The great affairs of a nation lie in worship and war.
·-- "Zuo Zhuan, Year 13 of Duke Cheng"
When I was in elementary school, I read a fragment from the novel "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" that left a deep impression on me. It was a scene where Dong Zhuo was about to die, and a child was singing a nursery rhyme:
And then Dong Zhuo was stabbed to death by Lu Bu.
What impressed me was that all the characters in the novel deeply believed in this prophecy.
When I reached fifth or sixth grade and read "Records of the Grand Historian" and "Zizhi Tongjian," I was even more shocked by the countless prophecies recorded in them.
There were two points that shocked me. First, why were these seemingly absurd stories, like the uprising of the White Snake, recorded in official historical records? Shouldn't they be in unofficial historical records?
Second, I could vaguely sense that everyone treated these prophecies with great seriousness and believed in their accuracy. I couldn't understand it.
Even a child playing with sand knows that there is a layer of paper on the window.
But now, the question I have to ask is quite the opposite: why, at the age of eleven or twelve, did I not believe in these prophecies?
The judgment of an eleven or twelve-year-old child in the Han Dynasty is no different from mine. Where did my skepticism come from? Where did this subconscious and unquestioned thing come from?
What a modern person considers a myth or imagination, ancient people might have considered it something happening in reality. For example, "The fall of Qin was caused by the Hu people," or "The rise of Chu, King Chen Sheng." Or the uprising of the White Snake.
When Wang Mang usurped the Han Dynasty, signs and auspicious omens were unquestionably believed by ordinary people, taken for granted, and beyond doubt. Those who didn't believe in these prophecies were either the creators of prophecies or were not accepted by society.
Emperor Guangwu of Han also ascended to the throne with the help of the "Red Bowls Prophecy." Because of the prophecy on the "Red Bowls," many people actually came to join him.
Many words in the Chinese language have lost their context and become incomprehensible words.
These words are the accumulation of civilization, but also antiques.
For example, "The great affairs of a nation lie in worship and war" - "Zuo Zhuan, Year 13 of Duke Cheng."
A modern person cannot understand the importance of worship to ancient people. This common knowledge will gradually crumble into ashes and become the dark tone of understanding the world.
An untrained crowd cannot understand these light and dark tones; they can only understand the people depicted in the paintings, but not the small squares of Mondrian. Only those who have been trained or those who paint can understand the similarities and differences between the small squares and the Mona Lisa.