Obviously, Ruan Yu already understands all this.

These things are not very difficult things in the first place, the key is that someone brings them to the door and someone explains them clearly.

If you don't explain the most critical part clearly, you can only read out some great truths such as benevolence, righteousness, etiquette, wisdom and faith, thinking that the ancients were all sages and gentlemen, and everyone will reason with you, and you can't read the historical context hidden behind these things.

A high-level player like Liu Bei talked a little about it, and Ruan Yu understood.

"I see......"

"The art of Taoism is such a truth, the so-called quiet inaction refers to the quiet inaction of the Son of Heaven himself."

Liu Bei smiled: "After all, as long as you don't do anything, no one knows how stupid you are, but if you start to do it, whether you are a smart person or a stupid person, you will be exposed to invisibility, so unless the emperor is really powerful, don't do it yourself." ”

Ruan Yu took a deep breath and saluted Liu Bei.

"Thank you for the teachings of the Great General, and today I understand why the ancient sages are sages."

"Don't thank me, read more, think more, study more, the saying that there is no end to learning is true, there is no need to over-interpret it."

Liu Bei patted Ruan Yu on the shoulder: "We are courtiers, in this chaotic world, there is no qualification to be quiet and inactive, the only thing in the world that can be quiet and inactive is our Emperor His Majesty, there is nothing to do, and there is nothing to do, what Chen Mu is looking forward to is the fact that we are doing it now." ”

Ruan Yu nodded, no longer worried about Liu Bei's series of practices.

He knew that Liu Bei was not only good at the wind and rain, perhaps, he was better at achieving the goal in the wind and drizzle.

Now everyone only looks at the storm under him, but they take it for granted that everything he caused before may also be a storm in the environment at that time, but no one at that time saw it this way.

Since he can mistake some of the stormy operations for a gentle drizzle so finely, then unless he gives up on it himself, or thinks that it is unnecessary, he can still make the current people think that what he is doing is still a gentle drizzle.

You're in control.

In fact, in Liu Bei's view, Taoism has a more ideal side in self-cultivation, which is very obvious in "Zhuangzi", but in terms of governing the country, Taoism has come to a big reversal and has become quite realistic and operational.

Taoism pays attention to three points at the practical level - small movement, low cost, and quick effect.

The key to these three points is to "follow the rules".

Modern people often bind the words "follow" and "conservatism" together, and subconsciously think that "follow" is a derogatory term, but in the ancient context, the ancients' views are just the opposite of those of modern people.

In terms of the specific methods of following the Tao, the Taoist technique is also relatively clear.

They believe that a new leader should follow the rules in the first year, which is called "conformism", and not change the way his predecessor does things.

In the second year, he began to use virtuous people in the traditional sense, and hired people who everyone thought were reliable, so as to stabilize the situation.

Then from the third year onwards, I changed a little, and then slowly and gradually stabilized my position, until the seventh year, and that's it-

Of course, it does not mean that the seventh year will be peaceful and prosperous, but that in the seventh year, the position of the ruler will be stable, and he will establish his own ruling inertia, and he can manipulate the common people to fight.

Taoist techniques have never been for the common people to live a good life, but it is necessary to keep them from starving to death and have the strength to fight.

Moreover, in terms of the specific operation methods to follow, the ancients also had very advanced considerations.

Taoism does not recognize the Confucian theory of human nature, does not talk much about the way of education, and does not attach great importance to education.

They believe that people have a selfish side and are most motivated to do things for themselves, and it is almost impossible to change this, so there is no need to waste time and energy to change a person.

Taoists believe that the wise superior who has mastered the way of following should make reasonable use of this mentality, and when arranging work for people, they should make them feel that they are doing things for themselves, not for the superior ones.

As long as you do this, you can get twice the result with half the effort at no additional cost.

Of course, this is a bit demanding of the ruler, and this method of doing things actually points directly to an important principle - the principle of the sanctity of private property.

Without the establishment of this principle and social consensus, it is impossible to fundamentally think that everything that is done is for oneself.

Even the property does not belong to you, what else can belong to you?

However, there was no principle of the inviolability of private property during the imperial period, everything under heaven belonged to the Son of Heaven, and as long as the Son of Heaven needed it, he could take it as he pleased.

Under the whole world, it is not the king's land, and the shore of the land is not the king's minister.

This means that this superb art of domination proposed by the Taoists cannot be realized in the empire, and even if it appears once or twice once or twice, it is only the personal charm of the monarch.

Liu Bei knew that he didn't have such a strong art of rule, and he didn't think that he could do this quietly, so he chose another path - a military strongman.

This is what he is good at, and it is the mode of domination that has existed until the information age, and it has proven to be effective.

Of course, it is only effective, and the negative impact is also huge.

When a stupid person is a leader, he can't do things indiscriminately, otherwise he will easily kill himself, but a smart and capable person can do things when he is a leader.

But after he had an in-depth understanding of the Taoist ruling technique, he really developed some appreciative attitudes.

Confucianism and Taoism do have an ideal side, but from the perspective of rule, the ideal color of Taoism is still more intense, compared with Confucianism's requirements for the ruler "benevolence", the ideal ruler of Taoism is simply the ideal idea.

The ideal ruler of Confucianism can be considered at least an individual – a sage is also a human being.

And the ideal ruler of Taoism cannot be regarded as an individual at all, that is, an ideal collection, an imaginary existence.

It is an extraordinary existence that emphasizes the reason why the common people think that they can live a good life is all their own, and has nothing to do with the ruler.

The good life of the common people will be perceived as their own efforts, and the rulers who have tried to create this environment should stay behind the scenes, not show their faces, not disturb the common people, and not compete for credit.

There is merit to be caught.

When there is a crisis, we must come forward to take care of it.

What kind of character does that have to be?

Is that a country still a country?

Liu Bei didn't know who could become the ideal ruler of Taoism, anyway, he thought he couldn't do it, and he was definitely not ideal.

But in the same way, compared with Confucianism, which has been seriously alienated by the ruling class, the abandoned Taoist doctrine still retains more or less the color of the past, and the ideal is romantic, but the reality is also very harsh.

They themselves knew that ideal rulers were very rare, and that if they wanted to survive, they had to think about secular rulers, and they really worked hard for this.

If you want to restore the people's livelihood and let the people restore their living standards as soon as possible, the Taoist art of governance is really worth referencing, and it can even be said to be very meaningful, which is several levels more realistic than the specific operation methods of Confucianism, and has had quite successful operation experience.

But the problem is that in such a society, for the imperial rulers, only the scrawny and dying people have the possibility of recuperation, and once the rulers think that they are fat, the next step is to slaughter.

For the rulers of imperial power, which doctrine is used is a means, maintaining dominance is the goal, it doesn't matter whether Taoism or Confucianism is legalism, if I can rule for a long time, I can.

The most typical example is that after the rule of Wenjing, the world has been fat, the people are rich, followed by Emperor Wu's great promise, which is tantamount to a catastrophe for ordinary people in the people, and finally even developed into a battle royale mode.

Liu Bei once thought about whether to fully adopt the Taoist governance thought to govern the world after Dutian, so that the Eastern Han society could recover its vitality as soon as possible and accumulate enough wealth.

But he soon thought that no matter whether he became an emperor or not, whether he restored the Taoist idea of governing the country or not, after he died, wouldn't the wealth accumulated by the people still be a piece of meat in the mouth of the next ruler?

Not to mention the ideal ruler of Taoism, even the ideal ruler of Confucianism is very few, and it is lucky to be able to produce one in hundreds of years.

No matter how he tosses now, as soon as he dies, everything may have to change back to the way it was, nothing more than to recreate a powerful Western Han Empire, and then let future generations take the path of the Western Han Dynasty and the Eastern Han Dynasty again, and then repeat the cycle for another 400 years.

It doesn't seem to make a lot of sense......

Therefore, he began to think about whether there is any way to really apply these accumulations to development, the development of cultural science and technology, the development of various practical technologies, etc., so as to promote the real progress of the times.

Instead of becoming nourishment for the selfish desires of rulers.

He doesn't want everything he has worked so hard to achieve to become the reliance of a certain reckless guy again, and even now it is not the turn of future generations to be reckless, and almost all the people around him have been beaten, who is going to be reckless?

He flipped through Chen Mu's letter again, then put it down and sighed deeply.

How to get out of this fateful cycle is a problem that no number of people can solve, and the solutions he knows can try to solve the problem are not consistent with the path he is taking now.

He must admit that the great unification advocated by Legalism and Confucianism is not for the purpose of development and prosperity, but for the essential purpose of shaping a stable and sustainable order.

Throughout the imperial period, all the political and development wisdom of the Chinese Empire pointed to the only goal of stability.

The stability of the ruling order, the stability of the ruling class, the stability of the rulers.

For the sake of stability, a unified imperial dynasty can do anything, even just for stability, and not for any other purpose.

Stability can bring about people's livelihood to live and work in peace and contentment, can bring about certain development, can bring about population recovery and the rise of national strength, and is beneficial to both the country and the people.

But when a certain node appears, this upward trend is interrupted, and it can never be resumed, and it leads to chaos, destruction, and out of control.

This node can be thought of as a cycle of land annexation, as a decay of the ruler's personal capacity, or even as a climate change.

But Liu Bei also has his own opinions.

After he became a general, he often found time to read a lot.

After reading a large number of books from the imperial collection of the Eastern Han Dynasty, he pondered cautiously and then realized that this point was most likely to occur at the moment when the forces that did not belong to the ruling class were restored enough to threaten the stability of the dynasty.

Whatever happens, when the ruler realizes that the stability he cares about is threatened, it triggers a chain reaction of the ruling class.

Nowhere is this more evident than in technological development.

Ancient rulers did not pay attention to the development of science and technology, but they paid attention to the need for opportunities, that is, when the country was divided, the rulers paid special attention to the development of science and technology, especially in the military aspect, and invested a lot of resources in this regard.

But when the country is reunified, his focus will shift to maintaining stability, and at this moment, scientific and technological development will become a major uncertaintie, the number one culprit that threatens stability, and it is a matter of course that it will be shelved.

It is a very intuitive fact that many important scientific and technological works and figures proficient in science and technology in ancient China appeared in the period of war and division, and civilization and sophisticated industrial technology made great progress during this period.

For example, the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, such as the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, such as the Northern and Southern Dynasties, such as the Zhao and Song Dynasties.

In the period of great unification, these rebellious or unconventional forces were invariably suffocated by the great unification empire, because the empire only wanted to maintain the immutable traditional order and maintain stability.

It's actually quite contradictory.

Because without great unification, there will be no stable life, and people will die in large numbers, and there will be no division, war, and progress, and the spirit of innovation will be strangled by force, and thus suffocated.

For thousands of years, humans have been jumping back and forth between the two, but have never been able to find the perfect balance.

Even since the birth of human society, the most balanced balance point is actually derived from the terrorist deterrence of nuclear weapons - the destruction and development are so skillfully integrated and mutually reinforcing.

Liu Bei knew that many of the things he was doing now were to enhance the power of the Great Unification, bring the Han Empire back to its peak, return a peaceful and stable life, and let more people survive.

When he is in charge, he can trust himself to constantly push new things, revise old rules, and invest a lot of resources in his power to promote scientific and technological progress.

But what about after he died?

Many traditional rulers themselves admired the development of science and technology, and were even quite proficient in it, such as Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong.

But they did not develop all this.

What he did while he was alive was essentially to end the displacement and destruction of production caused by the war and to feed people, but when the country entered a state of stability, the situation unsurprisingly deteriorated.

In short, it will degenerate from existential to existential, and from this it will develop powerful interest groups that will begin to erode normalcy.

For example, the current agricultural policy adopted by Liu Bei.

Liu Bei used the collective farm in order to resume production as soon as possible, popularize agricultural technology, reclaim more wasteland, so that more people could eat enough to avoid starvation, so that the government could restore its strong tax collection capacity and mobilization capacity, and better defeat the opponents.

There was too much wasteland in the Han Empire that had not been cultivated, too much wasted land that needed to be restored, too many areas that had not mastered the latest farming techniques, and the development of agriculture was quite uneven, and the agricultural potential was far from being developed perfectly, and many things needed to be popularized.

This requires a strong organizer to organize the scattered forces to complete the reclamation.

He was also able to vigorously promote the development of various production technologies, until the time when it developed its own system.

These, with the help of a strong organizer, are extremely efficient, and what would have taken a hundred years to complete may only take ten years under the impetus of a strong organizer.

When these goals are achieved, and when people's food, clothing, and survival problems have been solved, this policy should be adjusted in a timely manner and returned to normal.

For example, in some places, when the land for cultivation has been almost cleared, when the agricultural technology has been almost universalized, and when the wealth of individuals has accumulated to a certain extent, the existence of collective farms should be ended.

They divided the land and returned to the mode of family production, and the whole wartime mobilization system established on the basis of this was put an end and turned into a normal life.

In other words, Liu Bei believes that the series of policies he is now adopting as a wartime policy can be regarded as a wartime policy, an exceptional state, rather than the norm of social development.

It is permissible to adopt a state of exception during periods of necessity, but to maintain a state of exception during periods of non-necessity would lead to a major social crisis.

And this point, perhaps the sages of Taoism also saw it, so they will make up an ideal ruler who appears when people need it and hides it when people don't need it, but it has always existed and has been silently giving.

This is so idealistic that the most ideal idealists will shout ideals when they see such rulers.

Liu Bei knew that he could not be an idealist, but he also realized that as long as he lived long enough, he had a choice.

The system he is building at the moment is very efficient and has a strong mobilization force, which is essentially a wartime mobilization system, a "state of exception" constructed to defeat the old rentier class.

And after the old rentier class was defeated, it was not a good luck in the world.

He also has one more task.

End this state of exception.

End the state of exception before it collapses into chaos.

There is a price to be paid for the strong development brought about by all the exceptions, but the costs can be large or small, and if the exceptions can be ended as soon as possible, the maximum results can be obtained at the minimum cost.

Compare the two and earn it.

Contrarily......

The costs outweigh the results.

However, all this, for the current Liu Xuande, is the only thing he has no confidence in.

(End of chapter)