In the enlightenment books of Chinese children, the story of "Sima Guang smashing the cylinder" is enduring. This witty and brave child, when his playmate fell into the water tank, did not panic like other children, but calmly and as usual, decisively threw stones into the tank and rescued his companion trapped in the water tank. This story has been popular as early as the Northern Song Dynasty, when people in the area of Bieliang and Luoyang also drew pictures of the story and spread it widely, and today, this story is still an important reading book for chinese preschool education.
In fact, for Sima Guang, the calm personality is more like an important scale that determines the trajectory of his life, and on the left side of this scale, it is the conservatism brought about by calmness, and the political viewpoint of seeking stability and perseverance makes him the most resolute opponent in the process of Wang Anshi's transformation of the law; and on the right side of this scale, we see the rigor born of calmness, a dense and detailed content of the "Zizhi Tongjian", which makes him rank among the three confucian saints (the first two saints: Confucius, Mencius), And Bingqian Qiu.
Shi Zai, Sima Guang "was born seven years old, awe-inspiring as an adult, heard about the "Spring and Autumn of the Zuo Clan", loved it, retired to speak as a family member, that is, his big finger. I couldn't let go of the scroll with my hands, until I didn't know hunger, thirst, cold and heat. Because of his hard work, Sima Guang entered the army very early, and when he held the position of Tianzhangge to be controlled, he always resisted the unreasonable laws of the imperial court. When Emperor Yingzong's concubine Dong died, Emperor Yingzong decided to use the ceremonial guard of the Heavenly Son at Dong's funeral, and Sima Guang thought that it was against the law of etiquette, so he wrote: "Dong Clan Rank Ben Wei, Sick Ge Fang Worship Chong Yuan." The ancient woman has no name, and the near system is only the queen. The book was originally used as a reward for military merit, but it was not given to women. Princess Pingyang of Tang raised an army to set up the world's things and things, but it was necessary to give, until the Wei Shu people first ordered the concubines to be buried on the day of the funeral, which was not a ceremony and was not enough. Emperor Yingzong had no choice but to withdraw his life and dispose of it according to the etiquette system. Sima Guang, who had just entered his career, had already attached great importance to the ritual law of the first king, and for the sake of etiquette, he did not hesitate to touch the dragon's face and listen to the saint.
However, sima Guang's "immutable law of the first kings" that Sima Guang had always adhered to be vigorously challenged by the reformist Wang Anshi when he reached the Shenzong Dynasty. Shortly after Emperor Shenzong of Song ascended the throne, he put forward the idea of three deficiencies (Mandate of Heaven, Ancestors, and People's Words) and advocated policy and institutional reforms. Wang Anshi firmly believed that many of the chronic diseases that existed in the financial and military fields must be effective through thunderous means and drastic reforms; sima Guang believed, "Ruling the world is like a living room, and if it is hidden, it will be repaired, and it will not be more bad or more." One was a radical reformer, the other was a conservative who sought stability, and the political views of these two close friends were the same, which opened the prelude to the northern Song Dynasty's party struggle, and when Sima Guang finally applied for external transfer and went to Luoyang to set up an bureau to compile books, a reform with the support of a young emperor was carried out with great fanfare.
Judging from the later facts, Wang Anshi's change of law was not a perfect change, and Sima Guang, as the leader of the old party, could not simply be defined as a stumbling block to the change. In the early stage of the change of law, certain results were indeed achieved, but with the paranoia of Wang Anshi's personality and the improper use of people, many problems began to be exposed in the later implementation process. Because of this, when Emperor Shenzong died of illness, Emperor Zhezong succeeded to the throne, Gao Hou bowed to the government, and Sima Guang was used again, and the first thing this old minister who had been hiding in Luoyang did after he came out of the mountain was to abolish the new law and completely return to the political system before the change. When "YuanYou", which became a synonym for overcorrection in Chinese history, Sima Guang and Wang Anshi, two political enemies who could not tolerate fire and water, all deviated from their own life trajectories because of the weakness of their personalities.
"The green shirt on the mat is soaked, the feeling is old, not only the pipa, how not to teach people to be old, how much sorrow, scattered in the end of the world." This poem "Jintang Chun" was made by Sima Guang when he retired to Luoyang, and when the political ideas of seeking stability and shoucheng were incompatible with the soaring Shenzong era, this "pure writing and Western Han style" courtier began to throw his political views into the depths of history. As early as the Yingzong Dynasty, Sima Guang intended to compile a concise general history, record the gains and losses of successive dynasties, and give the emperor a mirror. When Emperor Shenzong came to power, he believed that this move was "in view of the past, there is a capital for governing the Tao", so he gave the book the title of "Zizhi Tongjian". So, where did the vast volume of Chinese history begin? Sima Guang chose this year: the twenty-third year of King Weilie of Zhou, that is, 403 BC, and the reason why this year was used as the starting point of the Zizhi Tongjian was because in this year, King Wei Lie of Zhou ordered Wei Si and others to be princes, abandoned the "rites of the first kings" and abolished the "Law of the Ancestors". Stitching his own political attitude into the history books, Sima Guang's purpose was obvious, that is, to let Song Shenzong, who had stepped into the "road of changing the law and qi", "get lost and return".
This may not have been thought of by Sima Guang, who retired to Luoyang and lived for fifteen years. Fifteen years later, after dissolving the depression of his political career, he achieved a book of the world, at that time, the conservative courtier in the court returned to his calm character scale, and melted this calmness into a rigorous style of studying and cultivating history. A "Zizhi Tongjian" took nineteen years, and the fifteen years that Sima Guang and his assistants devoted themselves to writing in Luoyang was undoubtedly the most remarkable period, and Liu Xizhong, the son of Sima Guang's assistant Liu Shu, recalled his father's article Zeng Yun: "The ancestors were in the bookstore, stopping deeds, and le long compilation, and when they were not seized, a Junshi (Sima Guangzi) pen was cut. It is said that sima guang's daily revision of the manuscript not only reached more than one zhang long, but also did not have a single cursive character on it, especially his study of historical materials was extremely serious, for an event, an era, often repeatedly considered, pondered again and again; in addition to reviewing the seventeen histories, Sima Guang and his assistants also widely quoted a large number of historical books left by the previous generation, in his residence in Luoyang, "five thousand volumes of jushu", and according to the statistics of posterity, the historical books cited in the Zizhi Tongjian reached as many as three hundred, and when the compilation of the whole book was completed, Unused manuscripts filled two rooms. "The subject is paralyzed, his eyes are faint, his teeth are few, his consciousness is decayed, and he is currently called spinning and forgetting." The energy of the subject is exhausted in this book. In the seventh year of Shenzong Yuanfeng (1084), when the sixty-six-year-old Sima Guang presented the 294-volume, 3 million-word Zizhi Tongjian to Song Shenzong, Song Shenzong saw another side of the life of this stereotypical conservative.
As a result, the Zizhi Tongjian was destined to make Sima Guang's name shine brightly in Xuelin. From the twenty-third year of King Weilie of Zhou (403 BC) to the sixth year of The Fifth Dynasty Of Zhou Shizong Xiande (959), this historical masterpiece that records the history of 1362 years of 16 dynasties has become an insurmountable benchmark for future generations of scholars, and its smooth writing, rich historical materials and meticulous examination have made successive feudal emperors and scholars highly respected. Zeng Yun, a historian of Hu San Province at the time of the Song and Yuan Dynasties, said: "If you do not know the general knowledge of the people, you want to rule but do not know the source of autonomy, and if you do not know the art of preventing evil and chaos, if you are a subject and do not know the general knowledge, you will not be able to do anything to the king, and you will not be able to rule the people at the bottom; if you do not know the general knowledge of the son of man, you will be humiliated first, and it is not enough to do things to the back." The Qing Dynasty historian Wang Mingsheng pushed the Zizhi Tongjian to a high academic altitude, believing that it was "a book that must be read by scholars in this world and the earth." ”
The story of Sima Guang, in addition to the "smashing cylinder" is widely circulated, his invention of the "police pillow" is also popular. The so-called "police pillow" is actually a piece of log as a pillow, as long as the "police pillow" is rolled, Sima Guang will get up and read, which shows the hard work of this historian. In fact, in my opinion, this "police pillow" is more like the "scale" in its calm personality, no matter which side it rolls to, what we see is the back of the one who works for the country, sleeps at night, and holds a candle.
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