In the 30th year of the Ming Dynasty, Li Ke impeached Li Zhen (李贽) for zhang qingda shangshu in the matter, accusing him of "becoming an official in his prime, cutting his hair in his later years, and recently engraving books such as "Book Collection", "Book Burning", and "Zhuo Wu Dade", which were popular in the sea and confused people's hearts. "It has a very bad impact on the social climate. Li Zhen often made inappropriate remarks in the book, such as his praise of the thief Lü Buwei and Li Yuan as wise men; the claim that the tyrant Qin Shi Huang was an emperor of the ages; for Zhuo Wenjun, who had betrayed his parents and eloped, Li Zhen praised her for her ability to choose a mate; and when it came to Feng Dao, a slave of the master of history, Li Zhen praised him as a good official who did not care about Li Lu. What is even more absurd is that Li Zhen dared to "take Confucius's right and wrong as insufficient evidence", which is really "crazy and contradictory." Of course, in Zhang Wenda's view, the most hateful thing about Li Zhen is that he "acts recklessly and simply", he travels to nunneries with unscrupulous people, blackmails prostitutes, bathes in the daytime, seduces the wives and daughters of scholars into the nunnery to teach the Fa, and even those who carry pillows and sleep with pillows are really bad manners.
Finally, Zhang Qingda said that Li Zhen would come to Tongzhou to give a lecture recently, and asked His Majesty to order the tongzhou magistrate to arrest him and send him back to his hometown for punishment, in addition to burning all of Li Zhen's works so as not to poison people's hearts. After reading the song, the Wanli Emperor personally replied: "Li Zhen dared to advocate chaos and deceive the people, so he ordered the factory guards and the five cities to strictly punish the crime." His books have not been engraved, and the lawsuit has been searched and burned, and no one is allowed to keep them. ”
In this way, another famous martyr in Chinese history appeared.
The Wanli Emperor personally ordered the arrest of Li Zhen
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="15" > a ridiculous cultural trial</h1>
Li Zhen was a native of Quanzhou, Fujian Province, and when he was young, he participated in the imperial examination and became a person, but because he suspected that the road was far away, he refused to enter the Beijing Examination for the Jinshi, and only served as an official position such as teaching and lang.
One day, Li Yan was walking on the road and met a Taoist gentleman. Mr. Daoxue asked him, "Is it possible for the public to die?" ”
Li Yan replied, "Dead, isn't it terrible?" ”
Mr. Daoxue then advised him, "Since the public is afraid of death, why don't you learn the Tao?" Learn the Tao so avoid life and death also. ”
Li Yan exclaimed, "Yes yes! So I immersed myself in learning from then on. Later, he was promoted to the prefect of Yao'an in Yunnan, and during his reign, the laws were simple and self-evident. In middle age, Li Yan began to dislike the officialdom in his heart, and one day, he fled into the Jizu Mountain and refused to come out; for this reason, Yunnan Yushi Liu Wei had to help him with retirement procedures.
Li Zhen did not want to be involved in his relatives, so he simply repatriated all his wives and children to his hometown, while he himself lived in the home of his friend Geng Theorem, severed his customary fate, consulted the multiplication, and called himself a "wandering guest". Soon after, Geng died of illness, and his brother Geng directed the expulsion of Li Zhen. Under poverty, Li Zhen had to go to Wei Mo An at Longtan Lake to make a home, and every day he studied, and then he went back and forth to argue with Geng Andu, attacking false Taoism. Under the pretext of "monks and nuns committing adultery," the government burned down the Buddhist temple, and Li Yan was forced to wander everywhere, and finally had to live in Ma Jinglun's house.
When the Wanli Emperor ordered the arrest of Li Zhen, the latter was already a seventy-year-old man. At that time, Li Zhencai had just finished the "Nine Positive Yi Causes" with illness, and the officers and soldiers came to push the door and arrest people. When Li Yan heard that there was a lot of movement outside the house, he asked Ma Jinglun what was going on, and replied, "Guards to the Top"; as soon as Li Zhen heard it, he knew that these people had come to arrest him, so he reluctantly stood up and shouted, "It's for me." Pick up the door tablets for me! When the officers and soldiers broke in, Li Yan said to them, "Hurry up! I am also a sinner, and it is not appropriate to stay. After saying that, he was carried away.
The next day, Daikino sat in the hall for interrogation, and the two men helped Li Zhen into the hall and lay down on the steps. Kingo screamed, "Why write a book in vain?" ”
Li Zhen defended: "Sinners have written many books, and they are beneficial to the Holy Religion!" ”
Kingo laughed at his stubbornness, but in the end he could not come up with any results, so he had to announce his resignation from the court, but after waiting for a long time, the imperial court did not issue a decree on how to deal with this "heretic". Li Zhen reads poems and books in prison every day, and looks at ease. Suddenly, one day, he told the guards that he needed to cut his hair, and the guards saw that he was a monk and gave him a razor. So Li Yan took advantage of the fact that the guards were not prepared, and cut his throat with a knife, but unexpectedly he did not die immediately. Two days later, seeing that Li Yan was not yet out of breath, the guards asked, "Is the monk in pain?" ”
Li Yan wrote with his fingers on the palm of his hand: "No pain." The guards felt a little sad and sighed, "Why did the monk cut himself?" Li Yan continued, "What does the seventy-year-old man ask for! Then he passed away.
Li Zhen (1527–1602), courtesy name Zhuowu
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="15" > what crime did Li Zhen commit? </h1>
After Li Zhen's death, his books were included in the forbidden list. In September of the fifth year of the Apocalypse, King Yaliang of Sichuan Province once again issued a strict order: "Li Zhen's books are grotesque, and he orders them to inspect the yamen and burn them, and they are not allowed to be sold in the street, and they are still forbidden to pass." It can be seen that the rulers of the Ming Dynasty not only wanted to physically eliminate Li Zhen, but also let his spirit evaporate from the world and leave no trace.
However, according to Gu Yanwu's "Rizhilu", Li Yan's books have always been forbidden and have been quietly disseminated among the people, in part because "scholars and doctors like his books, often collected, and have not yet been extinguished." On the other hand, it is because his book is not actually what his political enemies have portrayed, it is a flood beast or a great poisonous weed. Most of the content in these books is actually very much in line with mainstream values, but some places play li zhen's unique ideas, but they are unexpectedly used as handles and used as a big fuss.
First of all, Zhang Wenda accused Li Zhen of "holding prostitutes hostage and bathing together during the day", which lacked basis. Li Zhen's friend Yuan Zhongdao said in the Biography of Li Wenling that Li Zhen himself was "voxel-deft, savory, and clean, and evil to women, so although he had no children, he did not take concubines." This shows that Li Yan's health has not been very good, and he is old, has a clean habit, is not close to women, and does not look like a promiscuous person.
Secondly, Li Yan said in the "Answer to the Short Book of Women's Learning the Tao", there is a difference between the length of knowledge, but there is no difference between men and women. Most women are shorter because they can't see outside the boudoir, and if men and women study together, women's abilities are not inferior to men's. Therefore, he did not reject the recruitment of female disciples, and he was also happy to let the female disciples go out of the boudoir and come to Wei Mo Nunnery to listen to his lectures. This idea of equality between men and women, openness and freedom, was portrayed by apologists as "seducing the wives and daughters of scholars" and slandering them in every way.
Finally, in response to the accusation of "writing books in vain," Li Yandangtang retorted: "There are many books, and they are beneficial to the Holy Sect!" "Ask for a debate with the government about these publicly published books to see where they are "delusional." However, the official government did not give him this opportunity after all, in the eyes of the government, Li Yan was first hateful, then guilty, and finally found a formal crime in the legal text according to the "hateful crime" - and the most hateful thing about Li Yan was that he violated mainstream values and "took Confucius's right and wrong as insufficient evidence."
Dare to question Confucius, who has been deified, is the real reason for Li Zhen's persecution
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" Data-track="15" > Li Zhen's reflection and criticism of the phenomenon of deifying Confucius</h1>
Shortly after Li Zhen's death, Feng Qi, the Rebbe Shangshu, said: "Emperor Nadu gave Zhang Qingda's words to the matter, and Li Zhen deceived the world and slandered the people, and burned all the books he wrote, and his reverence for righteousness and evil was also very grand." The vassals and thieves were the only ones who took the scriptures, and were not listed among the scholars except the Five Classics, the Four Books, the Twenty-first History, the General Records, and the Sexual Theory, and the commentaries on the scriptures were subject to those formulated by Song Ru. This is the ancients deposing the Hundred Families and honoring the will of the Kong clan. ”
The Wanli Emperor replied: "Ancestors established the religion of the Wei Dynasty and honored Confucius... Lan Qing and other music, deeper than the world's teachings, can be listed to play. Affirming the opinion of "respecting the will of the Exclusive Kong Clan" also confirmed that the real reason for the murder of Li Zhen lay here.
Li Zhen was a well-written figure who had a great influence in cultural circles. The "Collection of Books" and "Continued Books" compiled by him are almost equivalent to a general history from the Western Zhou Dynasty to the Ming Dynasty, and their readability is higher than that of the vast "Twenty-first History" and "Zizhi Tongjian"; in order to cooperate with the reading, Li Zhen compiled a "Outline of Historical Commentary", expressing personal historical views, and his views are novel, unpublished before, and deeply loved by scholars. In addition, Li Yan also commented on artistic books such as "West Chamber", "Water Margin", and "Journey to the West", which diverted the eyes of the scholars and masters from the boring scriptures, which were not conducive to "the purpose of the exclusive Respect of Kong". Of course, the biggest abomination of Li Yan is that in the "Book Burning" and "Continued Book Burning", he directly attacked the ancestral religion of "the will of the Exclusive Emperor Kong".
Restore Confucius to his original face
In "The Statue of Confucius in the Zhi Buddhist Temple", Li Yan said that the reason why the world thinks that Confucius is a great sage and that the second religion of Buddha and Lao is heresy is just the result of the education and indoctrination of Yan Father's master; and Yan Father's master does not know why Confucius is a saint and Buddha is a heretic, they only respect the dogma handed down by the first Confucianism. However, these dogmas are still distorted - Confucius himself clearly said that "I cannot be holy", so why insist on honoring him as a saint? When Confucius was alive, Buddhism had not yet been introduced and Taoism had not yet been established, so how can we know that when he said "attacking heresy", he meant Buddha? Therefore, taking Confucius as a saint and Buddha as a heretic is nothing more than a conclusion that the Confucians themselves have guessed, and then recited them through the inheritance, and gradually become a dogma that has been the same for thousands of years. Since Confucians consider themselves followers of Confucius, they should believe what Confucius said; Confucius admits that he is not a saint, indicating that he is not omniscient and omnipotent, so he cannot "take Confucius's right and wrong as right and wrong", which is the clearest logic and the simplest truth.
In the "Reply to Geng Zhongcheng", Li Zhen said that Confucius never asked others to come and learn from himself, and he often said "for benevolence by oneself", "ancient scholars for oneself", "gentlemen for oneself", "a gentleman asks for himself", and he once said "ask for the master"? Learning to speculate and pursue the truth is mainly on their own, and the teacher is just a signpost and a cane, which can only point you out a general direction. Where is anyone stupid enough to deify his teacher into a perfect saint, and then replace his own thoughts with his own, and fill his brain with his theories? The purpose of all expressions, proofs, and writings is not to capture others and make them slaves to their own thoughts, but to arouse the cognitive activities of others and to awaken the ideals they possess.
The reason why Confucians believe in Confucius is not because the truth resides in his brain, but because his language and words can arouse our thoughts, speak our minds, and nothing more. Don't learn confucius's thought, but learn his method, Confucius's method is to "ask a gentleman to seek himself", exert your intellect, and think independently. Today's fools prefer to honor Confucius as their grandfather and "respect confucius's will alone", but they have learned confucius's thought differently, and the result is only to use their own false views to suppress all kinds of independent thinking.
It was precisely because Li Zhen's enlightenment thoughts and remarks poked at the weaknesses of the Ming rulers and defenders that he was besieged, and in an unfair trial, he died bleakly in prison, and was insulted in both the Ming and Qing dynasties. However, as Gu Yanwu admitted: "Since ancient times, the unscrupulous and daring to rebel against the saints of the villains is no better than Li Zhen, but although he obeys strict instructions, his books are free in the world." Perhaps, the interests of the common people and the "saints" have long been separated from God, or how can Li Zhen's books be forbidden repeatedly?