Although he was deeply surprised by his eldest brother's thick family letter, Zhuge Liang still remained polite and continued chatting with the messenger without opening it directly.
He also asked his third brother to make green onion and ginger tea soup to entertain the guests, and asked the only servant boy in the family to light the fire. He also asked his two sisters to help prepare meat.
There are still two unmarried sisters in the Zhuge family. They rarely see outsiders and only do housework in the back house.
Tang Guang felt quite uneasy and quickly said that there was no need to entertain him. He was just a messenger: "Sir, why don't you read the family letter first? Mr. Ziyu told me not to open it. There must be something important in it."
Of course, Zhuge Liang had noticed that there were fire seals on the scrolls, but he didn't take it seriously: "It doesn't matter, there are some things that you can't know from family letters, so it's better to ask you - tell me, what plan did the eldest brother use to repel Yuan Shu?" , captured Guangling."
The other party was a little embarrassed by his firm tone: "How come Sir, why do you conclude that this is not written in the family letter? Maybe you will know it at a glance. I am stupid and can't explain it."
"Impossible." Zhuge Liang denied, "My eldest brother has always been modest and self-disciplined and never said anything to brag about himself, so I can only ask the bystanders - how about a bet?"
Although Tang Guang didn't know what the scroll said, seeing Zhuge Liang's determined expression, he didn't dare to bet. So 1510 briefly talked about the battles between Huaiyin and Guangling, and also talked about his achievements in inventing gillnet fishing and solving the military food problem.
Zhuge Liang listened very carefully.
When his eldest brother advised Liu Bei to block the news and not rush into a decisive battle when he first learned that Xiapi was lost, he couldn't help but admire and comment:
"That's how it should be. The art of war is imaginary and real, and real is imaginary. When the enemy thinks that your military morale has collapsed, even if you succeed in a sneak attack and rob the camp, the enemy will fight to the death. The only way to survive is to be suspicious of the enemy's heart and treat the enemy's arrogance and laziness. But the key is to block the news, otherwise it will be in vain. It seems that General Zhendong is running the army well."
When he heard about the sneak attack on Guangling, Zhuge Liang frowned slightly:
"In the end, I was taking risks and not being fully prepared. When my eldest brother left Huaiyin, he probably never thought about stealing the city, right? He probably annihilated Lei Bo on the way and then made a spur-of-the-moment idea. Otherwise, why didn't he make preparations when he first divided his troops? ?”
It's a pity that Zhuge Jin is not here. If he could hear these words with his own ears, he would definitely feel guilty:
That's right, when Zhuge Jin was escorted by Zhang Fei to break out of the encirclement, he really didn't think about relying on Zhang Fei's extraordinary troops to steal Guangling. After arriving in Haixi County, Mi Fang informed him of a new bad news: Kong Beihai had just been destroyed and the army could not buy rations in time.
Seeing that Liu Bei was forced into a new desperate situation, Zhuge Jin helped Zhang Fei become a living horse doctor and made several dangerous moves.
Zhuge Liang basically guessed his eldest brother's mental journey, except for one thing - Zhuge Jin didn't think so far ahead at first. It wasn't because he didn't have the ability, but because when he first traveled through time, he was very timid and just wanted to leave. Take one step at a time, be wise and protect yourself.
In a nutshell: Zhuge Liang underestimated his elder brother's foresight, but overestimated his courage. One deviation was positive and the other was negative, but the final conclusion was almost the same.
Tang Guang listened to Zhuge Liang's comments and thought to himself in surprise: "Mr. Ziyu once said that his younger brother was ten times more talented than him. Now it seems that the second young master is indeed extraordinary. In just a few words, he figured out his brother's military successes and failures." , I don’t know if it’s right or not…”
He lacked judgment and could not have a deep conversation with Zhuge Liang, so he could only say: Mr. Ziyu, please read your letters home in the past few days and reply as required so that he can take him away.
Zhuge Liang understood everything he should know, so he stopped pestering the other party.
After dinner, Zhuge Jun was asked to arrange another place to rest.
…
After dismissing the messenger, Zhuge Liang finally took out his knife and opened the seal on the scroll.
He noticed that each seal had a number written on it, which obviously represented the reading order, so he started reading from the first volume.
The first volume is just a normal letter from home. It tells about the situation of the eldest brother, his mother and uncle in the past two years, and tells him not to worry. It is just commonplace words.
As expected, there was no request for credit or boasting in the letter, but there were some complaints, and he also mentioned that "the world is difficult, and I have been forced to cope with it in the past two years. I have been struggling to make ends meet, but I have also made a lot of progress. I work hard and sleep all night, and occasionally I work hard, and there are many things in my dreams." income”.
Zhuge Liang feels that this writing style is not like that of his elder brother, who rarely complains.
Even if you complain, it is often just a modest foreshadowing to express that "today's results are completely a fluke."
But there is no trace of luck between the lines. Instead, there is a sense of "I deserve all my meritorious service."
Could it be that I have endured too much hardship and grown up too much in the past two years, so I have become confident and "who else would I be better off"?
Maybe people will be changed by the force of the environment.
At the end of the letter, the eldest brother also asked me to write a reply, and the reply must contain the following parts:
In the past two years in Jingzhou, how have my studies progressed? What books have I read so far? I want to list all of them to my eldest brother.
Then, you have to write down the friends you have made in Jingzhou in the past few years, the connections you have made, and whether the second sister in the family has any intention of being hired and married. You have to describe them in detail one by one.
Finally, he also said that the remaining scrolls were mostly based on his experience in dealing with worldly affairs in the past few years, as well as the miscellaneous ancient books he had collected during his travels, and compiled them into manuscripts by himself. He hoped that he would study hard and not waste his time.
…
Zhuge Liang closed the letter and thought for a while, and decided to write the reply first, and then slowly study the pile of materials given by his elder brother.
After all, studying takes a long time, and he can't keep the messenger waiting. The other party will leave tomorrow with a reply.
He first reported on his study progress in Jingzhou in the past two years.
Zhuge Liang has been smart since he was a child, and his eldest brother has known this for a long time. When they separated two years ago, the fourteen-year-old Zhuge Liang was already studying much more than the nineteen-year-old Zhuge Jin.
Before his biological mother Zhang passed away, Zhuge Liang learned how to read "Jijiu Pian" and "Pangxi Pian". He was only four years old at the time, and he finished learning it in a few months.
Then I started to learn to read characters by relying on "Erya", and then read "The Analects of Confucius" and "The Classic of Filial Piety". By the age of six, I could recognize all commonly used characters.
I started reading "The Book of Songs" and "Mencius" at the age of seven, and at the age of ten I read the Thirteen Confucian Classics (excluding biographies and annotations), but I always looked at the general outline and did not seek to understand it deeply. I could grasp the main ideas in just a quick glance. In contrast, Zhuge Jin focused on studying in a pure way and worked hard in depth. He had not finished reading the Thirteen Classics when he left his hometown in Langya.
After his father passed away, Zhuge Liang studied the Dharma and Mohism of hundreds of schools of thought by himself in his hometown of Langya. From Shen and Shang's magic to "Han Feizi", from Lao Zhuang to the Mohist scriptures, he read them all briefly. He got the essence of them and was able to learn them. Self-comparison confirms the learning of Confucianism, Law, Taoism and Mohism, and the advantages and disadvantages of each.
In his spare time, he also self-study "Zhou Bi Suan Jing" and "Nine Chapters of Arithmetic". In addition, he read "The Classic of Mountains and Seas", "Yu Gong" and "Han Shu. Geography" with the mentality of reading a story book. Zhuge Jin could no longer teach him these things at that time, and his father was dead. Zhuge Liang was completely self-taught with books. If he didn't understand something due to his lack of knowledge, he had to take notes and put them away, and ask for advice later when he had the opportunity.
Fortunately, after his exile in Jingzhou, the opportunity to further his studies and seek advice soon came. Zhuge Liang met Sima Hui by chance last year. Sima Hui also knew arithmetic, so Zhuge Liang asked for advice on the parts of "Nine Chapters" that he couldn't understand.
When Sima Hui was young, he traveled all over famous mountains and rivers, and had a broad knowledge of geography and customs. In just over a year, he made up for Zhuge Liang's shortcomings in understanding astronomy and geography.
With the help of Sima Hui, Zhuge Liang finally spent more than a year thoroughly reading the full texts of "Historical Records" and "Hanshu". In his hometown of Langya, he could only read the character allusions and treat them as story books. .
Now I finally understand the parts of professional "books" such as "Geography", "Lvshu", "Tianguanshu", "River Channel" and "Pingzhun".
You must know that the "Eight Books" are the most difficult to understand for the ancients, as they are all professional knowledge.
In contrast, the chronicles, family stories, and biographies are just storybooks that record events, and there is no obstacle for young people to understand them.
…
Zhuge Liang smoothed over his memories, organized his writing, and reported clearly his new learning experience and progress in the past two years in his home letter:
I thoroughly understood all the contents of "Historical Records" and "Hanshu", filled in the difficult parts of "Nine Chapters", and also learned some fragments of "Sun Zi" and "Wu Zi" from Sima Hui. In addition, for the sake of farming, He also studied the reference books "Book of Si Sheng" and "Monthly Order of the Four People" by himself. Finally, there are "Miscellaneous Notes of Xijing" and some collections of Han Fu as literary diversions.
I have completed four sets of tomes in two years, and also filled in three sets of fragments and a bunch of literature and entertainment books. This progress should be praised by my eldest brother, right?
At least as a scholarly book in the world, Zhuge Liang felt that he had almost finished reading it. What else could his eldest brother teach him?
Isn't it enough to look at its general outline, and must he read the scriptures with a clear head and dig into the pure words to study them?
After reporting on his studies, Zhuge Liang started a new chapter and continued to tell his elder brother about the people he had known in the past two years.
Today, the most senior celebrity in Jingzhou is Cai Xi, the father-in-law of Liu Biao and Huang Chengyan, the father of Cai Mao, and the brother-in-law of Zhang Wen, the late captain of the Ling Emperor Dynasty. (When Liu Biao died of illness more than ten years later and Cao Cao went south, Cai Xi had already died of old age, but he is still alive now, but he is old and ill)
Zhuge Liang had barely met Cai Chao once before because of his uncle Zhuge Xuan's favor, but he probably was too old-sighted to remember the young man. At most, Cai Chao still had a vague impression of him.
Among the celebrities of the lower generation, Zhuge Liang met Liu Biao and Huang Chengyan, and also studied with Sima Hui, where he met and paid homage to Duke Pang De.
After all, it is now 196, and the scholars of Zhuge Liang's generation have not yet emerged.
Among the so-called "Four Friends of Zhuge" in later generations, Cui Jun and Meng Jian have not yet fled to Jingzhou.
Xu Shu and Shi Tao had already fled, but they had no fixed place to live and they didn't know Zhuge Liang yet. If history is not changed, Xu Shu will wander around and cause trouble in the future, and finally he will completely change his mind and come back to learn from others.
Nowadays, Zhuge Liang's talented and learned contemporaries in Xiangyang are all members of the Kuai, Huang, and Pang families, the three major local aristocratic families in Xiangyang. There is not a single northern scholar who has been exiled from other places.
Including Pang Degong's son Pang Shanmin and nephew Pang Tong, several juniors of the Kuai Liang and Kuai Yue families, Kuai Qi and others, and Huang Chengyan's daughter Huang Yueying (mainly because Huang Chengyan has no son)
Among these people, Pang Shanmin and Kuai Qi still had their eyes on Zhuge Liang's two sisters. They wanted to get married to the Zhuge family, so they often came to study and discuss with Zhuge Liang, and gave Zhuge Liang various rare and unique ancient books that he had never seen before. In short, The motives are not very pure.
And Huang Yueying's motives... are also not necessarily pure, but she is not targeting Zhuge Liang's sister.
When Zhuge Liang thought about the hardships of his family being surrounded by others, he couldn't help but tell his eldest brother all the inside stories and see if he had any other arrangements.
If the eldest brother doesn't mind selling his two sisters into marriage, he really can't handle it on his own. The Zhuge family is actually a pure outsider with no foundation now. If you have to support one of them and refuse to marry, it will be difficult to get along in Xiangyang.
"I hope the eldest brother will reply to me soon and give me an explanation." Zhuge Liang thought silently in his heart, stuffed the reply letter into the bamboo tube, then took the eldest brother's family letter and went to show it to his two sisters and third brother.
