"Since ancient times, meat eaters have sought long-term peace and stability so that they and their descendants can become meat eaters for a long time, but they do not realize that what they are doing is what is driving them into the abyss.

They want to have long-term peace and stability, but they will not practice it in their actions no matter what, they say it happily, but they are constantly doing things that will lead them to death, and such things appear again and again, and there are so many things in the world that rise and fall. ”

"And the solution to all this is in the ideals of the ancestors, the punishment does not avoid the minister, the reward does not spare the husband, the official does not have personal relatives, and the law does not leave love, if you can insist on this, why worry that the country can not be stable for a long time?"

At the compilation meeting of "Jiade Tongyi", Liu Bei, as the host, delivered a speech in person.

He expounded his dissatisfaction with Confucianism and his appreciation of some of the contents of Legalism, and announced that he had decided to adopt this part of Legalism and replace the corresponding part of Confucianism with a complete abandonment.

Naturally, Liu Bei did not intend to completely restore Legalism, and he also made a profound criticism of some views of Legalism, and some contents of Legalism were unacceptable to him.

For example, in the view of the Legalists, a rich country and a rich people, a strong country and a strong people are opposites, and the two cannot be both, so they serve the ruler thoroughly, and all they think about is to expand the power of the ruler and enhance the authority of the ruler, and put the people's livelihood in a very awkward position.

On this issue, Legalism advocates unlimited expansion of state power and reduction of the interests of the people, which is the biggest ideological crisis of Legalism.

The Legalists put the country and the people on opposite sides, making the actual relationship between the two essentially hostile rather than interdependent.

This is a simple question of opposition and unity, and the Legalists are not aware of it.

They put too much emphasis on the meaning of rulership, too assertive ideas, and too strict about the wealth of the nation, and the people are so weak that they can't survive.

Perhaps it was the unprecedented military power of the state during the Warring States period that made them think that it was impossible for the people to oppose the state, or perhaps it was because there was no great peasant uprising in that era, so they did not realize that once people reached the point where they could no longer survive, they would explode with infinite power.

No matter how fierce the ruler is, when the rule is targeted by this force, it will collapse with a bang.

The peasant uprising at the end of the Qin Dynasty would be so raging, and this outdated concept of Legalism, inherited from the Warring States Period, may also be one of the important helps.

They came out of the Shura field of the Warring States, full of murderous aura, more than fierce, and not enough leniency, and took the country's exceptional state to the extreme, without paying attention to the people's livelihood at the same time, so that the entire national building began to collapse from the bottom, and finally went out of control.

This is the biggest problem of the Legalists, and it is also unacceptable to Liu Bei.

Therefore, at this point, Liu Bei also believes that it is necessary to adopt the Confucian concept of leniency and benevolence to revise and strengthen it, and modify the overly strong and ruthless side of Legalism.

In a sense, Confucianism can replace Legalism, and it is also the reason why the rulers realized the ferocious power of the peasant uprising, and the Qin Empire, which unified the eight wildernesses, can collapse with a bang, how can they not be afraid?

I'm afraid it's right, but if I'm afraid, I will abandon it, and throw away the good ones together, which is not right.

At the compilation meeting, he pointed out that the prosperity of the country and the prosperity of the people are not antagonistic, but should complement each other, and that the relationship between the state and the people should be one of concerted efforts in the pursuit of development.

In the face of things that can be benefited, the state organizes, guides, and plays a leading role, and the people do their best, have money to contribute, participate together, win together, and then share the benefits in a fair way, no one is missing.

The prosperity of the country means that the people can also be rich and strong at the same time, and if the country gains prestige, the people can also obtain the prestige of the country at the same time and share the benefits of the country's prosperity and strength.

The relationship between the state and the people is not a dualistic one, but one of interdependence, mutual help, and mutual support.

Therefore, Liu Bei advocated that on this issue, some of the Legalist ideas should be used to limit the thinking of the Legalists and solve the self-contradictions of the Legalists.

That is, to formulate strict laws to restrain the power of meat eaters, not to allow meat eaters to plunder infinitely in limited interests, to raise the law to the most important position in a country, to use the law as the standard of adjudication, promulgation of the world, so that everyone is convinced.

And human greed is obviously also a major problem, and Legalists propose to use strict punishment and strict laws to restrain human nature, as long as the law is in place, there is no problem that cannot be solved.

But at this point, Liu Bei agrees with some Confucian thinking, and feels that too strong laws will be counterproductive, and it is better to block than to block, and it is better to channel than to block strongly.

Blindly blocking cannot stop human nature.

However, at this point, not only Legalism, but also Confucianism eventually entered a dead end.

Legalism pays attention to the ultimate rules, but Confucianism has concocted the ultimate moral constraints, tossed out the terrifying concept of preserving heavenly principles and destroying human desires, and finally caused the comprehensive rigidity and complete bankruptcy of Confucianism.

In Liu Bei's view, this is not without a solution.

In the fixed interests, do not let the meat eaters get too much, the meat eaters are dissatisfied, and the people will be dissatisfied sooner or later, then we should strive to make the fixed interests bigger and the cake bigger, so that we can meet people's desires in stages within a fixed range.

At the same time, the country will become stronger and stronger, rising stage by stage, and growing stage by stage.

For Liu Bei's proposition, many people felt novel, surprised, and even happy, and were willing to support it, but at the compilation meeting, Zheng Xuan raised questions.

He believes that Qin is too strong, and the uneven distribution of interests is also a major problem, Liu Bei said very reasonably, the prosperity of the country and the prosperity of the people are indeed not completely opposed, and it is also necessary to restrain meat eaters with strict punishments.

But Liu Bei's solution is a bit problematic.

The land and wealth of the world are not unlimited, and the land and wealth will eventually be exhausted, and at that time, in the face of people's ever-expanding desires and the reality that they cannot continue to be distributed, the contradiction between the two is enough to destroy any country.

Even Zheng Xuan proposed that there was a reason for the fall of the Qin State.

After they unified the six countries, there was no longer a war, and the huge interest groups tempered by the farming and warfare system could not be satisfied, and in order to satisfy their own interests, they began to fight each other more fiercely, fighting for power and profit, and causing serious internal contradictions.

The unlimited competition and fighting in the limited scope of interests finally indirectly led to the collapse of the Qin Empire's rule, and the Qin State was destroyed by this serious internal contradiction, and all appearances originated from this major internal contradiction.

The Han can now adopt the method proposed by Liu Bei to alleviate the contradictions, but one day, when the Han Dynasty walks on the road of the Qin State, what should he do?

How to channel?

What to channel?

"My emperor Shengming, but the lessons of the past, future generations must not be worried."

Zheng Xuan's opposition was mild.

Regarding Zheng Xuan's gentle opposition, Liu Bei took out the most critical point of his own opinion, and explained it in detail.

That is, to make the cake bigger, jump out of the 14 states of Dahan, and make every effort to open up and find more land suitable for survival and reproduction.

In other words, the national policy of the Third Reich of the Han Dynasty should be an export-oriented national policy, taking an export-oriented path, rather than being limited to this one-third of an acre.

"Their vision is limited to the land of Shenzhou, limited to those known places, but they have not found the vastness of the world, and there are many more places that have not had time to discover.

To the west of the Western Regions, there is rest, there is Kushan, and further west, there is the legendary Great Qin Kingdom, to the south, there is the country of poison, to the east there is the land of Liaodong, across the sea, and the legendary Wa Kingdom, where there are people and land, why can't it be used as a reward for development?

I understand the truth that our Han people have relocated to the land since ancient times, but what I think is that since the land of Shenzhou can no longer satisfy us, it will collapse due to internal contradictions in one or two hundred years, why can't we go further out? ”

Zheng Xuan obviously didn't expect Liu Bei to raise this question, and after a little thought, he thought of the loophole in this question.

"Your Majesty, the minister thinks that the ancestors don't want to go, but they can't go out, the road is too far, too dangerous, too dangerous, and they risk their lives to go out, and they don't know what they can get.

For the state, how can what is given too much and not in return be sustained by the greed of the people? At that time, there will be no way out of the outside, and there will be no more things inside to share the profits, and the Han will still have to follow the old path of the pre-Qin. ”

Zheng Xuan was a little bitter when he said this.

But Liu Bei does not agree with this concept of restlessness.

"Zheng Shangshu, I don't agree with this."

Liu Bei shook his head: "Now we all know that the land of Jizhou Hebei is a land of anointing, the land of Yizhou Sichuan and Shu is also a land of anointing, and the Central Plains Qingxu Yanyu is a land of anointing, but hundreds of years ago, when King Wu of Zhou Ke Yin Shang founded the country, it was not like this.

I can see from reading history books that at that time, Hebei, Sichuan, Shu, Qingxu, and Qingxu were all wild places, full of poisonous insects and beasts, and barbarians everywhere, and why did it become a place of anointment now? It is because generation after generation of ancestors walked out of the land of Guanzhong and Luoyang at that time.

King Wu feudal state, arrange noble children and meritorious ministers to go to various places to build feudal countries, later generations, including the Warring States Seven Heroes, many countries in the first founding of the country, many countries did not even have a decent city, everywhere is weeds, swamps, woods, and barbarian savages.

How do they do it? From the first generation of kings, slash-and-burn farming, that is the real slash-and-burn farming, using knives and barbarians to fight for land, using fire to burn weeds and woods, obtaining arable land, and then draining, reclamation, sowing, weeding, and so on for hundreds of years, only to have today's anointed land.

You also know that the Zhou family has been inherited for 800 years, Zhou Tianzi has been in power for 800 years, and Qin has only been unified for more than ten years after the world, and the Han Dynasty has been unified.

I think that the root cause is here, the Zhou people dare to open up, dare to divide the feuds, dare to forge ahead, dare to risk great risks generation after generation to open up, and finally turn the wild land into a land of ointment, to meet the needs of the royal family and the people.

Today, we enjoy the legacy of our predecessors, enjoy the wealth of our predecessors, but we forget the pioneering spirit of our predecessors, retreat when we see the sea, retreat when we see the grass principle, retreat when we see the desert, and retreat when we see the miasma.

Cowering, only to know the final result of repeated conquests, plundering, infighting, and cannibalism on this one-third of an acre of land? The collapse of the Qin Dynasty has only been more than ten years, and the two crises before and after the Han Dynasty have barely lasted for 400 years.

If you dare to open up, you will be confined to the same place for at least 800 years, at most 400 years, and if you are short, it will be more than ten years, and the gap between the two is so huge, can't you see it? Zheng Shangshu, can't you see it? ”

In terms of other things, Zheng Xuan is really not afraid, but in terms of this number of years of enjoyment, there is really something to say.

If you take this theory up to the top, the conclusion you come up with is really like that.

People forge ahead, constantly obtain more plates to make a bigger cake, and constantly have new interests in hand to alleviate the contradictions, so even if it is chaos, even if it is the chaos of the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, it can last for 800 years.

At least eight hundred years in name.

If you don't forge ahead, you will continue to roll in this acre of three-point land, no matter how intensively cultivated, the longest is only the Han Dynasty so far, and the shortest, then you have to refer to the Qin Dynasty after the unification.

Could it be that this is really not true?

Zheng Xuan was unable to raise more effective objections, but he was still worried about the prospects proposed by Liu Bei, believing that blindly expanding outward, in case he could not obtain greater benefits in time, and would cause greater casualties, then the impact would be very large.

Moreover, if this policy is not done well, it may fall into the point of "although the country is big, it is belligerent and permanent".

"Your Majesty, although the country is big and belligerent will perpetuate, once your strategy is not well controlled, it is very easy to fall into such a misunderstanding, which will be misunderstood by future generations, and may bring more problems than now, don't you think more?"

After Liu Bei heard this, he pondered for a moment and slowly shook his head.

"Of course, there is a problem with belligerence, but we are not warlike, but to obtain more land for survival through war, not war for war's sake, the two have completely different meanings, and I think we can't simply paraphrase the words of the ancients.

Since we know that the road ahead will not work, then for the unknown road, we should go to take a walk, if we succeed, everything will be fine, if we do not succeed, we can also let future generations have a little more experience, and it is meaningless to blindly follow the road that our predecessors have walked. ”

After Zheng Xuan heard this, he had nothing more to say.

He couldn't refute the concept put forward by Liu Bei, and in the same way, he also knew that this matter was ultimately decided by Liu Bei.

In that case, there's nothing wrong with following him, isn't it?

Therefore, the content of this part is recorded according to what Liu Bei said, contributing to the application of Legalist thought in this paragraph, and directly citing the case of King Wu of Zhou.

Incidentally, I mentioned the great sages of antiquity, such as Jiang Taigong and Zhou Gong, to increase the reliability of this statement.

Next, Liu Bei also put forward the appreciation of the Taoist idea of following the path and the appreciation of the Mohist ingenuity, and at the same time criticized the Taoist idea of wit and the Mohist idea of love and non-attack, and took out the Confucian exposition on strange skills and obscenity, and whipped the corpse together in three aspects.

(End of chapter)