In the first half of the play, we can often hear the old emperor Kangxi ask the ministers and princes bitterly: What about the way of loyalty and forgiveness taught you by the saints?
Such nagging had no effect on the thick-faced and dark-faced people in the court. If they really listen to the words of the saints and act according to the etiquette and shame taught by the saints, they are not them.
However, in such a filthy Qing Dynasty officialdom, there was really such an old master who had been reading the sages in the dark, listening to the words of the saints, and practicing the teachings of the saints, and he was Wang Tuan.
On the surface, the old minister Wang Tuan was a bit confused, a little riding the wall, a little political speculation, began to die to protect the prince, and later fell to Yongzheng, and his behavior was a bit inconsistent, but in fact, Wang Tuan's way of being an official was far above the courtiers, and he could be completely comparable to the old fox Tong Guowei and the little cotton jacket Zhang Tingyu.
Great wisdom to jane, Wang Tuan, this person, in addition to good reading, its greatest advantage is loyalty.
This kind of loyalty is different to varying degrees of people in the play, but few can achieve the ultimate like Wang Tuan.
Brother Zhang was loyal, but in the end, he was only loyal to Old Kangxi and Thirteenth Master. There are many people like Zhang Wuge in the play, and each prince has a bunch of clothed slaves, who are all tied to the master from their personal to their own interests, and have a bone loyalty to the master. Even if Nian Qianyao and Lao Bamei came and went, he also knew that Lao Ba could not be trusted, or followed the master Old Fourth steadily.
The loyalty of the fourth brother and the thirteenth brother to the old Kangxi is both the loyalty of the human subject and the respect of the son of man, which is more reliable than simple loyalty. In addition, all the brothers have been educated in their homeland since childhood, no matter how they fight each other, no matter who wins or loses, their loyalty to the Ai Xin Jue Luo family and to the Qing Dynasty Community is beyond doubt. With this kind of loyalty, there were not only Tianhuang nobles, but also relatives of the Qing Dynasty, such as Tong Guowei and Ma Qi.
Wang Tuan's loyalty is more special, he is a relatively pure reader, loyal to the emperor and loyal to Confucius into one, loyal to the Taoist system of Confucian culture, loyal to his own conscience.
If you enjoy life, life and death, fish and meat people, foreign wars, naturally to the individual and the family and a party of private loyalty, the emperor can make full use of personal influence, mobilize the entire Qing Dynasty to revolve around him, realize his political ambitions, or achieve his own ulterior motives.
However, governing the country has never been so simple and rude, and those who are loyal to morality and conscience will often contradict the selfish emperor, but this loyalty is often the most powerful supporter of the imperial power when the imperial power is challenged. For example, when the Eight Kings forced the palace, although Prince Yi's soldiers were able to power the king's wild waves, it was Zhang Tingyu's grand argument that could really convince the Manchu Dynasty.
Therefore, the more accomplished emperors in history will not kill the slanderers around them, and they can overcome the weaknesses of human nature, leave the slanderers above the court, and allow them to sing the opposite tune to correct their own mistakes. And there are also many emperors, extremely clever, but can not accommodate different opinions, or kill or degrade, turn the court into a hall of words, even if they are wrong, no one dares to come out to oppose, the result is one of their faults, so that the whole country will be doomed.
In the Nine Kings, Wang Tuan was both a participant and a spectator. He is said to be a participant because he is the prince's teacher, openly supports and defends the prince, and does not hesitate to make enemies of the world. And he is a bystander because although he defended the prince in the early stage and supported the fourth elder in the later stage, no one has ever regarded him as a princeling or a four-master party.
Because no matter who he supports, in fact, he supports not only this person, but a bright and just truth. Wang Tuan was by no means a nerd who read dead books, and in order to defend the Tao, he could do whatever it took to send money to the prince and force Zheng Chunhua to kill ------ these two things alone were indeed not authentic, but this kind of unauthenticity, even if the old Kangxi Emperor knew, would only understand his bitterness, and would not blame him for being cruel.
When the crown prince was deposed, the entire court did not dare to have any objections, only Wang Tuan, who not only dared to mention it, but also scolded all the manchu imperial ministers and forced the Kangxi Emperor to play lai. Don't think that Kangxi was very angry at that time, old Kangxi saw Wang Tuan's performance at that time, not only was he not disgusted, but also very moved, the more he looked at Wang Tuan, the more cute he became. Because the words that Wang Tuan scolded were the words that Kangxi had been holding back for a long time but could not say, and they spat them out of Wang Tuan's mouth and spurred the princes of the group of courtiers, which was the best.
The wonderful thing is that Zhang Tingyu cooperated at that time, and Wang Tuan and the old Kangxi tried to be one, changing the theme of abolishing the prince to beating the courtiers and the crown prince. With Zhang Tingyu's cooperation, Old Kangxi was able to lift it high, gently put it down, and drag Wang Tuan out to be taken care of by his son, and "if there is a mistake, he will slash his son with a thousand knives." The words were harsh, but everyone understood that this was not a punishment for Wang Tuan, but simply a connivance, even a reward.
Wang Tuan is the true color performance, old Kangxi is borrowing the title to play, and Zhang Tingyu is the aftermath. It was also in this matter that I saw Zhang Tingyu's ingenuity, which was where he was stronger than Wang Tuan, and where he was inferior to Wang Tuan. Loyalty with ingenuity, not as pure as Wang Tuan, Kangxi has no mustard for the pure Wang Tuan, but will have an extra layer of wariness against the clever Zhang Tingyu.
In the end, Wang Tuan guessed old Kangxi's thoughts and died to protect the fourth brother Yinchen. He drank poison and died in front of Yongzheng, ending the idea of the old eight pursuing Zheng Chunhua's case and dragging the old thirteen into the water. This person was not only loyal, but also very open-minded, and had a good understanding of his own death, and completed Yin Chan and Yin Xiang with one death, and also indirectly repaid the Kangxi Emperor's kindness.
After his death, Wang Tuan would not only be able to enter the Xianliang Temple, but even the more than thirty members of the family would be treated kindly by Yongzheng, and it could be regarded as a death.