Thousand Characters

Chapter 61

[Original text]

Refers to salary repair Hu, Yong Sui Ji Shao.Take the steps to lead, and look up to the corridor temple.

【Note】

Refers to: Tong "fat", the fat used for burning and lighting, generally made of animal fat.Salary: Firewood.Hu: Fulu.Sui: Tranquility, peace.Shao: Noble, beautiful.Square step: take a square step.Lead: Stretch your neck. "Leading by steps" is what we mean by swaggering.Corridor: The room or covered passage around the ancient hall.Temple: This refers to the ancestral hall where ancestors are worshipped, not the temple where monks live.The previous article mentioned that life is short, and these four sentences tell us that in this short life, we should cultivate our own virtues as much as possible, because virtues can be passed down from generation to generation, and future generations can also enjoy blessings .This is similar to the meaning of the saying "predecessors plant trees, future generations enjoy the shade" that we often say.

【Interpretation】

Only by cultivating goodness and accumulating virtue in a person's life can he be like burning firewood. Although the wood may be exhausted, the fire can be passed down for a long time, and future generations can enjoy eternal peace, tranquility, auspicious happiness.With such a calm heart, he will walk with his head held high, and his every move is as natural and solemn as in the ancestral hall for worshiping ancestors.

【allusion】

Zhuge Liang swore to marry an ugly wife Zhuge Liang was a famous statesman and military strategist during the Three Kingdoms period, and he was the embodiment of wisdom in people's minds.Zhuge Liang's parents died when he was young, and his four brothers and sisters had to live with their uncle.After the eldest sister and second sister got married, the uncle also left the world. In desperation, he and his younger brother built several thatched huts in Longzhong. The two brothers depended on each other and lived a difficult life.

During this period of farming and living in seclusion, Zhuge Liang never forgot to pay attention to the fate of the country and the safety of the people.In order to serve the country, he read the books of various schools of thought and constantly increased his knowledge and talents.A few years later, he has become a young man who is capable of writing and martial arts, has insight into the situation of the world, and is full of economics.Because he has both talent and appearance, he is called "Wolong".

When Zhuge Liang was 23 years old, there was an endless stream of people coming to his door to propose marriage. Some introduced rich ladies who looked like flowers and shy moons, and some introduced daughters of officials and eunuchs who looked like Xi Shi, but Zhuge Liang politely declined. .In this way, the eldest sister and the second sister are in a hurry.They hope that Zhuge Liang will get married soon so that they can take care of their little brother Zhuge Jun.Zhuge Liang thought to himself: It is important for a person to marry a wife and start a family, but it must not affect his ambition and ambition.Therefore, he always pushes back the kindness of the two sisters, and has no sense of anxiety at all.Seeing this, the two sisters had no choice but to ask someone to find a wife for Zhuge Liang.Just at this time, Huang Chengyan, a famous scholar in Henan, also came to propose marriage to Zhuge Liang. He introduced a lady from a famous family, but Zhuge Liang still disagreed.Huang Chengyan asked him suspiciously what kind of girl he was looking for as his wife.Only then did Zhuge Liang express his own standards: he does not seek beauty, but only seeks to share joys and sorrows and help him in his career.When Huang Chengyan heard this, he felt that his daughter A Chou was the most suitable. She was not only gentle, kind, and ingenious, but also well-read, well-educated, smart and cute, but she was short in stature and had thick dark skin.Zhuge Liang immediately expressed his willingness to marry Ah Chou as his wife, and vowed to treat her kindly for the rest of his life.Ah Chou admired Zhuge Liang's talent for a long time. After learning about this, he was overjoyed. The two hit it off and soon became husband and wife.After marriage, Ah Chou was considerate to Zhuge Liang and cared for his younger uncle Zhuge Jun.She is industrious and capable, manages the house frugally, and handles the family affairs in an orderly manner.The husband and wife often exchange their reading experience and talk freely about the current situation and the world.After four years like this, Liu Bei visited the thatched cottage three times and asked Zhuge Liang to be a military adviser, and later became the prime minister of Shu Han.In the past 28 years, he has taken on important responsibilities and worked on state affairs, and A Chou has taken care of all the family affairs, so he has no worries about the future.At the beginning of the founding of the Shu Han Dynasty, Zhuge Liang advocated the development of the Shu brocade weaving industry, and A Chou personally drew and improved the operation technology, so that the Shu brocade was exported to Jiangdong and the vast areas in the north.Later, when Zhuge Liang attacked Cao Wei in the north, he made wooden cattle and horses for transporting military rations. It is said that this was developed on the basis of A Chou's wooden man grinding noodles.

(End of this chapter)