100 Historical Stories That Unlock Teenage Wisdom

Chapter 71 8

Chapter 78 Liu Bowen Prays for Rain

——Indirect tactics to give opinions frankly sometimes fail to achieve the expected purpose, we can consider adopting indirect tactics to express opinions and persuade others tactfully.

Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang relied on a group of brave generals to fight for the city and land during the unification war, and recruited some counselors to help him make suggestions.Among these advisers, Liu Ji is the most famous one.

Liu Ji, also known as Bowen, was originally an official of the Yuan Dynasty. Because he was dissatisfied with the social status quo, he often wrote articles to satirize current events, and was later dismissed and returned to his hometown Qingtian.When Zhu Yuanzhang's army reached eastern Zhejiang, he invited Liu Ji out to be his counselor.In the battle to defeat Chen Youliang and Zhang Shicheng, Liu Ji made many strategies.Because of his resourcefulness, he won the trust of Zhu Yuanzhang, who compared him to Zhang Liang in the early Western Han Dynasty.

When Zhu Yuanzhang was king of Wu, there was a drought in the south of the Yangtze River.Liu Ji was in charge of astronomy, and Zhu Yuanzhang asked him why there was a severe drought and how to ask for rain.Liu Ji said: "It doesn't rain all the time, because the people in the prison have been wronged."

Zhu Yuanzhang believed Liu Ji's words and sent him to investigate the prisoners in Liguan.Liu Ji checked and found that there were many unjust cases.After he made a statement to Zhu Yuanzhang, he vindicated the unjust case and released the wrongly arrested person.

Praying for rain and rehabilitating them are two completely different things. Of course, it is impossible for Liu Ji to have the spell of praying for rain.However, he knows astronomy and may observe that the weather is about to change, so he took this opportunity to persuade Zhu Yuanzhang to vindicate his injustice.Sure enough, within a few days, there were dark clouds, and then it rained heavily.Liu Ji took advantage of Zhu Yuanzhang's joy and persuaded him to formulate laws and act according to the law to prevent innocent people from being killed by mistake.

After Zhu Yuanzhang came to the throne, he asked Liu Ji to be the censor Zhongcheng, responsible for judicial work.Liu Ji strictly enforced the law.Once, a close friend of Prime Minister Li Shanchang broke the law.Li Shanchang was the founding hero of the Ming Dynasty and a fellow villager of Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang, with great influence.But Liu Ji disregarded Li Shanchang's obstruction, played Ming Ming Taizu, and killed that cronies.Of course, this incident aroused Li Shanchang's resentment.It just so happened that this year, there was another severe drought in the capital, and Ming Taizu was very anxious.Liu Ji took the opportunity to tell Ming Taizu: "The wives of soldiers who died in the war need pensions; the bones of some craftsmen who died in the process of building the city are still exposed in the fields, and no one is buried. If these things are done, maybe It can rain."

Ming Taizu prayed for rain wholeheartedly, of course he quickly approved Liu Ji's request, comforted the soldiers' wives, and buried the bones of the craftsmen.Although Liu Ji did a good thing, it is unreliable to rely on this method to persuade people.This time, his prediction was inaccurate. After ten days, the sun was still scorching, and not a single drop of rain fell.

This made Ming Taizu angry, and Li Shanchang said bad things next to him, so Liu Ji had to be afraid.At this time, it happened that his wife fell ill and died in his hometown, so Liu Ji quickly asked for a leave of absence and went back to his hometown.

In fact, Ming Taizu still held Liu Ji in high regard.Once, Emperor Taizu of the Ming Dynasty wanted to worship Liu Ji as the prime minister. Liu Ji quickly declined and said: "Choosing a prime minister is like choosing a pillar. You have to choose a big wood. If you use a small wood as a beam, the house will be in danger of collapsing."

Later, Ming Taizu withdrew the post of prime minister Li Shanchang, and wanted to invite Liu Ji to become prime minister.Liu Ji said: "I am too quick-tempered to tolerate bad people. Besides, I am too old to take on such a heavy responsibility. There are plenty of talents in the world. I hope Your Majesty will look for them." Wisdom Interpretation:
We advocate being straightforward and frank, but sometimes being straightforward is not a good thing.In some scenes, we need to adopt euphemistic and implicit expressions, so that the words of admonition can be spoken in an acceptable way and form.After all, what we need are results.

(End of this chapter)