Chen Fan word ZhongJu, Runa Pingyu people also. In the fifteenth year of the reign of Fan, the father of Hedong, I tasted a quiet room and the courtyard was filthy. Father and friend Qin Xue came from the same county to wait for him and said, "Why don't you clean up for the guests?" Fan said: "The way of a gentleman is to clean the world and settle down." It is strange to know that he has clear world ambitions. -from the author of were Ye Fan.

Translation:

Chen Fan is from Pingyu, Runan. His ancestors were the satrap of Hedong. When Fan Chen was fifteen years old, he once lived alone in a place where the yard and house were in a mess. Qin Xue, his father's friend in the same city, came to visit him and said to him, "Young man, why don't you clean the room to welcome the guests?" Chen Fan said, "It is a gentleman's duty to sweep away the evil in the world. Why care about a house? " Qin Xue thinks that he has the ambition to clarify the world, has his own opinions and is different from others.

It can be seen that Qin Xue's response to Chen Fan's thought of "sweeping the world, one room is quiet" is "strangeness", which of course does not mean "strangeness" here, but should mean "strangeness". It can be seen that Qin Xue's view of Chen Fan is simply an appreciation attitude. How to refute it?

Looking at Shi Shuo Xin Yu, which was also recorded in the Eastern Han Dynasty and the Wei and Jin Dynasties, we can find that the record of this matter is basically the same as that in the Book of the Later Han Dynasty, but the difference is that several unrelated words with the same meaning have been changed. Then "if you don't sweep a house, how can you sweep the world?" Where did it come from?

I haven't read the history books and notes of Jin Dynasty, nor the history books and notes of Tang and Song Dynasties. I didn't know until I saw the prose of the Qing Dynasty. Oh, here it is. Liu Rong, a writer in the Qing Dynasty, described an incident when he was young in his essay "On Habits".

Original text:

When Rong was young, there was a room in the west of Reading Health House. Read while thinking; If you think about it, you can walk around the room. There is a depression in the room, and the ruler is immersed in it. Every pair of shoes is full of hardships. It's a long time and it's safe. One day, my father came to the room and said with a smile, "If one room is not cured, how can we rule the country and level the world?" Tell the boy to level the soil. Rong was surprised when he returned to his own country. If the land suddenly rises, he will look down calmly and it will be flat. It's back. After a long time, let it go. Hey! People who are studying are very awkward! Step on the ground without following the depression. If it is long, it will be flat, and if it is long, it will be uneasy. Therefore, the learning of a gentleman is based on prudence.

It turned out that this sentence was said by Liu Rong's father. The original text of others was: "One room can't be ruled. Why is the country in the world?"

The problem is that Liu Rong's story is too similar to Chen Fan's. If you only watch it once, the average person will be confused in a few days. So later generations came up with "why sweep the world if you don't sweep a house?" Such a fabricated statement.

There are two more interesting questions about this matter:

1. Why do the fathers of Qin Xue and Liu Rong have completely opposite views on very similar things?

2. Why did later generations fabricate Liu Rong's father's account of Qin Xue and make it a mainstream view?

Regarding the first question, I think it is like this:

On the positive side, it is good to have the mind of sweeping the world, but sweeping the world begins with sweeping the house, which includes sweeping the house. Without sweeping the house, it is absolutely impossible to realize the ideal of sweeping the world.

-Lao Tzu said: "Hemu is a lifetime; The nine-story platform starts from the foundation soil; A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. "

-Xun Kuang's "Encourage Learning" said, "So if you don't accumulate steps, you can't go to Wan Li Road. If you don't accumulate small streams, you won't be a river. "

-Lenin, the revolutionary mentor of the former Soviet Union, also said, "If you want to achieve great things, you have to start from small things."

These wise sayings fully embody the philosophical relationship between "sweeping the world" and "sweeping a house", and explain that any major event is accumulated by small things. "Don't do small crimes, don't do small favors", "No matter how small a crime is, it is also a bad thing that harms others and harms themselves; No matter how small "goodness" is, only by accumulating goodness can it become a virtue.

Generally speaking, the core idea of this view is: to be a man and do things in a down-to-earth manner, one step at a time, not to aim too high, but to talk without practice.

On the other hand, the main qualities needed to govern the country in ancient times are: Confucian philosophy, agricultural knowledge, natural economics, ancient military science, ancient management science and so on. There is no comparison with sweeping the house. Besides, a person's personal hygiene is good. In most cases, it can be said with certainty that this person is serious, serious and cautious. However, just seeing a person's poor personal hygiene does not mean that this person must not take his work seriously. For example, in the face of Einstein, can we say, "You can't even manage your hair and beard well" and want to "straighten out" the relationship between time, space, matter and energy? You are dreaming! Besides, Newton was a sloppy and confused person. He didn't know what clothes to wear on any occasion, but people just figured out "Why did the apple fall to the ground?" "From the domestic point of view:" Wang Xizhi opened his abdomen, and Wang Meng ruled the world with lice. "Boy, a man who didn't even clean up lice actually swept the world. Isn't this a direct face?

Therefore, we can also look at this problem in this way. "Not sweeping the house" means not being confused and dragged down by things that have nothing to do with ambition, not being bound by money, beauty, power and interests, and fighting wholeheartedly for your ideal-"sweeping the world"!

Generally speaking, the core idea of the opposition is that one should focus on one's own career and should not spread his energy to places unrelated to his career.

The second question is more interesting. From then on, we invented Qin Xue to ask Chen Fan: "If you don't sweep a house, how can you sweep the world?" This is the mainstream view of China. Obviously, this view is in line with Confucian philosophy, which can be known from Xunzi's similar remarks. And the conclusion at the end of the film "Habit Theory"-therefore, the study of a gentleman is more important than prudence-shows that Liu Rong, a scholar in the Qing Dynasty, also holds this view. Chen Fan's speech was forcefully edited into a refuted ending, which also shows that the traditional society in China holds a negative attitude towards Chen Fan's speech. I won't discuss this phenomenon here, which obviously reflects the disadvantages of Confucianism-too much rehabilitation and too little practice. What I want to say is, is it possible to say, "If you don't sweep a house, how can you sweep the world?" It is understood as sloppy "online" and "random labeling". It is also a habit of China people to "surf the Internet" and "label". As we often say, "you can see old at the age of three." Can you really see old at the age of three? Just like many parents often educate their children like this: "Oh, you don't even have this XXX, how can you XXX in the future?" For example, when I was young, my mother often said, "If you don't even brush your teeth, which woman will marry you in the future?" I think most people, like me, usually go in one ear and go out in the other, and don't take it seriously. It doesn't play an educational role at all, but it makes people contradict it. It is better to say "If you don't brush your teeth, others may think you have bad breath". Anyway, I still often forget to brush my teeth now, and my mother's education in this field can be said to have basically failed. There is another interesting example. A buddy of mine used to chase a girl and he cooked for her. The girl saw that he cut potatoes as thick as his fingers and thought, "A boy who can cut potatoes so thick must be super careless. How can he take care of people with great care? This kind of person can never marry! " So the girl ran away with someone else. That buddy was sad, learned from a bitter experience and practiced his knife skills hard, and finally cut the potato as thin as hair. After talking about her girlfriend, she cooks for others. The girl looked at it: "Boy, this person must be super complicated. It's hard to slice potatoes so finely.". This kind of person will definitely find it difficult to get married! " So the girl also ran away with others, and the elder brothers were completely miserable. ...

Therefore, in our life, we should be more practical and less "on the line" and "labeling".

Chen Fan in history

In the vast history of China, a huge dynasty, the Han Dynasty, rose more than 2,000 years ago. This dynasty lasted more than 400 years after 24 emperors, so it became the longest dynasty in China history. However, when it comes to the Han Dynasty, there are two people in Zhumadian who cannot be forgotten. One is Chen Sheng, the leader of the rebel army at the end of Qin Dynasty, and a native of Yangcheng (now Liu after Pingyu). It was precisely because of the Chen Sheng Uprising that troops were sent against the Qin Dynasty that the later Han Dynasty came into being (see Japanese newspaper's cultural viewpoint on June 9, Yangcheng wins Chen Tianzhong 10). The other is Chen Fan, a famous teacher in the Eastern Han Dynasty who witnessed the decline of the Han Dynasty. His grandfather was the prefect of Hedong. But in Chen Fan's generation, the family declined, and they no longer showed their power in the village. When Chen Fan 15 years old, he once studied poetry alone in a yard. One day, his father's old friend Qin Xue came to see him. Seeing the weeds and filth all over the yard, he said to Fan Chen, "Why don't you clean up the guests?" Chen fan immediately replied, gentleman, when sweeping the world, an affair is a room! This answer surprised Qin Xue secretly, because he knew he was young, but he was ambitious. After feeling, I advised, how can we sweep the world without sweeping a house? Encourage him to start from small things and start from things around him. Unexpectedly, the two dialogues a thousand years ago have become the famous sayings of later generations, inspiring others to start from small things and things around them. "The word was not mentioned in the Chen Fan part of Wang Chenchuan, which is believed to be invented by later generations. There is no doubt that it is correct to start from small things and things around us, but in order to educate future generations, it is wrong to know which generation of ancestors made such a tampering with history. The right (starting from small things and things around you) should be advocated, and the wrong (tampering with history) should be avoided. There was no imperial examination system in China in Han Dynasty, and the form of selecting officials in the court was "respecting filial piety". Fan Chen is no exception. When he was just in his early twenties, he regarded him as a doctor. Soon, his mother died and Chen was in mourning. Three years later, Zhou Jing, the secretariat, appointed him as another driver, but he gave up his position because he did not agree with Zhou Jing's protest. After that, the government recommended it to be Founder, but the outspoken Fan Chen turned it down again. It was not until Qiu recommended that Chen Fan left his hometown to be an official, went to worship Lang, and then moved to Le 'an House. Later, Mars, an important official of the Han Dynasty, went to Qingzhou to make a secretariat. Li's strength is world-famous. Officials from all over Qingzhou who swindled the world and squeezed money were moved by the wind, and they abandoned their officials and fled, while Chen Fan sat safely, "all of them left an innocent record." Silence is a blockbuster. Fan Chen's blockbuster, because of his "Offence and insurrection". Although he also paid a heavy price for it, he won the reputation of "Chen Zhongju who is not afraid of power". When Chen Fan was the prefect of Le 'an, it was at the time when the consorts of the Eastern Han Dynasty were authoritarian. On one occasion, the wife of Emperor Shun of Han Dynasty and the elder brother of Empress Hou Liang wrote a letter to Chen Fan, asking him to do something for himself. As a local official, being able to climb a high-ranking official like Liang Ji will undoubtedly lead to a rapid rise, which is the dream of ordinary officials. But Chen Fan doesn't think so. Liang Ji's emissary came to see Chen Fan, but Chen Fan refused to see him, so the emissary sent a general to look for him. In a rage, Chen Fan whipped and killed the messenger. This unreasonable practice certainly makes Liang Ji, who has always been domineering, unbearable. He made a "condemnation" in front of the emperor, and Chen Fan was demoted to Xiuwu County as a county magistrate. Fortunately, due to the remarkable achievements in Chen Fan's reign, Emperor Shun of Han Dynasty once again used Chen Fan to worship his ministers. Until later, Emperor Ling became an official and became a teacher. Second, in the court struggle, Chen Fan's life was always in turmoil. As a minister of the Eastern Han Dynasty, he either struggled with autocratic consorts or troubled eunuchs. Ye Fan, the author of the Book of the Later Han Dynasty and a native of the Southern Song Dynasty, commented on Chen Fan, saying that he has a noble moral character, and he doesn't care about personal honor or disgrace before he can open up the atmosphere. When Chaogang collapsed, he fought against the adulterer of the same dynasty, so that he finally died on it. At the same time, he said that Chen Fan lived in seclusion, so he kept retiring and took benevolence as his own responsibility, although it was a long way to go. Although it has not been completed, its belief is enough to capture people's hearts. For more than 100 years, Chen Fan played an important role in the chaos of the Han Dynasty. Ye Fan's words, though one's own, revealed Chen Fan's unique contribution to the chaos of the imperial court as an important official of the Han Dynasty. Among them, Fan Chen didn't shy away from power, and the practice of hitting his face was the most impressive. For example, when Emperor Huan was in power, Chen Fan, who was then a librarian, saw that the reward control was excessive and the domestic pets were close to the emperor, and he did not hesitate to tell the emperor: I heard that people who care about the country are the best, and people are the best. Now, I am blessed, prepare nine columns. If I don't tell the emperor when I see something bad, I will become a tolerant person. Now there is a famine in the world, crops can't be used, people are unhealthy, and the holy family is still raising them at random. Those who make meritorious deeds get nothing, but those who fail get many benefits by being close to the holy family. Some people can even be sealed in a door. That's not to mention, successive years of disasters, ten injuries, five or six, but the emperor raised thousands of ladies-in-waiting, eating meat and wearing clothes every day, and putting on countless fat makeup. As the saying goes, thieves don't enter the house of five women. That's because having so many daughters at home must be very poor. Now there are so many concubines and maids in the harem, doesn't it make the country poorer? Also, prison is forbidden to violate rape, and the official only acts according to the name. If the law falls and officials lose their people, it must be because the emperor has not done a good job. Now everyone is saying that prisons start with resentment and titles are paid with bribes. I hope the emperor will pay attention to ... this paper. When it comes to the emperor's mistakes, it hardly leaves any face. Fortunately, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty kept his promise, and finally adopted some opinions from Chen Fan. On another occasion, Emperor Huan of Han Dynasty wanted to go hunting in Guangcheng. After hearing this, Chen Fan said that there are three disasters in the world today: empty fields, empty courts and empty warehouses. In addition, the war continues and the refugees continue. It was a time when the emperor was worried and embarrassed. How can he go hunting in the paddock regardless of the country? In six years (A.D. 163), Chen Fan went to Qiu as an official, and at this time, two eunuchs in the DPRK were reused. They took the opportunity to approach the Emperor and framed the Minister of Justice who rejected North Korea. The ministers in the DPRK were afraid of eunuchs, and Chen Fan was the only one who remonstrated with them if he dared to be angry. But at this time, the emperor stopped listening to Chen Fan, and finally failed to keep these loyal subjects. Many people died unjustly in prison. Originally, the eunuchs also wanted to kill Chen Fan, but in the end, because Chen Fan was too famous to move, Chen Fan dodged a bullet. But a year later, because of the partisan dispute, Chen Fan made another suggestion. This time, Emperor Huan of Han Dynasty was fed up. In a rage, Chen Fan was dismissed for the people. The cause of party events is the opposition between courtiers and autocratic eunuchs. At that time, ministers headed by Mars, the leader of the Party, fell out of favor in the DPRK, and eunuchs framed them on the grounds that Mars, Du Mi, Fan Pang and others "raised businessmen, befriended counties and counties, drove each other away, despised the court for the party, and doubted customs". Emperor Huan was furious and ordered the counties to arrest party member and put 200 people in prison. Seeing the sinister situation, Chen Fan, regardless of being implicated again, tried to avoid it, saying that Mars, Du Mi, Fan Pang and others were incorruptible people, risking their lives to forget their lives, but they were in prison and dying. And the emperor blocked the mouth of the world, deaf and dumb people for a lifetime, and what is the difference between Qin Shihuang burning books and burying Confucianism? Now that the emperor is in power, punish Zhong Xian first. What about the good and the bad? Listen to the flattery of traitors and villains, and put innocent people in prison and kill innocent people in the market. Then, Chen Fan urged the emperor to ward off evil spirits, and it was really revised. And he himself, because of his great responsibility, did not dare to cherish life or wait and see. If you are collected, even if your head is split open, you won't hate it when you go out. The result can be imagined. Chen Fan not only failed to rescue Mars, Fan Pang and others, but also was implicated. Fortunately, it didn't take long for the Emperor Huan of Han Dynasty to die, the Duke of Dou came to the DPRK, and the old minister was reinstated. After the imperial edict, Chen Fan was the teacher and recorded the history. In A.D. 168, Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty ascended the throne, because Chen Fan played a vital role in assisting Emperor Ling to ascend the throne. The queen mother also wrote to Chen Fan, a teacher, to assist the first emperor, who lived in the country for many years, honored the dynasty with the beauty of loyalty and filial piety, and sealed Levin's hometown for 300 families. But Chen Fan persisted and wrote 10 copies of the paper before and after. Dou Taihou finally had to give up. During this period, Fan Chen is a very important person. Together with Dou Taihou's father, Dou Wu, he tried to revive the Han Dynasty by managing Chaogang, assisting national politics and applying benevolence. However, in the face of powerful eunuch forces, only the efforts of Chen Fan and Dou Wu could not be realized. Especially later, Chen Fan and Dou Wu planned to kill the eunuch, but the news leaked out. The eunuch took the lead, pretending that Chen and Dou wanted to abolish the emperor, and tricked Emperor Han Ling into killing them with a letter. On the day of the incident, Fan Chen was killed. Dou Wu, the father of Empress Dowager Cixi, was not spared. After a period of resistance, Dou Wu was desperate and committed suicide by drawing his sword. In this way, a generation of famous ministers, Chen Fan, who was determined to sweep the world since childhood, went to the grave with regret for not sweeping the world. After Chen Fan and Dou Wu were killed, their relatives and guests were executed. In the past, students recommended by Chen and Dou and officials with close ties in the Party were also exempted from official prison. The only one who survived was Chen Fan's son Chen Yi. At that time, an old friend of Chen Fan, Zhu Zhen, resigned and wept bitterly after hearing the news of Chen Fan's death. One is to risk being beheaded and secretly bury Fan Chen's body. Then hide Chen Yi at the border of Ganling. After he and his family were discovered, they all went to prison. Zhu Zhen was tortured, but he vowed to die, and Chen Yi survived. A few years later, the Yellow Scarf Army uprising, Emperor Han Ling pardoned party member, Chen Yi came out of the mountain, and later became an official in Luxiang. The three loyal monarchs, serving the country and helping the country in distress, are outspoken and do not avoid life and death, which embodies the loyalty of a loyal minister and the demeanor of a saint in heaven. For Fan Chen, one thing can't be ignored, and that is his special respect for knowledge and talents. In the Tang Dynasty, Wang Bo had two sentences in his famous Preface to Wang Tengting: "There is a treasure of things, and the dragon light shoots the bull market;" Outstanding people, Xu Ru down to Chen Fan's couch. "Among them, Xu Ru is Chen Fan's most respected scholar friend. When Chen Fan was still doing the satrap of Zhang Yu, he invited Xu Ru to come out to handle affairs. Fan Chen didn't like socializing all his life, much less entertaining guests. However, only Xu Ru is an exception. Every time he invited Xu Ru to come over, they chatted happily and forgot the time. To this end, Chen Fan specially prepared a couch for Xu Ru to spend the night. As soon as Xu Ru left, Fan Chen hung up the sofa and didn't put it down until Xu Ru came back. When Chen Fan acceded to the throne of Emperor Shun of Han Dynasty, he embarked on his official career because of Qiu's recommendation. Therefore, he is well aware of the importance of talents to the country and strongly recommends world celebrities when making ministerial orders. These people include Xu Ru of Nanchang, Wei Zhu of Ping Ling, Justin of Runan, Li Tan of Yangzhai and Wei Huan of Anyang. But none of the people he recommended came out to be an official because they didn't want to be a bad king, which is a pity for Chen Fan's painstaking efforts. But it can also be seen from here that the social atmosphere was on the verge of danger at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty. Even so, Fan Chen is still struggling to support himself in the case of internal and external troubles. Although the final result was national subjugation and beheading, it left behind not only endless regrets, but also the tragic unfinished business of "a gentleman should sweep the world".