On the Ethics of Romance of the Three Kingdoms

Talking about "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" from the perspective of ethics and morality

Luo Guanzhong's novel "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" has a clear ideological tendency - supporting Liu and opposing Cao. This tendency runs through the whole book and becomes the focus of characterization and the basis for expressing emotions. The formation of this ideological tendency is related to Luo Guanzhong's moral standard and ethical consciousness - supporting the bright ruler against the tyrant. The confrontation between Liu and Cao evolves into a struggle between loyalty and treachery, and the storyline unfolds. Here, Lao Luo attempts to mold the perfect monarch by his own standards, blurring the standards of morality and the moral status of the characters, and blurring the essence of feudal rule. As a result, the book inevitably falls into literary moralization and historical moralization. The author's evaluation of the moral faults of historical figures is also biased. The following attempts to discuss the ethical and moral issues from this aspect.

The story of the Three Kingdoms ranges from the storyteller's Three Kingdoms with many heroes, to the simplistic Peking Opera excerpts, to the centuries-old history of the Three Kingdoms in the Twenty-four Histories which cannot be underestimated, to the idealized Three Kingdoms of Luo Guanzhong, which is "all in jest", and to the close-to-history-but-not-completely-history of Chen Shou's "History". "History"...... will once feel confused to the point of disorientation, the benevolent Liu Huangshu, Cao Cao, has long been taken for granted by me, turned out to be wrong?

Now that I have read and studied more about history, and read Romance of the Three Kingdoms, I can finally see some clues and begin to review my own feelings about the history of the Three Kingdoms, which are too obvious. And I believe that people who have read Romance of the Three Kingdoms know that Lao Luo wrote the story of the Three Kingdoms with an obvious ideological tendency, that is, embracing Liu and opposing Cao. This ideological tendency throughout, the characterization of a fundamental impact.

Turning over the information Fu Longji's "heroic epic on the ancient land - the Three Kingdoms", it turned out that after the Three Kingdoms scholars and writers of successive generations of scholars and writers on the question of who is the orthodoxy of the debate has never stopped, Chen Shou wrote the "Three Kingdoms Zhi" to the orthodoxy of the Cao Wei Dynasty, the Song Dynasty, a great scholar Zhu Xi is to the orthodoxy of the Shu Han Dynasty to the Sima Guang wrote the "Ziji Tongjian", for the Three Kingdoms, the three of the three Kingdoms are the same. Ziji Tongjian", the history of the Three Kingdoms is still honoring Cao and suppressing Liu. But to the folk, the story of the Three Kingdoms in the long-term circulation of the precipitation of culture has long been cast into the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" of the aesthetic sentiment, advocating benevolence, righteousness and morality, saintly and virtuous, and so honored the Shu Han; Liu Bei benevolence and virtue, want to restore the Han Dynasty, since when the orthodoxy. Especially in the mouth of the storyteller, the tendency to support Liu and oppose Cao Cao is more obvious, so that Cao Cao in the Peking Opera has become an uncompromising clown. Luo Guanzhong gathered information and combined it with his personal beliefs and life experiences to write a literary masterpiece like Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

Feudal orthodoxy is at the center of much of the debate. Whether Liu Bei, the grandson of King Jing of Zhongshan, was Han's orthodoxy or whether Cao Cao, the Han prime minister who made Han Xiandi's abdication, was the orthodoxy, was the basis of the arguments for and against. From the bureaucrats down to the common people, all of them consciously and actively respected the orthodoxy, and no one raised any objections.

But the Romance of the Three Kingdoms is an exception. According to Qiaoshan's "Exploration of Literary Ethics", the main reason why the author poured his passion on the side of the failed Liu Bei group was not in the concept of orthodoxy, but in the author's psychological activity of creating the work, which blended moral standards, and thus infiltrated the moral and ethical consciousness of the literary and artistic works. This has a fundamental influence on the whole work. As we know, the moralization of literature is not only manifested in the fact that the writer evaluates the life he reflects on his own moral and ethical scale, but also determines the refinement of the theme of the work, the choice of the subject matter, and the composition of the plot. The writer's morality is not only confined to the ideological content of the work, but also restricts the process of creation and affects the structure of the work.

From the viewpoint of the writer's moral conception, Liu Bei is loyal and kind, a benevolent master, while Cao Cao is cunning and treacherous, a fount of evil virtues. Therefore, the conflict between the two sides is no longer equal to the conflict between two feudal military groups in history, but becomes the conflict between a benevolent ruler and a tyrant, between justice and evil. The plot of the novel then unfolds on the basis of the ethical conflict between loyalty and treachery.

The historical "Liu Huangshu" was indeed a man known for his benevolence and virtue. So in the "Acts" in this feature has been strongly rendered, he became a good emperor, he not only has a king to fight for hegemony of the chest and courage, loyalty to friendship, courtesy of the wise, know people well, but also "kindness and love of the people", every place are widely benevolent, and the people, "Autumn no offense! "The author even borrowed his mouth to say. The author even borrowed his mouth to say: "Fuck with urgency, I to width; Fuck with violence, I to benevolence; Fuck with treachery, I to loyalty. Every time I go against Cao, things can be accomplished." In fact, this is the author of Cao Cao and Liu Bei acting in the world of the difference between a generalization, but also in the creation of the judgment of good and bad, to determine the weight of one of the guidelines.

Here, the author conceals the sharp class antagonism between the rulers and the ruled, the oppressors and the oppressed in feudal society, and designs the idealized character of the "wise ruler of his generation. If Cao Cao represents the reality of feudal society, then Liu Bei symbolizes the ideal of that society.

The greatest tragedy of morality is its contradiction with politics, and the extent of its hypocrisy. First of all, from the traditional standard of a good emperor, "kind and generous, bold and upright, heroic and tenacious, equal treatment, clever and witty, sacrificing oneself for others". Not to mention what is wrong with such a standard itself, just from the requirements of the comparison, such a "benevolent ruler" does not exist, but only the people's aspirations, is the peasant class and the reactionary corrupt landlord class in the struggle of the virtual image of the good. As a matter of fact, many outstanding statesmen and accomplished monarchs in history were not moral saints, and they could not strictly adhere to the classical Confucian doctrine of taking the people as the foundation, and taking benevolence and righteousness as the basis. The so-called "ideal monarchs" and moralists, such as Confucius, all failed to achieve their goals. Was not the so-called benevolence and righteousness of the Duke of Song in the Spring and Autumn Period proved to be foolish by later generations? Even Liu Bei, whom the authors praise as a "moral model," was a hypocrite who stole from the world and deceived the name of the world on some issues. For example, his slamming of Ah Dou on the ground, which Zhao Yun had taken great pains to save, has long been characterized by posterity as a way to win the hearts of the people. Another example is that he repeatedly declared that he wanted to swindle the Han Dynasty at the beginning, but later on he made himself king, and said in a dignified manner that "the four seas cannot be without a master", so his hypocrisy can be seen clearly. Another example is the famous "Liu Bei's Borrowing of Jingzhou" (I always think of it as "borrowing"), in which half of Liu Bei's kingdom was borrowed, which further demonstrates that Liu Bei is a formidable character, and he is by no means a loyal and generous elder. Therefore, from a moral point of view, Liu Bei's moral personality is split. On the one hand, he was born from the lower class of laborers and had the loyalty and kindness of the Chinese common people. On the other hand, he became a member of the ruling class in the name of the descendant of King Jing of Zhongshan, and had obvious political ambitions, with the treachery and hypocrisy of the ruling class. In his conception, "benevolence" is a means to achieve the end of being a "ruler"; if "benevolence" does not help or even hinders the "ruler", then "benevolence" is a means to achieve the end of being a "ruler". If "benevolence" is not helpful to the "ruler" or even hinders the "ruler" in the world, then "benevolence" can be pushed away immediately. But the author has simplified and perfected him in his work. Therefore, the characterization of this personage is very unsuccessful. As Mr. Lu Xun said in "A Brief History of the Chinese Novel" when talking about the loss of Liu Bei's image in "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", "I want to show that Liu Bei's long and thick, but it seems to be false".

Taking a step back, even if such a benevolent ruler really exists, it still can't change the tragic nature of the problem, which involves the standard of benevolence itself. As Stalin said of the ancient peasant leaders of Russia, "It must not be forgotten that they were imperialists: they were against the landlords, but for the 'good emperor'. Realize that this was their slogan." In other words, both the common people, or the intellectuals of feudal society, and Luo Guanzhong himself, submitted to the rule of the rulers without any objection, and their only hope was to meet a good emperor. They opposed the dim emperor and supported the bright one. So much so that in Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the people "burned incense to cover the road," "rejoiced in praises," and "bowed down in thanks" to the saintly Liu Bei, and the people of Xuzhou actually cried out in worship to Liu Bei: The people of Xuzhou actually cried and worshipped Liu Bei, saying: "If Liu Bei doesn't take over this county, we can't live in peace!" . The people (including Luo Guanzhong himself) have long been subjected to the poisoning of feudalism, the extent of the deep, wide range, the form of covert, really shocking. And readers such as me in the subtle recognition of this standard, I wonder if it belongs to the remnants of feudal thought?

The first exploration of the ethics of literature and art: Throughout the traditional Chinese culture, in fact, is based on feudal patriarchal and moral and ethical relations, all ideological and cultural theories are in line with the political utilitarianism and patriarchal ethics as a criterion. In the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, more than 400 characters are portrayed, and it is from the aspect of goodness or evil of human nature that they are mined, and the famous "three extremes": Cao Cao's treachery, Guan Yu's righteousness, and Zhuge Liang's wisdom are typical of them. Other beauty, ugliness, goodness and badness are unfolded under these basic judgment criteria. In this way, the author exposes another tendency: the tendency to moralize history. The tendency to moralize history is due to the inappropriate promotion of the status and role of "goodness" in history. This is not conducive to the perfection and development of history. The "good" should be analyzed objectively and concretely. Goodness is a historical category, is fluid, rather than rigid, frozen, unchanging. Although the traditional virtues of classical China still have the charm of shaking people's hearts, with the advancement of the mode of production and the way of life, these moral virtues are bound to change accordingly, and some of them have been entrusted to the new needs of the times to maintain the historical continuity of their own development, while sprouting new qualities. Therefore, moral concepts, moral principles, moral feelings, moral responsibilities, moral obligations, and the form and content of morality are constantly changing as history advances. From this perspective, the significance of Cao Cao's actions for the development of history is not negative. In human history, evil has often appeared as something new and progressive, an affront, a challenge, or even a rebellion against something old and declining, yet sacred and customary, and has therefore been denounced as "evil". That is why people say that Cao Cao "pretends to be a minister of Han, but is actually a traitor of Han". However, we should see that Cao Cao, as a historically renowned statesman and militarist with great ambitions, did what he did, in the final analysis, to unify China. This starting point is in line with the laws of historical development. Moreover, Cao Cao's military strength was the strongest, making it easiest for him to take on the task of unifying China. The result was exactly the same. The Three Kingdoms lasted for more than a hundred years, but in the end, it was the original Cao Wei side that emerged victorious. Just like the Qin Shi Huang who unified China, he once burned books and killed countless scholars, but it was also this man who succeeded in unifying China for the first time. He was a historical figure who had a profound influence on the development of Chinese history. Marx once pointed out in The Poverty of Philosophy that "Feudal production also has two antagonistic elements, which people call the good and bad aspects of feudalism. Yet it is not thought of that the result is always that the bad side overwhelms the good side, and it is the bad side that causes the struggle that produces the movement that forms history." Therefore, if one does not judge right and wrong from the height of historical significance, but only by the criteria of "wise ruler" and "tyrant" and feudal righteousness, one will inevitably be biased. This is a profound tragedy. Moreover, this tragedy is not only the tragedy of Liu Guanzhang, not only the tragedy of the demise of Shu, but also the tragedy of Luo Guanzhong, the author, and the tragedy of thousands of years of feudal morality and Confucianism, as well as the tragedy of the modern people who are y influenced by Confucianism like us. The old moral concepts are so deep-rooted that today, more than a hundred years after the departure of the feudal society, people are still fond of the feudal moral judgment standards and are still talking about them fondly. This is regrettable.

This leads to another issue of concern: the historical responsibility and moral fault of the main character of the work. Literary theology holds that the motives for the behavior of fictional characters and the actual objective effects of such and such harm to reasonable social and interpersonal relations, often resulting in moral negligence. In this magnum opus the author devotes much ink to Cao Cao's character rather than his war strategy, making his character extraordinarily complex. However, because of this, Cao Cao is the most successful characterization in Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Cao Cao's philosophy of "I'd rather lose the world than let the world lose me," his brutality and duplicity in "borrowing" the head of a magistrate to quell the anger of the people, and his meanness and venom in killing people in their dreams are all portrayed by the author in such a way that readers will never forget them. Of course, these wonderful descriptions are all for Liu Bei's benevolence and righteousness as a pretext. We should make a historical analysis of the moral faults; from the perspective of favoring historical progress, we should criticize and channel the moral faults of the character images, and give different moral evaluations to the moral faults of different natures.

It should be said that Luo Guanzhong's ideological tendency is his good wishes as a lower class people, and also puts the political ideals of intellectuals at that time. I remember that in the book, the author also borrowed Zhuge Liang's mouth to declare again and again: "The world is not the world of one person, but the world of the world, and only those who have the virtue live in it." This should be recognized. So the ideological tendency in the work has this or that kind of deviation, his love and hatred, his judgment of right and wrong still has a certain guiding effect on us. In any case, the rich moral meanings presented in the outstanding realist work "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" have great aesthetic value and reference significance for us, and the truths and fallacies in it need to be rationally discerned and critically inherited by us.

Luo Guanzhong's writing of Romance of the Three Kingdoms is just like people's production of costume dramas today, which use artistic means to tell what happened a long, long time ago. When we watch costume dramas, we often have this feeling: how come the thinking, speech and behavior of ancient people are the same as those of people nowadays? This is because the director cannot escape the modern cultural atmosphere no matter how he shoots. The same goes for Master Luo. There are not many depictions of marriage in the Three Kingdoms, but they still reflect a problem: one Three Kingdoms, two marriage customs.

Cao Pi took advantage of the chaos to marry Zhen, which is said to mean that Master Cao took advantage of Yuan's defeat to marry Zhen, Yuan Xi's wife, and Cao Cao not only didn't object to it, but also said:Truly my son's daughter-in-law! This portrayal is in line with the culture of life at that time, and the historical fact is that Cao Pi did marry Zhen and gave birth to Cao Rui. But that was the Han ethics, after the Song and Ming ethics, the Chinese marriage ethics became very strict.

When the Romance of the Three Kingdoms wrote about Zhao Yun taking Guiyang, it said that Zhao Fan, the governor of Guiyang, surrendered and became a brother to Zhao Yun. Later, Zhao Fan tried to introduce his brother's widow to Zhao Yun, but Zhao Yun strictly refused. Zhao Yun later cited three reasons when he talked to Zhuge Liang about this, one of which was that Zhao Fan's sister-in-law should not remarry after her husband's death, and that she should be widowed to show her chastity. This was clearly the ethics of Luo Guanzhong's time. Zhao Yun also said one more thing, saying

Since he became a brother to Zhao Fan, he could not marry his sister-in-law. Ethics in terms of levirate were mentioned in Confucius' time, but to such a strict degree, it was also after Zhu Xi and others. As a matter of fact, Liu Bei married Liu Zhang's sister-in-law (Liu Bei and Liu Zhang were also considered brothers), but it was just not mentioned in the play.

This shows that Luo Guanzhong wrote the Three Kingdoms is also difficult to escape from the cultural influence of the time, and the story of the Three Kingdoms, which has been passed down through the ages, also changed its face, and became a Confucian sermon of the popular reading of the Chinese culture has just returned to the orthodox.