◎ Zhao Qijin
In the twelfth year of Jian'an (207), after Cao Cao completely pacified the remnants of Yuan Shao and unified the north, he had the idea of unifying the whole country. "Before the soldiers and horses moved, food and grass went first", because natural disasters such as floods, ice and snow, and locusts were frequent, and warlords fought every year, which further aggravated the food crisis. Therefore, Cao Cao presented himself to the emperor of Han and ordered a ban on alcohol.
In fact, "prohibition of alcohol" was not invented by Cao Cao, and can be traced back to the Dayu era. From the Shang Dynasty to the Two Han Dynasties, almost every dynasty issued a prohibition on alcohol, and the punishment for those who violated the order was also severe, and the implementation was tightened before and after the relaxation, and finally it was not done.
However, compared with the implementation of the "prohibition order" of other dynasty rulers at the beginning, Cao Cao's "prohibition" policy encountered great resistance from the beginning. At the end of the Han Dynasty and the beginning of the Wei Dynasty, the custom of drinking was very popular, otherwise there would be no "Seven Sages of the Bamboo Forest"; On a personal level, the biggest resistance comes from Shaofu Kongrong.
Kong Rong in history is talented, famous, bold, and has a lot of alcohol. The "Later Hanshu Zhengkong Xun Lie" says that Kong Rong, a native of the Lu State (present-day Qufu, Shandong), born in 153, was the twentieth grandson of Confucius, a great Confucian of the late Eastern Han Dynasty, and was the grandmaster of the article after Cai Wenji's father Cai Yong. He is listed among the "Seven Sons of Jian'an" and has authored 25 poems, odes, inscriptions, discussions, policy texts, tables, etc., but unfortunately only some fragments have been handed down, of which only 8 poems remain, and most of them are related to wine. Although there is a well-known "Three Character Sutra" to endorse his "melting four years old, can make pears", but he grew up to be an out-and-out "drunkard".
Kong Rong, who had always been at odds with Cao Cao, jumped up to oppose the promulgation of the "prohibition of alcohol", and very angrily wrote a letter to Cao Cao entitled "The Forbidden Book of Alcohol Made by the Emperor of Cao Cao", and wrote in a brilliant manner: "Yao is not a thousand bells, and there is no way to build peace." Kong is not a hundred yao, and it is incomparable to sainthood. Fan Yu Xie Erhongmen, not a pig shoulder bell wine, can not fight his anger. Zhao Zhi's cultivation, east to welcome his king, non-distillation of wine, can not stimulate his anger. Gao Zu was not drunk and cut the white snake, and he couldn't free his spirit... Why does wine fail to be political? Kong Rong elevated drinking to a position that was too high to be high, and abruptly hindered the execution of Cao Cao's "prohibition of alcohol."
At first, Cao Cao was very polite to Kong Rong, and specially replied to a letter, citing the first "prohibition of alcohol" in history, the death of Xia Wei and Shang Lun due to alcoholism in Zhou Gongdan's "Wine Order" and other cases of mistakes due to drinking in history, raising prohibition to the height of national survival and expressing the determination to firmly ban alcohol. As a result, Kong Rong rushed over in time: "Yesterday's training Xun, the calamity of the second generation of Chen, and the defeat of the people, the death of alcohol, is really like teaching." Although King Xu died in benevolence and righteousness, this order is not endless; Yan Yu let the loss of society, and now the order cannot help but humbly retreat; Lu was damaged by Confucianism, and now he is not literary; Xia and Shang also lost the world as a woman, and now they continue to marry. And those who are in a hurry to drink alone, doubts but cherish the valley, and do not take the death of the king as a warning. ”
Cao Cao could no longer tolerate Kong Rong's "words of remorse", so he found a reason to dismiss Kong Rong. Kong Rong, who can be idle at home, still does not stop, "guests are at the door every day", drinking has never stopped, Kong Rong also sighed and came out with golden sentences: "Sitting on the guest is always full, the wine in the bottle is not empty".
At that time, before the prohibition, few people dared to drink openly, or even dare to talk about drinking publicly, and people who were good drinkers only secretly brushed off the edges, and even changed to a hidden term to call the liquor bureau, using "sage" to refer to cloudy wine with poor quality, and "saint" instead of better sake. But Kong Rong always went his own way, openly defiing Prohibition.
Kong Rong and Cai Yong had a very strong relationship, often drinking together, and after Cai Yong's death, there was a tiger sage who looked like Cai Yong, "melted every drink, led and sat together", and said that "although there are no old adults, there are still typical joys". While drinking, Kong Rong "recommended the Magi", which made "the handsome people in the sea convinced", which aroused the suspicion of Cao Cao, who was already very suspicious.
In the thirteenth year of Jian'an (208), Cao Cao's first imperial physician after the restructuring, Xi Xi, "lost no time" in "constituting his (Kong Rong) crime", and Cao Cao instructed the prime minister to plot a sacrifice to Jiu Lu Zhi, falsely accusing Kong Rong of "recruiting disciples and wanting to violate the rules", "slandering the imperial court", and "disrespecting filial piety". Cao Cao directly replied: "Disloyalty and filial piety, great disobedience and unrighteousness, should be extremely serious." In the end, Kong Rong, who has been famous for filial piety since he was a child, was not only "abandoned from the market" at the age of 56, but also killed his wife and children.
During Cao Cao's implementation of the "prohibition of alcohol", there were many people who openly disobeyed the ban, and Cao Cao often "turned a blind eye" to this. Cao Cao himself even promoted the "prohibition of alcohol" while looking for money, and once wrote the famous exhortation poem "Short Song Xing": "To wine as a song, life is geometric... How to relieve worries, only Du Kang", "Records of the Three Kingdoms" also affirmed Cao Cao's habit of giving poetry after drinking. It can be seen that Kong Rong's golden phrase "sitting on the guest Hengman, the wine in the bottle is not empty" is the most appropriate to describe Cao Cao, and the so-called "drunkard" celebrities such as Kong Rong, Yang Xiu, and You Heng were casually killed by Cao Cao.