1. Legend of the Snake-cutting Uprising When Liu Bang, Emperor Gaozu, served as the county magistrate of Peixian County, he escorted a group of farmers to Lishan Mountain to repair the mausoleum for the county. Most people escape on the way. Liu bang himself calculated that even if he arrived in Lishan, he would be killed according to his sin. So I went to the dry land in the west of Fengxian county, stopped, got drunk, and let the rest of the farmers go at night. Jesus said to them, Go, all of you. From now on, I will flee. More than a dozen of these farmers are willing to follow Liu Bang.
Liu bang walked in Fengxize drunk and let a farmer explore the road. The man came back and said, "There is a big snake ahead. We'd better go back." . Liu bang said through the strength of wine: "A gentleman is the only one in the world, what is there to be afraid of!" So he went to the front and drew his sword to cut the snake. The snake is divided into two parts from the middle. After walking a few miles, Liu Bang fell asleep drunk. The last person in Liu Bang's team came to the place where the snake was cut.
I saw an old lady crying on the roadside all night. Asked why she was so sad, she said, "My son was killed, so I cried." . When asked why her son was killed, she said, "My son was a white emperor, turned into a snake and was killed by Chi Di, so I am very sad." . People thought she was talking nonsense, spreading rumors and trying to hit her, but the old lady suddenly disappeared. When the people behind rushed to the front, Liu Bang woke up and people reported his situation. Only Liu Bang is very happy and proud, and his followers are more and more in awe of him.
Qin Shihuang once said: "There is a celestial spirit in the southeast." So he personally went to the East for verification. Liu Bang suspected that Qin Shihuang was talking about himself, so he hid in the desolate deep forest of Mangdang Mountain. Lv Zhi and others are looking for him. They can always find him in a remote place. Liu bang felt strange and asked what was going on. Lv Zhi said, "Where are you? There are always clouds on your head, so we can always find you according to this phenomenon." . Liu bang was very happy to hear that. After people in Peixian knew about it, many people came to join Liu Bang.
2. Why is Wang Mang a white snake? According to Sima Qian's Biography of Historical Records and High-impedance, when Liu Bang was the director of surabaya county Pavilion, he escorted hundreds of civilian workers to Lishan to build a tomb for Qin Shihuang, and many civilian workers fled along the way. When I arrived at Mangdang Mountain, I counted the days, but it was late anyway. Liu bang knew that the Qin law was harsh, and the civilian worker escaped a lot and missed the date. When he gets to Xianyang, he will die.
Liu bang was drunk. In the evening, he released the rest of the civilian workers and said to them, "Run for your lives, I'll go far away." These people don't want to run for their lives, saying they are willing to follow Liu Bang into the world. Encouraged by a group of brothers, Liu Bang decided to "pull the flag upside down". Raise the banner of rebellion, and dozens of people who have not escaped are willing to follow Liu Bang. It was reported that there was a white snake in front of him. Liu Bang said, "Where will the strong men go?" Without thinking, he pulled out his sword and waved the white snake in two. Because Sima Qian inadvertently wrote another sentence in this paragraph of Biography of Gaozu: "The snake split in two and opened." This gave birth to a fairy story: that is, "Gao Zu killed the snake and Ping Di returned his life".
It is said that before Liu Bang chopped the snake, the white snake suddenly said, "What you owe today will be paid back one day. If you cut off my head, I will usurp yours; If you cut off my tail, I will usurp you. " Liu Bang's sword cut the white snake into two pieces from the middle. So when the Western Han Dynasty spread to Pingdi, the white snake (python) reincarnated Wang Mang, poisoned Pingdi and usurped Han as a new one. After the revival of Guangwu, Wang Mang was eliminated, the Han family of Liu was restored, and the Eastern Han Dynasty was established.
Liu bang is not an ordinary person. According to legend, one day, Liu Bang's mother was working in the field when suddenly there was thunder and lightning and heavy rain. Liu bang's mother suddenly fell into the ground, and Liu bang's father saw a dragon squatting on his wife, and he was so scared that he sat down on the ground. You can rub your eyes and take a closer look. You have nothing but your wife. Liu Bang's father stepped forward to help his wife and asked what had just happened. Liu Bang's mother knew nothing but that she suddenly felt a coma and fell to the ground. There seems to be a man of God in the chaos. Soon Liu Bang's mother became pregnant and gave birth to Liu Bang ten months later. This legendary story is nothing more than saying that Liu Bang was born as a dragon and the real dragon was reincarnated. He later began the inheritance of great men, which is the divine right of the monarch.
It is said that after Liu Bang cut the snake, he was drunk and fell asleep. Liu Bang's followers saw an old woman burning paper and burning money by the side of Liu Bang's snake, convulsing and crying, so they went forward and asked her what she was crying about. The old woman said that her son was a white emperor and turned into a white snake. Now he was killed by Yan's son. She was so sad that she cried. As he spoke, he disappeared in a gust of wind. That night, Liu Bang had another dream, in which the white snake came to kill me and shouted "Give me my life back". Liu bang failed to deal with the white snake in his dream and said, "Wait until the ground is flat." I think this white snake is not an idle generation, and I am afraid it is no match in the mountains. On the flat ground, you can't run if you can't win. Strange to say, when Ping Di, the descendant of Liu Bang, ascended the throne, the white snake really came to kill him. The white snake is Wang Mang (dead python). At first, Wang Mang was humble and loyal, and married his daughter to the emperor. Later, he turned against him and poisoned Emperor Pingdi, fulfilling the saying that "Pingdi (the land) returned its life".
The universe is vast and the mystery is deep. The 400-year history of the Han Dynasty is divided into the Western Han Dynasty and the Eastern Han Dynasty. Coincidentally, Wang Mang succeeded in usurping the throne, which just split the 400-year-old Han Dynasty in the middle, which just confirmed the words of the legend of White Snake. The homophonic python Wang Mang, said to be the reincarnation of this white snake, was split in two by Liu Bang, and now the white snake has come for revenge.
3. How is Wang Mang afraid of gossip? Wang Mang's modesty has not been usurped. Wang Mang was frugal in his early years, filial to his mother and respectful to his sister-in-law. He lived a simple life, read a lot of poems, made friends with wise men, and was famous far and near. He often distributes his salary to the public and the poor, and even sells his carriage to help the poor, which is deeply loved by the people. Before he became emperor, Wang Mang was recognized as an outstanding young model in the whole country. Being an emperor can also be said to be "the trend of the times." People often say that Wang Mang is a "modern traveler", and his reform was very advanced at that time. Hu Shi also commented that Wang Mang was "the first socialist in China".
Wang Mang nationalized the land and redistributed it. Tenants without land are given land by the government. Freezing slavery, prohibiting the sale of all slaves and handmaids, and saving the people in from the mire; All natural resources are owned by the state and can only be exploited by the government; The monopoly system of wine, salt and iron is implemented, and the central government issues currency in a unified way. People can borrow money from the government for weddings, funerals and weddings without interest. The government's loans to agriculture and commercial undertakings only charge one tenth of the net profit, which can be said to be more humane than the current banks; The government controls prices and prevents businessmen from manipulating the market to eliminate the inequality between the rich and the poor; Food, textiles and other necessities of life are purchased by the government at cost when the supply exceeds the demand, and sold by the government when the supply exceeds the demand to prevent the price from rising; Wait a minute. After careful study, Wang Mang finally invented a measuring tool, which is the "bronze caliper", which is now the vernier caliper. Wang Mang once presided over the research of aircraft, even the design drawings were designed by himself, but due to the limitation of objective factors, it ended in failure.
Wang Mang's reform not only failed to alleviate social contradictions, but also caused world turmoil, and the national treasury was exhausted, making it impossible to allocate disaster relief funds. In the fourth year of Tianfeng (A.D. 17), there were locusts, droughts and famines all over the country, and Chimei and Lvlin rebelled. In the fourth year of Emperor Huang (AD 23), the outlaw hero invaded Chang 'an, and Wang Mang was killed by businessman Du Wu in the chaos. His head hung in Wancheng, and the people attacked him or cut off his tongue.
Later generations attributed the division between the Western Han Dynasty and the Eastern Han Dynasty to Liu Bang's snake cutting. When Tai Shigong wrote Historical Records, it was the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty. Of course, he didn't know that there were things in the Han Dynasty, and the saying of cutting snakes might be exaggerated, but it was not entirely fictional. I always thought that it was a coincidence to cut the snake and divide the Han. The theory of destiny is mostly gossip of later generations. Recently, the author once again aroused curiosity, searched online, and the clever and capable "Du Niang" clearly told me that the year of Wang Mang's usurpation of Han Dynasty was 9 AD. Don't ask, don't know, ask and get a fright. It's been nine years, year of the snake! God, it's really reincarnation, karma!