Book Review of Purple Tongzhi Sword

In the traditional culture of China, Zi Tong Zhi Jian is a very important work. If you want to choose some of the most representative history books, you must have Zi Tong Zhi Jian. But for ordinary readers, it is actually very difficult to grasp the essence. It has a huge space, with a history of more than 1300 years, with a total of 294 volumes, from the time when the Three Kingdoms were divided into Jin Dynasty to the Chen Qiao mutiny before the establishment of the Song Dynasty. Historians often have a lot of their own thoughts in the process of narrating history. Different historians have different opinions about the same thing, which reflects their ideological differences. For a classic book like Zi Tong Zhi Jian, if we only pay attention to its superficial words and don't explore the deep meaning behind the words, even if we read it thoroughly, we may not know this book.

In the past, there were about three ways to read Zi Tong Zhi Jian.

The first is to train children to read. When Mr. Zhou Yiliang was a child, his father gave him lessons every day, including reading "Zi Tong Zhi Jian". This situation may also occur in some private schools. Reading Zi Tong Zhi Jian in this way, in addition to understanding the basic history, is mainly familiar with sentence reading. In previous books, there were generally no sentences to read, and children needed to punctuate themselves when reading. Today, some units in Fudan are training graduate students, and they are still practicing ancient Chinese reading ability in this way. This is of course the easiest way to read Zi Tong Zhi Jian.

The second reading method, which is also the reading method of most ordinary readers, is to read through Zi Tong Zhi Jian to understand the history before the Song Dynasty. I have talked about "Zi Tong Zhi Jian" many times in school and society, and every time it will arouse the interest of some listeners. Many listeners will buy a set of Purple Tongzhi Sword, but after watching it for a while, they will find me and say it is too difficult. Is there any way for me to continue reading? The process of reading ancient Chinese is very difficult in itself. The average reader can't wait to read half of Zi Tongzhi Jian after reading it page by page, and then read the 20 volumes of Zi Tongzhi Jian ordered by Zhonghua Book Company. Let's see, even if one volume can be read in one day, it will take at least 294 days to read 294 volumes. But reading in this way will not be very effective. The memory function of the human brain is limited. New knowledge is absorbed too quickly, and it is easy to forget the old one. After reading the second one, you forget the first one. Unless you really have enough time to read the Purple Tongzhi Sword over and over again, it is difficult to master the ancient history of China in this way. For most readers, it is obviously unrealistic to read a certain paragraph in Zi Tong Zhi Jian repeatedly. Therefore, I often tell students that if they want to know the general history of China, it is not appropriate to read Zi Tongzhi Jian, so it is better to choose Qian Mu's Outline of National History. It is certainly not easy to read the Outline of National History, but with a little perseverance, you should be able to finish it in one semester. In addition, students with higher academic qualifications can go and see Zhao Yi's Notes on Twenty-two Histories.

The third reading method is to do research by reading Zi Tong Zhi Jian. This is an expert's business and has little to do with most ordinary readers.

Today, I mainly want to talk about another reading method of Zi Tongzhi Jian, which is also the theme of Zi Tongzhi Jian, a general course I offered for non-history majors at Fudan University. Deconstruct and understand the History of Thought.

What is the reading method of the history of thought, and where is the basic foothold of the reading method of the history of thought? Sima Guang, the author of Zi Tong Zhi Jian, is called a historian today. In fact, let's not forget that his most important identity is not a historian, but a politician, returning to the era when Sima Guang lived. Sima Guang can be said to be one of the most important politicians in the history of the Song Dynasty. He participated in almost all the major historical events of that era. For example, Wang Anshi is both a writer and a politician, and Sima Guang is the leader who opposes Wang Anshi's political reform. Sima Guang didn't oppose it for the sake of opposing it. Before Wang Anshi's political reform, Sima Guang wrote many articles to reveal and study the social crisis in the Northern Song Dynasty, so he himself had reform ideas. What Sima Guang opposed was not the reform itself, but the strategy and specific content of Wang Anshi's political reform. He thinks Wang Anshi's method won't work. After the failure of the opposition, Sima Guang left Kaifeng, the capital of the Northern Song Dynasty, and went to Luoyang, where he lived for fifteen years, which was an important period for the completion of "Learning from Mutual Aid".

From the compilation of Zi Tong Zhi Jian to its completion, most of the contents were completed when Sima Guang settled in Luoyang. Think about it, a politician who cares about current events and has deep observation and thinking about current events. When compiling history, is he just telling history like an ordinary history teacher? This is a noteworthy place. The deeper we study Zi Tong Zhi Jian, the deeper we know about Sima Guang, and we can draw a conclusion. Although the language of this conclusion is somewhat exaggerated, the basic idea is established, that is, Zi Tongzhi Jian does not talk about the Song Dynasty, but every word is about the Song Dynasty. Its interpretation of history and summary of the success or failure of rise and fall all point to the practical problems of the Song Dynasty. When Sima Guang talked about the purpose of compiling "Learning from the Same Resources as a Mirror", he said "assess the situation and level the world". The logic of this sentence is to sum up historical experience first, and then find out the experience and laws of governing the country. We know that he was a mature thinker before editing, so when we read Zi Tong Zhi Jian carefully, we will find that Zi Tong Zhi Jian is exactly the opposite of what he said. Why is it the opposite? Before editing, Sima Guang had a set of ideas of governing the country in his mind. Under the guidance of this concept, Sima Guang "reminisced about the past" through "Learning from the Same Resources". So it is his political concept that determines how he reviews the past and describes history, rather than summing up a set of political concepts by reviewing the past.

Let me give you a simple example, such as the description of Liu Bei, a historical figure, when he appeared in "A Mirror of Resources and Tongzhi". When talking about the appearance or exit of an important historical figure, Zi Tong Zhi Jian will use some space to describe the characteristics of this figure. "Zi Tong Zhi Jian" says that Liu Bei's character is "eager for great success, few words, and his emotions are invisible." These positive expressions of Liu Bei's deep ambition are obviously following the words in the annals of the Three Kingdoms. But the History of the Three Kingdoms also said that Liu Bei "doesn't like reading very much, but likes dogs, horses, music and beautiful clothes." These descriptions of Liu Bei's profligacy and even a little hooliganism were all deleted from "Learning from Mutual Adversity". It can be said that the image of Liu Bei in Zi Tong Zhi Jian is incomplete or even distorted, which is not as comprehensive as that in The History of the Three Kingdoms. But why did Purple Tongzhi Sword do this? We must understand Sima Guang and the basic ideas of Confucianism in that era. Confucianism in Song Dynasty gradually formed values based on moral cultivation, among which Sima Guang was the representative. For these Confucianists, even the most important legal basis of imperial power lies in morality. Then an alcoholic and lecherous person can achieve great things. How did he persuade the future emperor to obey the moral law? Sima Guang's Zi Tong Zhi Jian is a textbook for the emperor, and this problem has been considered. Therefore, the part of Liu Bei's love of debauchery was deleted, and only the description of his lofty aspirations was retained. This is a typical concept before history.

Some complicated political topics, such as reform, the relationship between monarch and minister, and the role of women in politics. All of them are related to Zi Jian, and the discussion of these topics seems to be summing up history, but in fact it has a profound practical direction. This is what I mean by reading Zi Tongzhi Jian in the way of ideological history. This book is a historical material to understand the ideological situation of the Song Dynasty, although it does not talk about the Song Dynasty. This is its most essential thing.

Let's give another more complicated example. For example, Dong Zhongshu's Three Strategies for Heaven and Man had a full text in the Han Dynasty, but it was much shorter in Zi Tongzhi Jian. Then the problem is coming. What is the standard and basis of Sima Guang's deletion? Once we pay attention to this problem, we will find that these problems are closely related to the ideological background of the Song Dynasty. As we know, the foundation of Confucianism in Han Dynasty lies in the induction between heaven and man, and the power of the emperor is absolute in principle, so there are few ways to restrict the power of the emperor, and the effect is limited, so the induction between heaven and man is emphasized. The emperor is the son of heaven. This sentence has two meanings. On the one hand, the emperor has a destiny, on the other hand, the emperor's behavior should conform to God's will. In other words, the emperor can't mess around. Once he does, there will be all kinds of natural disasters. The original meaning of the word disaster refers to skyfire. God warned the emperor of his immorality with disaster. If the emperor does not reflect, it is time for revolution.

When we talk about revolution today, we want farmers' uncles to attack the county government and so on. In ancient Chinese, revolution means that God no longer cares for the emperor and thinks that you are not a qualified person to exercise power on his behalf. Therefore, changing brokers is a fate. This is the idea of Han Dynasty thinkers. Every solar eclipse is recorded in detail in Chunqiu, because it is the most serious disaster, and the importance of the sun is self-evident. The ancients thought that the disappearance of the sun was a terrible thing, and the emperor should take it seriously and reflect on every solar eclipse. Once there is an eclipse, ministers will write to the emperor one after another, accusing him of various reasons, or that the eclipse is because the emperor built a palace, or because the emperor believes in villains, so he can take this opportunity to say what he can't say. The emperor can't punish anyone, but should try to reflect and correct. But in the song dynasty, this set didn't work. Because of the accumulation of scientific knowledge in the Song Dynasty, the calendar is also very advanced, and people with a little knowledge have a deep understanding of astronomical phenomena. People with a little knowledge already know that solar eclipse is a natural phenomenon with laws to follow. The harmony between man and nature in Han Dynasty is no longer the basis of political philosophy in Song Dynasty, which is also the reason why the history of Song Dynasty is particularly developed. Because it is not enough to try to persuade the emperor not to run amok, and it is not enough to rely solely on the scourge, so we should warn him by summing up historical experience. Later generations summarized the cultural history of the Song Dynasty and generally attached importance to Neo-Confucianism. Why did Neo-Confucianism become the cultural label of Song Dynasty? In today's words (perhaps inaccurate, but still close to the essence), the rational thinking of scholars in the Song Dynasty was much stronger than that of their predecessors, and their understanding of human nature and requirements for moral cultivation were placed in a very prominent position in the Neo-Confucianism system in the Song Dynasty. For example, in the four books of "University", it is said that "we should be honest, knowledgeable, sincere, upright, housekeeping, governing the country and leveling the world", and people should be upright and cultivate themselves before they can become an example to others and achieve the goal of housekeeping. When this is completed, it is possible to rule the country and level the world.

This concept became the basis of political philosophy in the Song Dynasty, and the key lies in the great changes in people's understanding of nature in the Song Dynasty, which is quite different from that in the Han Dynasty. In the song dynasty, it was also said that the emperor of the song dynasty was quite good, which was in line with the scholars' statement. But Confucian scholars have realized this problem, and the foundation of political philosophy must be completely updated, that is, from the understanding of heaven and man to the understanding of man himself. Besides philosophy, history is an important way. Therefore, I don't quite agree with the view that the rise of Neo-Confucianism in Song and Ming Dynasties has much to do with Buddhism: because Buddhism has a strict logical system, profound thoughts and philosophical understanding that is not comparable to Confucianism, Confucianism has a sense of crisis, and many Buddhist concepts are borrowed from Confucianism. I think Neo-Confucianism in Song and Ming Dynasties is more the result of political changes and people's understanding changes, not just the influence of Buddhism.

Knowing this ideological background, let's look at how Dong Zhongshu's three strategies of heaven and man are dealt with in "Learning from the Same Resources". The three strategies of heaven and man in Hanshu, which began with the induction of heaven and man, can well represent the characteristics of Confucianism in Han Dynasty, but Sima Guang just deleted this paragraph. The three strategies of heaven and man in Zi Tong Zhi Jian are far from Dong Zhongshu's Tian Wen. However, the beauty lies in the opening words of "Zi Tong Zhi Jian" and in the original text of "Han Shu". Sima Guang deleted "Heaven and Man", left and highlighted "benevolence and righteousness" and "education", with completely different emphases. By carefully comparing the two books "Three Strategies of Heaven and Man" in Hanshu and Zitongzhijian, it is not difficult to find that the theme has changed from the initial "relationship between heaven and man" to the education of rites and music. Enlightenment is one of the most important ways to cultivate morality. It can also be seen that the deletion and preservation of Han Dynasty documents in Zi Tong Zhi Jian is closely related to the ideological background of Song Dynasty. Sima Guang edited the traditional literature according to his own ideas, and decided what kind of words could be included in Zi Tong Zhi Jian and what kind of words could not. The so-called "reviewing the past, even governing the past" is actually Sima Guang's tailoring of history with his own ideas.

In the 29th1volume of Zi Tong Zhi Jian, we talked about the famous Feng Dao in the Five Dynasties. Under the news of Feng Dao's death, Sima Guang quoted Ouyang Xiu's criticism of Feng Dao. Sima Guang and Ouyang Xiu have differences, so the History as a Mirror rarely quotes Ouyang Xiu's words, but here it quotes Ouyang Xiu's comments on Feng Dao in the New History of the Five Dynasties, which shows that Feng Dao is worth talking about. During the Five Dynasties, the regime changed frequently. In fifty-four years, there were fourteen emperors in the Five Dynasties. Once every emperor was a courtier, but Feng Dao was an exception and served as the prime minister of many emperors. He lived in four dynasties (Tang, Jin, Han and Zhou) and ten emperors (Tang, Zoroastrianism, Min, the last emperor, Jin Gaozu, Chu Gaozu, Han Gaozu, Yin Di, Zhou Taizu and Sejong), and nine emperors from the Tang Dynasty to the present used him as prime minister. In the chaotic political background at that time, he was undoubtedly a successful figure, and some even nicknamed him "the tumbler in politics". Feng Dao not only spoke highly of him from the Five Dynasties to the early Song Dynasty, but also was obviously satisfied with his life. But by the middle of the Northern Song Dynasty, the evaluation of Feng Dao was completely subverted. Represented by Ouyang Xiu and Sima Guang, Feng Daoli's monarch was severely criticized for his lack of "moral integrity".

What kind of person is Feng Dao? How to understand Feng Dao's phenomenon? Let me tell you some stories about Feng Dao. When the Khitan destroyed the gold, Lu Ye Deguang of Liao Taizong entered Kaifeng, and Feng Dao was called. Lu Ye Deguang asked him, "How can we save people in the world?" Feng Dao said, "Even if the Buddha is born now, it can't be saved. Only the Emperor your can save it. " To some extent, this eased the brutal measures of the Khitan and saved the people. Then when Feng Dao died, there was no deposit. Where did all his money go? Feng Dao is from Hejian, Hebei. His hometown is the place where the conflict between Han nationality and Qidan is the fiercest, and people are often taken away as slaves. Most of his money is used for redemption and resettlement. There are many different opinions about Feng Dao. He claimed to be "loyal to the monarch and filial piety", and no one opposed him in the Five Dynasties, but in the Song Dynasty, many people began to oppose him, thinking that he had no face to call himself "loyal to the monarch", so the views of the Five Dynasties and the Song Dynasty were completely opposite. Why? The important reason is that the Five Dynasties and the Song Dynasty have different views on "country". During the Five Dynasties, there were frequent wars, and it was the warlords who really grasped the political core, while the literati like Feng Dao drifted away from the political core. What he thinks of as "country" mainly refers to the people of this country. As long as they are worthy of the people, they can stand under the warlord's "tiger and wolf", and he doesn't want to manage the rotation of the emperor, and he has no ability to manage it. In the Song Dynasty, the situation changed. Of course, Song Confucianism also attached great importance to ordinary people. However, the political structure of the Song Dynasty was different from that of the Five Dynasties. In order to solve the frequent change of political power and the long-term stability of the country, the emperor of the Song Dynasty took a series of measures, which is the famous "relieving the army by borrowing a glass of wine". Of course, it is impossible to release the military achievements just by a glass of wine, and there are still a series of efforts behind it. The Song Dynasty lasted for a long time because literati politics and bureaucracy replaced warlord politics, which made the political structure tend to be stable. The relationship between Ouyang Xiu and the scholar Sima Guang and the emperor is different from that between Feng Dao and the emperor. Feng Dao and the emperor do not belong to the same interest group. Although many emperors rely on Feng Dao's reputation, Feng Dao is not in the inner circle of interests. Ouyang Xiu belittled Feng Dao, saying that the five generations of martyrs were all military commanders, which also showed that Ouyang Xiu had a superficial understanding of that era. Because in the warlord political system, the emperor depends on the samurai, and the loser can't live even if he doesn't die. Scholars are outside the core of regime alternation, so there are no martyrs. However, the Song Dynasty was a society ruled by literati. The emperor managed the country through literati and bureaucrats, and the literati was at the political core. In the view of Sima Guang and Ouyang Xiu, loyalty to the monarch and the country are integrated, so they will oppose Feng Dao in this ideological background.

The historical value of Zi Tong Zhi Jian is distributed in two levels: explicit and implicit. The dominant level is the text itself. The reading method of the history of thought is to hook up its hidden historical value. This book does not directly talk about the Song Dynasty, but often mentions the reality of the Song Dynasty. For example, as recorded in Volume 2 1 1, the leader of the Turks sipped silently. He had been harassing the border since Wu Zetian, but was later killed by his subordinates. His subordinates took the silent sipped head and went to Hao Lingquan, an officer of the Tang Dynasty, in exchange for a reward. After Hao Lingquan gave his head to the imperial court, he looked forward to it every day. However, Song Jing, the prime minister at that time, believed that if Hao Lingquan received a generous reward, many frontier generals would deliberately provoke the frontier war for their own fame and fortune and take the credit for killing the leaders of ethnic minorities as their own. Similar cases are common in history. So it took a year to give Hao Lingquan a very limited reward. Hao Lingquan died in despair.

This passage was later studied by many scholars, such as Hu Sansheng. Hu Sansheng's annotation on Zi Tong Zhi Jian is the best, and he thinks that Sima Guang's narrative is wrong. Hu Sansheng said that Hao Lingquan didn't make any achievements, but he picked up the bargain because he got things done well, so delaying and depressing his reward doesn't mean that Song Jing has such a long-term and profound border issue to consider. Song Jing's decision is only because Hao Lingquan's contribution is too small, and nothing is too complicated. In fact, Sima Guang has a detailed account of how Hao Lingquan got the silent sip head. He fully knew that Hao Lingquan had no credit, and Hu Sansheng's rebuttal was unreasonable, because he refuted Sima Guang with facts that he clearly knew. But why did Sima Guang describe Song Jing's thoughts like this? This is because the Song Dynasty was actively preparing to open its borders, and Sima Guang thought it was very dangerous to launch a war machine. In fact, the Northern Song Dynasty did lose a lot. Sima Guang said that Song Jing was obviously opposing the New Deal and persuading Song Shenzong.

Therefore, many seemingly unreasonable places in Zi Tong Zhi Jian actually have their profound meanings. If you leave the field of vision of the history of thought, you will be confused. Even if you read it well, you will find many loopholes and incomprehensible places. Later generations also made mistakes when they specially revised Zi Tong Zhi Jian. However, if you read it according to the way I talked about today, you will find that many superficial "mistakes" actually have their ideological background behind them, which is well thought out by Sima Guang. We thought Sima Guang was wrong, but in fact it was us who were wrong. The method of the history of thought is essential to understand the book. We should first know that Sima Guang is a politician with profound thoughts, and then we should consider his works, instead of just reading Zi Tong Zhi Jian as a simple historical work.

Finally, talk about why I want to open such a general education course. Many people may think that such a course is too difficult for non-history majors. In class, it takes some skills to popularize complex problems for everyone to understand, so I won't discuss them here. What I want to say is, what is the purpose and significance of offering classic reading guidance courses in general education? Is it to impart specific knowledge? Do you want students to remember what you said? Most students have no chance to contact these specific knowledge points after entering the work field, and it is useless to remember them. What really benefits them for life is to teach them how to read, cultivate their habit of thinking, and invisibly improve their ability to find and solve problems. Interpreting Zi Tong Zhi Jian with the method of ideological history, to put it bluntly, is to tell them not to stay on the surface, but to learn to analyze the contents behind the words. This seems to be a cliche, and it is not easy to do it. Anatomy of Zi Tong Zhi Jian is a demonstration process. Students study this course in order to receive such training. The ultimate goal is to hope that they can learn to solve more and more practical problems in this way.