(1) Hanging a Book on the Bull's Horn

Emperor Yang of Sui attacked Goryeo for the first time and was defeated. More than one million Sui soldiers, only two thousand seven hundred people escaped back. This fiasco did not make this arrogant tyrant dead. Only a year later, he launched a second attack on Goryeo. He personally led the army to attack Liaodong, and sent his minister Yang Xuan Gan to supervise the transportation of grain and grass in the rear of Liyang.

Yang Xuan Gan's father, Yang Su, was originally a close friend of Emperor Yang, and helped Emperor Yang seize the throne. Later on, he was suspected by Emperor Yang and died of depression. Yang Xuan Gan has long been dissatisfied with Emperor Yang, and this time, seeing the situation is chaotic, he wants to take advantage of this time to overthrow Emperor Yang.

Yang Xuan Gan used the name of transporting grain and grass, conscripted the young and strong people, boatmen more than eight thousand people, and asked them to transport grain to the front line in Liaodong.

One day, Yang Xuan Gan gathered the people together and said: "The Emperor does not care about the people's lives and let thousands of people die in Liaodong, this situation can not be tolerated any longer. I am also forced to do this. Now I am determined to join the group and overthrow the tyrant. What do you think?"

Once the guys heard that someone was leading the charge against the court, how could they not, and a cheer went up.

Yang Xuan Gan organized the 8,000 folk into teams, issued weapons, and prepared to attack the Sui army. He realizes that he lacks a strategist around him to help him out, and can't help but think of his good friend Li Mi, who is in Chang'an.

Li Mi's previous generations were nobles in the Northern Zhou and Sui dynasties. When Li Mi was a teenager, he was assigned as a guard in Emperor Yang's court. He was flexible by nature, and when he was on duty, he looked left and right, which was discovered by Emperor Yang of Sui, who thought that the boy was not very honest, and exempted him from his 'errand'. Li Mi was not chagrined, and when he returned home, he studied furiously and decided to be a learned man.

Once, Li Mi rode an ox and went out to see a friend. On the way, he hung the Book of Han on the bull's horn and grabbed the time to read. It so happened that the prime minister Yang Su in his carriage came up behind him, and saw a young man in front of him reading on the back of the ox, and secretly wondered.

Yang Su greeted in the car and said, "Which scholar, so diligent ah?"

Li Mi looked back and recognized the prime minister, panicked and jumped off the back of the ox, made a bow to Yang Su, reported his name.

Yang Su asked him, "What are you looking at?"

Li Mi replied, "I am reading a biography of Xiang Yu."

Yang Su talked to Li Mi for a while, and felt that this young man was very ambitious. After returning home, Yang Su told his son, Yang Xuan Gan, "I think Li Mi's knowledge and talent are much better than those of your brothers. In the future, if you have any important matters, you can find him to discuss."

After that, Yang Xuan Gan made friends with Li Mi.

This time, when Yang Xuan Gan was looking for a strategist, he remembered his father's advice, so he sent someone to Chang'an to bring Li Mi to Liyang.

When Li Mi arrived in Liyang, Yang Xuan Gan asked him for advice on how to fight the battle to overthrow Emperor Yang.

Li Mi said: "There are three ways to defeat the official army. First, the emperor is now in Liaodong, we lead the troops north to cut off the retreat of the dim emperor. He has Goryeo in front of him, and no retreat behind him. Within ten days, the army will not be able to take over the food, and we can win without fighting, which is the best strategy. The second is to take Chang'an to the west and raid their lair. If the government forces want to retreat, we will take the Guanzhong area as a base, with the risk of holding on, this is the middle strategy. The third is to attack Luoyang, the capital of the East. However, this is a lower strategy. Because the imperial court still retains a portion of the garrison in the eastern capital, it is not certain that it can be quickly attacked."

Yang Xuan Gan is eager to get things done, after listening to the three strategies, think the first two are too time-consuming, said: "I see you say the next strategy, but it is a good strategy. Now the families of the court officials are all in Dongdu. We take down the east capital, the families are captured. The army will be shaken, so we can win."

Yang Xuan Gan immediately from Liyang to attack Dongdu, along the way, there are many peasants enthusiastically participate in the insurrectionary army, the team expanded to 100,000 people, and won a few battles one after another. Emperor Yang is leading the army attacking Liaoyang, get the emergency paper, retreating overnight, sent general Yu Wen Shu and other leading army to attack Yang Xuan Gan in separate ways. Yang Xuan Gan could not resist and tried to retreat to Chang'an in the west. Yuwen Shu followed and chased Yang Xuan Gan with his troops, and finally, surrounded Yang Xuan Gan's men and horses. Yang Xuan Gan had no way out and was finally killed.

Li Mi escaped from the chaos and tried to sneak back to Chang'an. But the Sui army searched very tightly, and Li Mi was still caught.

The Sui general sent soldiers to escort Li Mi to Emperor Yang's camp. On the way, Li Mi discussed with a dozen prisoners, and gave them all the money they had with them to the escorting Sui soldiers for their food and drink. The Sui soldiers took their bribe, drank wine and had fun, and their defense was slackened. The first time I saw this was when I was a young man, and the second time I saw this was when I was a young man, and the third time I saw this was when I was a young man.

After Li Mi was out of danger, he wanted to find another opportunity to rebel against the Sui Dynasty. He tried to find a rebel leader to back him up, but some rebel leaders saw him as a weak scholar and didn't pay much attention to him. Li Mi had no choice but to change his name and hide, and he was nearly arrested by the government several times. Finally, he heard that there was an insurgent army in Wagang Village in Dongxian County (east of present-day Shixian County, Henan Province), which was very strong. The leader was called Zhai (翟)让, who was generous and liked to make friends with heroes, so he decided to go to the east county to join the Wagang army.

(2) Hundred rivers return to the sea

From "Huainanzi - Record of Discussions" "

Hundreds of rivers have different origins, and the risk of returning to the sea.

The story is that Liu An, a thinker and writer of the Western Han Dynasty, was the grandson of Liu Bang, the founder of the Han Dynasty, and inherited his father's title as the King of Huainan. His hobby of reading and drumming, talented, had called Soun soldiers guest and know astronomy, medicine, calendar, divination and so on thousands of people, collectively prepared a hundreds of thousands of words of the book "Hong Lie", also known as the "Huainan Zi" "Huainan Zi" there is an article "Remembering the Discourse", which talks about some of the development of human society, and its basic point of view is in line with the materialism of history. In the article, it is written that our ancestors lived in caves and beside water in the early days, dressed very poorly and lived a very hard life. Later, there were saints who led people to build palaces; so that people came out from the caves and lived in houses where they could escape from the wind, rain, cold and heat. The sages also taught people to make agricultural tools and weapons for farming and hunting beasts, so that people's lives were more secure than in the past. Later on, the sages made rituals and music, and laid down all kinds of rules, so that the people had manners and constraints. From this we can see that society is constantly developing and people do not always live in one way. Therefore, the systems of ancient times should be abolished if they are no longer suitable for use, whereas those of the present should be promoted if they are suitable for use. All of the above shows that, like a thousand rivers from different sources, but in the end they all flow into the sea, each person does different things, but they all seek to better govern society and live a better life.