We often hear the proverb, "I don't kill Boren, but Boren dies because of me."
The meaning of this proverb is not difficult to understand, which is to say, "Although I resent Bo Ren, I have no intention of killing him." But Bo Ren was eventually killed because of my resentment, and his death was indirectly related to me. ”
So, who is the "Bo Ren" mentioned in this proverb? And why did he die?
Let's first talk about who "Bo Ren" is.
The proverb "I do not kill Bo Ren, but Bo Ren died because of me" is from the Book of Jin and the Thirty-Ninth Chronicle.
The original text reads, "Although I do not kill Bo Ren, Bo Ren died by me." In the shadows, bear this good friend! ”
The "Bo Ren" mentioned in it is a figure from the Yuan Emperor of the Eastern Jin Dynasty.
His name was Zhou Yan (周顗), courtesy name Boren ,born in 269 AD, a native of Ancheng County, Runan, henan Province, which is today's Runan County, Henan Province.
Zhou Yan's origin was very good, and he was an aristocrat. In today's parlance, he is a second-generation official.
Not only that, Zhou Yan had a high reputation when he was a teenager, and he was also good-looking, and he was the object of admiration of the celebrities at that time.
His father, the Andong general Zhou Jun, had made meritorious contributions in the war against Wu and was given the title of Marquis of Wucheng.
After Zhou Jun's death, Zhou Yan, as the eldest son, inherited the title of Marquis of Wucheng.
After that, Zhou Yan also served as the general of Ningyuan, the assassin of Jingzhou, the lieutenant of the Southern Barbarians, and the official ZhiShang Shu zuo.
When Zhou Yan was appointed as a servant, he had the title of "three-day servant", why did people call him so at that time?
This is because Zhou Yan was extremely alcoholic, often drunk and drunk, even during his tenure, when he woke up not much.
Once, a friend who had been drinking together in the past came from Jiangbei to visit Zhou Yan.
Zhou Yan was very happy, and quickly took out two stones of wine to drink with his friends, and after drinking, both of them fell to the ground drunk.
The next day, Zhou Yan woke up drunk, but found that his friend had rotted and died.
Zhou Yan
Although Zhou Yan was an alcoholic, he was honest and clean.
When Zhou Yan was raided after his death, he only received some old cotton wool, five urns of wine, and a few stones of rice.
Next, it is time to bring out the characters who have spoken the famous words of the world.
He was Wang Dao, the founding minister who assisted Sima Rui in establishing the Eastern Jin Dynasty.
Wang Dao, who was born into a famous family, has known Zhou Yan since he was a child and is a very good friend.
Once, Wang Dao rested his head on Zhou Yan's leg, pointed at Zhou Yan's belly, and jokingly asked, "What are you putting in your belly?" ”
Zhou Yan smiled and said, "It's empty inside, but people like you can accommodate hundreds of people", And Wang Dao was not angry when he heard it.
Even Wang Dao's brother Wang Dun saved Zhou Yan's life.
At that time, the Yuan Emperor Sima Rui had just arrived in Jiangdong, and Zhou Yan was ordered to serve as the general of Ningyuan.
It was also Zhou Yan's bad luck that he had just taken office and caught up with the rebellion of Fu Mi and others in Jianping.
This rebel army also welcomed the Shu thief Kou Duhan into the area under Zhou Yan's administration.
This rebellion was extremely thrilling, and Zhou Yan was overwhelmed for a while, and it was very embarrassing.
Later, Tao Kan (Tao Yuanming's great-grandfather) sent his troops to rescue Wu Ji, and Zhou Yan was able to escape the disaster at the hands of the rebel army.
Later, Zhou Yan ran to Yuzhang to defect to Wang Dun, and Wang Dun took him in, which also saved Zhou Yan's life.
Since then, Zhou Yan's relationship with Wang Dao and Wang Dun's brothers has also become better and better.
However, such a pair of friends with excellent relations finally led to wang dao's lifelong regret because of misunderstanding.
So, what happened?
Wang Dao
After the establishment of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, Sima Rui was dissatisfied with the arrogance of the Langyue Wang clan and wanted to weaken the power of the Wang clan.
Just at this time, the two brothers Wang Dao and Wang Dun held great power.
In particular, Wang Dun, believing that he was invincible in his martial arts, began to disobey the discipline of the imperial court, and from time to time disobeyed the orders of the imperial court.
Seeing such a flying courtier, Sima Rui was very annoyed, so he did not reuse Wang Dun even more, but instead became close to Liu Kui and Diao Xie.
Wang Dun looked down on Liu Kui, but was alienated by Sima Rui and was also angry.
Therefore, Wang Dun raised 20,000 elite soldiers and attacked Jiankang from Wuchang under the pretext of opposing Liu Kui's diao xie and suing for Wang Dao.
When Wang Dun rebelled, Liu Kui suggested to Sima Rui that he take advantage of this opportunity to kill the Wang clan, but Sima Rui did not agree.
When Wang Dao heard about this, he was extremely frightened and quickly led the children of the Wang clan to kneel in front of the palace gate to plead guilty.
He cried to Sima Rui and said, "The Wang family is unfortunate, and Wang Dun, a traitorous thief, is out of the way, but unlike him, we are loyal to Your Majesty!" ”
Sima Rui
Wang Dun's relations with the imperial court were tense, and Wang Dao, who was implicated, was afraid that Sima Rui would kill the Wang clan, so he had to take the sons of the clan to the palace gate every day to plead guilty, in order to show his innocence and did not cooperate with Wang Dun.
One day, Sima Rui xuan Zhou Yan entered the palace, and when Wang Dao saw it, he shouted, "Bo Ren, the lives of hundreds of people in my family all depend on you!" ”
Unexpectedly, Zhou Yan walked into the palace with his head held high as if he hadn't heard Wang Dao speak.
However, after Zhou Yan saw Sima Rui, he tried his best to excuse Wang Dao, saying that Wang Dao had always been loyal to the king and patriotic and would never rebel.
Sima Rui felt that what he said was reasonable, so he asked Zhou Yan to stay and accompany him to dinner.
At present, Zhou Yan was drunk again and drunkenly resigned from the palace.
Wang Dao, who was kneeling outside the palace gate, did not know what was happening inside, and when he saw Zhou Yan come out, he even called "Bo Ren, Bo Ren"
As a result, Zhou Yanli ignored Wang Dao, and even told the people around him that the rebel thieves should be killed.
This made Wang Dao even more frightened, thinking that Zhou Yan had said bad things about himself to Sima Rui, so he held a grudge against Zhou Yan.
But what Wang Dao did not know was that Zhou Yan had said all the good things about Wang Dao after Sima Rui had woken up, and after he woke up drunk, he wrote another sonata to intercede for the Wang clan.
Speaking of which, Wang Dun did indeed have strength, and soon after that, he used 20,000 elite soldiers to defeat Liu Kui's tens of thousands of troops.
Soon, Wang Dun captured Jiankang. Sima Rui did not look good at it, and quickly made a wish to Wang Dunfengguan.
After Wang Dun became a high official, the Wang clan regained power, and Wang Dao was also appointed as Shang Shu Ling.
Wang Dun also took this opportunity to exterminate all those who had offended him in the past, and Zhou Yan was also among them.
Wang Dun
Wang Dun learned that Zhou Yan not only did not help the Wang clan in that Wang clan rebellion, but instead fell into the well and said to him, "Bo Ren, I have saved you, but you have failed me!" ”
However, Zhou Yan said that Wang Dun raised an army to rebel, and he led the army and could not resist, resulting in a major defeat of the imperial court, which was a defeat to Wang Dun.
Wang Dun was angry and wanted to kill Zhou Yan, but Zhou Yan was after all one of the two great talents at that time, and his reputation was extremely high, and Wang Dun was still a little jealous and did not dare to do it easily.
Therefore, Wang Dun commented on Wang Dao's opinion, he said, "Zhou Yan is where people look, and should be able to rank in the third division, right?" Wang Dao did not speak.
Wang Dun asked again, "It's okay not to be ranked in the third division and be a servant, right?" Wang Dao still did not say a word.
Wang Dun said again, "Since you can't appoint him, then it's good to kill him," and Wang Dao was silent the whole time.
In the end, Wang Dun waved a big hand and executed Zhou Yan. It was 322 AD, and Zhou Yan was 54 years old.
After Wang Dun's rebellion was settled, Wang Dao began to examine the previous palace music and found that Zhou Yan had exonerated himself.
Only then did he understand that he had been misunderstanding Zhou Yan before, and it turned out that Zhou Yan was outwardly ruthless to the Wang clan, but in fact he had been saying good things for himself.
But now Zhou Yan died because of his silence, and now everything is irreparable.
The grief-stricken Wang Dao felt that he was very sorry for this friend, so he cried bitterly, "Although I did not kill Bo Ren, Bo Ren died because of me, and I lost him!" ”
Since then, the proverb "I did not kill Bo Ren, but Bo Ren died because of me" has been passed down to this day.