Thick black school

Chapter 65
Yan Zhenqing had a strong temperament and hated evil all his life. After hearing this, he replied in public in the court: "Because of my upright temperament, I have always been hated by villains. It is not once or twice that I have been degraded and exiled. Now I am old Yes, I hope you can have shelter. When An Lushan killed your father and passed the head to me to threaten me to surrender, I saw the blood on your father's face and dared not wipe it with a towel. I licked them clean one by one with my tongue, can't you tolerate me?"

A few words made Lu Qi blushed, but he hated Yan Zhenqing even more in his heart.Soon, Li Xilie, the Jiedu envoy who ruled Huaixi, rebelled against the imperial court, and soon captured Ruzhou, which caused a great shock in the court and the public.Emperor Dezong asked Lu Qi how to quell the rebellion. The thick-faced and dark-hearted Lu Qi was determined to use this opportunity to get rid of Yan Zhenqing, so he said to Emperor Dezong: "Li Xilie is a young hero, arrogant and arrogant, and his subordinates dare not stop him. If the imperial court can send a refined and important official to declare to him the kindness of His Majesty, and to explain the principles of good fortune and bad fortune, Li Xilie will definitely repent and subdue him without going to war. Yan Zhenqing is an important official of the four dynasties, loyal and strong In Chonghai, everyone respects him, so it is most suitable for him to go."

On the surface, Lu Qi's words were high-sounding, and they were purely for the purpose of suppressing the rebellion quickly, and had no intention of framing Yan Zhenqing at all.Emperor Dezong, who didn't distinguish between loyalty and traitor, didn't hear Lu Qi's mysterious voice, and completely followed his opinion.Some insightful people in the court were shocked by this, and someone advised Yan Zhenqing: "You will definitely be killed if you go this way, it is best to stay here for now and see if the court will have new measures to calm the chaos." Yan Zhenqing said with emotion: "How can you not obey the king's order?" Some people even wrote to the court saying: "It is a shame for the country to let a veteran and important minister go to die! Please leave Yan Zhenqing behind!"

Yan Zhenqing has no hesitation and will do as soon as he is ordered.After arriving at Li Xilie's place, Li Xilie resorted to all kinds of means and tried his best to persuade Yan Zhenqing to support Li Xilie as the emperor, and made a wish to make him the prime minister.Yan Zhenqing was unmoved by all of these, and he categorically refused, severely denounced the rebels, and was finally killed.

Although Yan Zhenqing's character and integrity are admirable, his attitude towards people is not advisable.In the officialdom of the feudal dynasty with intrigues and intrigues, it can be said that there is full of murderous intentions everywhere, and disasters come from time to time. They don't know how to give in and retreat, bear humiliation, act with emotion, and be upright. They are easy to be attacked and plotted against.If Yan Zhenqing had changed his character a little bit, dealt with Lu Qi with a "soft heart" instead of confronting him head-on, then the game would not have been so tragic.

In history, thick and black people always dress themselves up as weak people, use "softness" as their own talisman, use "softness" to win the favor of others, win the sympathy of others, in exchange for the help of others, what they get in the end is themselves His official career has been smooth sailing, he has achieved great success and is full of ambition.

Later generations commented that Zeng Guofan, a famous official of Zhongxing in the late Qing Dynasty, was a person who could be soft but strong, weak and strong.So where is his weakness?Where is the strength?

At the end of the Qing Dynasty, the government was in the hands of the Empress Dowager Xi, who was the actual ruler of the Qing government, but the country in the late Qing Dynasty was maintained by Zeng Guofan.Zeng Guofan was 24 years older than Cixi and died 36 years earlier. It can be said that he was an official all his life, and his honor and disgrace were all controlled by a woman.Zeng Guofan can be regarded as a loyal minister of the Qing Dynasty, but in any dynasty that is doomed to perish, those so-called loyal ministers who try to turn the tide are actually very problematic.The same goes for Zeng Guofan.He can be said to be the pillar of the society in the late Qing Dynasty who "conquered the world with great achievements and never doubted the Lord".What method did he use to escape the tragic ending of the "master of meritorious service", especially under the vicious iron fist of the Queen Mother?

As a Han Chinese, Zeng Guofan was appreciated by the Manchu government, and he started to follow the upper-class route.When he was an official in the capital at first, he was just a small employee in the Ministry of Rites, and he purposely made friends with a prince.When the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom started the incident, the prince recommended Zeng Guofan to Xianfeng and said: "This man is bold and careful, so he can be of great use." So Xianfeng summoned him.Soon he was asked to return to his hometown in Hunan to train the Hunan Army, entrusting him with the heavy responsibility of destroying the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.

Zeng Guofan lived up to the hope of clearing the house. He formed the Hunan Army in 1853. It took nine years to finally defeat Hong Xiuquan, who had already occupied half of the country and almost won the national power.When he was victorious across the board and the Qing Dynasty could breathe a long sigh of relief, Xianfeng died of indulgence, and the power fell into the hands of the Queen Mother.And Zeng Guofan was at the peak of his power at that time, with great achievements and reached the pinnacle of his life and career.According to the conventions of feudal society, what we will face next will inevitably be the ending of "the enemy's country is destroyed, and the heroes die".However, Zeng Guofan had already prepared for this, and he resolved all dangers with the softness of Taijiquan one after another.

Some people in later generations said that the reason why Zeng Guofan was called a famous official of Zhongxing, a generation of sages, had a total of thirteen sets of great skills, of which eleven sets were not handed down, and only two sets were handed down: he wrote a photo book "Bingjian", and then wrote a book "Bing Jian", which was then handed down. It is a large number of diaries and letters from home.

Since the Qing Dynasty entered the customs, it has ruled the whole of China as a "barbarian" who was regarded as a "barbarian" by the traditional Han nationality. In addition to the more sophisticated art of governance, officials at all levels can only be controlled by spy organizations.This is the traditional ruling method that has been used throughout the Qing Dynasty.The Empress Dowager Cixi ruled with one woman, and the secret service organization was her inseparable tool to control the Minister of Civil and Military Affairs.Therefore, Zeng Guofan's diary and family letters at that time were full of household chores about raising pigs and farming. They were not so much for the children of the family, but for the Queen Mother. He's just a country bumpkin who asks for land and houses and has no ambitions.

A general overview of Zeng Guofan's philosophy of life has always been based on the general principle of "using Huang Lao internally and Confucianism externally", that is, "being soft and strong, weak and strong. Comfortable to cover the world, and volume not to fill the cup".When the news of his first capture of Wuhan, where the Taiping Army was guarded, spread to Beijing, Xianfeng was very happy and couldn't help but praise Zeng Guofan. It is the blessing of the country!" Xianfeng heard this, the smile on his face disappeared immediately, and he remained silent for a long time.

Faced with this dangerous situation where a catastrophe was imminent, Zeng Guofan immediately performed another set of beautiful "Tai Chi".He first withdrew part of the military power with "Yu" strength, and cut down [-] Hunan troops; then used "Feng" strength to give up Nanjing's defense to the banner soldiers, who paid the full salary; used the money he plundered to build tribute courtyards and promote Jiangnan scholars. People, all of a sudden sealed the mouth of Shuojin in the government and the opposition.As soon as this plan came out, the court praised it from top to bottom.Not only did Zeng Guofan not cause disaster, but he gained the trust of the Qing court even more, and he bestowed a first-class marquis with dazzling eyes.So far, Zeng Guofan has been favored for a while.

Zeng Guofan is good at using Huang Lao's technique to control rigidity with softness, which can also be seen from a poem he wrote to his younger brother Zeng Guoquan.His poem says: Zhong Ming on the left column slanders the book on the right, and there are multiplication and division everywhere in the world.

Bowed his head and bowed to Tuyang and said, everything is too empty.

The butcher in the poem is said to be a hermit who helped the king of Chu Zhao who was defeated by Wu Zixu and fled to restore his country.After Zhao Wang returned to the country, he repeatedly asked him to come out to be an official, but he refused to accept it, preferring to continue his poor life of setting up a stall and selling meat.Zeng Guofan borrowed this allusion and told his younger brother: "Do you know why the left side of my desk is full of imperial court awards, and the right side is a lot of leaflets denouncing us and cursing us? Everything in the world is like a balance. If one end is high, the other end should be low. You should neither forget yourself when you have meritorious deeds, nor be depressed when you are scolded by others. As long as you follow the practice of butchering sheep, you should look at everything, whether it is honor or slander. It is a floating cloud in the blue sky, which will be blown away by the wind in a short while, and become a thing of the past. At that time, the blue sky is still the blue sky, and there is only nothing left, and the blue sea is boundless."

This is not because Zeng Guofan is pretending to be elegant. Whether he is an official in Beijing or marching and fighting, he has paid great attention to cultivating his mind and character throughout his life.His daily life is very regular: he gets up early, sits quietly, and nourishes his energy; then he handles official duties; he insists on writing a diary every day, no matter how busy he is, he must find time to write letters to his family.For both others and himself, he places great emphasis on determination, seeking knowledge, respect and forgiveness, loyalty, introspection, prudence and independence, prudence, perseverance, thrift, and humility.He has always believed that the most ideal way of life is based on farming and reading first.He repeatedly warned his disciples that as long as they occupy the two points of plowing and reading, they can advance and attack, retreat and defend, the family will keep wealth and honor, and the individual will be invincible.

The fact is that in many cases, rigidity does not mean strong, and softness does not mean weak.Sometimes the effect of "cold treatment" is much better than that of "heat treatment", and "softness" can often play a role that "rigid" cannot. The problem lies in how we use it.

A real "strong" person is a combination of rigidity and softness, not only the might of a brave fighter, but also the calmness and softness.They are calm in every situation, combining strength and softness, capable and quick in action, and not swayed by emotions; when retreating, they can judge the situation, retreat wholeheartedly, and seize the best opportunity to make a comeback.Their weakness is the weakness of accumulating strength in the face of setbacks and adversity, and it is the weakness of breaking through the temporary darkness in exchange for a chic life with pride in the future.

Under the pressure of a powerful opponent, when facing a crisis, by hiding the strong over the soft, hiding the strong over the weak, and pretending to be "poor", can often avoid disaster and turn the crisis into safety.Even in the face of danger, or in an emergency, it is much wiser to pretend to be soft and weak than to be brave and fearless in the face of danger.Keeping the green hills around, not afraid of lack of firewood, dealing with opponents with weakness is indeed a brilliant technique.

Thick Black New Mysteries

Lao Tzu said: "The weakest things can often be squeezed into the hardest things, because invisible power can exist in tangible things." Another famous Taoist figure, Lie Zi, also said: "Often There are ways to win, and there are also ways to win infrequently. The common way is to be weak, and the way to not always be victorious is to be strong." This illustrates the principle that softness can overcome rigidity, and softness can overcome rigidity.Houhei School believes that in this world, one should not be rigid but not soft, for rigidity is easy to break; nor can it be soft but not rigid, for softness makes it difficult to stand, but should be soft and soft, and rigid should be rigid; there is softness in rigidity, There is hardness in softness; hardness and softness complement each other.

If there is only rigidity in our world, then it will break.Without the tenacity and smoothness of the world, without accommodation and tact, it is the most unwise persistence to go to the dark on one road.When we are faced with obstacles in the future, we should learn to be detoured, and use softness to control rigidity. It is better to make a big circle than hit the south wall and break the blood. Although it will delay some time, we can still reach the destination after all. .The way of culture and martial arts, one after another, is tough when it is tough. When you should swallow the sound, you can swallow the sound.

(End of this chapter)