Historical Stories
One, Crouching on Salary
King Goujian of Yue (c. 520 - 465 BC), surnamed Si, also known as Hatsuasa and Miscanthus, was a descendant of Xia Yu, the son of King Yunchang of Yue, the king of Yue at the end of Spring and Autumn Period. In 496 B.C., King Goujian of Yue assumed the throne, and in the same year, he defeated the Wu army at Li Li. In the third year (494 BC), King Goujian was defeated by the Wu army at Fujiao and was forced to beg for peace with Wu. After three years, he was released and returned to Vietnam, where he reused Fan Li and Wen Qi, and gradually restored the power of the state of Vietnam.
In the fifteenth year of King Goujian's reign (482 years ago), King Fuchai of Wu raised an army to participate in the meeting of the Yellow Pond to show the force of the rate of the elite. King Goujian of Yue seized the opportunity to lead his troops and defeated the Wu division. Fu Chai hastily made an alliance with Jin and returned, and was defeated in a series of battles with Goujian, so he had no choice but to negotiate peace with Yue.
In the 19th year of King Goujian's reign (478 BC), Goujian once again led his army to attack Wu, and defeated the main force of the Wu army in the battle of Kasazawa in three battles. In the 24th year of the reign of King Goujian of Yue (473 years ago), he broke the capital of Wu, forced Fu Chai to kill himself, destroyed Wu and claimed hegemony, crossed the Huai River with his troops, and met the lords of Qi, Song, Jin, and Lu in Xuzhou (present-day Tengzhou, Shandong Province, south of the city), moved his capital to Langya, and became the last hegemon of the Spring and Autumn Period.
Second, the deer for a horse
The story goes that Zhao Gao tried to usurp the throne, and in order to test which ministers in the court obeyed his wishes, he specially presented a deer to Qin Ershi, and said that it was a horse. When Qin Ershi did not believe him, Zhao Gao used the excuse to ask his ministers. The ministers who did not dare to go against Zhao Gao's wishes all said it was a horse, while those who dared to oppose Zhao Gao said it was a deer.
The ministers who said it was a deer were later killed by Zhao Gao by various means. The story of calling a deer a horse has been passed down to this day, and people use the idiom to describe a person who confuses right and wrong and turns black and white upside down.
Three: Siege of Wei to Save Zhao
In 354 B.C., Wei's army besieged Handan, the capital of Zhao, and the two sides fought and defended it for more than a year, with Zhao weakening and Wei getting tired. At this time, Qi responded to Zhao's request for help and sent Tian Ji as general and Sun Bin as military advisor, leading 80,000 troops to save Zhao. Where to attack? At first, Tian Ji was ready to go straight to Handan. Sun Bin thought, to untangle the messy threads, you can't pull it by hand, to arrange others to fight, you can't directly participate in the fight. To send troops to relieve the siege, we should avoid the real and hit the key points.
He suggested to Tian Ji, "At this time, Wei's elite troops are all concentrated in Handan, the internal emptiness, if we take troops to the capital city of Wei, Daliang, stormed in, occupying its major transportation routes, attacking its emptiness, and marching to the capital city of Wei, Daliang, it will inevitably put down the State of Zhao to return to its own salvation. "Taking advantage of its fatigue, the Qi army met the enemy on the way back at Guiling, a pre-selected combat area, and the Wei army was defeated, so the siege of Handan was lifted.
Sun Bin's use of the siege of Wei to rescue Zhao is a very famous example in Chinese history, and has been listed by later militarists as one of the important plans in the Thirty-Six Stratagems. This is a very famous battle example in Chinese history, and was listed as one of the most important of the 36 stratagems by the later military scientists.
Four, backwater battle
Han Xin is the military wizard in the Chu-Han War. In October of the third year of Han Gaozu's reign (204 BC), Han Xin led tens of thousands of newly recruited Han troops to cross the Taihang Mountains and attack the state of Zhao to the east. Chen Yu, the ruler of Cheng'an, concentrated 200,000 troops and occupied the mouth of the Well Defile, a choke point east of the Taihang Mountains, in preparation for the battle.
West of the well-flanked pass, there was a narrow road about a hundred miles long, with mountains on both sides and a narrow path for Han Xin to pass through. Li Zuo Che, a strategist of the Zhao army, proposed a plan: to defend the front without fighting, and send soldiers around to the back to cut off Han Xin's grain route, so as to trap Han Xin in the narrow road of the well-flanked pass. Chen Yu refused to listen, saying, "Han Xin only has a few thousand men, and the attack is thousands of miles away. If we avoid the attack, will we not let the lords look at us as a joke?"
After detecting the news, Han Xin quickly led the Han army into the well-flanked narrow road and set up camp thirty miles from the mouth of the defile. In the middle of the night, Han Xin sent two thousand light cavalry, each with a Han flag, to detour from the trail to the rear of the Zhao camp to ambush them, and Han Xin cautioned, "In the event of an engagement, when the Zhao army sees that our army has fled in defeat, they will surely pour out their nests in pursuit of us, so you will rush into the Zhao camp with all speed and fire, pull down the Zhao flag, and put up the red flag of the Han army."
The rest of the Han army ate some simple dry food and then immediately marched to the mouth of the defile. When they reached the mouth of the defile, the brigade crossed the Mianmanshui and set up in formation with the water at their backs, and the Zhao army on the heights laughed at Han Xin when they saw it from afar.
After dawn, Han Xin set up his general's banners and regalia, and led his men to drive out of the defile. Chen Yu swarmed out with his entire army to capture him alive. Han Xin pretended to throw away his flag and drum and fled back to his position by the river.
Chen Yu ordered the whole Zhao army to attack, and pushed the Han army's position. The Han army had no way to retreat, so they all fought bravely. The two sides fought for half a day, but the Zhao army could not win. When the Zhao army wanted to retreat to their camp, they realized that their camp was full of Han flags, and their ranks were in great disorder. Han Xin took advantage of the situation to counterattack, and the Zhao army was defeated, Chen Yu was killed in battle, and the king of Zhao was captured.
After the battle, someone asked, "In the art of war, it is said that we should form a line of battle with our backs to the mountains and our faces to the water, but this time we fought with our backs to the water, and actually won the battle, why is that?" Han Xin said: "The art of war does not also say 'trapped in the death of the ground and then live, put the death of the ground and then survive'? It's just that you haven't noticed it."
V. Taking a Bramble
After the end of the Mianchi Conference, Lin Xiangru was made upper minister, above Lian Po, because of his hard work and outstanding contributions to the state of Zhao.
Lian Po said, "I am a general of Zhao, and I have made great achievements in attacking cities and fighting in the field, while Lin Xiangru has only made some achievements by his ability to speak well, but he is above me, and besides, Xiangru was originally a commoner, so I feel ashamed, and it is hard for me to bear being below him." And he threatened, "When I meet Xiangru, I will humiliate him."
After hearing this, Xiangru refused to meet him. Whenever Xiangru came to the court, he often said that he was sick, and did not want to fight with Lian Po over the order of precedence. When Xiangru went out, he saw Lian Po from a distance in the lane of Handan city, and ordered his driver to drive the car into the middle of the road without giving Lin Xiangru a chance, but Lin Xiangru turned the car around to avoid him.
Some of Lin Xiangru's men came together and advised him frankly, saying, "We left our relatives to serve you because we admire your nobility and righteousness. Now you and Lian Po are in the same official position, and Mr. Lian is afraid of avoiding him because of his bad words, so you are too afraid, and the mediocre people are still ashamed, not to mention the generals and ministers!
We men are worthless, please let us take our leave!" Lin Xiangru firmly detained them, saying, "Who do you all think is the best General Lian compared to the King of Qin?" The answer was, "General Lian cannot compare with the King of Qin." Xiangru said, "Given the might of the King of Qin, whereas I dared to rebuke him and humiliate his ministers at court, would I, Lin Xiangru, though incompetent, be afraid of General Lian?
But it occurred to me that the reason why the mighty Qin didn't dare to attack the city of Handan in Zhao was because of General Lian and I. Now that the two tigers are fighting, they are bound not to **** survive. So I hold back like this, just to put the country's emergency in the front, and put my personal grudge in the back."
Lin Xiangru's words reached Lian Po's ears. Lian Po took a moment to think about it, and felt that he should not have disregarded his country's interests just for the sake of fighting for a breath of air. So he took off his war robe and carried thorns on his back, and went to the door of Lin Xiangru's residence to ask for pardon. When Lin Xiangru saw Lian Po come to ask for punishment, he came out to greet him warmly. From then on, the two of them became good friends and worked together to defend the state of Zhao.
Mythological Stories
I. The Cowherd and the Weaving Maiden
Legend has it that the Weaving Maiden is the daughter of the Jade Emperor and Yao Ji, and that after she met Altair, the two of them fell in love with each other at first sight and made a private bet for life, but the rules of the heavens did not allow a man to fall in love with a woman and to fall in love with a woman in a private way.
So the Queen Mother relegated Altair to the earth and punished the weaving maiden for her incessant weaving of cloud brocade. The weaver was often in tears as she sat at her loom, but she would still weave the cloud brocade with all her heart, in order to win the Queen Mother's mercy and allow Altair to return to Heaven as soon as possible. One day, several nymphs, seeing that the weaving maiden was bored all day long, pleaded with the Queen Mother to let them go to the Bilian Pond on earth for a trip together.
The Queen Mother was in a good mood, so she granted them permission. The story goes that after being relegated to the mortal world, Altair was born into a peasant family and named "Cowherd". Due to the early death of his parents, his brother and sister-in-law treated him very badly, so he lived with an old cow. Unbeknownst to him, the old ox was the star of the Golden Calf, who had been sent down to earth by the Queen Mother to plead for mercy for Altair.
One day, the old ox suddenly said to Cowherd, "You go to the Bilian Pond today, there are some fairies bathing over there, you hide the red fairy clothes, the owner of the red fairy clothes will be your wife." Seeing that the old ox could talk, and knowing that it was a divine creature, the cowherd did as the old ox said. The owner of that red fairy garment was none other than the Weaving Maiden, and although the cowherd could no longer remember the Weaving Maiden, the Weaving Maiden recognized him as Altair.
So the Weaving Maiden agreed to the Cowherd's proposal, and the two were married and began a happy life. Soon, they also had a son and a daughter. However, the good times didn't last long. The Queen Mother knew about this and quickly sent her soldiers to catch the Weaving Maiden back to the Heavenly Court.
On this day, the Weaving Maiden was cooking, and the Cowherd, who had come back from the field, told her, "The old cow died, and he said that he would let me skin it, so that I could fly up to the sky with it on in case of emergency." When the Weaving Maiden heard this, she naturally understood the meaning of the old ox, so she let the Cowherd peel off the cow's skin and bury the old ox. Just then, a great wind blew, and the Weaving Maiden was taken away by the heavenly soldiers and generals.
When the cowherd saw this, he hurriedly put on the old cow's skin, and peach on a pair of baskets, in which sat their pair of children. Seeing that they were about to catch up with the Weaving Maiden, the Queen Mother arrived just in time. When she saw this, she pulled down the golden hairpin on her head and drew a line between the cowherd and the weaving maiden, and at once a rippling heavenly river crossed between the cowherd and the weaving maiden.
The Cowherd with his two children cried on this side of the river, and the Weaving Maiden looked at her husband and children on the other side of the river and wept with all her might. The Queen Mother was also touched by this scene, so she let the Cowherd and the two children stay in the sky, and only allowed them to meet at the Magpie Bridge on the seventh day of the seventh month every year. Now, we can still see two larger, bright stars on either side of the Milky Way among the stars in the autumn night sky, which are Vega and Altair, and two small stars on either side of Altair, which are the pair of children of the Cowherd and the Weaving Maiden.
Second, Nvwa created man
After the heavens and the earth opened up, there was the sun, the moon, and the stars in the sky, and on the earth there were mountains, rivers, grasses, and trees, and even birds, animals, bugs, and fish, but there were no human beings. The world, no matter how to say, always seem a little desolate and lonely.
At some point, there appeared a goddess called Nuwa. It was said that she could change seventy times in a day. One day, the great goddess Nuwa was walking in this mangy wilderness, looking around her and feeling very lonely. She felt that she should add something to this heaven and earth to make it vibrant, what should she add?
Walking and walking, she became a little tired of walking, and happened to squat down next to a pool. The clear water of the pool reflected her face and figure; she laughed, and the shadows in the pool laughed at her; she pretended to be angry, and the shadows in the pool were also angry at her. Suddenly she had an idea: "Although, there are all kinds of creatures in the world, but there is no creature like herself alone, so why not create a creature like herself to join the world?"
She put the little thing on the ground. Strange to say, this clay pinch of the little guy, just touch the ground, on the living up, and open the mouth to shout: "Mom!" Then there was a giddy leaping and cheering that signaled his joy at being given life.
When Nuwa looked at this clever and beautiful creature she had created with her own hands, and heard the shouts of "Mommy", she could not help but be filled with joy and smiles, and she gave her beloved child a name, called "Man".
The body of man was small, but it was said that because he was created by God, he looked and acted somewhat like God, and was different from the birds that flew and the beasts that crawled. In this way, it seems to have an extraordinary aura of managing the universe.
Nuwa was pleased with her work. So she went on with her work, and from yellow clay she made many lovely little figures that could talk and walk. These little people jumped and cheered around her, giving her indescribable joy and comfort in spirit. From then on, she never felt lonely and isolated again.
She worked and worked and worked until the evening sun filled the sky and the stars and moon shot out their ghostly light. As the night wore on, she only rested her head on the cliff and slept a little, and the next day, just as the sky was waning, she hastened to rise again and continue her work.
She was bent on filling the earth with these sensitive little creatures. But, after all, the earth was too big, and she worked long and hard, but not as long as she would have liked, and she herself was already weary.
At last, she came up with a brilliant way to create humans. She pulled down a withered vine from the cliff face, reached into a pool of mud, stirred it into a muddy yellow slurry, and swung it so far toward the ground that where the muddy dots splashed down, there appeared a number of tiny screaming and jumping human beings, in the same shape as the little people who had been made out of the yellow mud earlier. The cries of "mommy" and "mommy" echoed around the room.
Working in this way was really simple and trouble-free. With a wave of the cane, several living beings appeared, and soon the earth was covered with traces of humans. Although there were humans on the earth, Nuwa's work did not end there. She thought again: people are going to die, so would it be too much trouble to create another batch of people after one batch of death? That would be too much trouble. How could they survive? It was a difficult problem.
Then she finally came up with a way to divide the little people into men and women, and let the men and women work together, telling them to create their own offspring. In this way, the human race stretched on for generations and added more and more every day.
Three, Wu Gang felled Gui
Nantianmen Wu Gang and Chang'e in the moon is very good, but he often hangs with Chang'e to meet, and negligence of duty. When the Jade Emperor found out about this, he punished Wu Gang to cut down a big tree called laurel in the moon, and if Wu Gang didn't cut down this laurel tree, he couldn't go back to the South Heavenly Gate and couldn't meet with Chang E. He was very happy with Chang E, and he was very happy with Wu Gang.
Wu Gang cut down the laurel tree, Wu Gang cut ah, cut ah, from winter to summer, cut a full half a year, see the tree is about to cut all the Jade Emperor, but the Jade Emperor sent crows to come to the side of the laurel tree, "swish" sound, the Wu Gang hanging in the tree of the blouse to take away.
Wu Gang immediately put down his axe and went after the crow. After recovering the clothes, Wu Gang went back to the tree and saw that all the branches and leaves that had been cut down had returned to the tree. From then on, whenever Wu Gang was about to cut down all the branches and leaves of the laurel tree, the crow stood on the tree and cried "wah wah wah", and Wu Gang only had to stop the axe and look at it, and the tree would grow back.
In this way, year after year, Wu Gang could not cut down the laurel tree. Only on the 16th day of the 8th month of every year did a leaf fall from the moon to the ground. Whoever is the most industrious, the golden leaf will float to his house, and that house will have endless wealth.
Four: Nezha's Foolishness
The wife of Li Jing, the general of Chentang Pass, was pregnant for three years and six months when she gave birth to a ball of flesh. Suddenly, a boy jumped out of the ball. When Li Jing is upset, a Taoist priest named Taiyi Zhenzhen comes to congratulate him, names the boy Nezha, takes him as his disciple, and gives him two treasures: the Qiankun Circle and the Huntian Aya.
When Nezha was seven years old, a drought broke out, and the Dragon King of the East China Sea refused to release any water, ordering the Night Forks to go to the sea to rob boys and girls. Nezha, who was seven years old, killed the Nightjar with a Qiankun circle and Ao Beng, the son of the Dragon King, who had come to reinforce him. The Dragon King went to the Heavenly Palace to lodge a complaint, but was beaten half to death by Nezha on the way. So the Dragon King of the East China Sea invited his three brothers to *** discuss the plan of revenge.
The next day, the Dragon King of the Four Seas led his water soldiers and generals to raise a storm, flooding the Chentang Pass?
The next day, the Dragon King of the Four Seas led his soldiers to flood the Chentang Pass and demanded that Li Jing hand over Nezha. When Nezha tried to fight back, Li Jing stopped him and took away two of Nezha's magic treasures. Nezha kills himself for the sake of the people of the city. Afterward, Tai Yi Zhen Zhen borrows a lotus flower and a fresh lotus root to bring Ne Zha back to life. After his reincarnation, Ne Zha, armed with a spear of fire and a wheel of wind and fire, wreaked havoc in the Dragon Palace, defeating the Dragon King and ridding the city of evil.
Fifth, Kwa-Fu chases the sun
In ancient times, in the wilderness of the north, there was a lofty and majestic mountain that towered into the clouds. In the depths of the mountain forest, there lived a group of giants of infinite strength. Their leader was the grandson of the god of the underworld, Houtu, and the son of Xin, and his name was Kuafu. Therefore, this group of people was called the Kuafu Clan. They were strong and sturdy, tall and stout, with strong willpower and extraordinary vigor. They were also kind-hearted, hard-working and courageous, and lived a life of peace and freedom.
At that time, the land was inhospitable, poisonous snakes and fierce beasts were rampant, and people's lives were miserable. In order to enable the people of his tribe to survive, he led the people to fight against the floods and fierce beasts every day. He used to hang the vicious yellow snakes he caught on his ears as decorations, and waved them in his hands to make himself proud.
One year the weather was so hot that the hot sun shone directly on the earth, killing the crops, scorching the trees, and drying up the rivers. The heat was unbearable, and the people of the Quafu tribe died one after another. Kwa Fu was very sad to see this, he looked up at the sun and told his people, "The sun is really hateful, I want to catch up with the sun and catch it, so that it will listen to people's command." The clansmen listened and discouraged him.
Some said, "You mustn't go, the sun is so far away, you will die of exhaustion." Some said, "The sun is so hot, you will be roasted to death."
Qua Fu's mind was made up, and he vowed to catch the sun so that it would do the people's bidding and serve them all. He looked at his sorrowful clan and said, "For the happiness of all, I must go."
The sun had just risen from the sea, and Quafu said goodbye to his clan, and with great ambition, he took great strides in pursuit of the sun from the edge of the East China Sea in the direction in which it had risen, and began his journey against the sun. The sun was moving fast in the air, and Kuafu was chasing after it like the wind on the ground. He passed through a mountain, crossed a river, the earth was his footsteps, vibration "boom" sound, swaying back and forth.
When he was tired of running, he took a nap and shook the dirt from his shoes onto the ground, forming a big mountain of dirt. When he was hungry, he picked wild fruits to fill his stomach, and sometimes Quatre cooked. He set up a pot with three stones, which, in turn, became three tripod mountains, thousands of meters high.
Kwafu ran after the sun, and as he saw that he was getting closer and closer to the sun, his confidence grew stronger and stronger. The closer he got to the sun, the more thirsty he became, and it was no longer possible to quench his thirst by holding a river. But he wasn't afraid and kept encouraging himself, "Soon, it's going to catch up with the sun, and people's lives will be happy."
After nine days and nine nights, at the place where the sun was setting, Quatre finally caught up with it. The red, hot ball of fire was right in front of Quaife's eyes, and above him, ten thousand rays of golden light bathed him.
Kwafu was so happy that he opened his arms and tried to hold the sun in his arms, but the sun was so hot that he felt thirsty and tired. He ran to the Yellow River and drank all the water there; he ran to the Wei River and drank all the water there, but his thirst was not quenched; and he ran northward, where there was a great swamp that stretched for thousands of miles, and there was enough water in the swamp to quench his thirst.
But he died of thirst halfway across the river before he could reach the Great Marsh. As he was dying, Kwa-Fu's heart was filled with regret, and he was still holding on to his people, so he threw the wooden staff he was holding out. Where the staff landed, a large, lush peach forest sprang up. This forest flourished all year round, providing shade for passers-by, and producing fresh peaches to quench the thirst of hardworking people, so that they could eliminate fatigue and embark on the journey with energy.