" ("Xie Duan") However, understanding the past and understanding the present is just a symbol of knowledge. As long as you are "studious and diligent, and knowledgeable and knowledgeable", you can do it. It is unknown how capable you are. If "a knowledgeable person has a broad knowledge, If you cannot photograph and discuss it, this is the owner of the hidden book." Just like the book collector who has books but cannot read them, he believes: "Everyone who values ??knowledge is valued for his ability to use it." If he learns but cannot use it, "even though there are thousands of books The above is what parrots can talk about. "A literati who can write in rough drafts is a person who is "broad and versatile", so he is more valuable than a general person. However, a literati can only write a single article and cannot "connect chapters" to write a book, so he is not as good as someone who can write long articles. He believes that Hongru is the most precious person. If literati are extraordinary people among intellectuals, then Hongru is a special person who is "super and extraordinary" and "strange and strange". Comparing them is like comparing a gorgeously decorated car with a broken one, or comparing brocade with an old robe; if compared with ordinary people, it is like comparing the top of Mount Tai with the foot of the mountain, or the neck of Chang Di with the soles of his feet. They are as different as heaven and earth! Gu Yong and Tang Lin in the Han Dynasty were the most extraordinary people, "the most extraordinary people in the world". They were able to write poems and comment on the classics, and were considered "literati"; while Dong Zhongshu, Sima Qian, Yang Xiong and Liu Xiang were "literati". Wang Chong regarded them as "great Confucian scholars" who were able to write great treatises and write books. It's like the civil and military Dukes of Zhou came together for a while... For example, pearls and jade are rare, so they are rare. "("Super Strange") Wang Chong values ????the Confucian scholars so much, so naturally his efforts are to become a Confucian scholar valued by the world. He studied under Ban Biao, did not abide by rules and regulations, and read hundreds of schools of thought... all of which lead to There is no clear record of how long Wang Chong spent studying in the capital. Yuan Shansong's "Book of the Later Han Dynasty" says that Wang Chong caught up with the grand ceremony of Emperor Ming of the Han Dynasty coming to Piyong: Chong was young and clever, and he watched the emperor come to Piyong. , Yuan Shansong's book has been lost, and this material is found in Li Xian's "Notes on the Book of the Later Han Dynasty". According to Wang Chong's admiration of Hongru, the "Six Confucianisms" should be regarded as a mistake of the Great Confucianism. Yong was one of the Taixue in the Zhou Dynasty, and in the Han Dynasty it was used as a place to respect Confucianism and perform ceremonies. According to "Book of the Later Han Dynasty: Biographies of Scholars", Piyong in the Eastern Han Dynasty was built in the first year of the Zhongyuan Dynasty (56 years) of Emperor Guangwu, and he had not yet had time to visit it in person. In this situation, Emperor Guangwu passed away. When Emperor Ming came to the throne, he personally performed the ceremony. "The Records of Emperor Ming" says that in October of the first year of the Shui Dynasty (58 years), "Fortunately, Yong was born". Therefore, at least in the first year of Yongping, Wang Chong was still in the capital. At that time, he was 32 years old, and he was 14 years old when he visited Luoyang. In the year when Emperor Ming came to the throne, he restored many long-abandoned Confucian etiquette to show his advocacy of etiquette. In the first month of this year, the emperor put on a nine-inch-high crown and a dress embroidered with the sun, moon and stars, and worshiped Guangwu first. In the Mingtang, the emperor climbed up to the spiritual platform, looked at the clouds, played the music to welcome the spring, observed the changes of the feudal lords, formulated the "Shi Ling" book, and presented it to the princes and kings, reenacting the "announcement of time" that Confucius lamented long ago. In the winter of this year, Emperor Ming came to Piyong in person and held a ceremony to respect the elderly and support the virtuous. It was presumed in advance that the old and learned Li Gong was the "three elders", and Huan Rong, who had awarded Emperor Ming the "Book of Secretaries", was the "Wugeng" "On this day, the emperor arrived at Piyong first, held a ceremony, and then sent someone to pick up the three old and the fifth generation with a chariot and a pulley (wrapped with rushes to avoid bumping). The emperor personally went to the door screen to greet him. As guests and hosts, (rather than the emperor and his ministers) greeted him on the stairs. The emperor issued an edict: "Respect the three elders, and serve the fifth duty." The three princes and nine ministers took their places. ) to the three elders, and personally gave him a drink; at the fifth watch, the three elders waited in this way, and then performed the shooting ceremony. After the shooting ceremony, the Emperor Ming returned to sit in the lecture hall, sitting upright, holding the scriptures and speaking to himself. It was more difficult to practice the scriptures than before. The "official gentry" who were not high enough could only watch from the other side of Piyongbi River. On this day, Wang Chong, who was usually criticized as a poor and rotten scholar, felt proud when he saw this. I was undoubtedly very excited to see the grand ceremony of respecting the elderly and respecting Confucianism, which was only recorded in ritual books and recited orally by Confucian scholars in the past, so I happily wrote "Da Ru Lun" to praise it.Even hundreds of years later, Fan Ye wrote "Book of the Later Han Dynasty" when he wrote about this grand occasion: "(Emperor Ming) sat in the Ming Hall to pay homage to the crowd, climbed to the spiritual platform to look at the clouds, and exposed himself to the clouds. Above the Qi Piyong, he respected the three elders and the five more... Jiji! He was prosperous in Yongping." 5. His official career was like that of all scholars. After completing his studies, Wang Chong also held the dream of serving the emperors Yao and Shun. Dream and follow the path of "learning well and becoming an official". However, Wang Chong's situation in the officialdom was not much better than that of his teachers. "Zi Ji Pian" recounts his official career as follows: In the county, he was ranked as a Gongcao; in the Duwei Mansion, he was also a Gongcao; as a prefect, he was To act for the meritorious officials of the five senses; to work in the state. Wang Chong had only served as a local official. Local institutions in the Eastern Han Dynasty implemented a three-level system of prefecture, prefecture, and county. Wang Chong served as an official at three levels, but he was still in the position of "掾". Peng was a subordinate official in various political institutions in the Han Dynasty. In the county, he served as an official and was in charge of personnel affairs and merit examination in the county. In the county, he served successively as a meritorious service officer in the Duwei Mansion, the military governor, and as a five-guan officer and meritorious service officer in the Taishou Mansion, the chief executive. In the state, he was also appointed as a subordinate official by the state governor. He has never escaped the fate of being a subordinate in his life. The places where Wang Chong served as an official can be found in Yangzhou, Danyang, Jiujiang, Lujiang and other places. "Zi Ji Pian" says: "In the third year of Yuanhe (86 years), Chong moved to Danyang, Jiujiang and Lujiang in the Yangzhou region. Later, he was appointed as Zhizhong. His post was in the second year of Zhanghe (88 years). This is recorded in Volume 73 of "Beitang Shuchao" and "Taiping Yulan". Volume 602 is quoted as "In the second year of Zhanghe, he moved home and took refuge in Danyang, Yangzhou." It is wrong. "The second year of Zhanghe" should be the second year of Yuanhe. The second year of Zhanghe is the year of Zhongzhixu's home, not the year of the past. Pi refers to conquest, being conscripted into an official position, not taking refuge. "Book of the Later Han Dynasty" also contains: "The governor Dong Qin was appointed as the governor. When he was transferred to the government, he was exempted from returning home." Yangzhou is one of the thirteen ministries (states) established by Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty. In the Eastern Han Dynasty, it was an administrative agency above the county level. Danyang, Jiujiang, and Lujiang were all county names, and they were under the jurisdiction of the Yangzhou Department at that time. Three years before Yuanhe, it was not clear what Wang Chong was doing. According to the first year of the founding of Liu Rulin's "Han and Jin Dynasty Academic Chronicle", according to Wang Chong's "Duozuo Chapter", "In the early Meng year of the founding, Zhongzhou was very poor, Yingchuan Runan, the refugees were scattered, the Holy Lord was worried, and the edicts were counted, "On Heng, a person who wrote a memorial to the county governor, should ban luxury in order to prepare for poverty. He said that he could not use it, so he withdrew the inscription and wrote it in his own account, which was called "Bei Lung". He then suspected that "the person who filled the official position was not in Kuaiji but in Zhongzhou." "The county is evil?" But without any circumstantial evidence, it is difficult to reach a conclusion. There are many reasons why Wang Chong wandered around the prefectures and counties and was stagnant. Later, Wang Chong made a comprehensive analysis and discussion of the poor official career based on his own personal experience. "Fengyu Pian" summarizes the pros and cons of becoming an official as encounters and misfortunes: There are always virtuous people in conduct, but there are no permanent encounters in officialdom. Whether a person is worthy or not is a matter of talent; whether he meets someone or not is a matter of time. Being highly talented and pure in conduct does not guarantee that one will be noble; being capable of being impotent and acting impurely does not guarantee that one will be humble. Perhaps someone with high talent and pure conduct will fall into the lower reaches if they are not met. Or someone with poor abilities and dirty skills will advance above others if they are met. Everyone in the world has his own way of acquiring scholars, and scholars have their own ways to advance. Advance by meeting, retreat by not encountering. Being respected and prominent does not necessarily mean he is a virtuous person, so he will be met; being humble and humble, he may not be stupid, so he will not be met. The ancients often said, "Thousand-mile horses often exist, but bole does not always exist." Talents often exist, but opportunities for officialdom do not often occur. If you are born at the right time and meet someone who is an official, you will be able to advance even if you have little talent and poor virtue. On the contrary, if you are born at the wrong time and meet someone who is not a human being, even if you are talented and have better virtue than the barbarians, you will remain in the wilderness and sink to the bottom. Liao. This is especially true when there is a lack of a sound competition mechanism. However, when Wang Chong was born as Emperor Guangwu, Emperor Ming, Emperor Zhang, and Emperor He, it was during the rise of the Eastern Han Dynasty. The system of conquest and promotion was relatively normal. It seems that there is no problem of being born at the wrong time, but it does not rule out the problem. What he encounters is inhuman. "Book of the Later Han Dynasty" said that he "served as a meritorious official in the county, and he went away after several suggestions and arguments." Wang Chong also wrote a letter to the county governor in the early years of the Ji Jian Dynasty when the harvest in Zhongzhou was poor, advocating strict frugality to prepare for poverty, but "the words were not put into practice"; the people were addicted to alcohol, and he thought that alcohol consumed the grain, and drunkenness caused trouble. To express his worries, he wrote to the county governor: He advocated "forbidding alcohol", but it was not taken seriously. The scholar's special skill is to give advice and suggestions. Since his words are not effective, it can be seen that what he met is indeed not a close friend.
Wang Chong also put forward the theory of "resultant harm" in "Resultant Harm": Anyone who enters an official position has failed to make progress, his conduct has been damaged and incomplete, his sins have been accumulated and not eliminated, and his reputation has been unclear. His talents are not inferior, and his actions are not inconsistent. Knowledge (wisdom) is not faint, and policy is not tasteful. It is also a case of continuous external disasters and repeated harm. His official career was stagnant, his actions were falsely accused, his guilt was not exonerated, and his reputation was in disgrace... all of this was not necessarily his own fault, but could have been caused by external factors. Wang Chong summarized these damages from external objects as "three tiredness and three harms". What are the three fatigues and three harms? Chong said: There are three troubles in the countryside and three harms in the court. The three tirednesses of the countryside refer to the troubles that officials encountered before: friends turned against each other and hurt each other, which is the first tiredness; mediocrity is jealous and hurts the talented people, which is the second vote; there is discord in friendships and turns to attack, which is the third tiredness. The three evils of the dynasty point out the frame-ups suffered after the best: the entrants denigrate each other for the limited position, fabricate and exaggerate the facts in front of the superiors, and the superiors are not aware and believe what they say, which is the first harm; colleagues have different hobbies, and they have different tastes. Cao, "The clean officials become whiter and gloomier, and they make trickling remarks." Their reputations become whiter and whiter, and their opinions become more and more brilliant. The dirty officials gradually become filthy and hold grudges in their hearts. They secretly collect the faults of the clean officials and frame them and punish them heavily. Two It is also harmful. The chief is lucky to have assistants, but the character of the assistants is not high. If someone promotes evil people, he will be dissatisfied with the "upright people" who are unwilling to follow him, and he will belittle him in front of the chief. This is the third harm. The three burdens and three harms mentioned by Wang Chong are vivid and specific, just like his own personal experience.