One day in the spring and Autumn period, King Zhuang of Chu gave a big banquet to his ministers. Everyone happily joined in and drank happily.
Nowadays, the film and television works on the market, especially the so-called high-cost films piled up by some big directors who desperately spend money, have made almost all the audience have an illusion: it is a common small thing for ancient monarchs and ministers to drink and eat meat in large bowls. People always think that ancient monarchs and ministers lived well. In fact, archaeological discoveries and historical studies tell us that the quality of life of Qinshihuang was no better than that of the long-term workers of the land owners during the Republic of China. Ancient people lived a hard life! Even the nobles and civil and military ministers of the state of Chu rarely had the opportunity to eat meat and drink. They ate two meals a day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. They were not hungry. Now as soon as we heard that King Zhuang of Chu was a guest in the village, we all trotted here, faster and more orderly than the previous court.
King Zhuang of Chu was very generous this time. There was not only meat but also wine at the banquet. The ministers were so happy that they ate and drank until the sun fell. They untied their belts and continued to fill their stomachs. No one is willing to leave. The great sage of the Western Zhou Dynasty, Duke Zhou, issued a prohibition against drinking at night. On the surface, the reason is that King Zhou of Shang Dynasty was drunk and conquered the country, so the feudal officials of Zhou Dynasty should take warning; The real reason is that the productivity level of the Zhou Dynasty was too low and the material reserves were too small to support the aristocracy to eat and drink. Therefore, as soon as the sun set in the spring and Autumn period, even the nobles washed and went to sleep. Now that the twilight is beginning to appear, several ministers at the banquet are murmuring in their hearts. The banquet seems to be coming to an end. I’d better hurry up and eat more at the last moment.
Who would have thought? King Zhuang of Chu motioned his servants to light up lights and candles, continue serving wine and food, and announced that he would have a feast with everyone.
The ministers were overjoyed and turned their grateful eyes to King Zhuang of Chu. If their mouths were not full of food, many people would shout long live.
The King Zhuang of Chu is really powerful. A few years ago, he was still a dim king who did not want to make progress all day. After hearing that there was a big bird parked on the mountain of Chu state, he claimed that he was the big bird. If he didn’t fly, he would be a blockbuster. Sure enough, it was amazing that King Zhuang of Chu led the state of Chu to conquer the East and the West in the past two years. On that night, his generosity to the ministers was also amazing.
As the saying goes, it is all right to be full of warmth and lust. Ministers who had been overeating for several hours slowed down their fighting and began to slowly digest the food in their stomachs. Many people lay on their backs with their eyes closed. Are they relishing the delicious food at the banquet, or do they miss their concubines? can make nothing of it.
When King Zhuang of Chu saw that everyone had slowed down their diet and the banquet atmosphere was a little cool, he called his favorite concubine Xu Ji to pour wine for all the ministers in turn. Chinese people all know that beautiful women come from the two lakes region. Since Xu Ji is favored by the king of Chu, she naturally represents the highest level of beautiful women in Hunan and Guangzhou. Her beauty can not be described by my humble pen. I saw several ministers in the court, looking at Xu Ji Shi ran pouring wine, and their eyes became ambiguous.
A gust of night wind blew out all the lights in the hall. The party plunged into darkness. Xu Ji, who was bending over to pour wine, was suddenly dragged by a big hand. She felt a mouth full of wine coming up. Xu Ji, who was both wise and beautiful, quickly stabilized her center of gravity and stood firm. One hand passed over the man’s head and touched the top of her helmet. Xuji had an idea and broke the tassel on her helmet.
Xu Ji blushed, hurried back to King Zhuang of Chu, and told the king what had happened. Flirting with the king’s favorite imperial concubine is to offend the king. Flirting with the princess in front of the king is a greater sin. That daring lecher is going to have bad luck. The question is, who is this person? Xu Ji took out the broken hat tassel and quietly suggested that after lighting the lights and candles again, whoever had no hat tassel on the top of his helmet would be punished.
After hearing this, King Zhuang of Chu said loudly, “today, the monarchs and ministers drink to the fullest. We don’t have to be restrained, sit upright, or dress neatly. Come on, let’s take off the hat tassels on our helmets. Be casual.” At the same time, he motioned people to put off lighting. After the ministers took off their hats one after another, King Zhuang of Chu asked them to light candles again and reopen the feast. That night, the monarchs and ministers of the state of Chu drank away happily. Only Xu Ji was left to cry with her head bowed. At that time, the woman was orthodox. A man who pulled her hand seemed to take away her virginity. It doesn’t matter that women and all kinds of men hug each other.
The case of sexual harassment of the princess, which took place in the court of the state of Chu, was thus covered up.
In the eyes of King Zhuang of Chu, politics comes first, and the most beautiful and favorite women are secondary. Women should serve politics. Therefore, he would not hurt the relationship between monarchs and ministers for a woman, but would use it to buy the loyalty of a minister. In fact, the king of Chu Zhuang succeeded. Three years later, the states of Chu and Jin fought for hegemony. A general of the state of Chu (some say his name is Tang Xian, others say his name is Jiang Qi) fought fearlessly into the enemy’s ranks. King Zhuang of Chu stopped him between battles and asked strangely, “I don’t give you special treatment at ordinary times. Why do you sacrifice your life and death to fight for me?” The general replied, “do you remember the banquet three years ago? I was the man whose hat tassel was broken. When the king didn’t kill me, I decided to swear allegiance to the king to the death and repay his kindness.” It was precisely because King Zhuang of Chu used various means to gather the morale of the people that the Chu army finally defeated the Jin army and established its hegemony.
The previous feast, according to the habits of ancient historians and good scholars, needed to be given a loud name to commemorate, “jueying Association”, “plucking Association” and other names poured in. A good man wrote a poem and said, “you are drunk with love by holding your hands in the dark, and your jade hands are like the wind. You can say that the King River is vast, and you should not distinguish between livestock, fish and water.”
No one has ever paid attention to the neglected Xu Ji. The relationship between the monarch and the minister has become stronger. The king of Chu Zhuang has bought people’s hearts and achieved hegemony. What about Xu Ji? She was sexually harassed by someone (the severity of sexual harassment in the spring and Autumn period was much higher than now). Should she be harassed?
It is a pity that the ancient Chinese history is basically the history of men, and there is nothing about women. We take the famous romance of the Three Kingdoms as an example. In this work, if those concubines and maid maids are excluded, only three women appear in the book. One is Diaochan, who was used as a tool by situ Wangyun to make a beauty trick and let her hover between DongZhuo and Lv Bu. Diaochan is a toy that was scrambled by two men. After the defeat of DongZhuo and Lv Bu, she also got the bad name of “beauty is a disaster”. The second is sun Shangxiang, who dances with knives and guns and is very unpopular with his family. As a result, she was designed by her brother Sun Quan, Minister Zhou Yu and others to “marry” uncle Liu Bei as a gift to kill the enemy’s morale. Later, Liu Bei developed and turned against Sun Quan. Sun Shangxiang returned to the eastern Wu in a gloomy way. Scholars of later generations, such as Luo Guanzhong, may think that this woman has too much personality and needs to move closer to the “main melody”, so they arranged for sunshangxiang the ending of Liu Bei’s funeral in the river after his death. The third female character is Mrs. Zhu Rong. She was so powerful that she threw a good throwing knife and captured many Shuhan generals in a row. It’s a pity that Luo Guanzhong didn’t look at her at all, because Mrs. Zhu Rong was the wife of Meng Huo, a Southwest barbarian who was so stupid that he was caught six times in a row and didn’t have a long memory until the seventh time. “A person who has become an outsider” is not worth mentioning.
Discrimination, outright discrimination. Feminists often criticize the words and deeds that discriminated against women in ancient China with indignation, and hold grievances for women’s humble status. In ancient times, women were basically from their father at home, married from their husband, and died from their son. Let alone have any career, it would be good if they didn’t catch up with the emperor to be buried. Feminists often cite the ancient example of forcing widows to go on hunger strike and commit suicide and martyrdom, which has been criticized by Lu Xun and others. Can’t a woman’s life be compared with a chastity plaque of the county magistrate? According to some extreme feminists, in ancient times, women should be completely equal to men, not dependent on men, not confined to the family, and do everything men can do, including being a female emperor. Some people believe that as long as ancient women were given a fulcrum, they could pry up the earth.
Archaeological discoveries and logical reasoning tell us that the idea of realizing gender equality in ancient times is beautiful, but it is unreasonable. The humble banquet given by the monarchs and ministers of the state of Chu can prove how hard the material life in ancient times was. Men have worked hard for a year, slash and burn, but in the end they often can not solve the problem of food and clothing. In ancient times, the distribution of population was also very small, which was not enough to ensure the safety of most people. There were even tigers and wolves in a few places. Under such circumstances, it is unfair for women, especially inexperienced girls, to engage in the cause that men strive for life. After all, there is a gap between men and women in physical strength and energy. Considering the working conditions at that time, women may not be competent for farming, breeding, trafficking, trading and other jobs, and more difficult jobs such as ocean navigation, mining, and military operations are even less suitable for women. Feminists who clamored for complete equality between men and women in ancient times are estimated to be white-collar workers and leisure people in office buildings and bars. They don’t have a back ache when standing and talking. In today’s office buildings, women can really do all the work. But in the ancient times, they fought against heaven, earth, people, wolves, tigers and leopards?
Those who advocated the complete equality between men and women in ancient times were in fact women persecutors who practiced inequality in the name of equality.
There was another meaning of ancient women’s dependent status: Men’s responsibility to women. Since ancient women were attached to men, their fathers, husbands and sons were responsible for them and wanted to ensure women’s life and safety. Women can be free from hard work, sun and rain. It is the conclusion drawn by the ancients in their arduous life that men are in charge of external affairs and women are in charge of internal affairs, which naturally has its reason. Of course, the status of women in ancient times was not good, sometimes very bad. Just like Xu Ji, she has no worries about food and clothing, but she is not in a good mood. Her husband, King Zhuang of Chu, did his duty, but it was not enough. King Zhuang of Chu should not consider Xu Ji’s feelings for political reasons. In addition to food, drink, housing and transportation, life also includes feelings, emotions, concepts and so on. In ancient times when men and women were unequal, men might have met women’s material needs, but they did not consider all women’s needs equally and completely. Perhaps the history of women’s dependence on men has been too long, and men have gradually forgotten their equal treatment and profound observation of women. They would rather talk with boring colleagues and first-time drinkers for several hours than talk with their wife for a quarter of an hour on an equal footing and take it for granted to arrange their daughter’s marriage. This is the root cause of many female tragedies, which should be condemned by today’s feminists.
For the problem of King Zhuang of Chu, if he is not willing to light the lamp to get justice for his beloved concubine, he should at least explain his consideration to her afterwards, comfort her and thank her. Unfortunately, King Zhuang of Chu did not do it, so he was not a good husband.