鄒忌諷齊王納諫

Hello everyone the story I'm going to tell you today is "Zou Ji's Audience with King Qi of Qi" During the Warring States period there was a minister in the State of Qi named Zou Ji He was more than eight chi tall with a robust build and a handsome face One morning he dressed in his robes and prepared to go to court He looked at his reflection in the mirror I looked at it and asked my wife "Between me and Mr Xu from the northern city who is more handsome " My wife replied "Certainly you are Mr Xu can't even compare to you " Mr Xu of the northern city was a famous handsome man in the state of Qi Zou Ji was very happy upon hearing his wife's answer But he was still doubtful so he asked his concubine next Who do you think is more handsome me or Xu Gong from the northern city His concubine answered Of course you are How could Xu Gong compare to you master The same day a guest came to visit Zou Ji sat down with the guest and asked "Between me and Xugong who is more handsome " The guest replied "Xugong cannot match you at all " The next day Xu Gong came to Zou Ji's house Zou Ji carefully examined Xu Gong He felt that Xu Gong was still handsome and he himself could not match him I secretly looked in the mirror and felt I was far inferior to Xu Gong That night I lay in bed thinking about it My wife said I was handsome because she loved me My concubine praises my beauty because she fears me the guest praises me because he has a favor to ask so their answers do not reflect the truth The next day Zou Ji presented himself before King Wei of Qi and told him I know I am not as handsome as Xu Gong but my wife loves me Because the concubine feared me and the guests wanted something from me they all didn't tell the truth they just praised me saying I was more handsome than Xugong These false words are solely to please the minister From this we can infer that in our State of Qi with its thousand- li territory and one hundred and twenty cities in the royal palace the queen and concubines who does not favor the king No minister in the court does not revere the king All the people throughout the country have something to ask of the king From this it can be seen that they all will speak false praises of the king It's just about achieving one's own goals But if the king is deceived it would be very dangerous It's a great harm King Qi found it very reasonable So he issued an order throughout the country to all the ministers and common people: whoever could point out my faults and shortcomings face to face would receive a top reward as a sign of praise If you can write a letter pointing out the mistakes mentioned and give a reward in the middle if you talk about my mistakes in front of the people and point out the flaws in the policies It could also grant a low reward that the king could hear about once this imperial decree was issued the ministers all rushed to pay homage exposing the problems and for a time the gates were crowded with people Every day there was a continuous flow of people who came to the capital to have their cases reviewed and corrected one by one according to the promise of rewards After a few months there were not many people left who mentioned it It was just occasional suggestions from a few people After a year people had nothing more to present The surrounding countries Yan Zhao Han Wei Several states heard about this and knew about the state of Qi so Zheng Qing Ren and Guo Qiang all came to pay homage recognizing the ruler of Qi as their leader This is what is meant by that The way of governing a country without using force or weapons is the principle of winning without fighting That's it That's the end of today's story If you enjoy listening to more traditional stories please subscribe Your support is my greatest motivation Thank you