A generation of famous Yerushalayim's historical responsibilities

"If you are not a good doctor, you are a good doctor" comes from the mouth of Fan Zhongyan, a famous minister of the Northern Song Dynasty. Similarly, Zhang Zhongjing, a famous physician of the Eastern Han Dynasty, also said in the "Treatise on Typhoid Fever" that "to enter is to save the world, and to retreat is to save the people." In the Yuan Dynasty, Yelü Chucai was both a famous figure throughout the ages and an extraordinary doctor, and the most talked about was the legend of his rhubarb healing disease. In the winter of the year of Chengshu (1226), Genghis Khan led his troops to attack the western Xia town of Lingwu, the city fell, and the generals frantically plundered the wealth. Wei Yelü Chucai "took several books alone, rhubarb two camels", rhubarb, is a herb, not expensive. Putting gold and expensive things instead of taking, but getting some worthless grassroots roots, everyone is confused. Soon after the epidemic in the army began, the mystery was solved. The so-called epidemic is a malignant infectious disease, such as the plague and the Black Death that have killed countless people in Europe. One epidemic is highly contagious, the second is high in mortality, and the third is incurable, which can cause devastating disasters in ancient times when medicine was not developed. Ancient Chinese epidemics are not uncommon. During the Jian'an epidemic in the Eastern Han Dynasty, Zhang Zhongjing, a historical physician, reported that two-thirds of his extended family of more than 200 people died of a plague. The seven sons of Jian'an, the famous in the history of literature, except for Kong Rong, who was killed before, and Ruan Yu, who died of illness, the other 5 were all infected and died in this famous plague. Cao Zhi's "Saying the Epidemic Qi" describes the tragic situation at that time: "In the twenty-second year of Jian'an (217), the epidemic was epidemic, and there was the pain of zombies in every household, and the mourning of the households, or the mourning along the door, or the loss of the clan." The "Biography of Yuan Shi Yelü Chucai" records that at that time, when the epidemic in the army first began, Yelü Chucai immediately took out the rhubarb collected earlier, cured tens of thousands of infected people, quickly controlled the spread of the epidemic, and created a miracle in the history of epidemics. As a result, the military spread that he was an uncertain prophet, and Genghis Khan praised him as a "god". People who understand medicine know that although rhubarb has the effect of laxative heat poison, breaking and stagnating, and performing blood stasis, but because of its strong medicinal power, injuring people's vitality, and careless use, it can cause people to die, so it is classified as "tiger and wolf medicine", and ordinary people do not dare to apply it easily. In fact, Yelü Chucai dared to use and skillfully used rhubarb, which was not reckless and lucky, nor did he have any divine guidance. Rather, it is inseparable from his extensive reading and studiousness since childhood. The Nancun Shuglu says: "In the ephemeris, miscellaneous calculations, internal arithmetic, musical rhythms, Confucianism, interpretation, and foreign books, all of them are incomprehensible." From this, he had an accurate and clear prediction of the occurrence and spread of the epidemic, and took appropriate and decisive measures for prevention, treatment and medication, so that he could take precautions and successfully avoid a catastrophe that subverted human history like the one that had happened again and again in Europe.

Statue of Jeroboam

In fact, Yelü Chucai's character, courage, ability, and ability are more manifested in social governance. He successively assisted Genghis Khan's father and son for more than thirty years, and served as the Zhongshu Ling for fourteen years, with strict and solemn decrees. In the summer of 1227, Genghis Khan died of illness at Liupan Mountain, and Wo kuotai succeeded to the throne, and Yelü Chucai was ordered to return to Yanjing. At the time of the change of gold and yuan, the social order in the Han Dynasty was quite chaotic, especially in the Yanjing area, where the local governors were greedy and brutal, killing countless people. Criminal gangs have even reached the point where "thieves plunder the rich people's property during the day, and officials cannot forbid it." Yelü Chucai believes that maintaining public order is the basic guarantee for the normal operation of society, and we must dare to confront tough cases and grasp major and important cases in order to calm people's minds. He first strictly enforced the law and discipline, ordering local officials not to expropriate the people's property without the instructions of the imperial court, and that any prisoner sentenced to death must also be reported to the imperial court for approval, and those who dared to violate it would be punished with death. Through his governance, the winds of corruption have been reduced. After in-depth investigation, he quickly figured out that the robbery case that was most concerned by society at that time was actually the work of the son of the local governor colluding with a group of powerful children, so he did not fear the power, broke through many obstacles, and brought the first sixteen criminals of the criminal gang to justice, killing one hundred people, causing a huge shock, public order improved, and local production and life turned into regularity.

Yelü Chucai (1190-1244 AD), courtesy name Jinqing, old man of Yuquan, and zhanran resident of the Fa. Born in Yanjing (present-day Beijing), born in a Khitan aristocratic family, he was also a noble and prominent Nobleman of the Jin Dynasty, with a high social status. At the age of seventeen, Yelü Chucai came out of the Jin Dynasty with the example of "Zai Xiangzi's example of trying to supplement the province". In the summer of 1214, when the Mongol army captured Zhongdu (present-day Beijing), the twenty-five-year-old Yelü Chucai was stationed in Zhongdu as a foreign lang who stayed behind in Shangshu Province, and always fulfilled his duties. After the fall of Zhongdu, in the spring of the thirteenth year (1218) of Yuan Taizu, because of the appreciation of Genghis Khan, he began the thirty years of the new dynasty, becoming the most accomplished politician in the Genghis Khan and Wokoutai periods, and made outstanding achievements in the political system, legal system, economic order establishment and tax reform in the process of the founding of the Mongolian Yuan. Politically, under his advice, he urged the Mongol rulers to put an end to the feudal system of splitting up the land and dividing the people into feudal management suitable for the development of the agricultural economy; the implementation of the three-legged separation of finance, government, and military has curbed the vicious expansion of local power-sharing forces; and legally, a comprehensive reform of many laws and regulations in Mongolian customary law concerning refugees, criminals, captives, and slaughter of cities has been carried out. On the occasion of the Yuan's capture of the city alone, 1.47 million ordinary people who fled to the city to escape the flames of war were spared from massacre because of his bitter advice to the Mongol rulers. Institutionally, the hukou is included in the compilation of the people, which is convenient for management; economically, the taxation is unified, and the permanent tax is formulated, which changes the arbitrary and arbitrary plundering of the rulers, and the serious trend of greed and violence is curbed to a certain extent. At the same time, he spared no effort to protect Han culture, first of all in the protection of intellectual talents and the introduction of talents. In the process of the unification of the Mongols and the Jin and Song Dynasties, many cultural talents such as Yuan Haowen, Zhao Fu, Dou Mo, Wang Pan, etc., were protected by him to avoid death. Second, he tried to open up a channel for Confucian talents to enter the governance of the country through institutional construction. In 1237, with the expansion of the Mongol Yuan's rule, a large number of governing talents were urgently needed to join the ruling administration. Yelü Chucai wasted no time in saying to the supreme ruler: "Those who make weapons will use good work, and those who keep them will use Confucianism." Wow Kuotai listened to his advice, "It was ordered that Xuan Dezhou Xuanxue make Liu Zhong follow the county examination, and divide the scriptures into three subjects by scripture, resignation, and theory, and the Confucians were captured as slaves, and they were also ordered to be tested, and their master, The Hidden Fu, died." Four thousand and thirty men were spared as one of the four slaves. "Passing the examination enabled thousands of Confucian students to avoid being reduced to slavery and continue to take on the responsibility of cultural inheritance and dissemination." Many of them finally made a difference in the era of Kublai Khan and became a generation of famous courtiers, making great contributions to the smooth completion of the Transformation of the Mongolian Yuan regime from a nomadic social system to a Sinicized rule. Third, because of his influence, the Mongol regime gradually understood the indispensable role of Confucianism in political rule and accepted his cultural ideas of honoring Kong. After Jin's death, he "sent people into the city, and after asking Confucius, he obtained the fifty-first generation of Kong Yuancuo, played the role of Fengyan Shenggong, and served in the forest temple." In Chinese dynasties, the Yuan Dynasty gave Confucius the most honorific title; fourth, he pioneered the system of systematic preaching to the ruling clique, "ordering taichang li lesheng, and summoning the names of Confucian Liang Zhi, Wang Wanqing, Zhao Zhu, etc., so that the Nine Classics could be directly interpreted and entered the Eastern Palace." He also led the sons and grandsons of the ministers to interpret the scriptures and understand the way of the saints. This is of extraordinary significance and value for the change of the way the state power established by the Mongol nobility; fifth, the rapid resumption of official education, the establishment of guozixue in the capital, and so on. He also made a historic contribution to the literature, in the war, in the past, wherever the Mongolian Yuan army went, in addition to plundering population and wealth, books and classics would often be burned. Yelü Chucai repeatedly advised the supreme ruler, and then wherever the Mongol army went, ancient books and books were collected and preserved, avoiding destruction in the war. In the War of Annihilation of the Song Dynasty, the cultural splendor reached the historical peak of the Southern Song Dynasty, and a large number of books, ancient books, and printed plates were collected, preserved, and transported back to Yuan Shangdu and Yanjing, so that valuable cultural heritage could be preserved. In addition, under his suggestion and leadership, he set up editing and revision offices and scripture offices in Pingyang (present-day Linfen), Yanjing and other places to sort, edit, and print all kinds of scriptures, thus promoting the prosperity of culture. In the Yuan Dynasty, Yanjing became the center of national miscellaneous opera, and Dongping in Shandong, Pingyang in Shanxi, and Zhending (now Zhengding) in Hebei also successfully jumped to the sub-center, and the reason for this is inseparable from a series of initiatives of The Changming culture of Yelü Chucai.

It is no exaggeration to say that the founding of the yuan dynasty and the major events of the military state are all seen in the merits of Yelü Chucai's planning. Its greatest historical merit lies in the gradual incorporation of the Mongol regime into the feudal orbit through the implementation of Han law, and the foundation of China's multi-ethnic unified national development model. All of this is, in essence, a concrete embodiment of the Confucian concept of governing the country. The formation of Yelü Chucai's political and cultural concept is directly related to his family origins. Yelü Chucai VIII Zu Yelü Bei was the eldest son of Liao Taizu Yelü Abaoji, who was intelligent and studious, versatile, and rich in Han cultural accomplishment. The "History of Liao" records that he "wrote the city book to 10,000 volumes, and was hidden in the Wanghai Hall, the pinnacle of the Medical Witch Lu." Through yin and yang, zhiyin law, fine medicine, the art of gong. Gong Liao and Han articles, tried to translate the Yin Rune Sutra, and was good at painting national figures. "YelüBe is not only a model of following the traditional Confucian morality, but also an active promoter of Han culture. Under his advocacy, the monarchs of the Liao Dynasty all respected Confucianism and literature and passed it on from generation to generation. Yelü Chucai's father, Yelü Chucai, was the "Book of the Six Classics and Hundred Families" as the Left Chancellor of the Jin Dynasty Shangshu. He named his son "Chu Cai" and hoped that he would be able to use Chu Cai after he became an adult and benefit the society. Yelü Chucai lost his father at the age of three and was raised by his mother Yang, who was from a noble family and had a very deep cultural heritage. Adhering to the family tradition, Yelü Chucai began to study Confucian classics at a very young age, establishing the cultural and ideological foundation of Confucianism and the strengths of all families. Yelü Chucai stepped into the official arena at a very young age, and in times of danger, he always showed the loyalty of a courtier to the imperial court and his adherence to his duties. In the second year, he fell into exile, and he formally converted to Buddhism, and under the door of the great monk Wan Songxingxiu, he forgot to sleep and forgot his meals, and practiced asceticism for three years. This experience of immersing himself in the study of Buddhism had a great impact on his life. After that, he was called by Genghis Khan to begin a career in the new dynasty for the next few decades, always taking the help of the world's people as his responsibility. Yelü Chucai had outstanding achievements in his life, but he was extremely indifferent to material life, and had been in politics for decades, and only Suqin was around him. According to the "History of the Yuan", after Yelü Chucai's death, some people falsely accused him of being in a high position for many years, and I am afraid that half of the wealth in the world was enriched by him. The rulers then ordered his courtiers to go, only to see that his home was empty: "More than ten people in Weiqin Nguyen, as well as thousands of volumes of ancient and modern calligraphy and paintings, golden stones, and testaments." The tomb of Yelü Chucai, the famous head of the Founding Fathers of the Yuan Dynasty, is now in Beijing, on the east bank of Kunming Lake in the Summer Palace.

(Author: Fu Qiushuang, Researcher, Beijing Academy of Social Sciences)