Anecdotes from the Tang Dynasty: A scholar fantasized about being a knight, but was defrauded of a huge sum of money by using a fake human head.

Knights have always been a coveted character. Whether they are ordinary people who are just busy making fun of themselves, or talented men of letters, they all have a deep feeling for martial arts. Li Bai's "Kill a man in ten steps, leaving no trace for a thousand miles", and Lu Zhaolin's "flying eagle with a bomb to the north of Duling, exploring a pill to borrow a guest from the west of the Wei Bridge", both use vivid pen and ink to describe an ideal image of a knight: strong combat effectiveness and The surreal freedom of movement is admirable.

However, ideals are full and reality is skinny. Besides the surging martial arts ideals, there are always some ridiculous stories.

Cause:

When real life is unsatisfactory, the poet fantasizes about being a knight

The dream of a knight is to some extent a compensation for some shortcomings in reality, and poets who are full of artistic creativity are more So true.

Cui Ya and Zhang Hu of the Tang Dynasty are famous for their poems all over the world, such as Zhang Hu's "The homeland is three thousand miles away, and I have been in the palace for twenty years. I am full of children, and both of them shed tears." "Before the King", who in the world doesn't know this? However, their real life is not very satisfactory. Zhang Hu's failure in achieving fame made him yearn for the freedom and heroism of a knight, and he always imagined himself as a knight walking in the world.

The same is true for Cui Ya. His dream of a knight is evidenced by specific verses: "There are three feet of snow on the Taihang Mountains, and Cui Ya has three feet of iron in his sleeves. Once he meets a caring person, he will go out with his wife and children Don't." He boasted about the three-foot iron sword in his sleeve, which shone like the ice and snow on the Taihang Mountains. If someone asked him to do chivalry, Cui Ya would say goodbye to his wife and children immediately without saying a word, and go to the world to do chivalry.

However, what is Cui Ya like in reality? He seems to be in trouble. According to "Yunxi Youyi", Cui Ya's wife's surname was Yong, and his father-in-law was the chief officer of Yangzhou. He was very dissatisfied with his son-in-law for not doing his job properly and being arrogant. Once, he called his daughter over and said rudely: "Dad I regret marrying you to that boy Cui Ya. It's not good to ask you to remarry now. Why don't you just become a monk, or I will kill your daughter with one sword." Cui Ya was frightened to death when he heard this. Instead of arguing with his father-in-law, he bowed his head and begged for mercy. However, the cruel father-in-law still broke up the couple, and Cui Ya had no choice.

Cui Ya and Zhang Hu, two bad friends, often play together, travel around the world, drink as much as they want, and imagine themselves to be knights. "Guiyuan Congtan" said that they "traveled a lot across the Yangtze and Huaihe Rivers, were often addicted to alcohol, teased their generation, or took advantage of drinking to enjoy themselves, so they called themselves chivalrous people." Over time, others began to regard them as knights. I don't know whether they were serious or joking. Anyway, these two were put in the position of knights and could not get rid of them. But he was eventually taken down, what happened?

Scam:

Using fake heads to defraud huge sums of money

Zhang Hu and Cui Ya's knights The reputation has spread all over the world, and as time goes by, there will always be "knights" coming to visit. Of course, when you are poor, no one is looking for you, but when you are rich, people start to make plans. Therefore, some people who are relatively wealthy financially but are spiritually empty are often surrounded by strange people.

Zhang Hu’s life later improved and he accumulated some industries. As a result, one evening at dusk, a relatively strong man wearing a knight's uniform, a sword tied around his waist, and carrying a bloody package in one hand came to the door. As soon as he entered the door, he asked: "Is this the house of Knight Zhang?" ?" As soon as he opened his mouth, Zhang Hu was given a knight's hat.

Teacher Zhang Hu was so excited that he hurriedly asked what was going on. The man said: "I have an enemy. I have been looking for him for ten years before I found him. I got my revenge today. This man's head is in this bag." After saying that, he sat down boldly and asked for a drink. Zhang Hu finally met the same kind of people, so he quickly greeted them and entertained them with good wine and meat. After the avenged knight was full of wine and food, he reached out for money again: "A place about three miles away from here lives a benefactor of mine. I am thinking about repaying him, but I am short of money. You are a generous man, Knight Zhang." Man, can you lend me a hundred thousand dollars so that I can fulfill this wish? If you find me useful in the future, I will go up to the mountains of swords and the sea of ??fire, be an ox, a horse, a chicken, or a dog, and I will repay you."

This is clearly the rhythm of grudges and grudges. This brother regards Zhang Hu as a knight. If Zhang Hu's performance disappoints him, he will be laughed at by people in the world.

So the "chivalrous man" Zhang Hu lit the candle, rummaged through the boxes at home to find one hundred thousand dollars, and generously gave it to the chivalrous man.

The knight took the money, wiped his lips, and said: I'm going, please wait.

As a result, Zhang Hu never came again. Zhang Hu waited until dawn, but the man never showed up again. As the morning sun rose, Teacher Zhang Hu's heroic feelings gradually cooled down, and his legal awareness began to revive. He suddenly became afraid: "If you leave such a head in my house in broad daylight, wouldn't you be asking for trouble?" So he trembled. I plan to bury the head. But before burying it, he couldn't help but open it and take a look. When he saw it, he couldn't laugh or cry. There was no human head in the package. It was clearly the head of a pig. After being fooled once and losing a huge sum of money, Zhang Hu became disheartened and "his heroic spirit has been lost since then."

In the whole scam incident, Zhang Hu is to blame himself. The first thing to blame is his three views, especially his weak legal awareness. Since you believe it is a human head, report it to the official as soon as possible. Although a knight is worthy of admiration, he must also abide by the law. If he does not abide by the law, can he still be called a knight? Besides, the Tang Dynasty is also a dynasty that respects the rule of law. Can this head be kept at home casually? ?The 100,000 yuan that was defrauded can be regarded as the tuition fee paid for disrespecting the law.

Secondly, Poet Zhang lacks the awareness of financial precautions. Since the other party keeps saying that he is a knight, then what kind of money can a knight talk about? Isn’t it tacky to talk about money? No matter what age or what In this era, if the other party first talks to you about big ambitions and ideals, and then asks you to pay, this is most likely a scam and cannot be trusted.

It doesn't matter if you listen to the other party's lies, but you have to keep your money bag tight. As long as there is no financial loss, the other party's bragging is just talk.