Three Men Make a Tiger. For all of you who enjoy Chinese proverbs, heres a good one: Two and a half millennia ago, China was a jigsaw puzzle of seven separate territories. As ancient city-states were wont to do, they constantly tried to conquer each other. War was profitable back then—the victor got to claim its vanquished enemies treasure and pillage its citizens. Not like today, when modern weaponry reduces the loser of any conflict to a smoking crater. Because of the constant threat of invasion, the cluster of Chinese city-states was an ever-shifting tangle of alliances. One day, the Yan and Qin states might be bitter enemies. The next, they would unite because a bigger, badder city-state was threatening to decimate both of them. But while the different states often needed each other to survive, they didnt trust each other one bit. So to keep their tenuous alliances honest, they implemented a primitive version of Mutually Assured Destruction. When one state allied with another, they would exchange princes as hostages. This incentivized each king not to betray the alliance, because doing so would result in his sons head on a spike. During one of these princely exchanges, an unlucky prince from Qin was to travel to the Handan province to serve as hostage. The aforementioned Pang Cong, a high-ranking official and one of the kings most trusted advisors, was to escort him. One little-known fact about the ancient Chinese is that they liked to gossip. Pang Cong was worried that in his absence, those jealous of his lofty status would talk trash about him, purposely undermining his credibility and standing with the king. So Pang Cong told the king a story. Your Majesty, if someone were to tell you that there was a tiger roaming the markets of our capital city, would you believe it? No, the king replied. What if two people told you there was a tiger in the market? I might be suspicious of it, but I wouldnt believe it, the king replied. What about three people? Pang Cong said. After pondering for a bit, the king admitted that, yes, he would believe there was a tiger in the market if three people said it. Pang Cong said, It is obvious that there is no tiger in the marketplace, yet three men saying so can make a tiger. Handan is further away from here than the marketplace. And the number of men wanting to slander me is far more than three. I hope your majesty can see my circumstances. I understand, the king replied. But he didnt really understand. Just as Pang Cong feared, while he was away, slanderers poisoned his reputation. When Pang Cong returned from his journey, the king refused to see him. The moral of the story? Many people saying and believing something creates a powerful lie. One that others are prone to believe. Three men make a tiger.
Posted on: Sat, 25 Jan 2014 01:07:08 +0000
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