Obviously, Ruan Yu already understood all this.
These things are not difficult to begin with. The key is to have someone to introduce them and explain them clearly.
If you don't explain the most critical part clearly, you can only read some big principles such as benevolence, justice, etiquette, wisdom, and trust. You will think that the ancients are all sages and gentlemen, and everyone will reason with you, and you will not be able to read the hidden meaning behind these things. Those historical threads.
Ruan Yu would understand it after a high-ranking player like Liu Bei explained it briefly.
"I see……"
"This is the truth of Taoist art. The so-called tranquility and inaction refers to the tranquility and inaction of the emperor himself."
Liu Bei smiled and said: "After all, as long as you do nothing, no one will know how stupid you are. But if you do it, both smart people and stupid people will be exposed. Therefore, unless the emperor is really It’s very powerful, otherwise, don’t do anything yourself.”
Ruan Yu took a deep breath and saluted Liu Bei.
"Thank you, General, for your teachings. Now I understand why the ancient sages are sages."
"There is no need to thank me. Read more, think more, and learn more. It is true that there is no limit to learning. There is no need to over-interpret it."
Liu Bei patted Ruan Yu on the shoulder: "We are ministers. In this chaotic world, we are not qualified to be quiet and inactive. The only person in the world who can be quiet and inactive is our Emperor. He does nothing above and does something below. Chen What Mu hopes for is what we are doing now."
Ruan Yu nodded, no longer worried about Liu Bei's actions.
He knew that Liu Bei was not only good at wind and rain, but perhaps he was even better at achieving his goals with gentle wind and drizzle.
Now everyone is only looking at the storm in front of him, but they take it for granted that everything he caused before may have been a storm under the circumstances at that time, but no one at the time viewed it that way.
Since he can be so precise and make people mistake some violent and drastic operations for gentle breeze and drizzle, then unless he gives up on his own or thinks it is unnecessary, he can still make people think that what he does is still gentle breeze and drizzle. .
Everything is under control.
In fact, in Liu Bei's view, Taoism has a more ideal side in terms of self-cultivation, which is very obvious in "Zhuangzi". However, in terms of governance, Taoism has undergone a big reversal and has become quite realistic. , operable.
Taoist techniques pay attention to three points in reality - small movement, low cost, and quick results.
The key to these three points lies in "following the rules".
Modern people often associate the words "conformity" and "conservatism" together, subconsciously thinking that "conformity" is a derogatory term. However, in the ancient context, the ancients' views were exactly the opposite of those of modern people.
As for the specific methods of following the Tao, Taoist techniques are also relatively clear.
They believe that a newly-appointed leader should follow the customs in the first year, which is the so-called "conservative approach" and not change the way his predecessor did things.
In the second year, we began to recruit virtuous people in the traditional sense and people who everyone thought were reliable to stabilize the situation.
Then start making some slight changes from the third year, and then gradually stabilize your position step by step, until the seventh year, that's it -
Of course, this does not mean that the world will be peaceful and prosperous in the seventh year, but that in the seventh year the ruler's position will be stable, he will have established his own ruling inertia, and he can control the people to fight.
Taoist techniques have never been about making life better for the common people, but it is necessary to prevent them from starving to death and have the strength to fight.
Moreover, the ancients also had very advanced considerations regarding the specific operation methods of Yinxun.
Taoism does not recognize the Confucian theory that human nature is essentially good, 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 lying flat on the significance of human change. .
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 on changing a person.
Taoism believes that smart superiors who master the way of following should make reasonable use of this psychology, take advantage of the situation, and when arranging work for people, they should 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 cost.
Of course, this is a bit demanding for rulers, and this method of doing things actually points directly 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.
If even the 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 take whatever he wanted until he was overthrown.
In the whole world, there is nothing but the king's land, and on the shore of the land, there is nothing but the king's ministers.
This means that this superb art of governance 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 did not have such a strong art of governing, and he did not think that he could do this quietly, so he chose another path - a military strongman.
This was his specialty, he was good at it, and it was a model of governance that survived into the information age and was proven to be effective.
Of course, it is only effective and has great negative impacts.
When a stupid person is a leader, he cannot do things randomly, otherwise he will easily get killed. But when a smart and capable person is a leader, he can get things done.
But after he had an in-depth understanding of Taoist ruling techniques, he really developed some appreciation for them.
Confucianism and Taoism do both have ideals, but from the perspective of governance, Taoism's ideals are more intense. Compared with Confucianism's "benevolence" requirements for rulers, Taoism's ideal ruler is simply an ideal.
The ideal Confucian ruler can at least be regarded as a human being - a sage is also a human being.
The ideal ruler of Taoism cannot be regarded as an individual at all, it is an ideal collection, an existence in fantasy.
It is about making ordinary people think that their ability to live a good life is entirely due to themselves and has nothing to do with the rulers. An extraordinary and holy existence.
When the people live a good life, they will be considered to be their own efforts, and the rulers who work hard to create this environment must stay behind the scenes, not show up, disturb the people, and not compete for credit.
If there is merit, let it come out.
If there is a crisis, you should come forward to tell the truth.
What kind of person would it be to be able to do this?
Is such a country still a country?
Liu Bei didn't know who could become the ideal ruler of Taoism. Anyway, he thought he couldn't do it. He was definitely not the ideal ruler.
But similarly, compared to Confucianism, which has been severely alienated by the ruling class, the abandoned Taoism still retains more or less the color of the past. It is very romantic in ideality, but also very harsh in reality.
They themselves also know that ideal rulers are very rare. If they want to survive, they must think about secular rulers. They have worked really hard for this.
If you want to restore people's livelihood and restore their living standards as soon as possible, the Taoist art of governance is really worthy of reference. It can even be said to be very meaningful. It is several levels more realistic than the specific Confucian operating methods, and has been quite successful. experience.
But the problem is that in such a society, for the imperial rulers, only the skinny and dying people have the possibility of recuperation. Once the rulers think they are fat, the next step is to slaughter them.
For imperial rulers, whichever theory they use is a means, and maintaining dominance is the goal. It doesn't matter whether it's Taoism, Confucianism, or Legalism, as long as it allows me to rule for a long time.
The most typical example is that after the rule of Wenjing, the world became fat and the people were prosperous. What followed was the great achievements of Emperor Wu. For ordinary people, it was tantamount to a catastrophe. 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 completing the field, so that the Eastern Han Dynasty society could regain its vitality as soon as possible and accumulate enough wealth.
But he quickly thought that no matter whether he became emperor or not, no matter whether he restored Taoist ideas of governing the country or not, after his death, wouldn't the wealth accumulated by the people still be a piece of meat for the next ruler?
Let alone Taoist ideal rulers, even Confucian ideal rulers are very rare. One would be considered lucky to have one within a few hundred years.
No matter how hard he works now, once he dies, everything may go back to the way it was. It will be nothing more than creating a powerful Western Han Empire, and letting future generations follow the path of the Western Han and Eastern Han Dynasties again, and the cycle will continue for four hundred years.
It doesn't seem to make much sense...
Therefore, he began to think about whether there was any way to truly apply these accumulations to development, develop culture and technology, develop various practical technologies, etc., so as to promote the real advancement of the times.
Rather than becoming nourishment for the selfish desires of the rulers.
He didn't want everything he had worked so hard to achieve to become the support of some belligerent guy again. Even now it was no longer the turn of future generations to wage war. He had almost finished everything that should be fought in the surrounding areas. Who could he turn to to wage war?
He read 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 methods he knows he can try to solve the problem are not consistent with the path he is taking now.
He must admit that the unification advocated by Legalism and Confucianism is not for development and prosperity. Its essential purpose is to create a stable and sustainable order.
Throughout the imperial period, the only goal pointed 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, and the stability of the rulers.
For the sake of stability, a unified imperial dynasty can do anything, even do these things just for stability and not for any other purpose.
Stability can bring about people's livelihood and contentment, can bring about certain development, can bring about the recovery of population and the increase of national strength, which benefits both the country and the people.
But when a certain node appears, this upward trend is interrupted and can never be restored, leading to chaos and collapse, out of control.
This node can be considered as the cycle of land annexation, the decline of the ruler's personal ability, or even the change of climate.
But Liu Bei also has his own opinions.
After he became a general, he often took time to read widely.
After reading a large number of Eastern Han Dynasty royal collections, he thought carefully and realized that this point was most likely to occur at the moment when 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 trigger a series of chain reactions among 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 opportunities. That is, when the country was divided, the rulers paid special attention to the development of science and technology, especially the military, and invested a lot of resources in this regard.
But when the country is unified, his focus will shift to maintaining stability. At this moment, technological development will become a major uncertain factor and the number one culprit that threatens stability. It is a matter of course that it will be shelved.
A very intuitive fact is that many important scientific and technological works and figures proficient in science and technology in ancient China appeared during the period of war and division. Civilization and sophisticated industrial technology made great progress during this period.
For example, the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the late Eastern Han Dynasty, the Northern and Southern Dynasties, and the Zhao and Song Dynasties.
During the period of great unification, these rebellious or unconventional forces were all suffocated by the unified empire, because the empire only wanted to maintain the unchanging traditional order and maintain stability.
This is actually quite contradictory.
Because without great unification, there will be no stable life, and people will die in large numbers. 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, humans have been jumping back and forth between the two, but they have never been able to find the perfect balance.
Even since the birth of human society, the most balanced balance point has actually been the terror deterrence derived from nuclear weapons-destruction and development have been so cleverly integrated, reinforcing each other.
Liu Bei knew that many of the things he was doing now were to enhance the power of unification, bring the Han Empire back to its peak, return peace and stability to life, and let more people survive.
When he dominates the situation, he can trust himself, continue to promote new things, modify old rules, and use his own power to invest a lot of resources to promote scientific and technological progress.
But what happens after he dies?
Many traditional rulers themselves also greatly appreciated the development of science and technology 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 production destruction caused by the war and to keep people full. However, when the country entered a stable state, the situation would unsurprisingly deteriorate.
In short, it will transform from "existing for the sake of survival" to "existing for the sake of existence", and from this, powerful interest groups will develop and begin to erode the normal state.
For example, the current agricultural policy adopted by Liu Bei.
Liu Bei used collective farms in order to resume production as soon as possible, popularize agricultural technology, reclaim more wasteland, keep more people fed and not starve to death, and allow the government to restore its strong taxation and mobilization capabilities, in order to better defeat opposition. By.
The Han Empire had too much wasteland that had not been cultivated, too much abandoned land that needed to be restored, and too many areas that had not mastered the latest farming technology. Agricultural development was quite uneven, and the agricultural potential was far from being fully developed. Many things needed to be done. universal.
This requires a strong organizer to organize the scattered forces to complete the reclamation.
He can also vigorously promote the development of various production technologies until the development becomes its own system.
These, relying on the promotion of a strong organizer, are extremely efficient. Things that originally took a hundred years to complete may only take ten years with the promotion of a strong organizer.
When these goals are achieved and people's problems of food, clothing and survival have been solved, this policy should be adjusted in a timely manner and returned to normal.
For example, when the land for farming in some places has been almost fully cultivated, when agricultural technology has been widely spread, and when personal wealth has accumulated to a certain level, the existence of collective farms should be ended.
Everyone divides the fields, returns to the family production model, ends the entire wartime mobilization system established based on this, and returns to normal life.
In other words, Liu Bei believes that the series of policies he is currently adopting as represented by this can be regarded as a wartime policy, an exception, rather than the norm of social development.
It is okay to adopt an exceptional state during necessary periods, but maintaining the exceptional state during non-essential periods will bring about major social crises.
And perhaps the Taoist sages also saw this, so they invented an ideal ruler who appeared when people needed him and disappeared when people didn't need him, but he himself always existed and always paid silently.
This is so ideal that even the most idealistic idealists will shout ideals when they see this kind of ruler.
Liu Bei knew that he could not be an idealist, but he also realized that as long as he lived long enough, he had a choice.
The system he is building now is very efficient and has strong mobilization power. It is essentially a wartime mobilization system and a "state of exception" built to defeat the old rentier class.
After the old rentier class was defeated, all was not well.
He has another mission.
End this exceptional state.
End the state of exception before it collapses into chaos.
All the powerful developments brought about by the state of exception require a price, but the price can be large or small. If the state of exception can be ended as soon as possible, the greatest results can be obtained at the least cost.
Compare the two and make a profit.
on the contrary……
The cost will outweigh the results.
However, for the current Liu Xuande, this is the only thing for which he has no confidence.
(End of chapter)
