Chapter 314: Xianyang, Entering the Xunzi Era
Even if you use a vertical silver needle, without bait or hook, those fat carps will hit it repeatedly, causing the float to float up and down, and to fall from side to side.
This is not the case in Chang'an Junfu, where the carps have learned to be smart. Without bait, no fish will pay attention to the broken needle that gleams with silver light.
The First Emperor wore a loose, loose-fitting, light yellow robe. For a king, such clothing was somewhat inappropriate and not suitable to be worn in public.
The crown, which was tailored according to the emperor's body shape and perfectly fit him, would show his majesty, but this robe would show his laziness.
Normally, the First Emperor would not dress like this unless it was to achieve a certain purpose, such as to get closer to a talented person.
The reason why people wear it this way nowadays is because it is comfortable. The crown and robes represent power, but also restraint.
Since asking the Prime Minister's Office to handle most of the government affairs, after going through the initial period of discomfort, the First Emperor now feels extremely relaxed.
With a small portion of power given away, most of the constraints are gone. You can go to bed early every day, or you can find a few concubines in the harem to have children.
The First Emperor gently touched the fishing rod, closed his eyes and stretched his body in the warm sun, raised his arms and let his sleeves slide down. He stretched himself and breathed a sigh of relief.
"This kind of indulgent life really makes me addicted."
Gai Nie, who had come closer at some point, saw the First Emperor in such a state. His serious face twitched a little, and he had the urge to not do anything for the First Emperor.
[Such laziness, how is he different from a young master?! ]
Step on
He deliberately made his steps heavier, making two obvious thuds on the grass.
The First Emperor moved his arms forward very naturally, then stretched them upwards, and repeated this several times before turning his head to glance at Gai Nie.
"Why are you disturbing me while I am practicing?"
"…Mao Heng has arrived at your residence. Your Majesty, would you like to see him?"
"not see."
The First Emperor responded very quickly and continued to do the arm raising exercise. After doing four more sets, he turned around inadvertently and found that Gai Nie was still there, speaking in a bad tone.
"Why don't you leave? Is there anything else?"
"Your Majesty told Nie Yan a few days ago that Xunzi's followers had entered Xianyang and he should see them in person."
The First Emperor frowned and put down his hands.
"Did I say that?"
Gai Nie had no expression on his face, but his answer was firm and decisive.
"Your Majesty said so himself."
"No, why don't I remember it?"
"Your Majesty, please don't be as lazy as Lord Chang'an, okay?"
The First Emperor's face suddenly drooped.
"I am not the King of Qi, and you are not Zou Ji. Those who point out my faults to my face will not only not be rewarded, but will also be hated by me."
Gai Nie's face couldn't fall, but his tone changed from being like a stagnant pool of water to a slight splash.
"If your majesty does not dismiss Nie, please keep your promise."
Seeing the determination in issuing the seal and order, the First Emperor began to understand how his brother felt when he was forced to become an official.
It was indeed what the First Emperor said that he wanted to meet Xunzi's disciples in order to win over the people's hearts and do something like buying a horse's bones with a huge sum of money. But now, the First Emperor did not want to meet them anymore.
He originally thought that he was the only one who ensured the smooth operation of the Qin State, and that he had to do everything himself. But since he became the director of the Xiangbang Mansion, he found that nothing went wrong without him.
Recently, I read Xunzi's handwritten copy of Ying Chengjiao's words and deeds, and I agreed with a statement made by Ying Chengjiao in it - the Qin State will continue to function normally without anyone, and no one in the world is irreplaceable.
"This kind of small matter should be handed over to the Prime Minister and the two Prime Ministers. Report the names of the official positions they have arranged, and I will make the final review."
Gai Nie remained unmoved and bowed slightly.
"Your Majesty, please keep your promise."
"Xunzi has at least a thousand disciples. How can I meet them all?"
"Your Majesty, please keep your promise."
The First Emperor pondered for a moment.
"When all of Xunzi's disciples are gathered, I will meet them all."
[I said I would see you in Xianyang, but I didn't say I would see you right away.]
With no more reason to remonstrate, Gai Nie pursed his lips, glanced at the Emperor Qin Shi Huang who looked slightly pleased, turned around and left, walking as fast as a shooting star.
[If the prince does not become king, the Qin State will be destroyed sooner or later! ]
The First Emperor changed to a relaxed posture and lay down again. Under him were tiger skins and bear skins that he had looted from the Chang'an Jun Mansion...
The warm sun shone low in the west, and the leisurely Emperor Qin Shi Huang picked up the fishing rod again, lifted the silver needle and swung it again before throwing it into the pond. He thought about what he had heard from Gai Nie, about Lü Buwei's words that those who are willing to take the bait will be rewarded.
"If I had known this, I would have been King Wen of Zhou."
Step on
Step on
There were more footsteps.
The voice arrives before the person arrives.
"Zhang Han pays respect to His Majesty."
Zhang Han, wearing bone-eroding skull armor, bowed his head and took the handrail, then stood ten steps away from the First Emperor and saluted.
"Have you found someone?"
"yes."
"My safety will be in your hands, Zhang Han, from now on."
Crash~
Zhang Han knelt down, and his armor rang slightly.
Suppressing his excitement, Zhang Han said in a deep voice:
"only!"
The First Emperor holds a fishing rod.
"The power of the former Secret Guards is handed over to the Shadow Guards. The official is in charge of the public, and the Shadow Guards are in charge of the secret. Zhang Han, I have given you full power over the Xianyang Palace. Don't let me down."
The First Emperor paused for a moment.
"I hope your Shadow Guards can be just as that bastard said: like maggots attached to bones, like shadows following you, like me in person."
Zhang Han shouted in a low voice:
"Handing will not disappoint your majesty's expectations!"
The First Emperor nodded slightly and waved his hand.
"Go down, don't disturb me fishing."
Zhang Han hesitated for a moment and said softly:
"I have something else to report to Your Majesty."
"explain."
"The Concubine Chu has been in and out frequently recently, and has been in close contact with many old officials. The Queen is going to Yongdi to visit the Queen Mother, and will leave tomorrow. Shangqing Gan has held two banquets in the past three days, and all the participants are high-ranking officials."
The First Emperor held the fishing rod in his hand, and the float was stable on the water surface without any obvious shaking.
"Let them be."
"only ."
Xunzi's house.
Mao Heng, who was exhausted from the journey, saw his teacher, who he had thought had passed away, sitting peacefully in front of him. The eyes of this middle-aged man could not help but become teary.
He wiped away the tears from his eyes, took out a wooden hairpin from his torn clothes, inserted it on his head to fix his hair, and bowed to pay his respects.
"Student Mao Heng, nice to meet you, teacher."
Xunzi stood up and returned the greeting.
"Please stand up."
From that day on, people kept bowing and performing rituals in this house.
"I am Fu Qiubo, your student. I am honored to meet you, teacher."
"Student Lu Jia, nice to meet you, teacher."
"My student Gongsunni greets my teacher."
"Student Chen Xiao, nice to meet you, teacher."
“…”
Xunzi would always return the greeting in a standard way, and then softly say "Please stand up". In half a decade, he said "Please stand up" 334 times, and the Chang'an Palace was packed with people.
Most of his disciples are not well-known nowadays. In this era, with the two great Legalist masters, Han Fei and Li Si, as role models, the other students are like pebbles and are infinitely suppressed.
But if we look at the entire history, many of Xunzi's disciples who came to Xianyang were very famous.
Mao Heng.
The nephew of Mao Sui in the idiom "毛遂自荐" was a scholar in the late Qin and early Han dynasties, a native of Handan in the State of Zhao, and the founder of the "Mao Poetry School" of ancient poetry.
He learned "The Book of Songs" from Xunzi, and his poetic learning was passed down from Zixia. He wrote "Maoshi Guxun Zhuan", abbreviated as "Mao Zhuan", and taught it to his nephew Mao Chang. People called him "Big Mao Gong" and his nephew Mao Chang "Little Mao Gong".
Fuqiu Bo.
During the Qin and Han dynasties, he was an important figure in the development of the old Confucianism and the new Confucianism. According to the "Jingning County Annals" and the prefaces of the county annals of successive dynasties, Fuqiu Bo once lived in seclusion in Hexi with two cranes.
He was good at editing the Book of Songs, and during the Qin Dynasty, he taught it to King Chu Yuan, Liu Jiao, Shen Peigong, Bai Sheng, Mu Sheng and others. When Qin burned books, his disciples, King Chu Yuan and others, left.
When Emperor Gaozu of Han, Liu Bang, passed through Lu and summoned Confucian scholars, Fuqiu Bo and his disciple Shen Gong met Emperor Gaozu at Nangong. When Empress Lü was in power, Fuqiu Bo traveled west to Chang'an. When King Yuan of Chu heard about it, he sent his son Liu Yingke and his classmates Shen Gong, Bai Sheng, Mu Sheng, etc. to Chang'an to study under Fuqiu Bo.
Lu Jia.
A native of Chu, he followed Emperor Gaozu of Han as an aide during the Chu-Han Contention. Due to his eloquence, he often went on a diplomatic mission to lobby various princes, which won him the appreciation of Liu Bang and he was known as a "good debater."
During the reigns of Liu Bang and Emperor Wen, he made two diplomatic missions to Nanyue, persuading Zhao Tuo to submit to the Han Dynasty and stabilizing the situation in the early Han Dynasty. After Empress Lü's death, he persuaded Chen Ping, Zhou Bo and others to jointly punish Lü and restore order, and wrote "Xin Yu".
At the beginning of the Han Dynasty, when Taoism flourished, he was the first person to advocate Confucianism. In response to the specific era and political needs of the early Han Dynasty, he took Confucianism as the basis and integrated the thoughts of Huang-Lao Taoism and Legalism.
He proposed "practicing benevolence and righteousness, following the examples of the ancient sages, combining rites and laws, and ruling by inaction", implementing the ideas of his teacher Xunzi and laying the ideological foundation for the rule of the early Western Han Dynasty.
Gongsunni.
He wrote twenty-eight chapters of "Gongsun Ni Zi" and was a master of music theory, known as Gongsun Ni Zi.
Chen Xiao.
When he was over seventy, he was recommended to Emperor Xiaocheng Liu Ao by Liu Xiang, a royal minister, and Yang Xiong, a minister of the Imperial Household, for his high moral integrity and his ability to rectify the frivolous and vulgar social atmosphere. Liu Ao treated him like a teacher and promoted him to the rank of Taizhong Dafu.
His greatest teacher was Xunzi, and he had countless outstanding disciples.
There is a family with two sons, two prime ministers and two emperors' teachers.
The two sons are: Han Feizi and Gongsun Nizi.
The two are: the poet Mao Heng, and the ideological, political and diplomat Lu Jia.
The two prime ministers were: Li Si, Prime Minister of Qin, and Zhang Cang, Prime Minister of Han.
The two emperors’ teachers were: Fuqiu Bo, the teacher of King Yuan of Chu, and Chen Xiao, the teacher of Emperor Xiaocheng of Han.
When the nobles were indulging themselves in sensual pleasures in the new buildings, waiting to see how the First Emperor would end up, they did not know that many talented people who would leave their names in history had entered Xianyang.
But they didn't know that Li Si, the left prime minister of the Qin Dynasty, knew it.
At first, he did not know that his teacher Xunzi lived in Chang'an Junfu, and was only one step away from him several times. But with so many fellow students from the Jixia Academy entering Xianyang, how could Li Si not react?
But he did not move at all. He pretended to be ignorant of the situation and continued to work in the Prime Minister's Mansion every day. He never entered the Chang'an Lord's Mansion once.
He, who plotted to murder his senior brother Han Fei, did not dare to meet Xunzi.
A long time ago, Xunzi asked someone to tell him to expel Li Si from his school and no longer recognize Li Si as his disciple.
One day, the plump and white Zhang Cang found Li Si at his home while he was resting. He smiled and said in a friendly manner with a hint of reproach:
"Brother, the teacher is here, why don't you go?"
From Xunzi, Zhang Cang already knew the news of Han Fei's life, and knew that it was Han Fei who asked for death on his own initiative, and it was not Li Si who was jealous of his ability and murdered him. Knowing the truth, the fat Zhang Cang got rid of his grudge against Li Si.
This visit to Li Si was the second time he had entered Li Si's house since he had advised Li Si that day. He planned to visit Li Si for the third time tomorrow.
Facing Zhang Cang, the youngest of the trio who had become friends with him at the Jixia Academy, Li Si put aside his airs as the Left Prime Minister and, for the first time, showed a hint of weakness in front of others.
"Junior brother, in what capacity will Si go?"
There was a wry smile on his lips.
"The teacher has already expelled me from the sect."
"But the teacher said it himself?"
"The teacher asked someone to bring the message."
"Then how can we confirm that what the person said is true?"
"He is a close friend of the teacher. This is absolutely true..."
"Brother, Cang doesn't want to hear your explanation. Cang is the dumbest among the three of us. Today, please be dumb for once."
Zhang Cang knew that fat people are prone to night sweats. He wiped the sweat off his hands vigorously, and then used his plump hands to grasp Li Si's skinny hands.
When their palms touched, the chubby hands that had just been wiped dry were covered in sweat again. They pulled hard, but Li Si remained motionless.
“Senior Brother!”
Zhang Cang's tone was a little hurried.
Li Si pulled his hand out, looked at himself in the bronze mirror under Zhang Cang's anxious gaze, composed himself, and straightened his clothes.
"Junior brother is right."
Zhang Cang's fat face lost its anxious look and he began to smile.
Li Si turned around and walked out with Zhang Cang.
"If the teacher doesn't say it himself, how can we know whether it is true or not?"
The two hurried men thought the carriage was too slow, so they rode their horses at full speed on the road, and soon they arrived at Chang'an Jun's mansion.
Zhang Cang was the first to dismount and looked at Li Si with encouraging eyes.
Li Si stared at the Chang'an Palace, which he had been to many times and should have been familiar with, but looked very strange today. He gritted his teeth, stepped over the horse's back, and rushed in in front of Zhang Cang.
As a senior brother, there is no reason for me to let my junior brothers lead me.
From Chang'an Junfu all the way to Xunzi's house, Li Si met many classmates.
Some of them he should have called senior brothers, and some of them he should have called junior brothers, but he greeted no one, and no one greeted him.
Everyone looked at Li Si, a top student at the Jixia Academy and the left prime minister of Qin State, with mixed feelings. Li Si, who had become famous for refuting other students in the classroom at the Jixia Academy, was a famous person.
Li Si held his head high, his face tense, and stopped at the door of Xunzi's house. He straightened his clothes, took a deep breath, and knocked on the door with trembling hands.
"Enter."
Squeak
Li Si gently pushed open the door and saw his teacher sitting at the desk. The teacher's appearance had not changed much since he left the Jixia Academy.
"Student Li Si, nice to meet you, teacher."
He shouted loudly, bowed 90 degrees, and saluted, his body and mind trembling slightly.
Zhang Cang was waiting at the door, holding his breath, and sweat began to appear on the fat man's face.
Both of them were waiting for two words, two extremely simple words that had echoed in this room hundreds of times - please stand up.
"You are no longer my disciple."
Xunzi's words were gentle, but they almost made Li Si fall to the ground.
Li Si held on and said in a hoarse voice:
"I am so stupid. I don't know when the teacher will kick me out. I can't take others' words seriously."
Xunzi's face suddenly became serious.
"If a man has no faith, he cannot stand."
Zhang Cang's already fair and plump face became even fairer. He knew that this was the teacher's warning to his senior brother. Pretending to be ignorant was deceiving and was a bad behavior.
Zhang Cang could understand it, and Li Si could also understand it.
"Li Si is being taught."
The left prime minister of the Qin Dynasty was on the verge of collapse, and finally he knelt on the ground and kowtowed to Xunzi nine times.
"Thank you for your kindness in teaching me and answering my questions. I have no other way to repay you except to kowtow nine times."
Nine kowtows are the highest etiquette.
He stood up, staggered and was about to leave.
"Three more bows."
Xunzi's voice remained gentle.
Three bows and nine kowtows is the Confucian ritual of paying homage to a teacher and also the ritual of paying homage to a teacher in the Jixia Academy.
Li Si turned around suddenly and bowed three times.
"Please stand up."
Xianyang entered the era of Xunzi.
