(Minghui.org) Emperor Huizong, the second to the last emperor of the Northern Song Dynasty, enjoyed a luxurious lifestyle and exhausted the country’s resources in his quest for entertainment. This ruined a dynasty, and he, his son, and the royal family were captured by the Jurchens, taken to remote regions of China and humiliated. This is considered one of the darkest chapters of Chinese history.
Emperor Huizong’s corruption did not happen overnight. Cai Jing, who was his chancellor for 23 years, was cunning and often abused his power to please the emperor. According to the Biography of Traitors in Song Shi (History of the Song Dynasty), Cai collected private wealth from various sources for the imperial court, causing many families to become bankrupt; he engaged in corruption and sold official positions, which in turn led to the corruption of the government.
Moreover, Cai used his power to target his opponents and punish those who had different opinions. Within three years after becoming the chancellor, he compiled lists of those who opposed him – 309 in total – and presented them to the emperor. With the emperor’s approval, Cai had their names carved on a stone tablet and erected it in a public place near the palace.
In addition to his main political opponents, the list also included renowned scholars such as Su Shi and Huang Tingjian. Cai ordered that their literary works be banned; their relatives were implicated, and their children were barred from becoming officials. He ordered every state and county official to display copies of the stone tablet all over the country in order to defame these people.
Li Zhongning, a stonemason from Jiujiang, was ordered by the prefect to replicate the tablet. But he immediately declined the request. “My family was poor when I was young, so I learned stone carving skills to make a living. I was later often paid for my stone carving with poems from Su Shi and Huang Tingjian,” Li said.
“Although I haven’t met these scholars in person, I benefited from them in this way,” the stonemason explained. “Since the tablet has their names on it [for humiliation], I cannot be ungrateful and do this.”
The prefect was moved and praised him, “You are a noble man. If we had more upright officials in the palace like you, things would be different.”
Several hundred years have passed, but we can still learn from history, and this stonemason.
Like Cai Jing, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has ruined the country, especially in its human rights abuses and moral corruption. It also systematically targets different voices through waves of political campaigns, notably the students killed during the Tiananmen Square Massacre and the recent persecution of Falun Gong.
Different from Cai, however, the CCP continues to exhaust China’s resources to suppress groups. After fabricating lies, it spreads them through the media, educational systems, entertainment, and diplomatic channels to defame groups such as Falun Gong. One of these examples is the staged Self-Immolation Incident at Tiananmen Square.
Despite the CCP’s efforts, many Chinese people either witnessed or heard about benefits of practicing Falun Gong. When they reflect on the CCP’s allegations of what happened, they are able to find loopholes.
For example, since Tiananmen Square is huge, how could police officers suddenly appear onsite carrying fire extinguishers to put out the fire? How is it possible for the little girl Liu Siying to sing a song four days after undergoing tracheotomy surgery? This goes against medical common sense. Furthermore, Falun Gong’s teachings explicitly ban killing and suicide, so those who do this are not true Falun Gong practitioners.
When we reflect on events in China since the CCP took power, one finds that it instilled class struggle, hatred, lies, and conflict – which are all part of communism’s ideology. This is why the Party cannot tolerate traditional values, such as Falun Gong’s principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance.
Going back to history, Cai’s bad deeds not only helped end the Northern Song dynasty, but also his own future. After the Jurchens invaded, he was demoted five times in 1126 and sent to a remote area. On the way to his place of exile, Cai carried many gold and silver treasures, thinking that he had brought enough to survive. But his bad deeds were already well known and people along the way refused to give him food or water. He died miserably in the end.
Confucius once said, “If you do not plan for the long term, you may end up in worry in the short term.” Like the stonemason, let’s not trade our moral principles for short-term gains; otherwise, the price may be too high.
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Category: Traditional Culture
