Cheng Zhou, Wangcheng. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

"Chen Zhao Wuxian thinks about the Son of Heaven, and he is sincere. Now it has been spread to all countries and met in the Yellow Pond Alliance. If the Son of Heaven comes to the Yellow Pond in the name of patrolling, the ministers can lead the princes to perform the Hajj. In this way, the body of the royal family will not be lost, and the loyalty and sincerity of the widow will not be lost, I don't know if it is possible? ”

Zhou Wangkuo read the seemingly obediently spoken silk letter again and again, until the words blurred in front of his eyes.

"Yu must not agree to Zhao Hou's invitation!"

In a fit of rage, he crumpled the silk book and almost burned it on the spot.

But after all, he still held back, and just said with a hesitant face: "If you go to the alliance of the princes with the respect of the Son of Heaven, it will be a shame for one person, but if you do this, it will hurt the prestige of the Zhou family!" Besides, according to the etiquette system, the princes have the duty of pilgrimage to the Son of Zhou, how can the Son of Heaven deign to go to the princes to meet the princes! Even if it is the princes of Qi Huan and Jiuhe, the Son of Heaven has never been there in person! Like the Aoi Hill Alliance, why don't you just send a secretary over! ”

Liu Cheng, the secretary of the King of Zhou, and the new head of the Shan family glanced at each other, and what they thought in their hearts was: "Is the royal family still majestic?" Can this etiquette still restrain the invincible Zhao Hou Wuxi? Since Zhao Hou asked the Son of Heaven to attend by name, the Son of Heaven had no choice but to deign to move. ”

But they have to say good words to persuade them.

Liu Cheng said: "In fact, there is a precedent for the Son of Heaven to make an exception to preside over the alliance meeting and order Uncle Hou...... When the Jin Wen Gong practiced the alliance of the soil, the first monarch King Zhou Xiang visited Wenyi. ”

It turned out that just after the battle of Chengpu in Jin and Chu, the Jin State had already determined the hegemony in the Central Plains, and the prisoners were sacrificed to Zhou, and the King of Zhou Xiang also gave back gifts such as bows, arrows, axes, etc., and in the winter of the same year, the Duke of Wen of Jin summoned the envoys of Qi Zhaogong, Song Chenggong, Cai Zhuang Gong, Zheng Wengong, Chen Zi, Juzi, Yizi, and Qin State envoys to meet in Wendi, and invited the king of Zhou Xiang, who was forced by the prestige of Jin Wengong and had to go north to participate in the alliance.

This matter is a major event for the princes to override the Son of Heaven, and it has always been regarded as a great shame by the King of Zhou, but now, it has been carried out by Liu Cheng as a basis.

The politics of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty were extremely conservative, and everything only followed the old rules, and since there were precedents, it would be easy to do.

King Zhou's tone was relaxed, but he was still reluctant, and he complained: "The reason why King Xiang went is because Duke Wen of Jin once defeated the prince belt who coveted the throne, so he is grateful, what did Zhao Hou do?" ”

Zhao Hou recaptured the land forcibly occupied by Zheng Guo for the Zhou family, but Zhou Tianzi had no gratitude in his heart, and when he asked people to pay tribute to him the year before last, Zhao Wuxian dared to stand and accept it, which made King Zhou even more dissatisfied. What's more, the Jin State is at least the same surname as Zong Ji, but the Zhao State is a descendant of the Ying surname who used to make cattle and horses for the Zhou people, which makes the Son of Heaven feel even more awkward......

"Although Zhao is not beneficial to the royal family, if Zhao wants to harm Zhou, it is really easy...... Zhao Hou has already informed the world that the Son of Heaven will go to the meeting, and if the Heavenly King brushes his meaning, Zhao Hou will be blushed, and he is afraid that Zhao will do something unfavorable to the royal family......"

Liu Cheng said pitiful, Zhou Wang Kuo could only sigh, and agreed to this matter, who let the Jin and Qi who could support the Zhou family be no different from perdition, and Qin, Chu, Wu, etc. have all become the defeated army of Zhao State, and can no longer meddle in the Central Plains, in this world, no one is willing to open up for Zhou Tianzi.

It is not far from Luoyang to Huangchi, it only takes less than ten days, and in mid-December, it happened that Qin Bo's convoy had also arrived in the north, so Zhou Wanglu, accompanied by Liu and Shan Erqing, braved the fine snow, and slowly went east under the neighing of people, the crunching of carriages and the groaning of the wheel palace.

When he was in the car, Zhou Tianzi still sighed and lamented: "Under Putian, it is not the king's land; On the shore of the land, it is not the king's minister. The world is so big, is there no one who complains about humanity anymore? ”

What Zhou Wang Kuo didn't know was that the people who had always been loyal to the old Zhou Rite were actually not dead.

In response to this incident, in Ye County, Chu State, an old man with white hair and a drooping beard angrily wrote a few big characters on his "Spring and Autumn" with Spring and Autumn penmanship: "The Son of Heaven hunts in the Yellow Pond in the east"!

……

Limping, the disciple of Confucius carved a scroll of bamboo slips, pointed to a sentence on it that had not dried up the pen and ink, and announced loudly to the brothers waiting outside:

"The master said that Zhao Wuxian summoned the king with his ministers, and he could not be trained. Therefore, the book says, 'The Son of Heaven hunts in the Yellow Pond!' ’”

"Well said!" Hearing this, all the disciples applauded the master's "Spring and Autumn Brushwork".

At the end of December, Yexian County, located in the Nanyang Basin, was not as cold as the north, but the clothes of the disciples of Confucius were still a little thin, but fortunately, a group of people were crowded into a small room, and it was warm.

But it can be seen that they don't mix very well.

Kong Qiu has been in Yedi for almost ten years, and he is respected by Ye Gong as a guest, entertained with good food and accommodation, and gives some Lu rice every month. But there were too many disciples who followed Confucius, there were hundreds of them at the beginning, and they couldn't support them by Ye Gong's gift alone, and the disciples with faces and skins didn't want to eat white rice all the time.

Gradually, Zilu, Gongliangru and other brave and powerful people joined Ye Gong's army and defended the city for him, which can be regarded as a successful entry. Yan Hui and others, who had poetry and books in their stomachs, also began to sow seeds and blossom in the Chu State, and began to collect some disciples, and they could make a living by relying on their restraints.

There are only a handful of people who are known as "gentlemen and Confucians", such as carved lacquer, Yuan Xian, Youruo, etc., who are not literate, industrious, and disdainful of farming, so they can only gather around Confucius and live by eating the master's rice.

These people are idle after eating all day, and they like to make comments, either empty talk about etiquette or benevolence, and the recent theme is to attack Zhao Wuxian, who has slaughtered all sides in the Central Plains. A few years ago, the Zhao family's Dai Jin had already made them indignant, such as today's Zi deigned to go to Huangchi to go to the Zhao Hou League, which made this group of people feel that the sky was about to fall! They rushed to tell each other and came to the outside of Confucius's residence, hoping that the master would give them guidance.

As a result, Confucius's sentence in "Spring and Autumn" "The Son of Heaven hunts in the Yellow Pond" was regarded by them as an inspiring remark, and they expressed various praises and interpretations on it.

Diao Qikai first praised this book to an unparalleled position: "Master's "Spring and Autumn Period" is carefully worded and clear, recorded historical facts and subtle and far-reaching, tactful and logical, exhaustive and undistorted, warns of evil and praises goodness. If it's not Daxian, who can write it? Although our disciples have a lot of knowledge, no one can change a single word! ”

"Not bad." Yuan Xian, who has always prided himself on being noble and looked down on Zigong, Ran Qiu and other traitors who seek glory, seemed to be savoring the wonderful Shao music, and said: "The most exquisite thing about the master is the penmanship in this book. Every word used will imply praise and depreciation, and the praise of a word will be honored in Huagon; The depreciation of one word is as strict as an axe! ”

"Yes!" If you Ruo, who is somewhat similar in appearance to Confucius, also raised the case, and said excitedly: "The former Yu suppressed the flood and the world was peaceful, the Duke of Zhou and Yidi, drove the beasts and the people were peaceful, and the master made "Spring and Autumn" and the world was afraid of the chaotic ministers and thieves!" ”

This "chaotic minister and thief" naturally refers to Zhao Hou, who killed the king and stole the country, and summoned the Son of Heaven to the meeting as a prince. For a time, the "gentlemen and Confucians" forgot that they only ate a little bit of bran brown rice in the court, so they openly attacked Zhao in a small room, regarding it as the biggest tyranny in the world, and the laws pursued by Zhao were also regarded by them as "heresy is harmful, and everyone can attack it".

In this way, a short sentence has been given countless meanings, even far beyond the original intention of Kongqiu.

Just when the room was full of black smoke and miasma, the door outside was opened, and the cold wind blew in, making the thinly clothed Confucian scholars shiver, and then they heard a clear voice at the door:

"There are too many things that are not originally available in one sentence, and I am afraid that the senior brothers are too much."

The people looked back and glared angrily, but when they saw the young man in the sheepskin jacket at the door, he sighed and said earnestly:

"The history is like a blade, and the sinners and the people are all written in the Danshu, and the ruler is the moment, bound to the descendants, and before the future, the empty text is hung down and the etiquette is broken, and the righteousness is corrected. From this, we can know the responsibility of the king, the righteousness of loyalty, and the benevolence of others...... This is the reason why the master wrote "Spring and Autumn", although it took a lot of effort, but in the world's big, vast annals, it is still just a family's words. In the history books of the nations, there are more records that 'Zhao Hou summoned the Son of Heaven to Huangchi', and the princes will also bend their minds to welcome the Zhao State in the face of the momentum of the Zhao State, and the Son of Heaven is humiliated, which no longer matters to them. ”

Seeing that he dared to speak to his elders like this, Yuan Xian and the others were furious and reprimanded: "Zizhang, what do you mean by this? ”

Zizhang respectfully bowed to everyone and said: "The kid just thinks that the senior brothers think that as soon as "Spring and Autumn" comes out, everyone in the world will praise it, and they will kill the rebellious ministers and thieves according to the praise and disapproval in it, and turn the chaotic times against the right?" I'm afraid it's overthinking...... In my opinion, no matter how the master defends the Son of Heaven in his pen, the fact that Lile conquered from the Zhao State is not easier, it is better to open your eyes, see the great changes in the world, and adapt to it, so that the study of Confucius still has the possibility of carrying forward! (To be continued.) )