From Chief to Ball

"The starry sky is vast, and the sky and the earth are boundless. Who can say that they understand the whole world? The stars in the sky are not necessarily a disaster, but maybe a blessing. Do people who say they are bad omens think they understand every change in the sky?"

He repeated what he said to Xiacheng people before, and explained the relationship between the two-sided transformation of the simple contradiction theory with the easy-to-accept concept of disasters and blessings in this era, and blessings and disasters. Fan, Su Yue nodded again and again.

Especially in the last words, Su Yue heard Chen Jian's subtext, and said pleasantly: "Ji Xia has already convinced me, maybe the rest of the people?

"This is exactly what I hope, and it is also what everyone in Xiacheng hopes. The relatives are in harmony, and the vows are of the same heart. I will try my best to do it."

Chapter No.17 Explaining the World and Changing the World ([-])

On November [-]th, there are still six days before the winter solstice, and the comet has been hanging above everyone's heads for three days. Suddenly, a headwind blew up Sucheng under the shadow of uneasiness and panic. The leader of Xiacheng, Ji Xia, thought that the The comet is not necessarily a bad omen, and it is said that misfortune and good fortune go hand in hand, and even bad omens may not fail to turn into good things.

It was like a spring thunder that shook the earth, and even those divination masters and priests who respected Chen Jian and listened to his lectures all voiced their opposition.

The stage used to perform dramas and distribute herbal medicines was rebuilt and moved away. Chen Jian uttered bold words to convince everyone and let everyone judge right from wrong.

Sucheng, which was already chaotic, became even more anxious. Many clans that did not want the clan alliance to be established seized this opportunity, and more people hoped to persuade Chen Jian that he did not want this young leader favored by his ancestors to embark on a path of battle. the reverse road.

Under the surging undercurrent, Chen Jian let the people in Xiacheng continue to spread rumors, making the water even more muddy. He wanted to take this opportunity to see clearly who is a friend who can be used temporarily and who is an enemy who can be opposed. Standing in line within a few years.

Early in the morning, the stage was already full of people. With the foreshadowing of the last performance and the distribution of herbs, people naturally found a place to watch and judge, and the wood on the roof was full of people.

Leaders of various clans, priests, divination masters and other people gradually came to the stage. Some people who had heard Chen Jian's lectures saluted Chen Jian first, and then retreated to the side, waiting for the confrontation for a while.

Chen Jian rubbed his hands, looked at the people gathered below, and knew that this was a rare opportunity. Because of traffic restrictions, many things spread very slowly. It will be a story that can fly like a dandelion seed without deliberately spreading it.

Philosophy is a systematic world view. Philosophers always try to explain the world, but the key to the problem is to change the world.

But before changing, how to see and understand the world is also very important.

Not long after coming out of the wilderness, it was an era of rampant mysticism. Ideas such as animism and immortality were more easily accepted by people because of verifications such as dreams of relatives after death, and the idea that everything was destined by God also began. prevalent.

It's not that no one has thought of other worldviews, but because this worldview is the easiest to accept under the knowledge conditions of the times.

In the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties in Chen Jian's previous life, he probably also experienced such a process from chaos and mysticism to God's determination of everything and then to the unity of man and nature.

In addition to the limitations of the knowledge of the times, there are also the needs and guidance of the ruling class. For example, in the Xia Dynasty, the idea that everything is determined by God is the favorite form of power because of the inheritance from father to son and blood.

In short, the dragon begets the dragon, the phoenix begets the phoenix, and the princes are all predestined by heaven. This is the meaning of heaven. Stop dreaming and accept your fate.

This kind of world view has not always been there, and it was not even the mainstream in the clan era, but it became the mainstream according to the needs of the ruling class, guiding public opinion and thinking. This is a means of using knowledge of the world to change the world.

At this moment, due to the emergence of the implicit blood inheritance system within the clan, this argument has also appeared, and it has been widely spread among the leaders and priests. They are willing to believe and want to believe it.

But in Chen Jian's previous life, this world view belief that everything was destined by God collapsed with the Shang Dynasty Xia and King Wu's defeat of Zhou, and it collapsed in an instant, because if it was God who destined Yin Shang to be king, how could King Wu succeed in defeating Zhou? What about?

The worship of ancestors and the collapse of all worldviews determined by heaven, people hope to find a new way to fill the collapsed three views, the sages found another way to explain: the unity of heaven and man, the interaction between heaven and man, and the complementarity of heaven and man, instead of It must be all predestined by heaven, and soon some people even completely denied the existence of heaven, and the earliest humanistic thought appeared.

This kind of change can also be seen from the "Book of Songs", in which there are many poems about respecting, obeying, and fearing heaven, and the older the poems are, the more this is the case.But when the national customs prevailed, poems such as blaming heaven, resenting heaven, and hating heaven appeared. One of the oldest poems complaining about women directly questioned heaven, and in a Xiaoya record of drought, There are also kings of Zhou questioning why the heavens allow the drought to harm those innocent people... This kind of questioning is unimaginable in the era when all divination is prevalent, and it also confirms the changes in the worldview of the times from the side.

At this moment, what Chen Jian is facing is still a group of people who have just begun to think about where to come and go. As long as they give a reasonable explanation, they are willing to accept it. This kind of world view that everything is determined by God, the thinking is not so rigid that it is difficult to change, but it is only in the process of pursuing the truth for the first time, because this is also a node of an era and a great era of change and turmoil, the final transition from barbarism to civilization .

There were very few people who supported Chen Jian, but Chen Jian was facing a whole group of people. Under the warm sun of early winter, the first person stood up.

He is a priest from a city on the south bank of the Great River. He also asked Chen Jian many questions a few days ago. After bowing to Chen Jian repeatedly, he asked, "Does Jixia think that the will of heaven can be changed? I I heard that such a star appeared in the night sky many years ago, and there was a severe drought in the second year. This star is a bad omen. It just appeared at the moment of the clan alliance. This is the ancestor and God telling us that it is wrong to do so. of."

Chen Jian said with a smile: "I don't know how to divination. Could it be possible to see the bad luck on the battlefield if you do divination for the field in the field?"

"Not really. I heard that the star appeared a few decades ago when the crops were burned, which just confirmed the severe drought."

Chen Jian nodded and said, "Since that's the case, did some priests predict good and bad fortune decades ago?"

"Yes."

"Then I think it's a good thing. There will always be a drought, and the stars in the sky are just a sign. Even if it is true that the ancestors and God told us, but the ancestors and God have also given us hands. Disasters in the fields are nothing more than Floods, when there is drought, ditches are dug, and floods are dikes, isn’t it a good thing to know in advance? You have heard me say that Xiacheng has canals and dikes, and when there is a drought, water is drawn, and floods are released. What can we do? This is not a bad omen, but a warning and spur, let us use our hands to prepare for possible disasters."

"Now it's time for the alliance, even if it's a bad omen, isn't this bad omen just a warning to us, let us abide by the oath of the alliance, and brothers will go on blind dates, otherwise there will be disasters?"

The man was speechless for a while, thought for a long time, bowed to Chen Jian and stepped aside, everyone in the audience applauded, and felt that this seemed to be the reason, and said in his heart: "What Ji Xia said is indeed true, the omen and the warning are still the same. different."

After cheering, another leader of a small clan stood up and said, "Anyone can say these words, but Jixia can't."

Chen Jian saluted and said, "Please advise."

"I heard that Ji Xia was just an ordinary child a few years ago, but suddenly he was favored by the ancestors and looked down upon by the gods. Isn't this destined by the heavens? If you didn't get those favors, wouldn't you still be an ordinary person at this time? ? How could you become the leader and stand here? The instructions given to us by our ancestors and heaven cannot be violated, and Jixia is the best example."

Chen Jian shook his head with a smile and said, "The ancestors took good care of me and told me the means of planting, building cities, fighting and so on in a dream, but they didn't directly make me the leader."

"People, you can't predict it yourself. Of course, a person's fate depends on the blessings of his ancestors and God, but it also depends on his own struggle. I absolutely don't know how I, a member of a small clan, was elected by everyone as Xia The leader of the city? As a result, the elders and the members of the council said: You take us to plant, build the city, and fight. Don’t refuse, it is you. I said at the time that for the development of the city, I would not go Consider personal life and death. In this way, I became the leader of Xia City."

"But did the ancestors and the gods directly tell the members of the council to choose me? No, I relied on the guidance of the ancestors to do things that benefit the clan and the city. If I hadn't bent my bow and shot arrows from the beginning Work hard step by step, even if my ancestors taught me a lot, what's the use?"

"God and the ancestors can only guide and warn, and in the end it depends on personal struggle. For example, if the ancestors told me that I will eat venison in two days; there is a herd of deer in a certain valley. I only need to listen to these two sentences. If you don't do it with your hands, will there be venison to eat?"

"As the leader of the clan, didn't you rely on gaining everyone's trust, and you were directly appointed by your ancestors? If not, what is the difference between you and me?"

The leader of the small clan's face darkened, and after shaking his head, he was silent. After a moment of silence, someone stood up again and said, "Jixia didn't know the method of divination. I have heard you tell a lot of things, which is quite interesting Reason. Jixia once said that if you want to know how to harvest more corn and wheat beans, you must first know how the corn and wheat beans grow and why they grow. Jixia means that if you want to get results, You have to know one thing first, am I right?"

Chen Jian nodded, and the man said again: "Since that's the case, let's not talk about divination or bad luck, but just ask Ji Xia, what is that star in the sky?"

Chen Jian shook his head and said, "I don't know."

"Since you don't know, how do you know that he is not causing trouble? Why don't you worry about it?"

"The sky and the earth are vast, and there are thousands of grasses and myriad things. Who can say that they can recognize them clearly? Even the most common things you see may not be understood. Many times you just think you understand it, but you don't. If you don't understand it, put it in the Then wait until later to understand, just do a good job of understanding, is there anything wrong? Then let me ask you, the most common sun and moon, do you think they are round? If they are not round, then you don’t know them every day. Understand, you see the sun and the moon every day, do you still have to worry about them bringing disasters?"

For the first time, Chen Jian's words did not get approval and applause, but attracted everyone's doubts and ridicule. People thought Chen Jian was crazy, and the moon and the sun were not round, so what else could it be?

The person who questioned Chen Jian shook his head with the joy of a winner, and said with a chuckle: "Who said you know much? So you can't tell whether the sun and the moon are round? Of course the sun and the moon are round." , my eyes tell me, it can't be wrong. Now that I know, why should I worry about their troubles?"

Chapter 18 Explain the world and change the world ([-])

At this time, there was no sophistry that a white horse is not a horse, but that person was quite forward-looking. Afraid of Chen Jian's sophistry, he added: "Since Jixia supports the kinship oath, don't say that Xiachengyuan is ours." Fang, Xiacheng’s Fang is our circle, etc. If the rules of Fang and Yuan are different, what kind of brothers and relatives are they?”

Chen Jian kept silent on purpose, and when the people below were chattering and discussing, Chen Jian asked loudly: "Does everyone think that the sun and the moon must be round?"

The people below quite agreed with Chen Jian's previous words, and they sold the face of the previous drama herbal medicine, so they couldn't criticize directly, but said very carefully: "Did Ji Xia read it wrong? There are also people in our city who have bad eyesight." Well, red and green are the same in his eyes... Is there something wrong with Ji Xia's eyes?"

The person who asked the question even laughed and said, "There may not be something wrong with Jixia's eyes, I'm afraid there is something wrong with his mind. Does Jixia mean that the moon and the sun are not round?"

Chen Jian shook his head and said, "I didn't say that the sun and the moon are round, and I didn't say they weren't. We don't know whether they are round or not. The world is so big, so I said that except for the stars that suddenly visit in the sky, even The sun and the moon are not what we understand, so how can we presumptuously think that this is a warning from heaven and earth?"

"Everyone has walked the night road. The bonfires in cities and villages are very far away. They look like a round dot from a distance in the dark night. Are bonfires also round? Isn't it because the sun and the moon are too far away from us, like Is it round if you look at a bonfire at night?"

"I heard that some cities have picked up stars falling from the sky. You have all seen them as treasures. They are uneven and strangely shaped and not round. But when we look up at the starry sky, we see that the stars are all round. This is not true. It means that the circle of the sun and the moon is just too far away from us, so it looks round."

"I also heard that thousands of miles away to the east, the Dongyi tribes live along the coast. It is as blue as the sky, but it is no different from the river water. The sea and the sky are blue, is it their original color? Or is it because of the distance? Are the eyes deceiving us by looking too far away?"

After citing three examples, the face of the person who asked the question turned pale. On the one hand, he could not refute these remarks of Chen Jian, and on the other hand, there was a hint of collapse of faith: the world he thought was not real.