Eternal couplets-every time you kill a dog, you are a scholar.

"Every time you kill a dog, you are a scholar.". This is a famous couplet by Cao Xuequan, a poet in the Ming Dynasty, which means that most people who are loyal to their loyalty are ordinary people who are engaged in humble occupations, while knowledgeable people often do things that go against their conscience and betray their friendship.

According to records, the author Cao Xuequan felt it because he saw the cold and warm of human nature and the cold of the world when he tried a case. Later, this story was circulated among the people forever, and the reason behind it was thought-provoking.

during the apocalypse of the Ming dynasty, the imperial court was actually in the midst of internal troubles and foreign invasion. As the Ming dynasty was defeated in the battle of Salhu in Wanli period, Nurhachi became famous and became a formidable enemy outside the Ming dynasty. Is also a cigar smoke, headed by the eunuch group, nine-year-old Wei Zhongxian, monopolizing power in the court, acting arbitrarily, coupled with natural disasters, the people are miserable.

However, despite the sufferings of the people, the life of the royal family and nobles was arrogant and extravagant. They often oppressed the people and extorted money. At that time, a dog fighting game was popular. Slaves used their master's power to dominate and even let out vicious dogs to hurt people for fun. In Guangxi, the sky is high and the emperor is far away, and the imperial relatives there are even more unscrupulous.

One day, the minions of the imperial family felt bored again, so they took the vicious dogs to wander the streets and saw the pedestrians on the road bustling. So evil started from the heart and released the vicious dogs to bite everyone at will. When everyone saw the vicious dog coming, they were desperate and complained bitterly. A vicious dog tackled a scholar who couldn't avoid it, and then several vicious dogs came running, some of them rode on the scholar's body and bit him, seeing that the scholar would die in an instant.

At this time, a pig butcher rushed out of the crowd, holding a pig-killing knife, and cut off the dog's head with one knife, so the scholar was able to live. But the slave of the royal family who stood by and watched the joke was not happy. Why do you kill our master's dog, a common people who kill pigs? Is there any law like this? So the slave was adamant, tied up the pig-killing dealer and took him to the government to ask for compensation with his life.

Cao Xuequan, who was working as a right-hand senator in Guangxi at this time, happened to hear the case. After asking about the cause and effect, he was not afraid of power and righteously ruled that the butcher was not guilty and that the royal family should compensate the scholar for his medical expenses. It took me a long time to show this judgment to the imperial family, but from a legal point of view, Cao Xuequan really had nothing to hold, so he secretly bribed the scholar, and then coerced him, forcing the scholar to change his confession, saying that he was good friends with the owner of the fighting dog, and he was playing with the fighting dog that day. I didn't know that a butcher came from the side and killed the dog with one knife, asking the butcher to repay his life for the fighting dog.

In the second trial of this case, the scholar in the hall changed his confession on the spot because he was afraid of the influence of the royal family, and betrayed the butcher. When Cao Xuequan heard this, he flew into a rage and scolded, "Now the witness and material evidence are all there, and this butcher saved your life, but you don't want to repay him, but you want to kill him, and even lied that you and the dog are friends. Even if God can tolerate you, I can't tolerate you!" Then Cao Xuequan ordered to send someone to pull the scholar outside and strike him with a stick. The scholar could not bear the pain, so he naturally admitted the stratagem of royalty, how to coerce and bribe him, and at this point the case finally came to light.

after hearing this case, Cao Xuequan felt a lot of emotion, so with a stroke of a pen, he wrote an eternal famous couplet, "Every dog slayer who is brave in righteousness is a scholar who is ungrateful". This story, accompanied by Cao Xuequan's righteous and upright attitude as an official, has been widely circulated by ordinary people.

In fact, this proverb means that most people who are loyal to loyalty are engaged in humble occupations, while those with knowledge and culture often do things that lose their conscience. From an objective point of view, this sentence is somewhat extreme, and all the scholars who have not seen it are heart breaker, and it does not mean that people without knowledge and culture are all righteous. But we understand it from another angle, precisely because we have never read a book, and we often consider problems simply and sincerely. Those chivalrous men who shout when they see something rough are all people with temperament and never think too much. And those who read more books will inevitably think twice before acting, so they won't draw out their swords to help each other on impulse.

Author

Cao Xuequan (1574-1646) was an official, scholar and bibliophile in the Ming Dynasty, and was the first of the ten sons in central Fujian. The word can begin, and the word respects life. It is called Yanze, and it is also called Shicang Jushi and Xifeng Jushi. It is from Hongtang Township, Houguan County, Fuzhou Prefecture, Fujian Province. In the twenty-third year of Wanli, he was a scholar, and served as a right-wing political representative in Sichuan, a provincial judge, and a member of the Senate in Guangxi. He offended the Wei Zhongxian Party by writing a biography of unofficial history, and was illegally removed from his post and lived at home for twenty years. When the Qing army invaded Fujian, Cao Xuequan bathed in fragrant soup, tidied up his clothes, hanged himself in Xifeng Li's home, and left a desperate couplet before his death: "One pen before his death, one rope after his death." Another story says that he hanged himself at Yongquan Temple in Gushan. After Cao Xuequan's death, his home was copied by the Qing army, his family was arrested, and his books were robbed by the Qing army. In the 11th year of Qing Qianlong (1746), that is, one hundred years after Cao Xuequan's death, the Qing government posthumously regarded him as "Loyalty Festival".

Cao Xuequan studied literature, poetry, geography, astronomy, Zen, temperament, hundred schools of thought and so on all his life. He was especially good at poetry, and writing lyric poems was his specialty. He has written more than 3 books in his life. It is said that in the lobby of the "Seventy-two Peak Building" of Lin Zexu's Fuzhou mansion, Cao Xuequan's "Zhen Song Tu" hangs. Step by step, wash the spring poem axis, write like flowing water, cadence, get the fashion of Jin and Tang dynasties, and show the gentleman's atmosphere of gentle, calm and calm.