(Minghui.org) In ancient China, when morality was held in high regard and people respected Heaven, Earth, and divine beings, most officials tried to do good deeds and to avoid becoming corrupt.
There was a saying: “Being in an official position offers one opportunity to do more virtuous deeds.” In other words, officials understood that, in carrying out their responsibility to manage state affairs, they should have people’s best interests at heart and serve them wholeheartedly and virtuously.
The following are examples from Chinese history.
Yao Shike's Kindness Was Rewarded
Yao Shike was a prison guard in the Song Dynasty. Once, a relative of the imperial court chancellor was charged with treason, and he and his entire family were arrested and put in jail.
Believing that he would be executed, the man said to Yao Shike, “My death is imminent. I have gold hidden in a secret room. Please go and get it and then buy me some poison. When the time comes, I will die with my family by taking the poison. Please take care of our funeral affairs after we are gone.”
Yao Shike comforted him, saying, “The imperial court is implementing a benevolence policy these days, and many cases have been handled with leniency. I will enquire about your case. If your life indeed cannot be spared, then we can talk about what you said. Let's see what I can do for you.”
It was later established that this relative of the chancellor “was not involved in treason” and he and his family were acquitted.
The man was so grateful to Yao Shike for saving his life and the lives of his family that he insisted on giving Yao Shike a hundred pieces of gold, but Yao refused to accept them, saying he only did what he should.
Yao Shike had no son before then, but after that, he had eight sons, and all of them grew up to be accomplished scholars.
Wang Simin Defended an Innocent Man
Wang Simin from Huangyan worked in the local county jail.
A man was once framed as a thief and thrown into jail.
Discovering that the man had been wrongly accused, Wang Simin went to the magistrate to defend the man’s innocence. The magistrate deemed his plea reasonable and released the man.
Wang Simin later passed a government exam and was promoted to be the judge in Qingzhou, a region that suffered a devastating flood that year.
When the censor-in-chief came to inspect the hard-hit area, Wang Simin appealed to him for relief, presenting the censor-in-chief a long list of famine victims who needed help desperately.
The censor-in-chief refused to grant assistance to the starving people. In despair, Wang Simin, carrying the list with him, threw himself into a river to commit suicide.
Taken aback, the censor-in-chief quickly gave orders that Wang Simin be pulled out of the river. Touched by Wang Simin's heart to help the people, the censor-in-chief agreed to grant disaster assistance to the people in Qinzhou.
Wang Simin later returned to his hometown to mourn the death of his father.
One day, he went out to look for a better burial site for his father and found a good location, which happened to belong to the man he’d obtained justice for years earlier.
After Wang Simin told him he was looking for a burial site for his father, the man said, “No problem. Our family owns this mountain. You can choose anywhere you like.” Soon afterward, Wang Simin moved his father's grave to the new location he had chosen.
Wang Simin's grandson later became a successful candidate in the highest imperial examinations and served in the imperial court. Two of his great-grandsons also served as high-ranking court officials, and there was always someone in each of the later generations of the family who was successful in the highest imperial examinations.
Enlightenment for Today
Sadly, in today's China where traditional moral values have decayed to a shocking extent, honest officials are hard to come by. Most of them regard their positions of power as an opportunity to seek personal gain.
“Use the power you have before it expires” has become a common motto for most officials in today's communist China as they try to reap as much wealth and benefits they can before they lose their positions.
The root cause of such moral decline lies in the wicked nature of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) that has completely ruined Chinese traditional culture and ethical values.
Its “legal system,” in particular, is unscrupulously corrupt.
Countless Falun Gong practitioners have been severely persecuted for the past 21 years. They’ve been unlawfully arrested, imprisoned, tortured and even murdered for their organs.
Lawyers who’ve spoken out to defend Falun Gong practitioners and their faith in Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance and defended other groups of people seeking justice against corruption and different forms of repression have been persecuted as well. They’ve been illegally arrested, detained, imprisoned, tortured, or simply disappeared.
The CCP's handling of the Wuhan coronavirus, which could have been contained but developed into a deadly global pandemic due to intentional cover-ups and misinformation, has allowed more and more people both inside and outside of China to see just how evil the CCP really is, and voices calling for justice are becoming louder and louder.
Lessons from history remind us that immoral societies don’t last very long and that the saying, “Goodwill be rewarded and evil will incur punishment” is a truism, reminding us of the proper way to behave—for our own benefit and that of others.
Category: Traditional Culture
