After reading several history books of Cai, I decide to write something. Reading history without emotion can make one understand history better.

A man of ambition will become hero if the society is dark enough. If he becomes hero, he will have to deal with his followers or else his followers will deal with him. After his death, if he is wise to choose followers for his son, his son will inherit him, or else, someone else will become hero. After several generations, his offspring will make the society dark enough so that someone of ambition can become hero.

If the society isn’t dark enough or the revolutionary isn’t wise enough, uprising will always be crushed. Under the dark rule of Qin Dynasty, Chen Sheng and Wu Guang began to rebel for the first time in imperial history of China. Once the people are forced to die, they will surely rebel. Because Chen Sheng and Wu Guang didn’t arrive in time, they would be killed according to the Qin law. Nobody is foolish to stretch his head out for other people to cut. Chen Sheng had a famous saying, “nobody is destined to be emperor, general or something.”

When Chen was young, he said to his fellow workers, “once we become rich, we shouldn’t forget each other.” Other fellow workers only knew to ridicule him without reason. Most of people are willing to content with their life for they don’t have ability and hence are afraid of change. Later when Chen Sheng became powerful, he forgot his own words. When one of his fellow workers sought to follow him, Chen even killed him for he told old stories of Chen to other people. So what’s the big deal? Chen really shouldn’t be ashamed of his humble origin, which could prove his greatness more. Finally he was utterly isolated and killed by mean people. Some emperors killed meritorious ministers only after the establishment of dynasty. Chen even killed followers before that, no wonder he died early.

Then Liu Bang defeated Xiang Yu and established Han Dynasty. Since ancient times, every man likes wine and beauty, so did Liu Bang. When he came to the capital of Qin and lived in Qin palace, he forgot his ambition completely and only wanted to drink and play with beauties all day. Luckily, he could be persuaded by wise people. After becoming emperor, he decided to kill meritorious ministers one by one, Yeah, hide the bow since birds are extinguished. We shouldn’t blame Liu Bang. Human desire is limitless and everybody is struggling for power and money and the throne is the best thing to represent power and money. Of course everybody is willing to be emperor. Emperor has to kill meritorious ministers to make his throne secure.

Only Zhao Kuangying did a nice job. He used a cup of wine to send his meritorious ministers home to become rich to enjoy the rest of life. Both emperor and ministers were happy.