Jia Yi (200 ~ 200 years ago 168), Han nationality, was born in Luoyang (now east of Luoyang City, Henan Province), whose real name was Taifu. A famous political commentator and writer in the early years of the Western Han Dynasty. 18 years old, famous. When he was young, he was recommended by Wu Gong, the prefect of Henan Province. In his twenties, Emperor Wen called him a doctor. In less than a year, he was promoted to be a loyal doctor. But at the age of 23, because of the jealousy of ministers, he was removed from the teacher of Changsha Wang. Later, he was recalled to Chang 'an and became the teacher of Liang Huaiwang. After the death of King Huai of Liang, Jia Yi felt deeply sorry for himself until he died of grief at the age of 33. His works mainly include prose and ci fu. Essays such as On Qin, On Warehousing and Chen Zheng's Poems are all famous. The most famous words are Ode to Hanging Qu Yuan and Ode to Catching Birds.
Juvenile promotion and abnormality: Jia Yi studied hard and read widely since childhood, and read everything in pre-Qin hundred schools of thought. When I was a teenager, I studied Zuo Zhuan in the Spring and Autumn Period with Dr. Zhang Cang, a disciple of Xun Kuang in the Qin Dynasty, and later annotated Zuo Zhuan, but it has been lost. He also studies Taoism. When I was a teenager, I wrote Tao Te Ching and Daoism. He also loves literature, especially the works of Qu Yuan, a great poet at the end of the Warring States Period. In the last five years of the Han Dynasty (183), Jia Yicai 18 years old. He is famous in Henan county because he can recite the Book of Songs, Shangshu and write articles.
At that time, Wu Gong, the secretariat of Henan Province (later Han Tingwei), was his fellow countryman and a student of Li Si, a famous figure in the Qin Dynasty. Wu Gong learned that Jia Yi was a knowledgeable and talented person and valued him very much. He was called to his door and liked him very much. Martial arts is a student of Reese, and he is also very knowledgeable. Jia Yi learned a lot under his guidance. At this time, in order to encourage everyone to study, Jia Yi taught Zuo Zhuan in the Spring and Autumn Period. Wu Gong made outstanding achievements in governing Henan County, and the society was very stable. He is regarded as the best in the world.
The book of a hundred schools of thought is a promising young talent. "Jia Yi was called to the central * * * and was appointed as a doctor. Since then, Jia Yi has stepped into the stage of political activities. Jia Yi was only twenty-one years old, the youngest of all doctors at that time.
The doctor is an official who prepares for the emperor's consultation. Whenever Emperor Wendi asked questions for doctors to discuss, many old gentlemen were speechless for a while, but Jia Yi was different. Because he was knowledgeable and dared to think and speak, he answered Wendi's questions, which was eloquent and reasonable. Other doctors think that Jia Yi said what he wanted to say but couldn't, and they admire his talent very much. This made Emperor Wen of Han very happy, and within a year he was promoted to Doctor Tai Zhong (an official who discussed politics at a higher level than a doctor).
Jia Yi believes that the political situation was generally stable after the establishment of the Han Dynasty for more than 20 years. In order to consolidate the rule of Han Dynasty, he put forward a series of suggestions to Emperor Wen of Han Dynasty and carried out reforms. His reform proposal is aimed at inheriting the Qin system from the Han Dynasty. He believes that the Han Dynasty inherited the bad customs of the Qin Dynasty and abandoned the etiquette, law and benevolence, so it should change the customs and make the world change their minds. He suggested making new laws and regulations, advocating rites and music, amending the new moon, changing official names and so on. To change the new moon is to change the calendar of Qin dynasty, which takes "water" as its virtue and October as the beginning of a year; Easy-to-wear color is a system to change the color of Qin costumes from black to yellow. Because Emperor Wendi had just acceded to the throne at that time and thought that the conditions were not yet ripe, Jia Yi's suggestion was not adopted.
But Wendi adopted other suggestions from Jia Yi. For example, in the second year of Emperor Wendi, Jia Yi put forward the famous book On Storing and Sparing, pointing out that the phenomena of "abandoning agriculture to do business" and "increasing extravagance" appeared in the society at that time were unfavorable to the rulers, and advocated implementing the policy of emphasizing agriculture and restraining business, developing agricultural production, strengthening grain storage and preventing famine, so as to achieve the goal of governing the world by the people, that is, consolidating the rule of the Han Dynasty. Emperor Wendi adopted his suggestion and ordered to encourage agricultural production. However, as a long-term established policy of feudal rulers, emphasizing agriculture and restraining commerce limited the development of commodity economy, and its negative effects became more obvious in the future.
As prime minister, go to your fief. In this way, the princes left the capital one after another. Since this suggestion was put forward by Jia Yi, it is inevitable to offend these veteran heroes.
Slander of dignitaries as their agents was demoted: Jia Yi showed his talents soon after he entered the Central Committee, and he was promoted by an exception. It was really smooth sailing, and the young man succeeded. Emperor Wen of the Han Dynasty saw that Jia Yi was a very learned and promising young man and appreciated him very much. So he put forward that Jia Yi should hold a higher public office and entrust him with a heavy responsibility, and handed this idea over to ministers for discussion. I never thought that, in this way; But it met with strong resistance.
The resistance first came from heroes and dignitaries, such as Jiang Hou Zhou Bo, Yin Hou Guan Ying, Dong Yang Zhang Hou Xiangru and Yu Shi Feng Jing. Zhou bo is a small industrialist who weaves thin reeds for a living (he also worked as a drummer), and Guan Ying is a small businessman who sells cloth. They followed the crusade to the east and the expedition to the west, and made outstanding achievements. They were the founding heroes of the Han Dynasty. Later, in addition to, also made new contributions. They were appointed to worship each other and occupy high positions; But they are also uneducated "louts", especially Zhou Bo, who is famous for his "directness and ignorance". By the Wendi Dynasty, they were old, independent, conservative and narrow-minded. When Jia Yi, a young intellectual with profound knowledge and innovative ideas, emerged in the Han Dynasty, on the one hand, these old ministers and dignitaries looked down on him because of his young age and junior qualifications; On the other hand, he is jealous because of his outstanding talent. They can tolerate letting Jia Yi be a doctor, a doctor in the imperial palace and other officials who only talk but don't do it, but once he is promoted to the position of a public official, he is entrusted with a heavy responsibility and is on an equal footing with these powerful people, they can't stand it. They attacked Jia Yi with one voice: "This Luoyang native is young and has little knowledge. He is bent on taking power and wants to mess up many important events in the country!" At that time, shortly after Emperor Wendi ascended the throne, Zhou Bo and Guan Ying were old ministers of the first emperor, with great power. Although Emperor Wen loved Jia Yi's talents, he could not further promote him against the wishes of the powerful.
At that time, there was an insurmountable obstacle in front of Jia Yi, that is, Deng Tong, the favorite of Wendi, and Deng Tong, who was originally a man with no skill, was favored by Wendi for a very absurd reason. It turns out that Wendi Deng is superstitious. Once he dreamed of going to heaven, but he couldn't. A "yellow-headed lang" pushed him from behind, and he was gone. Wendi was very happy when he woke up, so he went to a step-by-step place, secretly looking for this "yellow-headed lang" who pushed him to heaven. I happened to meet a young man who was wearing a yellow hat on the head of a ship. He looks like the man who pushed him to heaven in his dream. Emperor Wen called him and asked his name. He replied that his name was Deng Tong. Wendi was very happy, so he kept him around, often played with him, made him a doctor and gave him a huge sum of money. At that time, Jia Yi happened to accompany Emperor Wen with Deng Tong, and their status was also quite the same. However, Jia Yi hated this courtier who was favored by Wendi because he had no talent, and often mocked him in front of Wendi. Deng Tong also spoke ill of Jia Yi in front of Wendi, which made Wendi gradually alienate Jia Yi.
In this way, the ministers attacked from outside, Deng Tong attacked from inside and attacked from inside, which made Jia Yi not only unable to display his talents and ambitions, but also lost his foothold in the Western Han Dynasty. So Jia Yi was expelled from Beijing and went to Changsha, where he became the teacher of Changsha King. Changsha is located in the south, thousands of miles away from Chang 'an, the capital of Beijing. At that time, the traffic was underdeveloped, the road was long, and it was hard to say. What makes Jia Yi feel worse is the grief and indignation in his heart. He is knowledgeable and ambitious, and wants to help Wendi Deng do something great. Now that he has been demoted, such setbacks make him feel lonely and disappointed. He thought that it was nothing for the two ministers, Jiang Heguan, to attack him, because they were heroes and veterans after all and made great contributions to the Han Dynasty. What he can't stand most is people like Deng Tong. What can he do? He is just a mean person who is good at flattery, and he was demoted because Wendi Deng listened to such embarrassing slanders. Jia Yi couldn't swallow this resentment anyway. He thought of Qu Yuan, a patriotic poet, who was slandered by the powerful minister, was expelled from the capital of Chu and died in the Miluo River. He thought that his experience was similar to that of Qu Yuan, and he missed him even more. He crossed the Xiangjiang River in the south, looked at the surging river, and his thoughts were wandering, so he wrote a poem "Mourning Qufu Garden" to express his reverence and resentment for Qu Yuan.
He wrote: ... what a pity! It is unlucky to meet the times. The phoenix runs around hiding, and the evil birds fly high in the sky. The villain is noble, and the admirer is arrogant. Good and upright people are in adversity, and right and wrong are reversed. In the past, someone falsely accused Bo Yi of taking bribes, saying that stealing soles was kind; He used the sword as a blunt knife, but praised the lead knife for its sharpness! What a shame, Mr. Wang was slandered for no reason. China people don't know themselves, but who can they tell their hearts to? The phoenix flew away. Away from the muddy world, hidden deep.
Changsha was the only kingdom with a different surname (not Liu's) at that time, and it has always been a law-abiding kingdom. When Jia Yi arrived in Changsha, Wu Zhu (a descendant of Wu Rui), the king of Changsha, was in power. As a teacher of Changsha Wang, Jia Yi has little to do and has enough time to learn knowledge. Although Changsha is far from Chang 'an, Jia Yi takes the affairs of the world as his own responsibility and pays close attention to the political and economic affairs of the imperial court. Go to see Emperor Wen whenever you have the chance and put forward your own views and suggestions.
In the same year that Jia Yi was demoted to Changsha (Wen San, former 177), he went to his fief Jiangxian (now Jiangxian, Shaanxi). Jiangxian county belongs to Hedong county. Jiang Hou Zhou Bo is afraid of being hurt by others. County magistrates and county commandants often wear weapons when they go to Jiangxian. In the second year, someone falsely accused Zhou Bo of wanting to rebel. Wendi was confused for a moment, so he handed the case to Ting Wei. Ting Wei arrested Zhou Bo in Chang 'an and put him in prison, which made him tortured by prison officials. Later, Wendi's mother Bo Xilai defended her and she was pardoned. When Jia Yi learned about this in Changsha, he felt wronged for Zhou Bo, so he told Wendy that the monarch should treat his ministers with courtesy, which was actually a criticism of Wendy. Wendi Deng also regretted it. He thought Jia Yi was right and adopted his suggestion. Since then, whenever a minister committed a crime, he was allowed to commit suicide without being arrested and imprisoned.
At that time, Emperor Wendi gave Deng Tong the Yandao copper mine in Shu County and allowed him to make money by himself. As a result, "Deng's money" spread all over the world; Another king of Wu, Liu Bi, was casting money in Tongshan, and Wu's money spread all over the world. In this way, the monetary system will be chaotic. In Changsha, Jia Yi went to Wendi to give lectures on casting money, pointedly pointing out that private casting money exists all over the world, which is not conducive to the country and the people, and suggested that Wendi order it to be banned. However, Deng Tong is a favorite of Emperor Wen, and Tongshan was given to him by Emperor Wen, allowing him to cast money. How could Wendi Deng forbid it? The prince of Wu and Liu Bi are far away in the east, and the sky is high and the emperor is far away, so it is impossible to ban them. Therefore, Jia Yi's suggestion was impossible to be adopted at that time, which only increased Deng Tong's jealousy of him.
One evening in Jia Yi's third year in Changsha, an ostrich flew into his house. An ostrich is an owl. People thought it was an unlucky bird at that time. Jia Yi lives in Changsha, and he is already depressed. Coupled with Changsha's modest attitude, he thought his days were numbered. Now that the owl has entered the house, he is even sadder. So I wrote an essay "On the Ostrich", lamenting the changes of everything in the world, the depravity of the world, and comforting myself at the same time. Here and now, Jia Yi's thoughts and feelings are very complicated.