ebonymovies Chapter 1122 The Battle of Orthodoxy
Chapter 1122 The Battle of Orthodoxy
Chapter 1122 The Battle of Orthodoxy
Zhang Mansion.
Zhang Yue was sitting in the study dealing with letters.
Zhang Yue agreed to Zhang Gen's request to train troops.
Zhang Yue has also been thinking about a question.
Why do the examples of Peixian, Nanyang, Qiaoxian, Fengyang, Jintian, etc. in another time and space history prove that the talents of a county are enough to compete for the Central Plains?
Why is this?
In the past, Zhang Yue attributed it to a platform problem, summarizing it with Li Si's theory of hamsters and rats.
That is, there are too many talented people, but because they choose the wrong platform, they will end up sinking all their lives and unable to stand out.
Zhang Yue thought about the two rises of the Jurchens. What did they rely on?
The story of Wanyan Aguda, from the time he started his rebellion to the final destruction of Liao, can be described as fantastic.
When attacking Xiaohaili, the Jurchen tribe had never assembled an army of more than one thousand people. When rebelling against Liao in the Battle of Ningjiang Prefecture, Wanyan Aguda had only two thousand five hundred people around him.
In the Battle of Chuhedian, 3,700 of his troops were defeated in the battle against nearly 10,000 Liao troops.
The Battle of Darugu City defeated tens of thousands of Liao troops.
The Battle of Hubudagang resulted in a great defeat for the Liao army of more than 100,000 led by Emperor Tianzuo.
At the Battle of Shinianyi, more than a thousand Jurchen cavalry dared to charge at the 35,000 Liao troops defending the city and won. In fact, Aguda's uprising was not so smooth. He was on the verge of life and death in several internal battles of the Jurchens.
In the later period, the Jurchens gained power. More than a thousand cavalrymen actually attacked 35,000 people and defeated them.
Seventeen Jurchen cavalrymen dared to fight against more than 2,000 elite Song troops, resulting in the death of nearly half of the Song army.
So Zhang Yue couldn't help but ask, was it because Wanyan Aguda led the Jin Dynasty military group that they were able to win every battle? Or was it the other way around that shaped Wanyan Aguda and the Jin Dynasty military group?
Or do they complement each other?
Think about it again, when Li Yuanhao of Western Xia came to power, he was also extremely brave.
But after the Zhiping year, Song and Xia entered a strategic stalemate, and the strength of both sides was almost the same. However, the failure of the two-pronged attack on Xia this time allowed Western Xia to regain some confidence.
Zhang Yue was not in a hurry to get a definite answer to these questions. He let Zhang Gen train on his own.
He was encouraged to do practical things, and twenty military students from the Imperial College were assigned to Zhang Gen. You should know that in the past, these students were incorporated into the Xihe Army.
Han Zhen thought that Zhang Gen was just a child playing tricks, but Zhang Yue wanted Zhang Gen to walk around, have a look, and gain more knowledge.
At the end of the letter, Zhang Yue said to Zhang Gen earnestly, "If you seek something in this world, you will gain something; if you learn something, it will become your character."
I am afraid that you won’t ask and learn.
Since I have asked for it, I want to see the results.
……
After replying to Zhang Genxin, Zhang Yue wrote a letter to Wang Anshi, and the correspondence between this man and Zhang Yue never stopped.
After Zhang Yue was appointed prime minister, Wang Anshi, who was in Nanjing, wrote a letter to congratulate him.
Seeing Wang Anshi also flattering him sincerely, Zhang Yue couldn't help but smile and thought to himself that this man was not as unkind as he had imagined.
Zhang Yue is no longer as cautious as he was when he first entered Zhongshu. Now he has to emphasize his presence.
The last time Zhang Yue was forced to claim illness was also related to the revision of the conscription law. Wang Anshi and Chen Shengzhi, two former prime ministers, jointly wrote to the emperor to oppose his own conscription law.
In the end, the conscription law was preserved, but the reform was forced to come to an end, and even Zhang Yue was forced to step down for a while.
Wang Anshi believed that the new law was like setting up a tree as a token of trust, and it could not be changed. But Zhang Yue believed that if there were problems, they had to be amended. If you don't change it now, will you abolish it all after Yuanyou?
This is the conflict between Zhang Yue and Wang Anshi.
In Zhang Yue's eyes, the Xining Reforms were indeed a pioneering effort, but a careful study revealed that many of the regulations had problems.
How to eliminate the dross and retain the essence is the problem in the post-Wang Anshi era.
Zhang Yue was also very concerned about Wang Anshi's recent situation.
After Lü Jiawen was demoted by himself, he became the prefect of Jiangning and now has a close relationship with Wang Anshi. Wang Anshi's daughter even married Lü Jiawen's son.
After Zhang Yue heard about this, he transferred Lü Jiawen away, not giving Wang Anshi the opportunity to continue to influence politics. Helping you train Cai Bian is my reward.
Zhang Yue and Wang Anshi had no personal grudges against each other, but there were structural contradictions between them.
What is a structural contradiction?
This is in contrast to frictional contradiction.
When you are in the officialdom, you must clarify the structural contradictions and frictional contradictions.
For example, if I compete with you for a position, no matter how good our previous friendship is, it will be useless. At this time, don't think about how to resolve the conflict. I took your position, and I still have to think about how to resolve your resentment towards me. This is simply ridiculous. The right thing to do is to face future conflicts calmly.
As for frictional contradictions, for example, I accidentally stepped on your foot, and you stepped on my foot. I said something that made you unable to get down the stairs, etc.
These contradictions can be avoided or remedied afterwards.
The contradiction between Zhang Yue and Wang Anshi was a structural one before, but now that Wang Anshi has stepped down, there are still variables. Transferring Lu Jiawen away is a precautionary measure, even if it is a case of judging a gentleman by one's own standards, it still needs to be done.
However, apart from stopping Zhang Yue from changing the exemption law, Wang Anshi did not interfere in any state affairs. He built a courtyard at the foot of Jinling Mountain, named Banshan Garden, and was living in retirement.
During this period, Zhang Yue and Wang Anshi kept exchanging letters.
Wang Anshi tacitly stopped talking about political affairs in the letter, but what did the two of them talk about if they didn't talk about political affairs directly?
That is Confucian classics.
The two exchanged more than a dozen letters, all arguing about one thing.
That was a sentence break in the first chapter of the Tao Te Ching, and the two argued over it endlessly in their correspondence.
In the first chapter of Tao Te Ching, the Tao that can be told is not the real Tao. The name that can be named is not the real name. The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth. The named is the mother of heaven and earth.
No problems here.
The difference between Zhang Yue and Wang Anshi lies in the next sentence: "So always be without desire, so as to observe its wonders. Always have desire, so as to observe its boundaries."
Wang Anshi's sentence punctuation: "So I always want to see the beauty of nothingness. I always want to see the edge of something."
It can be said that no one had punctuated the sentence in this way before Wang Anshi, but after Wang Anshi punctuated the sentence in this way, this punctuation has been debated for a thousand years.
Because Wang Anshi was very famous, and those who supported Wang Anshi's decision included his old enemies Sima Guang and Su Che.
Where is the word desire?
Wang Anshi's argument is very convincing. He quoted Zhuangzi's "establish it with the constant nothingness, and control it with the great unity."
This sentence is Zhuangzi's summary of Laozi's thoughts.
Wang Anshi believed that the essence of Tao Te Ching is about "purity and inaction", so there should be no discussion of "desire" and "no desire", only "existence and non-existence".
Zhang Yue believed that Wang Anshi was wrong because later generations had argued that the silk manuscript of Tao Te Ching unearthed from Mawangdui was an earlier version than the current version of Tao Te Ching.
Therefore, one should always be free of desire in order to observe its wonders.
This sentence is undoubtedly broken after the word "也".
Facts have proved that Wang Anshi took it for granted again, and also led many scholars of the next thousand years astray. Many later commentaries on the Tao Te Ching followed his approach.
Although Lao Tzu advocates "purity and inaction", he does not reject the idea of "having desires or not having desires".
So what this sentence means is that by having no desire, we can observe the birth of things, and by having desire, we can observe the destination of things.
If you want something to develop normally, you should not interfere with it. If you want to interfere with something, you should observe how it develops in the end.
Just as Zhang Yue warned Zhang Gen, if you seek something, you will get something; if you learn something, it will become your character.
Use what you learn to shape yourself, and use what you seek to change the world.
Whether it is shaping yourself or changing the world, the two are connected because you are also part of the world.
This is Xuan.
So how can people be without desires? Isn’t it against human nature that Lao Tzu said to be without desires?
What is the meaning of the dispute between Zhang Yue and Wang Anshi on "desire or no desire" and "existence or non-existence"?
This is a dispute over the "orthodoxy" between the former prime minister and the current prime minister.
Zhang Yue is no longer the Wu A'mon of the past. He went to Wang Anshi's house with his article in hand to ask for criticism. Use your standards to evaluate my level.
Now I am standing at a new height to criticize your politics of that time.
What does the dispute between existence and non-existence and between desire and non-desire relate to in the first chapter of the Tao Te Ching?
From what perspective do you interpret the Tao Te Ching?
Wang Anshi believed that the meaning of "existence and non-existence", combined with the following "these two, with the same origin but different names, are both called mysterious", is the door to all wonders.
Is it 'existence or non-existence', or 'desire or non-desire'?
Wang Anshi denied the concept of "having desire or not having desire" and believed that Lao Tzu would not mention desire, which was close to Nietzsche and Schopenhauer's voluntarism.
They believed that they could defeat or overcome all their desires, including the fear of death, through subjective will. Wang Anshi and Sima Guang were both practitioners. They lived a very simple life, had great strength for the truth, and had an uncompromising attitude towards politics.
Zhang Yue disagrees. We should respect the laws of the development of things. It is impossible for people to overcome everything by subjective will. Sometimes we should admit our own weakness, stupidity and ignorance.
For example, when it comes to political reform, the method of setting up a tree as a symbol of trust is used. Regardless of public opinion, whether the majority of people accept it or not, it is forced through.
Everything requires execution. It is wrong not to listen to feedback and make appropriate adjustments to the reform.
Whether Wang Anshi pushed forward the reform or Sima Guang abolished the reform, the fundamental reason was this.
In addition, Zhang Yue also explicitly opposed the theory of nothingness, and here he borrowed Zhang Zai's view. There is no such thing as nothingness in the world, only the known and the unknowable, that is, the dark and the bright.
After reading the Tao Te Ching, many people will become obsessed with the theory of nothingness, and finally approach emptiness and abandon practice.
Fall into a lying state of "inaction".
His debate with Wang Anshi certainly seemed to be motivated by ulterior motives.
But as a prime minister, you must establish and establish your own doctrine to govern the world.
Back then I listened to what you said and I did it, now you should implement my ideas throughout the world.
This is a fight that will not give an inch.
The letters of debate between Wang Anshi and Zhang Yue were brought to Bian Jing by their families, who mostly lived in the home of Shen Jichang, a lecturer at the Imperial College.
Shen Jichang was Wang Anshi's brother-in-law and supported Wang Anshi's political views.
So Shen Jichang read the correspondence between the two, and then gave lectures at the Imperial College to promote Zhang Yue and publicly supported Wang Anshi.
Thus, a controversy over how to punctuate the Tao Te Ching broke out in the Imperial Academy.
The students of the Imperial College debated whether to support Zhang Yue or Wang Anshi.
Both Zhang Yue and Wang Anshi had a large number of followers in the Imperial College.
In the end, it turned into a fight between two groups of students attacking each other.
Ps: Some of the views in this chapter of Tao Te Ching come from Yang Lihua, professor of philosophy at Peking University.
(End of this chapter)