Xuande

Chapter 723 The only thing Liu Bei doesn't have any confidence in

Obviously, Ruan Yu already understood all this.

These things are not difficult things in the first place. The key is to have someone introduce them and explain them clearly.

If you don’t explain the most important part of it clearly, you can only read some great principles such as benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom and faith, thinking that the ancients were all sages and gentlemen, and everyone would reason with you, but you can’t read the hidden truth behind these things. Those threads of history.

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

"I see……"

"The Taoist technique is just like this. The so-called quietness and inaction refers to the emperor's own quietness and inaction."

Liu Bei smiled and said: "After all, as long as you don't do anything, no one will know how stupid you are, but if you do it, smart people or stupid people will be exposed invisible, so unless the emperor is really It’s very powerful, otherwise, don’t do things yourself.”

Ruan Yu took a deep breath and bowed to Liu Bei.

"Thanks to the great general for teaching me that today I understand why the ancient sages are sages."

"You don't have to thank me. Read more, think more, learn more. The saying that there is no limit 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, we are not qualified to be quiet and inaction. The only person in the world who can be quiet and inaction is our emperor. Do nothing at the top, and do something at the bottom. Chen What Mu is looking forward to is what we are doing right now.”

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

He knew that Liu Bei was not only good at strong wind and rain, perhaps, he was even better at achieving his goals in gentle wind and light rain.

Now everyone is only looking at the storm in front of him, but they take it for granted that everything he caused before may also belong to the storm under the circumstances at that time, but no one at that time viewed it that way.

Since he was able to make some violent operations so delicately that people mistaken them for gentle wind and light rain, unless he gave up by himself, or thought it was unnecessary, he could still make people today think that what he did was still gentle and light rain .

Everything is under control.

In fact, in Liu Bei's view, Taoism has an ideal side in terms of self-cultivation, which is very obvious in "Zhuangzi", but in terms of governing the country, Taoism has undergone a major reversal and has become quite realistic. , operable.

Taoist art pays attention to three points at the practical level - small movement, low cost, and quick results.

The key to these three points lies in "following".

Modern people often associate the words conformity and old-fashionedness together, subconsciously thinking that conformity is a derogatory term, but in the context of ancient times, the views of the ancients are exactly the opposite of those of modern people.

As for the specific method of following the Tao, the Taoist art is also relatively clear.

They believe that a leader who has just taken office should follow the old customs in the first year, which is the so-called "conservative", and not change the way of his predecessor.

In the second year, we began to use virtuous people in the traditional sense, and used people who everyone believed to be reliable, so as to stabilize the situation.

Then start to make a little change from the third year, and then slowly and gradually stabilize your position, until the seventh year, it will be enough——

Of course, it does not mean that the seventh year will be peaceful and prosperous, but that the status of the ruler will be stabilized in the seventh year, and his own ruling inertia will be established, and he will be able to manipulate the common people to fight.

The art of Taoism has never been for the common people to live a good life, but it is very necessary to keep them from starving to death and have the strength to fight.

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

Taoism does not recognize Confucianism’s theory that human nature is inherently good. It does not talk much about the way of enlightenment, and does not attach great importance to education. From this point of view, Taoism seems to be in a state of laying down the meaning of man-made changes. .

They believe that people have a selfish side, and they 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.

Taoism believes that smart superiors who master the way of conformity should make rational use of this psychology, make the best use of the situation, and when arranging work for people, make them feel that they are doing things for themselves, not for the superiors.

As long as you do this, you can get twice the result with half the effort without spending any extra costs.

Of course, this is a bit high for the ruler, and this way of doing things actually directly points 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 make people think that everything they do is for themselves.

Even property does not belong to oneself, what else can belong to oneself?

However, during the imperial period, there was no principle of inviolability of private property. Everything in the world belonged to the emperor. As long as the emperor needed it, he could grab it at will before he was overthrown.

Under the whole world, is it not the king's land, and the coast of leading the land is not the king's ministers.

This means that the superb ruling art proposed by Taoism cannot be realized in the empire. Even if it appears once or twice occasionally, it is nothing more than the personal charm of the monarch.

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

It was his specialty, the model he excelled at, and the model of governance that survived into the information age and proved effective.

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

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

However, after he had a deep understanding of Taoism's governing techniques, he really developed an attitude of appreciation.

Both Confucianism and Taoism do have an ideal side, but from the perspective of governance, Taoism is more idealistic. Compared with Confucianism's requirement of "benevolence" for rulers, Taoism's ideal ruler is simply an ideal.

The Confucian ideal ruler is at least a human being—a sage is also a human being.

The Taoist ideal ruler is not an individual at all, but an ideal aggregate, an existence in fantasy.

It is an extraordinary and holy existence that pays attention to making the common people think that they can live a good life because of their own reasons and have nothing to do with the ruler.

When the common people live a good life, it will be considered their own efforts, and the ruler who strives to create this environment should stay behind the scenes, not show up, disturb the common people, and not fight for credit.

There is credit to let it out.

If there is a crisis, we must come forward and take the bottom line.

What kind of character must be able to do this?
Is such a country still a country?

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

But similarly, compared with the very serious Confucianism that has been alienated by the ruling class, the abandoned Taoism still maintains the color of the past to some extent. It is romantic in ideal, but it is also very harsh in reality.

They also know that ideal rulers are very rare. If they want to survive, they must think about secular rulers. They have really worked hard for this.

If you want to restore people's livelihood and let the people restore their living standards as soon as possible, Taoist governance art is really worth referring to, and it can even be said to be very meaningful. It is several levels more realistic than Confucian specific operation methods, and there have been quite successful operations experience.

But the problem is that in such a society, for the imperial rulers, only the skinny and dying people have the possibility to recuperate. Once the ruled think they are already fat, the next step is to kill them.

For the rulers of the imperial power, which theory to use is a means, and maintaining the ruling position is the goal. It doesn't matter Taoism, Confucianism and Legalism, as long as it allows me to rule for a long time, that's fine.

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

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

But he quickly thought, no matter whether he is an emperor or not, no matter whether he restores the Taoist thought of governing the country or not, after his death, 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 the family, even the ideal ruler of Confucianism is very rare, and it is considered lucky to have one in a few hundred years.

No matter how much he struggles now, once he dies, everything may return to the original state. It is nothing more than recreating a powerful Western Han Empire, and then let future generations follow the path of Western Han and Eastern Han again, and repeat the cycle for another 400 years.

Doesn't seem to make much sense...

Therefore, he began to think about whether there is any way to truly use these accumulations in development, develop cultural technology, develop various practical technologies, and so on, so as to promote the real advancement of the times.

Instead of becoming the nourishment of the ruler's selfish desires.

He didn't want everything he had achieved so hard to become the reliance of some militaristic guy again, and now it was not even the turn of future generations to be militaristic, and he had almost finished fighting all the surrounding areas. Who could he find militaristic?
He flipped through Chen Mu's letter again, then put it down and sighed deeply.

How to get out of this fatal cycle is a problem that no one can solve, and the solutions he knows and 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 development and prosperity, but its essential purpose is to create a stable and sustainable order.

Throughout the imperial period, the only goal directed by all the political wisdom and development wisdom of the Chinese Empire was stability.

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

For the sake of stability, the unified imperial dynasty can do anything, even do these things only for stability, not for any other purpose.

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

But when a certain node appears, this upward trend is interrupted and can no longer be recovered, and thus leads to chaos and collapse, which is out of control.

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

But Liu Bei also has his own views.

After he became a general, he would often find time to read a lot of books.

After reading a large number of Eastern Han Dynasty royal collections, he thought carefully, and then realized that this node was most likely to appear at the moment when the forces that did not belong to the ruling class recovered enough to threaten the stability of the dynasty.

No matter what happens, when the ruler realizes that the stability he cares about is threatened, it will cause a series of chain reactions of the ruling class.

The most typical example is the development of science and technology.

The ancient rulers did not pay attention to the development of science and technology, but they paid attention to the opportunity of need, that is, when the country was divided, the rulers paid special attention to the development of science and technology, especially the military, and would invest a lot of resources for it.

But when the country is unified, his focus will change to maintaining a stable state. At this moment, technological development will become a major uncertainty factor and the number one culprit that threatens stability. It is a matter of course to be shelved.

A very intuitive fact is that many important scientific and technological works and people who are 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 Southern and Northern Dynasties, such as the Zhao and Song Dynasties.

In the period of great unification, these rebellious or unconventional forces were suffocated by the unified empire without exception, because the empire only wanted to maintain the immutable traditional order and maintain stability.

This is actually quite contradictory.

Because there is no great unification, there will be no stable life, and people will die in large numbers, but there will be no divisions and wars, and there will be no progress. The spirit of innovation will be strangled by the throat and suffocated.

For thousands of years, human beings have always jumped back and forth between the two, but they have never been able to find a perfect balance.

Even since the birth of human society, the most balanced balance point is actually derived from the terrorist deterrence of nuclear weapons-destruction and development are so ingeniously integrated into one, mutual generation and mutual restraint.

Liu Bei knows that many of the things he is doing now are to strengthen the power of the great unification, to bring the Han Empire back to its peak, to bring back a peaceful and stable life, and to allow more people to survive.

When he dominates the situation, he can believe in himself, and will continue to promote new things, modify outdated rules, invest a lot of resources with his own power, and promote scientific and technological progress.

But what about after he died?

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

But they didn't 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 stable state, this situation would undoubtedly deteriorate.

In short, it will degenerate from "existing to exist" to "existing to exist", and from this develops powerful interest groups that begin to erode the normal state.

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

Liu Bei's use of collective farms is to restore production as soon as possible, popularize agricultural technology, reclaim more wasteland, let more people eat enough to avoid starvation, and restore the government's strong tax collection and mobilization capabilities, in order to better defeat opposition By.

In the Han Empire, there were too many uncultivated lands, too many abandoned lands that needed to be restored, and too many areas that did not master the latest farming technology. The development of agriculture was quite uneven, and the agricultural potential was far from being fully developed. Many things needed universal.

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

He can also vigorously promote the development of various production technologies until the development of a self-contained system.

These, relying on the promotion of a strong organizer, are extremely efficient. Things that originally took 100 years to complete may only take ten years under the promotion of a strong organizer.

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

For example, when the land for cultivation in some places has been almost reclaimed, when the agricultural technology has been popularized, and when personal wealth has accumulated to a certain level, the existence of collective farms should be terminated.

Everyone divided the fields and returned to the family production model, ending the entire wartime mobilization system based on this, and turning it into a normal life.

In other words, Liu Bei believes that the series of policies he is currently adopting as a representative of this are all wartime policies, a state of exception, rather than the norm of social development.

It is possible to adopt a state of exception during the necessary period, but maintaining the state of exception during the non-essential period will bring about a major social crisis.

And this point, perhaps the sages of Taoism also saw it, so they invented an ideal ruler who appeared when people needed it, and disappeared when people didn't need it, but who always existed and gave silently.

This is too ideal, and the most ideal idealists will shout ideals when they see this kind of ruler.

Liu Bei knows that he cannot be an idealist, but at the same time he also realizes that as long as he lives long enough, he has a choice.

The system he is currently constructing is very efficient and has a strong mobilization force. It is essentially a wartime mobilization system, a "state of exception" constructed to defeat the old rentier class.

However, after the old rentier class was defeated, the world was not blessed.

He has another mission.

End this exception state.

End the exception state before it collapses into chaos.

All the powerful development brought about by the state of exception needs to pay a price, but the cost can be large or small. If the state of exception can be ended as soon as possible, the greatest result can be exchanged for the smallest cost.

Compare the two and earn.

on the contrary……

The cost will outweigh the results.

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

(End of this chapter)