One of the three top gangsters in ancient China: Lu Buwei
I don’t know when the word gangster originated. I don’t have any reference books like Etymology Dictionary at hand, so I dare not jump to random conclusions. According to the explanation of "Modern Chinese Dictionary", hooligan originally refers to unemployed vagrants, and later refers to people who do not do their job properly and do evil things. This latter meaning should have appeared in the vernacular later. In the 1970s and 1980s, people in mainland China usually referred to hooligans as people who had sexual relations problems between men and women. There is another word related to hooligans called "playing hooligans". But "playing a gangster" does not mean teasing a gangster, but a gangster teasing others. Why this is the case, I don’t understand.
Although the meaning of hooligans specifically referring to the relationship between men and women is new, the behavior of messing up the relationship between men and women has a history of thousands of years in China. Many such stories are also recorded in our ancient books. Looking back, according to my research, the earliest big gangster in our country's history appeared at the end of the Warring States Period. His name is Lu Buwei. His hooligan behavior directly led to the unification of China. As Chinese, it is not an exaggeration to call him the "ancestor of gangsters".
Lu Buwei was a famous businessman at that time. His best skill is to use money and beautiful women to corrupt state cadres, and then use them to serve himself. When doing business in Zhao State, he accidentally met Zi Chu at an investment meeting. Zi Chu was the son of Prince Qin and was exchanged to Handan as a hostage. At that time, the relationship between Qin and Zhao was tense and frictions often occurred. Zhao Guoren naturally didn't have a good look on Zi Chu. Zichu often went hungry and had a full meal, and his life was extremely miserable. He had no choice but to rely on the black diplomatic license plate on his carriage to sneak into public banquets and enjoy the autumn breeze. Lu Buwei has a unique vision and believes that Zichu belongs to the category of rare and habitable commodities, so he decides to use him to achieve his own goals.
After some bargaining, Zichu agreed to sign a contract with Lu Buwei. According to the agreement, Lu Buwei was responsible for sending Zi Chu to the throne of the king of Qin. Zichu, on the other hand, handed over half of Qin's market share to Lu's enterprise management. It is a pity that the original copy of this agreement has been lost. Otherwise, it could be used as strong evidence that our country entered monopoly capitalism in BC.
After the agreement came into effect, Lu Buwei invested a thousand gold of his own to fully repackage Zichu, and personally went to the State of Qin to carry out several rounds of bribery and public relations activities, making it visible at every intersection in the capital of Qin. Poster of Zi Chu's image. Zi Chu on the poster has a tall and strong body after taking steroids. This has a great affinity for the martial Qin royal family and people. At the same time, he also bribed the concubines in the harem with heavy sums of money, asking them to whisper in King Qin's ears for Zi Chu. All these efforts finally came to fruition: after Zichu's father became the king of Qin, Zichu, who was not the eldest son, was established as the prince of Qin. Zi Chu never dreamed that he, who was not loved by his grandma and unloved by his uncle and was a victim among the royal family, would be able to feel proud one day. From then on, he obeyed Lu Buwei's advice and never did what he wanted.
In order to further implement his plan, the wily Lu Buwei gave his beautiful concubine to Prince Qin. At that time, this beautiful concubine was pregnant, but the prince didn't know it. He thought he was getting a big deal and happily took the beauty home. It is said that on the day of the wedding, Prince Qin's face was filled with joy from the morning until he entered the bridal chamber, and his mouth never closed once. That day, people all over the city rushed to tell each other, "Look at the prince's face!"
Compared with Lu Buwei, Prince Qin had much less social experience and did not understand why there is no free lunch in the world. He belongs to what later generations call "Too simple, sometimes naive" kind of people. Later, the beauty gave birth to a son, and the prince was even more happy. Name the child "Yingzheng". This shows that he has been kept in the dark. He thought he had "won everything", but he didn't know that he had "lost everything".
Later, Ying Zheng grew up slowly. Lu Buwei's talents as a businessman and a gangster are increasingly reflected in him. Through clever plunder and plunder, he conquered the world and finally unified the country. Lu Buwei also "becomes an official if he excels in business" and became the prime minister of the current dynasty who was "below one person and superior to ten thousand people". Yingzheng also respectfully called him Zhongfu. Even though he was extremely rich and powerful, Lu Buwei still did not change his true nature as a gangster and continued to have an inappropriate relationship with the concubine he once loved, and now the Queen Mother. Later generations said that "Lü Jiao did not change" was referring to this matter.
In order to cover up his whereabouts, Lu Buwei deliberately recruited a wide range of customers and turned his house into a farmer's market, with crowds of people every day. He disguised himself and blended in and out of the crowd. At the same time, he also took advantage of the literati's eye for money and hired a large number of writers to write his memoirs. This memoir was edited by him and called "Lu's Spring and Autumn Annals". Translated into modern Chinese, it is "My Life: The Unforgettable Story of a Rogue who has experienced strong winds and waves, been in the sea, been an official, and messed up the relationship between men and women." After his "editing", the names of all those who participated in the writing were erased from the book. As the first celebrity editor in history, Lu Buwei set a very bad example for future generations. He bears unshirkable responsibility for the widespread practice of celebrities acting as nominal editors and only receiving royalties but not doing any actual work.
"Anyone who commits many unjust acts will be punished by his own death." Lu Buwei is no exception. Among the disciples supported by Lu Buwei, there was an ambitious writer named Li Si. Dissatisfied that his labor remuneration was harshly withheld by Lu Buwei's officials, he made a small report to Ying Zheng and reported the affair between Lu and the Queen Mother. In order to rule the country with virtue, Qin Shihuang had no choice but to kill his relatives and ordered Lu Buwei to be punished. Lu knew that his time had come, so he committed suicide by taking poison before waiting for the emperor's decree to arrive. This lesson tells us that when the country calls for "ruling the country with virtue", it is usually when there are big hooligans among those in power.
During his lifetime, Lu Buwei had great power. No one in China dares to talk about him. It wasn't until the news spread that he had committed suicide by the government that everyone dared to speak. Later generations compiled people's comments about him into a book titled "China Can Say "No"" ("No" is Lu Buwei's "No"). With the death of Lu Buwei, the gangsters also fell silent for decades. It was not until the end of the Qin Dynasty that another great gangster (Liu Bang) emerged and embarked on a jaw-dropping gangster career. However, this is my next chapter of the story.
The second of the three top gangsters in ancient China: Liu Bang
Last time we talked about Lu Buwei, the founder of gangsters. This time we talk about Liu Bang, the ancestor of gangsters. The Han Dynasty founded by Liu Bang is the source of our Han nationality's name, and commemorating him is our duty. What a coincidence, he is also a big gangster. As the saying goes, "There are gangsters in every generation, and each one leads the way for decades."
According to "Historical Records", Liu Bang has been exposed to gangster habits since he was young. When he was the director of the pavilion in Peixian County, he was famous for his lust and alcoholism. Once, a friend of the county magistrate named Lu brought his family to seek refuge with him from other places. As soon as he settled down, Liu Bang, Xiao He, Cao Shen and other friends came to join in the fun. They even call it door-to-door delivery of warmth, but in fact their real target is Lao Lutou's beautiful daughter Lu Pheasant. Lao Lu was well-informed, and he was like a mirror in his heart. He was happy to take this opportunity to earn back the moving expenses, so he used the excuse that there were too many guests and there was no room to sit in the house. He arranged for the doorkeeper to give gifts of more than one thousand yuan to all guests. Those who had money brought it indoors, while those who had less money stayed in the yard waiting for water and mats. Those without money are simply not allowed in. According to my research, this is the first time in history that tickets have been collected, and the quality of seats is distinguished according to the ticket price, which is quite in line with the principles of "fairness, openness and impartiality". This method later spread abroad. To this day, American political parties still rely on this method to raise funds. Therefore, the United States is thousands of years behind China.
By the way, everyone else paid for the ticket honestly, but Liu Bang said without changing his face when he entered the door, without changing his heart. He walked up to the main room swaggeringly. He thus became the first person in history to successfully cheat on tickets. Poor Xiao He, who was following Liu Bang, took out all his pockets and could only scrape together 2,178 yuan, and finally wrote an IOU to settle the matter. Xiao He had never suffered such grievances in his life, and he was so angry! What was even more irritating was that when he entered the main room, he discovered that in less than three minutes, Lao Lu had agreed to betroth his daughter to Liu Bang. Now Xiao He couldn't bear it any longer: Damn, is there any way for honest people to survive in this world! We paid for it, and we didn't even see Lu Pheasant's face. You, Liu Bang, took care of them. This is too much. He's a gangster! Xiao He is a scholar and can't beat Liu Bang, so he has to get in front of Lao Lu and give Liu Bang eye drops: Liu Si loves to brag, and he has never done anything serious. ("Liu Jigu's big words lead to few achievements.") Even after more than two thousand years, these words still sound full of jealousy. It is not difficult to imagine how jealous he was towards Liu Bang at that time.
If Xiao He had lived to this day, he would have disclosed the scandals of Liu Bang's life in detail on the Internet, written some articles of accusation such as "I find a lady for corrupt officials", and confided that he was forced by life and had to pay for the people he hated. The grievances of doing things.
Liu Bang is a gangster. After getting married, he soon couldn't stand the boring life of marriage. In order to escape the shackles of his family, he hid in the Mangdang Mountains and played a hide-and-seek game with Lu Pheasant. Later, in order to commemorate this time, he renamed Mangdang Mountain "Mangdang" Mountain, which means "gangsters wander here". What surprised Liu Bang was that Lu Pheasant could find his hiding place every time. He asked her why. Lu Pheasant is very familiar with gangster psychology. In order to win over Liu Bang, she told him that it was because where Liu Bang was, there were always colorful auspicious clouds representing wealth in the sky. Liu Bang was happily coaxed home every time he heard this. However, within a few days, he would flee home again because he was looking for flowers and flowers. The same thing will happen again and again. Liu Bang didn't know it until his death. In fact, Lu Pheasant relied on Xiao He, who was with Liu Bang, to deliberately leave a guiding signal to successfully capture him and bring him back to the besieged city. This was also the only way Xiao He could think of to alleviate Liu Bang's jealousy by torturing him.
Later, Liu Bang killed the white snake, started a gangster, and conquered east and west. To put it bluntly, all his efforts are to escape the prison of marriage. Because in the military he never had to take his family with him. On the contrary, he still remained indifferent despite knowing that it was very dangerous for his family to put them outside his own protection. As a result, his mortal enemy Xiang Yu captured Liu Bang's wife, father and brother several times and threatened him. But every time Liu Bang showed a kind of gloating mood that was incomprehensible to outsiders and came from the bottom of his heart. In a handwritten letter from Liu Bang to Xiang Yu that has been passed down, he even wrote a vague poem with only three sentences, encouraging Xiang Yu to kill his relatives:
My dad, he is too Yours
Steam him as soon as possible,
It's best to share a bowl of meat soup with me
With such shocking words and deeds, no wonder later generations call him "The big gangster", or "big brother", or "boss" for short. Every gangster who mentions him can't help but spit on the ground and say: "Bah, you are so cruel!"
Liu Bang's escape from his family is just an appearance. If you think he is not close to women because of this, Sex, if you don’t have extramarital affairs, it would be a big mistake. In fact, Liu Bang's troops never lacked women. Just give a random example: Liu Bang was besieged by Xiang Yu in Xingyang. In order to break out of the encirclement, he asked the more than 2,000 women who accompanied the army to put on armor and rush out from the east gate at night. After the Chu army was attracted, he led dozens of people to escape from the siege through the west gate. This trick was later used when he was besieged by the Huns, and was equally successful.
When Liu Bang conquered Xianyang, he saw that the beauties in the Qin court could no longer move. I wanted to stay in Wenrou Township that night. If it hadn't been for the desperate persuasion of General Fan Kuai and his staff Zhang Liang, he would not have closed the palace and closed the treasury, and he would have done nothing wrong. Even though he later became emperor and had countless beauties in his harem, he was still not satisfied. He often left them and Empress Lu and visited various places by himself. Local officials inevitably cater to their preferences and offer beautiful women to them in order to get promoted and make a fortune. It's a pity that since he took control of life and death, no one dared to record his absurd life truthfully. On the contrary, they also tried their best to come up with some beautiful terms, calling them self-exile, wandering emperor, BLAH, BLAH. Even the "Great Wind Song" he hummed when he returned to his hometown was praised as the pioneer of "walking writing". Later gangsters continued to follow suit and wrote works such as "The Journey" and "Mountain Dwelling", and they are still making profits from them to this day. There are limits to a person's ability to resist adulation. Even rogues like Liu Bang are no exception. In the end, he ended his happy gangster career under the influence of this kind of flattery.
In just a few decades, two famous gangster pioneers, Lu Buwei and Liu Bang, emerged in China. Compared with them, future generations can only lament that they live in the shadow of great men. This situation lasted for hundreds of years before it changed due to the appearance of another gangster (Cao Cao) who held multiple positions. Let’s talk about this gangster’s story in the next chapter.
The third of the three top gangsters in ancient China: Cao Cao
Cao Cao was the first person in history to use a dirty word as his name. This alone is enough for him to occupy an important place in the history of gangsters. What's more, he also holds the title of politician and writer, and is really a key figure connecting the past and the future.
Therefore, when talking about the history of gangsters, Cao Cao cannot be left out under any circumstances.
Cao Cao’s surname was not Cao. In order to curry favor with the eunuchs who were in power in the palace at that time, his own grandfather adopted his father to a father-in-law named Cao. Later, Eunuch Cao gradually developed into a pervert because of his own shortcomings. He renamed everything that belonged to him, and the new names were related to the kind of things he couldn't do. At first, he was relatively secretive. For example, he changed his name from Cao Teng to Cao Tong. Changed Cao Cao's father's name from Cao Song to Cao Song. But after Cao Cao was born, Eunuch Cao became more serious and insisted on naming the child. As a result, Cao Cao was named like this.
For as long as Cao Cao can remember, he has been laughed at by children because of his name. He hated this name so much that every time someone asked him his name, he would do everything possible to hide it. The adults tried their best to get his name out of his mouth. It was easy to deceive him at first. Later, Cao Cao became more and more cunning as he learned from repeated failures. In the end, even the smartest adults didn't know his name. When everyone mentioned him, they all said, "Who is that, that kid who always hides his name and tells lies...". Gradually, people simply called him "Amao".
Cao Cao, who had lived in such an environment since he was a child, was deeply hurt mentally. After he reached adolescence, no one dared to marry their daughter to him because of his reputation as a liar. As a result, he had to marry an ugly-looking woman with a bucket-shaped figure from out of town. However, this woman was good at debating and made Cao Cao lose his temper. People call her "Mrs. Bian". Because of this marriage, Cao Cao had a soft spot for female singers and dancers with beautiful faces and slim figures throughout his life. His rebellious, suspicious, loquacious and lustful character was developed from childhood to adolescence.
After getting married, Cao Cao's life became increasingly miserable. Due to his bad reputation, he has been unable to find a job. There is also a "three-hearted" wife at home (take it to the street to save worry, leave it at home for peace of mind, but it looks disgusting to yourself), and she is always in trouble with him. During this difficult period, Cao Cao, who was on the verge of a mental breakdown, once wrote a poem that truly recorded his predicament:
A grain of rice is not enough to pound. Not enough cloth to sew.
There is no reserve in poppies. The hair basket has no ruler.
Friends come to borrow money from me. Don't know why.
——Cao Cao's "Rumors"
No one knows how Cao Cao made up his mind and completely embarked on the road of gangsterism. All we know now is that from a certain day, Cao Cao no longer cared about others knowing his name. In fact, he came to want others to know his name. Later generations said that he received enlightenment from a master while dreaming, so he was also called Cao "Mengde". I personally think that he probably thought that no matter how bad things got, he couldn't get any worse, so he simply broke the pot and gave it a try. At this point, Wang Shuo understood Cao Cao very well. He once said for Cao Cao: "I am a gangster, who should I fear?"
The first thing Cao Cao did after becoming a gangster was to gather people to fight. With his short stature, he fully understands the true meaning of "the people, and only the people, are the stepping stones that can be used." He incited a group of local gangsters to engage in a fight with another group of gangsters wearing yellow handkerchiefs on their heads. Although he hid behind and did not do anything, his reputation was so great that the local peace-loving intellectuals knew that only Ah Man had the ability to trick the masses into fighting against the masses. In order to avoid intensifying the fighting, they jointly recommended Cao Cao to the emperor, hoping that he would become an official in the capital and leave here as soon as possible. Not long after, the emperor issued a decree for Cao Cao to go to Beijing and become the captain.
Cao Cao took office with great joy. Who would have thought that he would not know until he arrived in the capital that he was a junior official. It turns out that the captain is just a small character like Bima Wen. He wanted to make a big splash, but he was unwilling to live his life so honestly. After research, he decided to assassinate Dong Zhuo and make a big case of the highest caliber to show his true nature as a gangster. Dong Zhuo was the Grand Master at that time. Apart from the puppet emperor who was under house arrest in the palace, he was the largest official. So Cao Cao made up his mind to attack Dong Zhuo.
Young people tend to accept death in things. The same goes for Cao Cao. He was determined to kill Dong Zhuo. He planned in detail for this purpose and even borrowed a sword from Situ Wang Yun. But he forgot about Dong Zhuo's newly adopted son, Lu Bu, who ranked first in martial arts and third in mental retardation. As a result, everyone knew that not only did he lose his sword in vain, but he also had to live on the run from now on. However, he himself was quite satisfied with his failed action.
In the "Wei Wu Art of War" that he plagiarized from others, he specially wrote a chapter himself called "Killing with a Borrowed Knife."
On the way to escape, Cao Cao said a famous saying that later became the motto of countless gangsters: "I would rather teach me to betray the world than teach the world to betray me." This sentence geniusly, creatively and comprehensively inherits, defends and develops our country's hooligan theory, reaching the highest realm of hooliganism. Moreover, what is worse than the average gangster is that Cao Cao not only said this, but also did it. When he was resting at his friend Lu Boshe's house, he overheard the servants in the kitchen talking about being tied up and beheaded, thinking that they wanted to catch him and ask for credit. So they went on a killing spree and killed everyone in the Lu family. Even when he saw a pig tied up for slaughter in the kitchen and knew that he had misunderstood its kindness, he did not stop. His behavior made all the gangsters who were with him feel chilled, and they abandoned him under the cover of night.
Cao Cao returned to his hometown in the countryside alone and gathered a group of his original disciples to start a rebellion. These are troubled times, and it's a good time for gangsters like him to fish in troubled waters and make a name for themselves. According to Cao Cao's standards, there are only two real gangsters in the world: Liu Bei and himself. I guess his criterion is that both of their wives are equally ugly. The descendant Fei Zhaobing (a distant relative of Xin Qiji) gave a relatively comprehensive summary of the domestic situation at that time. He said: "Who is the opponent of Tian X L scoundrel? Cao or Liu. The one who pretends to be a grandson is Sun Zhongmou!"
As the number of other people's troops increased and the territory became larger and larger, the complacent Cao Cao became more and more courageous. As he grew older, he began to openly use his power to mess with the relationship between men and women. In Wancheng, after he led his army to surrender Zhang Xiu, he ordered his counselors to find a woman for him. The counselors actually found one, Uncle Zhang Xiu's beloved wife, Zou, who was a former actress. Cao Cao was overjoyed to see Zou and immediately left her in his tent. He knew that his subordinates would be jealous, so he ordered Dian Wei, who was ranked third in martial arts and ranked first in mental retardation, to guard the door for him. No one else was allowed in except those bringing food and wine. He himself stayed in the tent with the Zou family day and night.
There is no airtight wall in the world. Within a few days, Zhang Xiu found out about this. He was immediately furious and vowed to kill Cao Cao to avenge his humiliation. That night, he led his troops to sneak attack Cao Cao's camp and defeated Cao Cao with lightning speed. Cao Cao suffered a big loss in this battle: the fool Dian Wei died, even Cao Cao's own eldest son Cao Ang and nephew Cao Anmin died in the rebellion. However, if you think that Cao Cao will change his ways after such a big setback, it means that you have not yet understood the realm of a gangster. In fact, Cao Cao had no intention of repenting. When he heard that there were two beautiful beauties in Sun Quan's territory in Jiangdong, he immediately led his team to marry them. At the same time, he ordered people to set up the bronze bird stage and prepared to bring the beauty back and hold a dance. Unfortunately, Cao Cao still lost his troops this time. If Guan Yu hadn't missed the old days and let him off Huarong Road, Cao Cao's life would have been sealed there.
Faced with the harsh reality, Cao Cao did not lose his will. In order to reflect on himself theoretically, he began to write poetry. As I said before, in addition to being a big gangster in history, Cao Cao was also a writer. His literary talent was unique because of his hooligan habits. It can be said that he pioneered "writing with the lower body". For example, in the poem "Mo Shang Sang", he describes the way of men and women in this way:
"... make friends with Chisong. And the Xianmen. Receive the secret love spirit of the secret way. ... Absolute human affairs. Travel Hun. Yuan. If the wind blows, the scenery has not moved. I have traveled thousands of years, and I have not forgotten my fault..."
In another more famous poem, the old Cao Cao actually borrowed a tortoise. Show off your abilities in that area:
"Although the tortoise has a long life, it still has its time. The snake rides on the mist, but in the end it becomes ashes.
The old man is in trouble, and his ambition is thousands of miles; the martyr In your old age, your ambitions are endless.
The period of growth and contraction is not only in the sky; the blessing of nourishment can lead to eternal life..."