I don't need to enumerate the advantages of historical records too much, because truth is power, and the truth of historical records has always been respected and respected by people. "Not false, not true, not evil", how simple but how difficult it is to do so! The emperor is not happy, but he just won't buy it, so he will say a few words for those who have grievances!
Ok, let's get down to business. Among the many articles in Historical Records, Biography of Cool Officials impressed me the most. Let me look at Historical Records from this angle.
Speaking of the word "cruel official", our first reaction is to invite you to the allusion of the urn. In the eyes of most people, it seems that only "criminals" will be tortured, and they will not care whether they are real criminals or criminal suspects. Anyway, as long as they have it, there will be no criminals. They always think of all kinds of terrible torture ... in short, they are not good people in our hearts, but lackeys of the imperial court, who only curry favor with superiors and are cruel to the people. However, after reading the biographies of cruel officials in Historical Records, I changed this view.
In Biography of the Corrupt Officials, Sima Qian introduced Zhang Tang with the most pen and ink. When he was a child, his mouse stole meat, and when his father came back, he whipped Zhang Tang. Zhang Tang then grabbed the mouse, took out the leftover meat, dismembered the mouse like a verdict, and wrote a verdict. Even his father was shocked by the complicated language in the verdict. From then on, he began his life journey with the law.
Zhang Tang has formulated strict laws to bind officials, and has a strong ability to handle cases. However, some people say that he is good at making profits, and Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty respected Confucianism, so he revised the law according to Shangshu and Chunqiu. In some cases, he will test the meaning of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty before making a judgment. However, there is one detail that I want to highlight:
If the person on trial is the one who the emperor wants to add to the crime, hand it over to a harsh person to do it; If the emperor wants forgiveness, he will give it to those who enforce the law lightly and justly; If you are dealing with powerful people, you must play with legal provisions and frame them skillfully; If they are ordinary people and thin people, they often make oral statements to the emperor. Although they should be sentenced according to law, they asked the emperor to be observant, so the emperor often forgave what he said. This last point touched me deeply. It turns out that he also takes care of ordinary people. He does not want to oppress the people, but to make the law work better.
However, his situation is really embarrassing. He made many enemies in officialdom. Once the emperor listens to rumors and suspects him, only death awaits him.
Zhang Tang is an honest official, clean and white. However, this offended the prime minister Zhuang and the three long officials of Zhao Wang. Three officials spoke ill of Zhang Tang in front of Zhuang, so they implicated Zhang Tang in a case and sent Zhao Yulai to interrogate him for "the crime of informing on businessmen for profiting from it". Interestingly, Zhao Yu was the one who made laws with Zhang Tang before. As a result, Zhang Tang committed suicide. Before he died, he said that three officers framed him. After Zhang Tang's death, the government raided his property and found less than 500 gold. When he was buried, his mother pulled the coffin with an ox cart, and there was no outer coffin. When the emperor heard about it, three officials were killed and Prime Minister Zhuang committed suicide. Later, Zhang Tang's son Zhang Anshi was gradually promoted. At this point, the story finally has a fairly gratifying ending.
I think Sima Qian's position as a "cruel official" is very good. Most of the people who entered his biography of the cruel officials were honest people with strict law enforcement and clean life, but there were also some minor flaws. They all have proud heads. In their minds, there are only two things, one is the son of heaven and the other is the name. They work for the emperor, but they can maintain the justice of the law. Just like that, even the Hou people and members of the royal family dared not look him in the eye and called him "Goshawk".
So I think, of course, we don't advocate using torture as a ruling tool, but the integrity of these "cruel officials" is worth learning. Sima Qian's historical spirit of "not true or false, not evil and not doing anything" also shows us the true connotation of "cruel officials" in an all-round way. And those ordinary cruel officials are always worthy of being small officials and not worthy of biography. This point is mentioned in Taishi Gong Yue. Finally, I ended by saying that I am a "cruel official" who defends the dignity of the law, is honest and clean, and cares about the sufferings of the people.
..... But Zhi Dou is strong-willed, upright, able to tell right from wrong and defend what is good for the country. Zhang Tang knew how to observe the king's face and fell in love with it. The emperor agreed with him and the country benefited from him. ..... Honesty can be an example for people, and filth can be a warning for people. They plan strategies, educate the people and prohibit evil, all of which are polite. Although the law enforcement is strict, it is commensurate with his position. As for Li Zhen in Guanghan County who killed the people without authorization, Feng Dang, the prefect of Shu County, brutally killed the local people ... Yan Feng, a captain of Shuiheng, tortured and forced prisoners to spend money to buy forgiveness, which is worth mentioning! There's nothing to say!
Oh! What surging and clear words! What a touching poem! This is a historical record! This is the first of twenty-four histories! This is the historical record of our praise! If the writers of history all have the spirit of Sima Gong, wouldn't our history be better passed on to future generations? This reminds me of Japan's tampering with history before. Alas, they really should learn from this "sick man of East Asia". If the important task of writing history and educating future generations is used by politics, it will be sad!
Reading historical records is not cool!