqian first compared himself to Cao Zhi, who could compose a poem in seven steps, and Mei Gao, who was a gift in the temple and relied on Ma Chengwen, and then he called out to Wu Zetian: The emperor summoned three or five thousand talents from all over the world to compete with the courtiers, and if one of them could compare with the courtiers, then ask the emperor to cut off the heads of the courtiers and break the bones of the courtiers. If the abandoning courtiers don't use it, then I will burn all the books and pens, and then sit alone on the deep mountain rocks to watch the liveliness, watching the emperor, what can you recruit? What kind of talents are selected? From the perspective of our current people, the self-recommendation of The Half Thousand is simply "crazy people speaking wildly". To say that Empress Wu Zetian really had the strength of a big husband, after reading the self-recommendation book of The Half Thousand, not only did not get angry, but also appreciated it, and bid on the spot to let the Half Thousand enter the cabinet for worship. After that, he served as a scholar of Hongwenguan, a doctor of Zhengzhi, a assassin of Haozhou, a scholar of Prince Right Counselor and a scholar of Chongwenguan.
The self-recommendation letters of the ancients are generally written to the people in power under the condition that their talents cannot be displayed and the road to their careers is not clear, and they do not lose people, but they cannot sell themselves and boast, and there is no shortage of successful people. Their courage to sell themselves and their spirit of self-promotion are worth learning. Especially in today's Internet age, there is no so-called talent, the way of self-recommendation and promotion is still easy to use, and gold will always shine.