On January 23, 2026, CCTV's annual drama "The Year of Peace" was officially launched. The beginning of the series does not directly enter the secret dispute between the palace guards, but uses sharp strokes to describe the bottom line of survival in the troubled times of the Five Dynasties – bloodshed, human flesh being eaten, and starvation everywhere.
Against this apocalyptic scene of cannibalism, the life of Shi Jingtang, the founder of the later Jin Dynasty, was about to come to an end. The ensuing drama of entrusting an orphan is meaningful: on the sick bed, Shi Jingtang ordered the queen to send her youngest son Shi Chongrui into the arms of the veteran minister Feng Dao. According to historical records, "he held him in Dao's arms. Although the emperor did not say anything, everyone knew that he entrusted Dao with his great care and wisdom."
Thousands of words are all left unsaid.
The candlelight in front of the dragon bed was swaying, and Shi Jingtang, who was as angry as a gossamer, still used up his last strength, just like the last life-saving straw grasped by a drowning person: "Ke Dao, Jingtang, please!"
Seeing Feng Dao silently take Zhong Rui into his arms, Shi Jingtang finally let go of his hand, slowly closed his eyes, and walked away "safely and without regrets."
However, the plot took a sudden turn, and a thunder broke through the solemnity – Feng Dao's heart at this moment was full of helpless calculations: "Your Majesty, don't blame me. The price of loyalty you gave me cannot buy the lives of all my Feng family. In these troubled times, surviving is the most fundamental loyalty and filial piety."
The "roly-poly" prime minister who was entrusted with the task of entrusting an orphan turned around and joined forces with powerful ministers to support Shi Jingtang's nephew Shi Chonggui, who was older and had military power, on the grounds that "the country is in trouble and it is appropriate to establish an eldest monarch."
The whole process was as fast as lightning. Before Shi Zhongrui, the ignorant young master, had time to see clearly the appearance of the dragon chair, the change of power was already settled.
This act of blatant disobedience to the late emperor's orders was not simply classified as "betrayal" in "The Taiping Year". When Feng Dao holds his young master by the hand and encounters Zhao Hongyin and his son (father of Zhao Kuangyin) who hold military power and show murderous intent outside the palace gate, the scene has already made it clear: under the iron law of troubled times that "the emperor shall be the one with strong soldiers and horses", a fragile edict is unable to resist this cold reality of power.
Shi Jingtang's entrustment was destined to be a tragedy that could not be staged according to the script from the beginning. Feng Dao's sigh of "helplessness in troubled times" instantly pulled the audience into the ethical abyss where traditional morality has completely failed and all choices are a matter of life and death.
This is a period of history that was scorched by war in the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms. During those fifty-three years, the eight surnames and fourteen monarchs came and went like a revolving lantern. "Placing a monarch is like changing officials, changing a country is like passing down a family" has become the norm of the times. When the figures of Shi Jingtang and Feng Dao intersect in this ruin of value, they are no longer isolated individuals, but two extreme survival paradigms spawned by the fission of the times.
The two are like two ends of a giant scale: one end is Shi Jingtang's geo-realism that trades space for time, and the other is Feng Dao's bureaucratic realism that trades reputation for function. Together they weigh the critical weight of individual souls and the continuation of civilization in troubled times.
If you want to understand Shi Jingtang, you must first have an insight into the hell picture in which he lives. After the Anshi Rebellion, the scourge of the Tang Dynasty's feudal regimes completely fester during the Huangchao Uprising, and evolved into a disorderly carnival of dictatorial military power. This is an extreme form of "ritual and music conquests originate from the princes", and it is also a testing ground for the complete collapse of the "righteousness between monarch and ministers".
Jiedu envoys regarded their elite soldiers as private property, and the prestige of the court was completely lost. Ouyang Xiu of the Northern Song Dynasty lamented in his "New History of the Five Dynasties": "Wow, the Five Dynasties were extremely chaotic!" The so-called "extreme" not only refers to the frequent killings and the decline of people's livelihood, but also to the basic principles that maintain the operation of society – loyalty, which has become a joke of the world.
What is even more fatal is that the strategic pattern of the North has undergone a fundamental reversal. After the collapse of the Tang Empire, which once dominated East Asia, the emerging Khitan (Liao) empire, managed by two generations of heroes, Yelu Abaoji and Yelu Deguang, transformed from a loose alliance of grassland tribes into a powerful empire with both nomadic force and an initial Chinese political system.
Their eye on the land of Heshuo is no longer a border threat in the traditional sense, but a decisive external force that can directly intervene and subvert the political situation of the Central Plains.
Shi Jingtang, a military nobleman of the Shatuo tribe, was trapped in a double desperate situation of internal disorder and heavy external pressure. He was both a participant in the old order (the Later Tang Dynasty) and a representative of its centrifugal force. When the conflict with Li Congke, the late Emperor of the late Tang Dynasty, intensified to the point of irreconcilability, his choice space was as narrow as a razor blade.
In 936 AD, in order to destroy the Later Tang Dynasty, he reached an infamous deal with the Khitan: ceding the Sixteen Youyun Prefectures, professing vassalage to the Khitan, and respecting Yelu Deguang, who was ten years younger than him, as his "Father Emperor". Faced with the dissuasion from his confidants that "the price is too humiliating", Shi Jingtang looked gloomy and squeezed out a sentence through his teeth: "If I don't become a minister, there will be no Jin tomorrow."
This decision is a bone-chilling balance of interests between "instant destruction" and "humiliating survival", and is by no means simply personal shamelessness. Shi Jingtang knew better than anyone else the strategic value of the Youyun Sixteen Prefectures, the core area from Yanshan to the Great Wall defense line that included present-day Beijing and Datong.
He was not ignorant, but he knew it was poisonous but had to drink it. His choice marked the debut of an extreme realism path for the Central Plains regime when its force and self-confidence hit rock bottom. The price of this choice was paid in installments by the entire nation during the next four hundred years of military passivity: the Northern Song Dynasty failed to regain this geographical backbone throughout its life, and was forced to exchange "year-old coins" for peace due to the disadvantage of the cavalry. It was not until Xu Da's Northern Expedition in the Ming Dynasty that the Land of Clouds returned to the original map of the Central Plains.
In Shi Jingtang's balance, the few years of state power he gained for the later Jin Dynasty were weighed heavily by the overdraft of hundreds of years of geographical security for later generations.
Different from Shi Jingtang's thrilling "one-time gamble", Feng Dao's life path is a long, silent and tenacious "protracted battle for survival." He served in the ten emperors of the Later Tang Dynasty, the Later Jin Dynasty, the Khitan Dynasty, the Later Han Dynasty, and the Later Zhou Dynasty. He was like a gentle but indestructible seal imprinted on the scroll of imperial power of every passing person.
Because of this, he became the target of the famous criticism in Ouyang Xiu's "New History of the Five Dynasties" about "propriety, justice, integrity and shame, the four dimensions of the state", and was denounced as a "shameless person".
However, if the vision is raised from the rise and fall of a family to the survival of civilization and the suffering of the people, Feng Dao's image suddenly becomes complex and multi-dimensional. Although the authenticity of the "Rongkujian" (also known as "The Little Man Classic") written in his name by later generations is doubtful, it provides us with the coldest and most appropriate footnotes for our interpretation of this "roly-poly". His thoughts are highly consistent with Feng Dao's deeds.
The opening chapter of "Rongkujian" states: "Good and evil have names, and the wise do not stick to them." This establishes the core tone of the whole book and even Feng Dao's wisdom: in the face of the ultimate existential crisis, adhering to the abstract names of good and evil is both luxurious and fatal. This philosophy was vividly demonstrated in the Shi Jingtang Tuogu incident.
Feng Dao's violation of Shi Jingtang's last wish may be due to a colder realistic judgment: in a situation surrounded by proud soldiers and powerful generals, if the young master ascends to the top, it is tantamount to pushing him into a pit of fire, and may even cause the country to instantly fall apart. Supporting the emperor may be a disobedience to the emperor's will, but it may bring temporary stability to the regime.
"Rongkujian" also said: "Those who worry about the country will lose their virginity, and those who worry about themselves will be safe." Feng Dao seemed to understand this well. He quietly transferred his allegiance from the fickle concrete monarch to the abstract and sustainable "country" and "people."
What best sums up Feng Dao's dilemma and choices in his life is the sober assertion in "The Mirror of Prosperity and Decay": "Don't be afraid of what others say, but only consider interests. This is not the way of justice, but the way of life." Many of his actions can be interpreted within this framework.
When Yelu Deguang attacked Bianjing and plundered the capital, Feng Dao was summoned to see him. The Khitan Lord asked: "How can the people of the world be saved?"
Feng Dao bowed his head and replied: "At this time, the Buddha will not be able to save the people, but the emperor can save them." This sentence uses the most humble attitude to practice the technique of "lowering the heart" mentioned in "Rongkujian" ("To overwhelm people and frighten them, their aspirations will not change"), and the final effect is that "the Khitan soldiers will not wreak havoc after that, all because of the power of Tao".
He presided over the engraving and printing of the Nine Classics, which lasted for more than 20 years, and continued the life of the Chinese culture at a time when the warriors were powerful and civilization was in danger. His "loss of integrity", in a sense, was at the expense of the complete defilement of his personal integrity in the Confucian view of history, in exchange for the fire of civilization and breathing space for the people.
He is like a sailor who firmly holds the rudder of a civilized ship in the torrent, regardless of the frequent changes of flags on the deck, just hoping that the ship will not sink and the passengers will not drown. He calls himself "Old Changle". Hidden in this "joy" may be a kind of sadness and relief of "If I don't go to hell, who will?"
Shi Jingtang and Feng Dao constitute a fable of survival in the troubled times of the Five Dynasties. Both of them gave up a certain "purity" of traditional scholar-bureaucrats and embraced different degrees of realism, but paid very different prices and left completely different historical legacies.
Shi Jingtang's path is geo-realism, and the core decision is to cede the Sixteen Youyun Prefectures and exchange strategic space for the survival time of the regime. The direct costs were shocking: individuals were burdened with eternal infamy, and the "son-emperor" system made the Later Jin Dynasty completely reduced to a vassal of the Khitan and lost its independent diplomatic sovereignty; the door to the Central Plains was opened, and the passage of nomadic cavalry southward was unimpeded.
His historical legacy is mainly negative: he created a geosecurity crisis that lasted for hundreds of years, and warned future generations that overdrafting fundamental strategic assets to resolve urgent difficulties is a short-sighted behavior that can cause hereditary diseases. His balance is seriously unbalanced, and the short-term stability gained is far from enough to offset the serious harm of permanent loss of strategic barriers.
Feng Dao's path is bureaucratic realism, and the core choice is to serve as an official for many dynasties, exchanging personal reputation for the functions of bureaucratic system operation and cultural continuity. The direct price was equally heavy: in the mainstream Confucian historical view, he was nailed to the pillar of shame as "shameless" by historians such as Ouyang Xiu and Sima Guang, and became a negative example of admonishing ministers for later generations.
However, its historical legacy is complex and hidden: in troubled times when the "hardware" of the regime frequently collapsed and restarted, he, as the highest-level "software", maintained the minimum operation of the national administrative system, avoiding complete social collapse and power vacuum; he guarded the cultural fire, allowing the core of Chinese civilization to survive after the shell of the regime was shattered.
He proved that in the face of higher value sequences that transcend dynasty changes (the survival of the people, the inheritance of civilization), personal moral perfection is not the only supreme criterion. His balance is completely unbalanced at the personal moral level, but it adds an incalculable, small but crucial weight in the dimension of civilization's continuation.
The profound thing about "The Year of Peace" is that it does not simply defend any party, but rather reveals the ultimate dilemma of choice in troubled times by juxtaposing the peaceful path of Qian Hongchu of the Wuyue Kingdom of "returning the land to the Song Dynasty" with the tragic collapse of the Central Plains.
In "The Year of Peace", Shi Chonggui refuses to surrender to the Khitan after he succeeds to the throne, and achieves military victories such as the Yangcheng victory in a bloody moment. However, in the end, his lone army rushes forward, his generals rebel, and the country is ruined and imprisoned. The ending is even more miserable than what a weak young master might have encountered.
This cruelly confirmed the rationality of Feng Dao's original consideration of real interests, and also declared that the fragile stability that Shi Jingtang had gained with great humiliation would eventually be destroyed like a tower on the sand.
The real historical significance of Shi Jingtang and Feng Dao is that they pushed the ethical dilemma in extreme situations to the extreme. They force every observer to think deeply: When the system collapses, values are out of control, and individuals are in the darkest moment, what is the boundary of responsibility? Is it like Shi Jingtang, sacrificing core assets such as territory and dignity for the survival of the real regime? Or is it like Feng Dao, sacrificing personal integrity and moral principles for the abstract continuation of civilization and the well-being of people's livelihood?
The cold wisdom of "Rongkujian", "Good and evil have their names, and wise men are not bound by rules" and "The only way to survive is to consider profit and loss", and the common human emotions of "thinking about governance in chaos" and "desiring peace" that "The Year of Peace" attempts to convey, form an intriguing dialogue here. The former is a "skill" for surviving in troubled times and a sober mirror image of facing human nature and reality; the latter is the "Tao" for the world to return to its heart and an eternal ideal that transcends the suffering of the times.
Feng Dao's life may have been a tragic effort to struggle forward in the mud of "technique" to keep "Tao" from being completely annihilated; while Shi Jingtang showed another devastating outcome when "technique" is used to the extreme and an irreversible price is paid.
Their balance is still shaking slightly in the void of history. One end carries undeniable principles, dignity and geographical integrity, while the other end holds up the immediate well-being of thousands of creatures and the weak continuation of the spark of civilization.
To evaluate the two men, what is needed is not either-or praise or criticism, but a deep historical sympathy and humility – acknowledging the limitations of human rationality in the face of complex changes, and being in awe of those heavy souls who, in the boundless darkness, try to hold on to the collapse of an inch and retain a glimmer of light in completely different and even opposing ways.
Shi Jingtang's abandonment and Feng Dao's persistence are like two scars deeply engraved in the national memory: one is imprinted on the territorial map, and the other is engraved on the moral soul. Together they tell a cruel truth: the tragedy of some times is that all possible choices are wrong, and true courage sometimes lies in knowing that you are wrong, but still having to choose, and shouldering this unique price alone, heading towards the ultimate judgment of history.
This judgment never fails due to the passage of time, because it is related to the eternal and tragic struggle of human nature under extreme pressure to try to grasp a glimmer of meaning. This is the bitterest but most precious legacy of speculation they left to future generations.
No.6776 Original first article author Zhizhizhaizhu
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