"Roman Empire" is the only foreign TV series that I have watched completely since I went abroad for ten years. After watching this 22-episode TV series, I carefully recalled the most impressive clip, which turned out to be the above picture that was insignificant to the plot. The monarch of the world's most powerful country, standing by the sea, expresses his envy towards a slave who has nothing.
When I was reading Chinese history, I was deeply puzzled: why do so many people want to be emperors? That is simply the highest occupational risk job in the world, and the risk factor is definitely higher than that of a miner, a race car driver, or a boxer. The Nanliang Emperor Xiao Yan was starved to death, Zong Qinzong was trampled to death by a horse, the Sui Emperor Yang Guang was hanged, and the Northern Wei Emperor Yuan Xu was poisoned by his own mother... It can be said that there are various ways to die. I think it is really killing people not to have studied statistics. Otherwise, these emperors should know the following tragic data: It is said that the average age of emperors whose birth and death dates in Chinese history can be tested is only 39 years old. The average life expectancy is 18 years lower than that of ordinary people, and the abnormal mortality rate of emperors is 44%, which is much higher than that of ordinary people.
Of course, high risk comes with high reward. When you become an emperor, you have three thousand beauties in the harem, and you have all kinds of delicious food on the table, but seriously, a person has only one stomach, how much can he eat? A man has only one sexual organ, how many beautiful women can he sleep? Emperor Tongzhi dared to challenge himself in bed, but died of syphilis. It can be seen that sleeping with a woman is not the more the better. As for delicacies, we know that eating too much chicken, duck, and fish will raise blood lipids and cause coronary heart disease. Not all emperors have the perseverance to run on the treadmill.
When we reflect on the centralized system, our usual thinking is how it harms the people, but we rarely think that the autocrats themselves are often one of the victims. In "Roman Empire", Pompey, who wanted to dominate the consulship, was cut off by the front, Caesar, who rebelled, was killed in the Senate by Brutus, and Atia, who wanted to be the first lady, was killed by all The man betrayed, Anthony, one of the three giants, was driven to commit suicide, and Cleopatra, who was scheming, became Octavian's prisoner... In this story, God is like a mischievous child, and power is the apple in the garden of Eden, Adam And Eve kept reaching out to it, and when they were almost reaching it, God suddenly pulled the apple away. So, thump, thump, thump, thump, one by one, the tempted fell to heaven.
The more one possesses, the more one is possessed. The dialectics of legends is concise and blunt.
It is said that Hu Changqing, a famous corrupt official, sighed before his execution that if we had released news supervision earlier, maybe I would not have ended up like this. Of course, not all corrupt officials are as unlucky as him. They have eaten countless chickens, ducks and fish and slept with countless women who are still eating chickens, ducks, and fish. Repay it"—even if they didn't repay it themselves, they would repay it by their great-grandchildren. When Chongzhen was hanged from a tree, he might not be able to figure out what he had done wrong until he died. Well, boy, what's the problem, ask your grandpa's grandpa's grandpa's grandpa. When Gorbachev fell from power, he probably couldn't understand why his painstaking efforts to save the country and the people ended up like this.
I often feel that Buddhism has its scientific nature. It talks about cause and effect, retribution, accumulation of virtue and accumulation of grievances. Of course it is not in scientific language, but the truth is not necessarily untestable. It's hard to imagine that a person can keep his blood lipids as normal, or that the sleeping girl is still as strong as a cow. Embracing power is like embracing a time bomb. In the game of drumming and passing flowers, there is always a hapless person who receives the bomb at the end.
Last year, there was a very popular official novel "Canghuang" in China. After reading it, I felt genuine sympathy for grass-roots officials. I think being an official is really tiring. Today I have to organize interception interviews, tomorrow I have to organize to delete posts, the day after tomorrow I have to plot against someone, and the day after tomorrow, I have to be plotted against someone. With such a constant anxiety, power is almost a burden. I think if I were the county magistrate, director, or something in the book, I would be extremely pathetic. Wouldn’t it be worth eating a few more bites of meat and sleeping a few more women?
But what I sympathize most with is Guangxu in the late Qing Dynasty. He didn't even choose to chase power, he was just chosen by power. A lonely teenager, sitting on a huge seat in an empty palace, guarding a hollow empire in vain. When he was young, he had to get up at four in the morning, read boring poetry and books, strictly observe etiquette, and worry about the country and the people... More than 100 years later, he should be a child on the street wearing Nike shoes and listening to iPods, but he was unfortunately born in The Aisin Gioro family from 100 years ago. I wonder if he also looked at the eunuch in the palace like Pompey looked at the messenger back then, thinking: How comfortable would it be if I could become a driftwood in the water like him. I think there is probably no one in the world who understands the tragedy of power better than those at the pinnacle of power, but it can only be a secret they have nowhere to say.
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