In the eyes of everyone, "History" is synonymous with authoritative, rigorous and exemplary history books, although it is not the earliest book, it must be one of the most historical works of historical value and literary value. Sima Qian's detailed, conscientious, and rigorous writing style, the tremendous effort poured into the "Shi Ji" for decades, the action force to go deep into the front line to collect historical materials, and the attitude of seeking truth and pragmatic academic writings have made the "Shi Ji" the most authoritative and excellent books in the undisputed field of history. However, there are also some records and descriptions in the "Chronicle of History" that are inconsistent with our cognition and common sense, so how should we view this? For example, the miraculous performance of the Yellow Emperor and Emperor Zhao when they were just born, such as the confusing Zen concession system, such as Shun's father doing everything possible to harm his son, etc., are full of doubts and puzzlement, let's briefly analyze these records and descriptions, and see what is going on behind the phenomenon?
01, the Yellow Emperor appeared to be very spiritual as soon as he was born, and he could speak not long after birth; Emperor Zhao was born with a lot of aura, and he could call out his name as soon as he was born?
When you see such a description, how does it feel? The original text in the "Records of History" is: The Yellow Emperor was "born a god, weak and able to speak", and the original text describing Emperor Zhao is: "Gao Xin was born a god, and said his name", here Gao Xin, that is, Emperor Zhao. What the two of them had in common was: first, they were born gods, and second, they were almost always born to speak, and the emperor was even more powerful, directly calling out his own name. But a person's name is given by someone else, and even if he has the ability to speak at birth, I am afraid that he does not know what his name is, right? Why can I call my name? In addition, regarding the fact that a baby is very divine at birth, how exactly can a baby express himself in order to make people feel that "he is very divine"? And the expression of the baby is actually very limited, nothing more than crying, how can we see more "spiritual temperament" from it?
It should be said that in our common sense cognition, in the human being as a creature, from the basic law of his own growth and development, it is obviously impossible to speak as soon as he is born, which is beyond doubt. So why did Sima Qian write this? I think there are three possible reasons:
First, limited by the level of perception at the time, people were willing to believe that the leaders of some tribal alliances were extraordinary people who were somewhat hot compared to others. Such a person is more capable of protecting the safety of the members of a tribe and leading the tribe to become strong, so unconsciously, people have reached a tacit understanding between them, and this extraordinary feature of the leader is accepted by everyone.
Second, deliberately shaped plots. Knowing that it is impossible to speak soon after a person is born, but still willing to attach this magic to a person, its purpose is more similar to the first point, the difference is that one is unconscious and one is conscious.
Third, the result of exaggerating. The Yellow Emperor and the Emperor May have spoken earlier, such as just turning one year old or almost one year old, and speaking more clearly, more clever than ordinary children, in order to highlight their differences, on this basis, exaggerated, their "magical" points, raised a lot, there is a record of being born to call their own names.
Let's look at other parts, when describing Emperor Shun, he is portrayed as a particularly filial and kind person, but such a person is particularly unpopular with his father, and tries every means to harm him.
02, Emperor Shun was a very filial and kind person, why did his father always want to harm him?
Shun's childhood was particularly difficult, his father Washu was blind, Shun lost his mother at an early age, and later his stepmother came to the house and gave birth to a boy named Elephant, which is Shun's half-brother. He seems to be a particularly naughty child, but he is loved by his father, and Shun, in particular, attracts his father's dislike. What is the reason for this, the history books do not explain.
Not only did Shun's father not like Shun, but even more outrageously, he thought of harming his son and killing him. Shun's slightest mistake, he severely punished, at the same time he also constantly looked for opportunities to further harm Shun, Shun must maintain a high degree of vigilance in order to ensure his own safety, he evaded his father's plot again and again. When he was in his twenties, Shun at this time had already been appreciated by Emperor Yao, who was constantly inspecting him and observing him to see if he was a suitable talent and whether he could fulfill great responsibilities in the future. However, Shun's relationship with his father and stepmother and brother remained unsettled. Even if Shun can repay his grievances with virtue, still be filial to his elders, have no complaints, and be friendly to himself, their resentment towards Shun is still the same. Even once when his father tricked Shun into repairing the house on the roof, he took the opportunity to set fire to Shun below to harm Shun, and Shun jumped down with a bucket to protect himself, reducing the speed of landing like a wing, and successfully saved himself. Another time his father asked Shun to dig a well, and when Shun was working under the well, his father and brother took the opportunity to pour soil to fill the wellhead, fortunately Shun had already taken precautions, because he had drilled a secret passage through the wall of the well in advance, and once successfully saved himself.
Reading this, we have another doubt? Shun's father was facing his own son, why was he so cruel? Of course, the following article also explains that the younger son Elephant, that is, the child born to Shun's stepmother, only wanted to have a bad heart against Shun in order to seize Shun's property, which can actually make sense, because of the property problem and contradictions, in history and reality, it is not uncommon.
But I think this description in the "Chronicle of History" is probably more to create a moral model of filial piety, benevolence, and kindness, because the more he was treated so unfairly, Shun's ambition and attitude towards his family still did not change, and the more he reflected Shun's nobility and extraordinaryness. He continued to serve his parents, love his brother, and even more respectfully. Of course, after Shun became Yao's successor, his family did not dare to do anything wrong with him anymore. It is precisely because of Shun's outstanding performance that Yao asked Shun to straighten out the five lun relations, fatherly righteousness, maternal kindness, brotherhood, brotherhood, brotherhood, and filial piety, these five most basic relationships come from Shun.
I think that the truth or falsity of Shun's father's harm to Shun is also debatable, and it is very likely that Shun's father did favor the younger son elephant, ignoring or even hating and hating the eldest son, which is very likely, but the history books exaggerate such a fact, increasing the difficulty of Shun's situation, and more reflecting the purity and nobility of Shun's character.
03, Yao and Shun both passed the throne to outsiders, Yao passed the throne to Shun, Shun passed the throne to Yu, Shun and Yu both pushed it away, and finally the people's hearts wanted it, and had to suffer.
I also wrote in the previous article that the five emperors in history, the Yellow Emperor, the Emperor, the Emperor, the Yao, and the Shun, the last four are actually the descendants of a family of the Yellow Emperor, after the emperor, the grandson takes the throne, that is, the Emperor; after the Emperor, the nephew takes the throne, that is, the Emperor; after the Emperor, the son takes the throne, that is, Yao; after the Emperor, Shun is the third generation grandson of the Yellow Emperor, who is four generations higher than the Yao in terms of generations. After clarifying these relationships, is it also debatable that the Zen concession system implemented at that time was also debatable? The Zen concession system may exist, but there are many objective reasons and facts behind it, such as the low productivity at that time, the "benefits" of being the leader of the tribal alliance are not obvious, that is, organizing a meeting to be a moderator or something, there is no more attraction and temptation; of course, there is also a possibility that the Zen concession system is not real, but also a question mark.
When Yao passed the throne to Shun, and Shun passed the throne to Yu, the latter did not accept it, such as Shun, who still insisted on letting Yao's son Danzhu inherit the throne, and even hid himself, but the princes all went to him on pilgrimage, not to Danzhu, and praised Shun's merits rather than Danzhu, so seeing this kind of people's desire, Shun accepted the throne. The same is true of Yu, when Shun passed the throne to Yu, he was also pushed away, and insisted that Shun's son Shang Jun come to sit in this position, but the same situation occurred, the princes still submitted to Yu, not to Shang Jun, "helpless", Yu also inherited the throne.
A little insight
Even if it is the content of the "Chronicle of History", even if it is such an authoritative work, it is still a "recorded history" after all, not a "history of occurrence". I think the reason why the history books record and describe this is mainly based on the need to establish a kind of imperial model and moral model, and attach the imagination and vision of the Ming Emperor in people's minds to these emperors in the ancient period, as to what the real history is, it may only be another matter. History needs to be viewed in two, independent thinking, and logical screening in order to get closer and closer to an objective and true history.