Regarding the "ingenuity" of Confucianism, Zhuangzi has always resisted because it is "hypocritical" and untrue.

Today, however, his disciple Meng Zhong has put forward the concept of "pseudo-bravery", vividly illustrating the idea that "'pseudo-yong' is not much different from true bravery in some cases", which greatly shocked Zhuangzi.

For, according to Meng Zhong's parable, if the Xue man "submits to his cowardly nature," the merchant will be victimized by a thief—by extension, "the weak will increase the evil of the world because of their cowardice," which will not make the world any better.

But......

Zhuangzi frowned, picked up a pen and wrote a few words on a bamboo plaque: Confucianism is full of nonsense, confusing people and wrongdoing.

Seeing this, Meng Zhong said euphemistically: "Master, I think that everything in the world has two sides, 'yin and yang', and everything has pros and cons. …… In the past, there was a person in Zheng Guo who stole the sheep of the Song people and was caught by the Song people, and the neighbors all called "Zheng people stealing sheep", are all Zheng people thieves? Not necessarily. Zheng Guo also has a male lord like "Zheng Zhuang Gong", and also has a virtuous appearance like "Zi Chuan (Gongsun Qiao, a pioneer of Legalism)", and Zheng Guo is the first country to engrave the national law on the bronze tripod so that the national law can be seen at a glance. ”

『Zheng Zhuang Gong ......』

Zhuangzi frowned and pondered.

As Meng Zhong said, everything has both positive and negative pros and cons, and the world's evaluation of Zheng Zhuanggong is very complicated.

First of all, Zheng Zhuanggong is an enlightened male lord, good at power, light courtesy, and more importantly, he is a secretary of the Zhou royal family canonized - the princes are all secretaries of the Zhou royal family, but he has a disrespectful attitude towards the Zhou royal family, so King Zhou Huan teamed up with Chen, Cai, Yu, and Wei Zhuguo to jointly crusade against Zheng Guo, but he did not expect to be defeated by Zheng Zhuanggong with the general "Sacrifice Zhong" - one of the characters in the aforementioned "Ren's Husband" allusion - and others, defeated the coalition of the Zhou royal family, making the Zhou royal family lose face.

Zheng Guo thus became the most powerful vassal state in the Central Plains at that time, and Zheng Zhuang Gong himself was also known as the small overlord of the Spring and Autumn Period by later generations.

It is precisely because Zheng Zhuang Gong was disrespectful to the Zhou royal family that Confucian disciples were very disgusted with the former, saying that Zheng Zhuang Gong was one of the main banes of the "collapse of etiquette and music" in the world, and the Song State, which had always been very respectful to the Zhou royal family, was also unaccustomed to each other with Zheng Guo.

This is also one of the main reasons for the continuous wars between Zheng and Song in the future.

[PS: In the Warring States Period, the only countries that still showed deference to the Zhou royal family and still maintained the habit of paying tribute to the court were the Song State and the Lu State. 】

However, Zheng Guo was the first country to explicitly "inform" the national law to the people.

Before Zheng Guo, each country had its own national law to bind its citizens, but at this time, the national law was not open to the public, and if someone committed a crime, he may not know that he had committed the criminal law until he died.

What's more, at this time, the national law has become a means for the powerful to overthrow the people and civilians - anyway, the national law is not open to the public, and if I say that you are guilty, then you are guilty.

As a result, the punishments in various countries at that time were chaotic.

In this case, Zheng Guo's minister "Zi Chan" decided to reform, and with the support of Zheng Zhuanggong, he cast a large tripod, engraved Zheng Guo's punishment book on this bronze tripod, and then placed the bronze tripod at the entrance of the palace, so that the people of the whole country could see this "punishment tripod" and see his Zheng Guo's punishment book.

After that, the Zheng people understood the laws of their own country, pursued the advantages and avoided the disadvantages, and the powerful people of Zheng Guo did not dare to use the criminal law to dump the common people, so Zheng Guo became powerful. Twenty years later, the Jin Kingdom began to follow suit, and Zhao Ying and Xun Yin also engraved the criminal book made by Fan Xuanzi on the "Criminal Ding", and published the criminal book of their own country to the public.

The world's views and evaluations of these two things are also very different, Taoism and Legalism are very supportive, but the Confucian sage Confucius is strenuously opposed.

After the Jin Kingdom, which was also a great country at that time, also launched the "Xing Ding", Confucius, who advocated etiquette and disliked Zheng Zhuanggong, said to his disciples very unhappily: The Jin Kingdom is probably going to perish because of this, and the people know the law, only look at the articles on the Ding, and do not look at the faces of the nobles, how can this show the dignity of the nobles?

However, the Jin Kingdom did not perish because of this punishment, and even, later various countries followed suit, and finally made the originally secret punishment book public, to a large extent, to prevent some people from borrowing the punishment book to make their own profits. [PS: So "Zisan" was a pioneer of Legalism, and he took a great risk to launch this reform at a time when he was still advocating "etiquette". 】

"This Zheng Zhuang Gong, what does the master say?" Meng Zhong asked Zhuangzidao.

Zhuangzi nodded thoughtfully, he must admit that Zheng Zhuanggong was a male lord with both praise and disapproval, and he used tricks to kill his younger brother "Zheng Duan (i.e., Shu Duan)" who had a bad relationship from the beginning.

Zheng Zhuanggong and Zheng Duan are brothers, and their mothers are both "Wu Jiang", the difference is that Wu Jiang had a difficult birth when he gave birth to Zheng Zhuang Gong, and he was born after all kinds of pain, while when he gave birth to Zheng Duan, it was a smooth birth.

Therefore, Wu Jiang prefers his youngest son Zheng Duan and hates Zheng Zhuanggong.

As for Zheng Duan, relying on his mother's love, he ran rampant in the country, which made Zheng Zhuanggong very unhappy, and wanted to kill his younger brother or even his mother, but he was afraid of being subjected to secular duties, so he came up with a plan to let his younger brother Zheng Duan go, so that the latter became more and more arrogant and domineering, and finally, Zheng Duan and his mother Wu Jiang united to try to kill Zheng Zhuanggong and seize the throne of Zheng Guo.

In this way, Zheng Zhuang justifiably killed his younger brother Zheng Duan with the righteousness of "rebellion", and also expelled his mother Wu Jiang, making a vow of "not going to Huangquan and not seeing each other". [PS: However, after a few years, Zheng Zhuanggong really missed his mother, and because of his vow, he dug a tunnel and met his mother underground (Yellow Spring), which is the origin of the allusion "Yellow Spring". 】

Playing tricks to kill his brother and chase his mother, this matter shows the true character of Zheng Zhuanggong, but in terms of governing the country, Zheng Zhuanggong is a Ming monarch, under his governance, Zheng Guo was very powerful at that time, and he was not afraid of Jin and Chu.

If such a male lord is evaluated simply by "good, evil" or "good and bad", it will inevitably be unjust.

As for Confucianism, Meng Zhong believes that it cannot simply be defined as "confusing the world".

It is undeniable that Confucianism believes that "etiquette is supreme", and even Confucius once shielded his disciple "Zeng Shen".

The cause of this incident was Zeng Shen's father, "Zeng Zhan".

One day, it is said that a sheep from a villager ran to Zeng Zhan's yard and was caught by Zeng Zhan, slaughtered and eaten, but his son Zeng Shen did not report it.

Later, Ye Gong, the Ye Gong of "Ye Gong is a good dragon", said to Confucius about this matter: There are very upright people in our place, and the father steals sheep, and the son comes out to report and expose it.

Confucius replied, "There is a difference between the upright people and this kind of integrity, the father hides it for the son, and the son hides it for the father, and the integrity is in it."

Confucianism "advocates etiquette", to such a point, it is no wonder that Taoists accuse Confucianism of "ingenuity and hypocrisy", and Legalists do not look down on Confucianism.

Later, Confucius's disciple "Zixia" said: Great virtue is not more than idle, and small virtue can be in and out.

It is very much in line with the style of Confucianism, which has always believed that as a person with a gentleman's personality, he should take care of the overall situation and not have to be obsessed with details.

However, Confucianism in the time of Confucius also has something to be admired, such as the attitude towards "learning", in the Analects, "learn and learn, and do not also say", but what is the purpose of learning?

For Confucius himself, his original intention of studying was to become an official and to gain the respect of others.

In the period of Mencius and Xunzi, Xunzi first put forward the concept of "learning to apply", so that Confucianism's "learning" finally has a clear direction - use!

Where it is used, that is, it is used to govern the country and the people.

In terms of governing the country, starting from Lao Tzu, the originator of Taoism, Taoism has clearly pointed out the strategy of "doing nothing, doing nothing" to exhort the monarchs of various countries.

"Wu Wei" does not mean doing nothing, but it refers to going with nature and not doing superfluous things.

For example, in April and May, when agriculture should be done, the monarch should not delay the people's farming by going to war with another country.

On this point, Mencius also said something similar: A hundred acres of land, don't take it away, a family of eight can be starvation-free.

Among them, "don't take away the time", is to warn the monarch to go with nature - let the farmers plant when it is time to let the farmers plant, and not to do superfluous things.

In addition to this, it can also be extended to the attitude towards the people, in short, the people want to do what they want, let them do it, and the monarch does not want to bind them "extra", that is, in addition to the torture book.

And "doing everything" does not mean doing everything, but also refers to doing what should be done in accordance with nature and the way of heaven.

Where is this reflected?

For example, if there is a natural disaster in the country, and the people who are engaged in agriculture have no income, it is necessary to follow nature and open a warehouse to help the people, instead of continuing to collect land taxes from the people against the will of God.

By extension, there are also ways to improve the moral cultivation of the people.

The monarch does nothing (does not do superfluous things), and the courtiers do nothing (do more things that conform to the way of heaven and nature), which is the core idea of Taoism.

Compared with the Taoist idea of governing the country, the Taoist idea of "governing people" is particularly "incompatible".

In this regard, Taoism advocates self-restraint and self-improvement, and Taoists believe that as long as everyone in the world pays attention to morality, then the world does not need superfluous things - such as the constraints of Confucianism's "benevolence, righteousness, and etiquette", and the constraints of Legalist criminal law.

Unfortunately, the world does not have such an awareness.

This is the limitation of Taoism, or rather, where it is praised: Taoism only advocates self-restraint and self-improvement, but does not impose its own will on others, as Confucianism and Legalism do.

As a result, it is destined that it will be difficult for Taoist thought to make a difference in a "world of Taoist failure" like the contemporary era.

"It's not that my Taoist thinking is bad, I'm afraid it's that the world is declining and people's hearts are not ancient."

Meng Zhong Zhengse said.

Hearing this, Zhuangzi looked at Meng Zhong with surprise.

Because Meng Zhong's point of view coincides with him.