The author is Dong Zhongshu of Han Dynasty.

The complete sentence is "A monarch wants his ministers to die, but I don't die because of disloyalty; The father told the son to die, and it would be unfilial if the son did not die. " It belongs to one of the so-called "three cardinal guides" in feudal society. The three cardinal guides refer to monarch, minister, father and son, and husband and wife.

In ancient times, Confucius said, "A monarch should be polite to his ministers, and he should be loyal to them in matters", which was later changed by Confucius (a disciple or descendant of Confucius) into: "If a monarch wants his ministers to die, they have to die". The earliest record (source) of this sentence is the specific content of Dong Zhongshu's "three cardinal guides and five permanents".

Extended information:

The words "three cardinal guides" and "five permanents" come from Dong Zhongshu's book "Spring and Autumn Stories" in the Western Han Dynasty. But as a moral principle and standard, it originated from Confucius in the pre-Qin period. Confucius once put forward ethical concepts such as monarch, monarch, minister, father and son, benevolence, courtesy and wisdom.

Mencius further put forward the "five ethics" of "father and son are related, monarch and minister are righteous, husband and wife are different, the ages are orderly, and friends have faith". According to his theory that "Guiyang is inferior to Yin", Dong Zhongshu further developed the concept of five ethics and put forward the principle of three cardinal guides and the way of five permanents.

Dong Zhongshu believes that in human relations, there is a natural and eternal master-slave relationship among monarch, minister, father and son, and husband and wife: the monarch is the master and the minister is the follower; The father is the master and the son is the slave; The husband is the master, and the wife is the slave. That is, the so-called "the monarch is the minister, the father is the child, and the husband is the wife".

Dong Zhongshu also believes that the five principles of benevolence, righteousness, courtesy, wisdom and faith are the basic rules for dealing with the relationship between monarch and minister, father and son, husband and wife, and the relationship between superiors and subordinates, and the governors should pay enough attention to them.

the theory of three cardinal guides and five permanent members started from Dong Zhongshu and was completed by Zhu Xi. However, Dong Zhongshu did not mention the "three cardinal guides" and the "five permanents" together, and it was Ma Rong, a Confucian scholar in the late Eastern Han Dynasty, who first mentioned them together. This juxtaposition means that feudal thinkers finally combined the feudal discipline with the moral principles to deal with it, forming a complete political, ethical and moral system.

during the song dynasty, "Zhu Xi's theory of developing natural principles linked the" three cardinal guides and five permanents "with" natural principles ".He believed that the three cardinal guides and five permanents were the development of natural principles, the natural product of" natural principles "embodied in social norms, and the eternal panacea for coordinating social relations". At this point, Zhu Xi's theory of "one principle and one relaxation" became the norm of social life order.

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