Author: 蘅苒, original article, reprinted is prohibited.
We call ourselves the descendants of Yan Huang, but our understanding of the Yan Emperor and the Yellow Emperor is far less familiar than that of the Western people with Jesus.
Due to the long history of antiquity and the lack of religion or other means of transmission, our understanding of antiquity is very limited.
Many people know the Three Emperors and Five Emperors, but only a few people can say their names.
Who are the Five Emperors?
Is the ancient Zen system that we think that if we have talent, we can be the leader?
In the "History of the Five Emperors", Sima Qian told the story of the Five Emperors.
According to Sima Qian's understanding, it turned out that Emperor Yan and The Yellow Emperor did not cooperate in fighting Xuan You, and the Yellow Emperor should be a new force that grew up when Emperor Yan's power was weakening, and Xuan You was not a monster, but only the leader of a small number of private tribes that did not obey the yellow emperor's command.
After the death of the Yellow Emperor, his successor was Emperor Huan.
Who is Mo mound?
The "Chronicle of History" records: "Emperor Gaoyang, grandson of the Yellow Emperor and son of Changyi." ”
It turned out that the second emperor of the Five Emperors was the grandson of the Yellow Emperor, because he was calm and steady, calm and deep, and had the virtue of a saint, and everyone in the world was willing to submit to him.
There is no excessive record of Sima Qian regarding The Emperor.
Only one sentence was mentioned at the end, that Mo Mo had a son, called poor cicada.
But the poor cicada did not become the leader.
After his death, he was succeeded by Emperor Zhao.
Emperor Zhao was the great-grandson of the Yellow Emperor, and according to today's account, he was also the nephew of Emperor Huan who did not produce five clothes.
Emperor Zhao was "born a god and called himself a god", because of his extraordinary talent, he became the third excellent leader of the five emperors.
After Emperor Zhao's death, his son Zhi inherited the world.
However, the record says, "Emperor Zhili, not good (collapse)", this emperor is not among the five emperors, perhaps because of inability, or because he died after a short reign.
His half-brother Fang Xun took over his position.
Who is Fang Xun?
It is familiar to everyone to call him another name, and the history books habitually call him Di Yao.
Emperor Yao had noble virtues and extraordinary wisdom, and with his strong personality charm, he pulled up his own team, and the sages responded one after another, performing their duties and governing the world in an orderly manner.
In the seventieth year of Di Yao's reign, he began to look for a successor for himself.
According to the Chronicle of History, someone proposed that his son Danju succeed to the throne, but he refused on the grounds of "stubbornness";
Another person recommended a co-worker, but he rejected it with clever words but sinister intentions.
Under Yao's inquiry, Siyue recommended Shun, who had a good folk reputation.
In the "Mencius", it is said that "Shun's hair is in the mu", probably influenced by this sentence, Shun became the representative of the grassroots counterattack.
However, when Yao asked his subordinates to recommend heirs, Sima Qian's original text read: "Raise up noble relatives and alienated hermits."
It turns out that not only talented people can be recommended as candidates, only people with the same surname can be eligible to be recommended. That is to say, the successor must be a person who is related to the Yellow Emperor by blood.
As mentioned earlier, Emperor Huan had a son named Poor Cicada, and the Poor Cicada branch did not do much for generations, and its status was humble, probably an ordinary person who lived in the folk farming and farming.
Yao could not find a suitable heir, and his men elected Shun, the descendant of the poor cicada, for him.
After passing Yao's inspection, Shun became the leader of the world's people.
In his old age, Shun passed the world to Yu, who was the grandson of the Yellow Emperor and the grandson of Emperor Huan. Yu inaugurated the first written Dynasty in China, Xia.
It is often said in the book that "family world" began with Xia Yu, but the truth is...
At the end of the Five Emperors' Book, Sima Qian concludes: "From the Yellow Emperor to Shun and Yu, all have the same surname and different national names, with Zhang Mingde. Therefore, the Yellow Emperor is Youxiong, Emperor Huan is Gao Yang, Emperor Zhao is Gao Xin, Emperor Yao is Tao Tang, and Emperor Shun is Youyu. Emperor Yu was a xiahou and had a different surname, and his surname was 姒氏. ”
The ancient surname is two concepts, the "Commentary on the Interpretation of The Text" says that the surname is used to "not marry", the same surname is a person with the same bloodline, can not intermarry; and the clan is used to "do not noble and lowly", only noble men can have a clan.
According to this theory, combined with the above words, a simple summary is that from the Yellow Emperor to Yu, in fact, they are all related by blood, and the Five Emperors are originally a family.
Therefore, the "family world" did not start from the Xia Dynasty, but the Xia Dynasty passed the throne directly to the son, rather than selecting talented people among the descendants.
We have always believed that the Zen system is democratic recommendation, and that as long as there is talent, we can stand out in the crowd and go to the peak of power, but in fact, we just take it for granted.
How did Di Shun succeed in attracting Sima Qian's attention?
How did Shun, who had been humble for seven generations, become Yao's successor?
Although the Five Emperors Benji is titled after the Five Emperors, more than half of the text is written about Shun, and the text left for the other four is not as much as that of Shun.
From Yao asking who could succeed him to the official transfer of more than 2,500 words to shun's description, Shun's life trajectory was written in detail.
If the Yellow Emperor is due to the fact that there is no detailed written record of the long time, then why did Emperor Yu, who was closest to Sima Qian's era, only write about his passing through the door and not entering, but instead wrote Shun's story in such detail?
Sima Qian said that the purpose of his writing of the "Records of History" was to "investigate the changes of the ancient and modern times at the time of heaven and man, and to become the words of one family", in order to study the morality between heaven and earth, to understand the evolution of ancient and modern times, and to write his own ideas and views.
Shun was the eighth grandson of the Yellow Emperor, and Shun's branch had always been a low-status shu person since the beginning of the poor cicada. Shun's sudden rise is the basis for Sima Qian's willingness to make him the protagonist of the first episode of the "History".
How did Shun rise up?
It was because Yao could not find a suitable candidate to inherit the world, and could only choose among distant relatives with the same surname, and Shun happened to be recommended to Yao because of his reputation.
SiYue's recommendation to Shun is as follows:
"Blind man. The father is stubborn, the mother is angry, the brother is proud, he can be filial and filial, and he will not be adulterous. "
Shun's biological mother died early, and his father, Zhen Shu, was blind and had a bad temper.
After Shun's mother died, he found a stepmother for him.
This stepmother is treacherous and cunning, full of nonsense, and does not want to say less bad things about Shun.
The stepmother and father gave birth to a younger brother named Elephant for Shun, and the younger son was protected by his father and mother, and developed an arrogant and rude personality.
However, Shun can honor his parents and tolerate the best relatives in the family, so that they only run across at home and do not go out to commit crimes, and even in the eyes of others, it is still a picture of a harmonious family.
Therefore, while everyone was distressed that the motherless child had long understood things, they felt that their father and mother were not kind, so they sprinkled Shun's generous and filial character to the vast earth in small talk.
The ancestral aristocratic bloodline, coupled with a good reputation, was the first stepping stone to Shun's success, but Yao, as a wise leader, would certainly not hand over the world to a young man who could not figure it out just because of rumors.
Confirming the rumor is essential, shun, who has just entered the eyes of the big guy, can only truly become a recognized successor if he successfully passes the test of the king.
In order to examine Shun's true character, Yao not only sent nine personal bodyguards to observe his ability to behave in the world, but also spent blood and married his two daughters to him to examine his private virtues.
(Isn't that a bit too expensive)
Probably because "real gold is not afraid of fire refining", Shun, under the dual surveillance of inside and outside, showed Yao his perfect character without pressure.
Shun invited Xiancai and exiled the "Four Evils", and in the thunderstorm weather, he not only did not get lost, but also completed the original task.
Seeing that he was of high character, rewarded and punished, and calm, Yao recognized this heir in his heart.
So the question is, why did Sima Qian write about Shun's ascension to the throne in such detail?
From a creative point of view, for the author, the detailed arrangement of the material can best reflect the emotional tendencies in his heart or the main theme of the article.
As a literary master, Ma Qian of Taishi Company is undoubtedly at the top level of cutting the article material.
So, what exactly is his capitalized close-up of Shun trying to express?
Combined with the background of the times in which he lived, I dared to make a bold guess, whether he wanted to use Shun's history of ascension to the throne to promote some kind of idea.
As we all know, before emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty's "Confucianism", the ideological circles were "a hundred schools of thought".
Since Dong Zhongshu proposed "deposing a hundred families and respecting Confucianism alone", Confucianism began to dominate the ideological circles.
The sons and hundreds of families have their own strengths, why did Emperor Wudi of the Han Dynasty not evenly wet the rain and dew, but chose to favor Confucianism alone?
Emperor Wudi of the Han Dynasty was not a fan of Confucian Confucianism, and the shadow of Confucianism was basically invisible from his way of governing the country, and the key to agreeing to Dong Zhongshu's proposal was that Confucianism was most conducive to his rule.
In my opinion, the Confucian concept of ethics and morality is to serve the ruler perfectly - "the king and the subject of the father and the son", no matter who you are, you must keep your duty.
Through Guan Shun's experience before sitting on the first chair, I have to say that it is simply a perfect interpreter of this idea.
His father hated to murder him, his stepmother verbally attacked him, his brother bullied him rudely, he strictly abided by the rules of being a son of man and a brother, filial piety to his parents, and love his brother;
When replacing Yao Regency, he arranged things properly and became loyal to his courtiers;
After Emperor Yao's death, he served three years of mourning, and even gave up the throne to Yao's son;
In the end, under the unanimous recommendation of everyone, he accepted the throne without shame.
Shun, who ascended to the throne of God, is still a good son and brother who is filial to his father and loves his brother.
At the beginning of the Han Dynasty, it was the world of "Huang Lao Thought," and if we wanted to carry out ideological reform, it was bound to be quite difficult, and effective propaganda was an effective way to promote ideological reform.
So, can I think that Tai Shi Gong forcibly inserted an advertisement promoting Confucianism in the first chapter of the "History of History"?
If so, then the previous doubts can be perfectly explained.
【Author's Profile】Su Ran, I hope to use words to record the beauty of every moment, interesting souls will always get together, I am in an interesting place, wait for an interesting you!