The story within the story of "There is no better son than a father"

During the Spring and Autumn Period, Fan Li, the Duke of Tao Zhu of Yue State, had three sons.

Once, the second son accidentally committed a murder in Chu State and was imprisoned to be executed.

Tao Zhugong thought of the Prime Minister who had helped the Chu State before, so he gathered his family wealth and wrote a handwritten letter, preparing for his younger son to take it to the Prime Minister to help the Prime Minister to rescue his second son.

When the eldest son found out, he felt that the younger son had been spoiled since childhood and was afraid that he would not be reliable in handling this matter, so he asked Tao Zhugong to go on his own.

Tao Zhugong disagreed.

He said that only the younger son could save the second son.

The eldest son was not convinced and insisted on proving that he could go.

Unable to resist, Tao Zhugong had no choice but to agree, but before leaving he repeatedly told his eldest son that he would not be able to get the property back regardless of whether he could be saved or not.

After the eldest son left, Tao Zhugong lamented that his second son was not going to die soon, and arranged for his younger son to prepare for his funeral in advance. Everyone was very puzzled.

The eldest son went to the Chu State to find the Prime Minister, presented letters and property, and waited for news.

The prime minister, citing the country's frequent natural disasters and famine in recent years, sent a report to the King of Chu to grant amnesty to the people and pray for their health.

The King of Chu approved what he had said and ordered people to announce it to the world first.

As soon as the eldest son heard that the King of Chu was going to grant amnesty, his second brother could now escape the disaster. He felt that he was lucky and that so much property had been given to the Prime Minister in vain. After thinking about it for a few times, he completely forgot his father's instructions before leaving.

Behind his head, he ran to get his property back from Xiang Guo.

The Prime Minister was very angry, but he couldn't say it clearly.

After returning the property to his eldest son, he reported to the King of Chu that the purpose of the amnesty was to pray for blessings and eliminate disasters, but some people slandered him because he was bribed by Fan Li and proposed the amnesty to save Fan Li's son. If Fan Li's son was released,

The son will bring a bad reputation to King Chu's amnesty.

So the King of Chu ordered Fan Li's second son to be killed in advance.

When the second son's head fell to the ground, the younger son just arrived with the coffin.

When everyone heard the news, they all admired Tao Zhugong for his ability to predict things.

What exactly is going on?

It turned out that Fan Li's eldest son had followed him to buy a family business since he was a child. After going through many hardships, he knew that money was hard-earned and cherished it very much. However, the younger son's family had good conditions since he was born, so he spent money like water and didn't care about the money used to save his second son.

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So Tao Zhugong knew that only his youngest son could accomplish this task.

Although the overall theme of this story is "a wise son is better than his father", there are other truths contained in it that we have to think about.

The Prime Minister of Chu State, in order to achieve his own goals and convince everyone, came up with this method of covering up people's ears and eyes and hiding the truth, which is very impressive.

The eldest son didn't know how to think, he was inflexible and inflexible, and he failed to see clearly the Prime Minister's method of saving people, which ultimately killed his second brother.

Fan Li knew people well and was able to judge the final outcome of things through the habits of his two sons.