Text: Xi You (Columnist for Reading History)
When modern people mention Zhu Xi, many people have the impression that he put forward ideas such as "preserving heavenly reason, destroying people's desires", "starvation is small, and loss of temperance is big", and he is the founder of feudal etiquette and the culprit of the ancient ritual system for mutilating women.
In addition to the title of "the greatest public enemy of ancient women", some people say that he is a "hypocrite with a collection of ideas" and a "hypocritical and lustful moralist".
However, many people may forget that Zhu Xi is one of the most learned people since the Song Dynasty, and his writings are the official imperial examination textbooks of the three dynasties of the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties; he is respected by later generations as "Zhu Zi", on a par with Confucian ancestors such as Kong and Meng, and his teachings are still influencing the Chinese people; his academic ideas have long been spread to the open seas, and have been widely disseminated in Southeast Asia and even some Western countries.
So, how was such a scholar alienated?
I am afraid that the first thing to blame is the many misreadings of modern people's two ideas: "saving heavenly reason, destroying people's desires" and "starving to death is small, and loss of control is big".
"Preserving Heavenly Reason, Destroying People's Desires" originated from Confucius's idea of "self-denial and retribution", which was originally intended to restrain people's excessive greed, and to follow the order of "etiquette" and "morality" in dealing with people in the world.
Mencius also said, "Nourish the heart is not good at widowhood."
Zhu Xi only further interpreted this kind of thinking in detail, he believes that "hunger and food" and "cold and clothes" are all natural reasons, but blindly pursuing Chinese food and being blinded by material desires is human desire;
He also said, "The heart of a person is heavenly reason at the bottom of reason, and the bottom of lust is human desire." "Heavenly reason, human desire, fellow strangers." The reason why the sages are righteous and righteous to the world is that they have done their best; those who indulge in lust and selfishness are destroyed by all. ”
Obviously, these "heavenly reasons" and "human desires" he said were mainly aimed at the class of gentlemen and scholars, and were not specifically aimed at the so-called chastity of women at all.
His distinction between "heavenly reason" and "human desire" is mainly based on whether it is "public under the world" or "selfish in oneself", which is consistent with the traditional Confucian idea of "morality" as the first requirement for gentlemen and "the world is public".
That is to say, if you do things according to heavenly reason and righteousness, you are a sage, and if you indulge your selfish desires and cause the people to suffer, you will eventually suffer the consequences of yourself.
Modern people who hold public power are required to be "servants of the people" and demand that "power be kept in a cage", which is actually the same as Zhu Xi's thought. However, Confucianism mainly relies on "morality" to require everyone to self-discipline, and modern people have strict laws in addition to "morality" to require everyone not to indulge their selfish desires.
During Zhu Xi's tenure as an official, he repeatedly went to Song Xiaozong to expound on the proposition of "preserving heavenly reason and destroying people's desires", advising the emperor to "control the affairs of the world" with a public heart and a kind heart, and proposing that if the elite class dominated by the emperor could abandon private thoughts and govern with the heart of "justice", it would be able to "have a clear sacred heart, a harmonious relationship between China and foreign countries, and no selfish desire of a great man can be mediated, and the affairs of the world will be only what His Majesty wants, and nothing will be as good as his will." "
That is to say, if everything can be handled according to "etiquette" and "morality", and all government agencies can act impartially, then the world will be at peace, the country will be able to rule for a long time, and the emperor will no longer have troubles.
This view now seems to be too idealistic, but for Zhu Xi, it stems from his own feelings of the world for the sake of the world. He hoped to promote a fair and just heavenly principle, so that everyone could obey the heavenly principle and restrain selfishness, so as to achieve peace in the world and the people's peace of mind. There is absolutely no meaning of exterminating humanity and suppressing human feelings.
Similarly, the matter of "starvation is small, and the loss of temperance is big" is also mainly aimed at the scholar class. Everyone knows that since the Southern Song Dynasty, women's social status has become lower and lower, so if Zhu Xi only pays close attention to women's words and deeds, as well as the so-called chastity to do learning, how can he become a first-class ideological master?
Festival, men's name festival also!
To this day, those who have become traitors, we still call "apostates." Wen Tianxiang, the head of the "Three Masters of the Late Song Dynasty", "left Dan heart to take care of Khan Qing" with a magnificent righteousness and a cold and proud bone. Later generations evaluated him and praised him for his great "festival" of loyalty and righteousness in the face of coercion and inducement.
Yu Qian said of him: "The Great Festival of Lonely Loyalty, Passed Down through the Ages." Carrying the relics, the breeze is awe-inspiring. "
Chen Xun said of him: "Tianxiang Lonely Loyalty Festival for Song Chen... Fang De died righteously for Tianxiangya. "
Han Yong said of him: "Now Si Jiye, the people of the world and the future generations, scramble to see it quickly, and everyone knows that it is the great righteousness of the king, the great festival of keeping the body, and it is not appropriate to be blunt and change less with success or failure." "
For ancient men, the festival is something more important than "loyalty", the sum of "loyalty and righteousness", and so on, something that "the rich cannot be adulterous, the poor cannot be moved, and the mighty cannot be bent", and in the eyes of an upright and selfless person, it is indeed something more important than life.
The ancients liked to use bamboo as a metaphor for people, but also because bamboo is humble and disciplined, the temperament is high, and the chastity is indomitable.
"Starvation is small, and loss of discipline is big", in the eyes of Cheng Zhu and other theorists, is the basic requirement for a decent gentleman.
It is a fact that Cheng Zhu and others, who first put forward this theory, all had the situation of relatives and friends and women remarrying after their husbands died, not only did they themselves not oppose it, but at that time it was not a "morally depraved" thing.
However, since the Ming and Qing dynasties, rulers have vigorously promoted loyalty, righteousness, and martyrdom, but also to facilitate their rule, solidify people's cognition of identity, and create a peaceful scene of kings and sages, loyal subjects, filial piety, and family security. At this time, in addition to the stricter idea of loyalty to men, the concept of loyalty and filial piety to women was also widely publicized.
The reward and commendation of men's loyalty and martyrdom have existed since ancient times. When the Ming and Qing dynasties began to commend women's "observance of the festival", this trend spread rapidly, and then became a matter of imitation everywhere and could improve the "reputation of the court". The matter of women's observance of the festival has become a rule of etiquette, and it has slowly evolved into a tragedy against human nature.
Cheng Zhu and others, if they lived to the Ming and Qing dynasties and saw that many women refused to "lose their temperate" for the so-called "chastity" and lost the opportunity to gain happiness again, they would probably be angry. The things that are still difficult for a manly husband to insist on, but are artificially imposed on women who have no right to speak, is definitely not the original intention of these thinkers.
In modern times, because of the influence of wild history and the propaganda of film and television dramas, people regard concepts such as "saving heavenly reason, destroying people's desires" and "starving to death is small, and losing control is big" as imprisonment specifically aimed at women, which is really ridiculous and sad and hateful.
Zhu Xi was misread, Cheng Zhu Lixue was distorted, and in addition to the deliberate alienation of the Ming and Qing rulers in order to rule, there were also opponents who deliberately planted bribes on them.
The "Qingyuan Party Ban" during the Reign of Emperor Ningzong of the Southern Song Dynasty was an artificially created event by Zhu Xi's opponents. Because of his great reputation and large number of students, some people who were not convinced by him defiled his learning as "pseudo-science" and went to the imperial court to ban him.
However, this is not a problem with Zhu Xi's learning, but purely a trap by political enemies. At that time, the chancellor Han Nongxu and others, fearing that Zhu Xi's protégés would be too many and affect his own position, framed him for forming a party for personal gain in the name of lecturing.
In the end, Zhu Xi was deposed and his freedom restricted, and many of his followers did not dare to claim to be his students anymore. However, Zhu Xi was not intimidated, but on the contrary, he wrote more diligently and made his own knowledge and thoughts concrete as much as possible, turning them into words and facilitating circulation.
As for some people saying that he is a hypocrite, it is because in the rumors, Zhu Xi once took the nun as a concubine, although many scholars have refuted the rumors, there are still some people who are willing to believe it, which can only show that the ancient people's gossipy mind is not much different from that of modern people.
In addition, there is a record that his daughter-in-law was "pregnant without a husband", saying that after his son died, his daughter-in-law had a big belly. So someone impeached him for this reason, although it was not explicitly stated, the meaning was nothing more than that he and his daughter-in-law had an affair.
Zhu Xi was questioned for this reason, but instead of defending himself, he "deeply reflected on yesterday's wrongs and carefully searched for the present", made a self-examination, and then hung up his post.
Some people believe that this is true. In fact, this matter is easy to distinguish now, do DNA testing. However, at that time, it was a very difficult thing to explain clearly.
Husbands die and become pregnant, in fact, there are many possibilities, it may be the husband's widow, it may be pregnant with others fornication, or even just a tumor in the stomach and become larger. However, because the conditions at that time were difficult to ascertain, and if they were not done well, it was "ugly", so the justification was meaningless, and it would only complicate things, and Zhu Xi was right to choose silence.
However, many people believe that Zhu Xi's theft of his daughter-in-law is true, which is really unreasonable.
In addition, one of the most criticized things Zhu Xi did was to order some people to severely torture Yan Rui, a woman in the Qinglou, in order to confirm certain crimes of the wrongdoers.
Most people who like yeshi know Yan Rui, who has a place in the famous Qinglou women in ancient China with her outstanding talent and indomitable integrity.
In August 1181, eastern Zhejiang was stricken and starved. Zhu Xi was recommended by the chancellor Wang Huai to take up a local post to deal with disasters. The following year, Zhu Xi went to Taizhou to inspect the disaster situation and received a report that the prefect Tang Zhongyou was corrupt and perverted the law. Through in-depth investigation, Zhu Xi found many incriminating evidence of Tang. Therefore, Jiang Hui, Yan Rui, and others related to Tang were arrested and brought to justice.
Yan Rui is a camp prostitute in Taizhou, good at piano, chess, calligraphy, poetry and song, and his reputation is far and wide. Song Dynasty law stipulates that official prostitutes can sit on the stage to accompany officials, but they cannot sleep in the same bed.
Zhu Xi heard that Tang Zhongyou and Yan Rui were very close, so he planned to start with Yan Rui to find evidence of Tang Zhongyou's personal prostitutes. It is said that Yan Rui was imprisoned for more than two months and subjected to various kinds of torture, but insisted that "as a lowly prostitute, even if he has an affair with Taishou, Ke will not die; if it is true or false, how can he say that he is a defiler, although he dies, he cannot be blamed."
In the end, the indomitable Yan Rui won the sympathy of the people and was released by Yue Lin, who was later in charge of the case.
In this matter, Zhu Xi not only failed to get what he wanted, but also lost face, and actually hit a "defenseless" Qinglou woman, which became the laughing stock of people. Tang Zhongyou, who was investigated, even took the opportunity to ridicule Zhu Xi's false Taoism and hypocrites.
In addition, because Tang himself was the relatives of the chancellor Wang Huai, Tang's younger wife was Wang Huai's younger sister, and Zhu Xi was recommended by Wang Huai. In this regard, people believed that Zhu Xi was "ungrateful" and "crossed the river and demolished the bridge."
And Zhu Xi, although he is a scholar and is good at lecturing, is not good at creating a public opinion offensive for himself, and will only go to the top many times, count Tang's other crimes, and even propose that with Tang Zhongyou present, he will resign himself.
In the end, Tang Zhongyou was removed from his post and retired early. However, Zhu Xi still did not give up, believing that there were people in the court who were shielding Tang, and in the end Wang Huai came forward to reconcile it to no avail.
People think that Zhu Xi is not close to people, but it just proves his integrity.
It is precisely because Zhu Xi's personality is not well received in the official arena that it is not difficult to understand that he has been stigmatized.
Since the Ming and Qing dynasties, Zhu Xi's learning has been regarded as a compulsory examination for the examination, but the rulers have continuously strengthened the "ethical" part of it for their own interests, artificially erecting class barriers, so that the people of the world are willing to submit to the imperial power, rather than obey the original intention of "Heavenly Reason"; the concept of chastity for women is also vigorously promoted, so some of Zhu Zi's scholarship is gradually alienated. In addition, some readers themselves cannot follow the "heavenly principle" and cannot keep the "festival", so they push these things to women.
The man with the right to speak grasped the public opinion, and the atmosphere of advocating frugality naturally spread rapidly.
But the fact is that "it is easy to die and difficult to keep", many women cannot accept the pain of observing the festival, and they dare not go against the atmosphere of public opinion, so they have to die and die. At this point, this original noble demand on the scholar class has finally become the original sin of "etiquette and cannibalism".
Imagine Zhu Xi's original intention, which was originally to teach everyone to cultivate self-cultivation and morality, cultivate their mentality, and achieve "virtue without loss but no shame", but in circulation, it has become a tool for killing people. If Zhu Zi knew about it underground, I'm afraid the coffin board would not be able to hold it down.
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