Reading history can tell you the present. Today, the author continues to explain Sima Guang's masterpiece of historiography, "Zizhi Tongjian".
In 249, Sima Yi, the 70-year-old Cao Wei taifu, suddenly launched the Gaopingling Rebellion, killed Cao Shuang's party, and usurped state politics. In fact, this earth-shattering coup was already laid down 11 years ago.
Sima Yi was born in the Sima clan of Hanoi, and since childhood he was full of economics and had a superior strategy of kingship. Sima Yi knew that Cao Cao was suspicious, so he closed the door in the name of recuperation. In order to get Sima Yi out of the army, Cao Cao directly forced him to be taken into prison, and finally succeeded in forcing Sima Yi to become his own literary master.
At Cao Cao's side, although Sima Yi worked conscientiously and conscientiously every day, he still showed his disobedience from time to time. According to historical records:
"Emperor Wei Wucha had great ambitions, smelled of wolves, and wanted to test them. He summons the messenger forward, and makes him look back, facing backwards and not moving. And he tasted the dream of three horses eating the same trough, very evil. Because the prince Pi said: "Sima Yi is not a human subject, but will predict ru family affairs."
The simple translation is that Cao Cao perceived that Sima Yi had the ambition of Haojie and the appearance of a wolf. Once, Sima Yi reported to Cao Cao that he had finished his work, and when he was finished, he turned and left. On a whim, Cao Cao called out to Sima Yi. When Sima Yi heard this, he quickly turned his head and looked back, but his body was still forward, and indeed he was like a wolf.
In terms of appearance, the wolf's appearance represents fierceness, cunning and ambition, as stated in the "Great Endowment of Humanity":
"The wolf caretaker is said to turn around and not turn around, is cruel, and always has the heart to kill people and harm things."
The ancients all paid attention to their faces, and seeing Sima Yi's fierce face, Cao Cao felt very uneasy, and that night he also had a dream of "three horses (Sima Yi, Sima Shi, Sima Zhao) food trough (Cao)". So the next day, Cao Cao warned Cao Pi, "Sima Yi is by no means a human subject, and will inevitably interfere in your family affairs."
However, Cao Cao would never kill Sima Yi because of his face. On the one hand, the world has not yet been unified, and Sima Yi's talent is indispensable; on the other hand, Sima Yi was born in Gaomen, made good friends with Xun Yu, Chen Qun, and so on, and if he was killed for no reason, it would inevitably cause uneasiness among these powerful warriors and be detrimental to the stability of the Cao Wei regime.
After Cao Cao's death, Cao Pi succeeded to the throne. When Cao Pi was still the crown prince, Sima Yi was very good with him. Therefore, Cao Pi forgot his father's admonition and entrusted Sima Yi with a heavy responsibility. However, at this time, Sima Yi still rarely held military power. Cao Pi led the troops on the expedition, and Sima Yi generally sat in Xuchang, doing the work of the transport brigade leader.
However, in 226, Sima Yi formally tried to lead the army, and he was sent to the Jiangdong front to defend against Eastern Wu, and defeated Zhuge Jin, beheading more than a thousand people. Later, in the Meng Da Rebellion, Sima Yi raided 1200 miles in 8 days and successfully killed Meng Da, a capricious villain.
After Cao Zhen's death, Sima Yi, who had fully proved himself on the battlefield, took over the command of the Wei army on the western front. In the Fourth Northern Expedition, Sima Yi tasted the first setback in his life, but in the Fifth Northern Expedition, Sima Yi, who suffered a lot, simply chose the "turtle tactic" and dragged Zhuge Liang alive until he died of illness.
With the merits of resisting Zhuge Liang, Sima Yi's position rose step by step, and finally he was ranked third duke and appointed as a lieutenant. From the beginning, Sima Yi had been sitting in Guanzhong, responsible for monitoring the Shu state. However, in 238 AD, the Liaodong warlord Gongsun Yuan brazenly rebelled against Wei. Due to the remoteness and coldness of Liaodong, Cao Wei was not sure about the conquest of Gongsun Yuan.
After coming and going, Emperor Wei Ming had no choice but to let the old minister Sima Yi out of the horse. In June 238 (the second year of the Jing Dynasty), Sima Yi led 40,000 infantry cavalry to Liaoshui, and he first led the main force to cross the Natural Danger of Liaoshui with the strategy of attacking the west from the east. After that, he ignored the objections of the generals and directly pounced on the enemy's old lair, Xiangping.
At this time, Gongsun Yuan's main forces were all deployed at the edge of the Liaoshui River, and Xiangping was empty. In order to protect the old nest, Gongsun Yuan had to lead troops back to the rescue. However, Gongsun Yuan's move was right in Sima Yi's arms. He organized his army, stabilized the formation, and greeted the Gongsun Yuan army that had been rescued by the emperor in a hurry. With a steady attack on chaos, nature can win every battle. In a short period of time, Sima Yi defeated Gongsun Yuan three times and trapped Xiangping.
Sima Yi piled up many earthen fortifications around Xiangping, and then sent archers to stand on the earthen fortifications to shoot arrows at the city. Gongsun Yuan was afraid and anxious when he saw this, and the grain in the city was exhausted, and people began to eat people, and countless people died. In the end, Gongsun Yuan broke out with hundreds of cavalry, and Sima Yi pursued him endlessly, eventually chasing and killing him.
After Sima Yi pacified Liaodong, he soon showed his vicious and fierce style. He massacred more than 7,000 men over the age of fifteen in Xiangping City, collected corpses, and built the Jingguan. Gongsun Yuan's secretaries of state were all beheaded, and the general Bi Sheng and more than 2,000 others were killed. Subsequently, Sima Yi moved 40,000 households from Liaodong into the Central Plains.
Sima Yi's massacre and relocation of the people made the population-rich Liaodong almost a white land. Later, Xianbei and Goguryeo invaded Liaodong one after another, causing extremely serious consequences and laying the groundwork for Wuhu Chaohua. It can be said that Sima Yi's cruelty was not only harmful to the time, but even to the effect of harming the millennium.
Sima Yi's viciousness and heirs were not only directed at the enemy, but also at his own soldiers. After the End of the Battle of Liaodong, the time has entered the middle of winter. As we all know, the winter in Liaoning is extremely cold. The soldiers froze to death, so they asked Sima Yi for winter clothes. All the generals believed: "Emperor Wei Ming gave us a warehouse of winter clothes, which can be distributed to the soldiers. However, Sima Yi said coldly:
"The officials and goods of the people, the people and the subjects selflessly give."
That is to say, winter clothes are the things of officials and families, so how can a person who is a subject privately give it to a soldier? As the main general in the front, Sima Yi originally had the right to monopolize on these winter coats, and the reason why the emperor sent these winter clothes was to distribute them to the soldiers. The reason why Sima Yi does not distinguish between winter clothes is actually a self-defiling technique and a technique of obscurity.
In the court of Cao Wei at that time, Sima Yi had the greatest merit and the highest prestige, and now the pacification of Liaodong was unmatched. Emperor Wei Ming was a highly suspicious monarch. Sima Yi held the military power, and he naturally did not want to see him use official property to privately marry the army. Therefore, Sima Yi preferred to bear the insult of abusing the soldiers, but also to prove his loyalty to the king. Sima Yi's slaughter of the city in Liaodong actually showed the imperial court that he had no ambitions.
By the time Sima Yi withdrew, Emperor Ming of Wei was terminally ill. As a result, Emperor Ming of Wei summoned Sima Yi to Luoyang. In front of his sickbed, Emperor Wei Ming, with tears in his eyes, entrusted the 8-year-old prince to Sima Yi, and even asked the prince to hold Sima Yi's neck.
Obviously, in the heart of Emperor Wei Ming, Sima Yizhen was regarded as a pure vassal of Zhuge Liang, worthy of his national trust. Sima Yi's step-by-step battalion eventually conquered the Lord of Xiongchai. At that time, people were also deceived like Emperor Ming of Wei, and even referred to Sima Yi and Zhuge Liang as "two phases". In fact, if Sima Yi had died before the gaopingling change, it was really possible to become a well-known and loyal vassal who was not inferior to Zhuge Liang.
But unlike Zhuge Liang, Sima Yi's loyalty was all pretended. In 249, 11 years after the End of the Battle of Liaodong, Sima Yi, the "Great Loyal Minister", with the support of Jiang Ji and other old ministers, launched the Gaopingling Rebellion against the general Cao Shuang, and finally usurped the supreme state.
At this time, Sima Yi finally removed all his disguises and revealed his sharp fangs. In the pool of blood of Cao Shuang and others, Jiang Ji and others were surprised to find that Sima Yi's initiation of the Gaopingling Rebellion was not to rectify the country and kill the national thieves, but to usurp Cao's power and realize his ambitions.
Sima Yi played the role of a loyal subject for decades, and Taoguang cultivated obscurity for decades, and finally succeeded in deceiving everyone, and his viciousness and insidiousness can be described as unparalleled in the world. As Chen Yinke pointed out: "Sima Yi's stoicism and viciousness are far beyond the incompetence of the Confucians at the end of the Han Dynasty. And his descendant, Emperor Ming of Jin, after hearing Sima Yi's deeds, even threw himself on the bed in tears: "Now that it is vicious, it is no wonder that the state of jin is not long!" ”
As the saying goes: Reading history makes people wise, after reading Sima Yi's story, do you have any feelings? I suggest that you read more history and draw more wisdom from the wisdom of the ancients. In all the history books, the "Zizhi Tongjian" is almost a book that can comprehensively improve the quality of people in all aspects, and after reading it, it is equivalent to living for 1300 more years.
Therefore, through the "Zizhi Tongjian", we can learn the experiences and lessons of the successes or failures of our predecessors, as long as we learn well, whether it is for people or learning to work, we can be at ease. But for the general public, reading the text is still more difficult. Therefore, Tao Tao recommends a set of good books to everyone - "Vernacular Zizhi Tongjian".
This set of books was co-translated in the 1980s by Huang Jinfeng, professor of Chinese language and doctoral supervisor of National Taiwan University, and gathered 27 professors and scholars from many colleges and universities in Taiwan.
Because the scholars who compiled this book are all Guoxue masters, this set of books is by no means the Zizhi Tongjian that is shoddily made and carries private goods on the market now. Instead, it respects the original text, translates it word by word, and adds no more than one word, so as to get close to and restore the original meaning of the "Zizhi Tongjian". It is not explained by a "modern vision", and it is even more uneven. And it's the whole book.
As a history lover, it is very cost-effective to start this set, because this set of activities in the headlines, a set of ten books, the original price of 498, now the headline readers as long as 208, it can be said that it is very valuable.
For this book, as long as you can read it once, you can have a huge gain. Therefore, Tao Tao suggested that everyone quickly buy this set of books, read it several times, have a long insight, and learn to learn the strategy. You can click on the link below to purchase. The previous 11,000 copies were sold out, and now there is a new batch, and the number is not much, and it is almost out of stock:
Vernacular Zizhi Tongjian [a full set of 10 books] ¥208 to buy