Bai Juyi himself was also an alchemist. After taking the elixir, not only did he not ascend to immortality, but his body also deteriorated, and his spirit was a little absent-minded. Many of his good friends also suffered great losses because of taking the elixir. Some died, and some of their bodies deteriorated.
In his later years, Bai Juyi wrote a poem to reminisce about the past. The content was, "Reminiscing about the past in leisure, the past travels to the present, wondering where the present is, scattered and returned to the underworld." Retreating to take sulfur, an illness never recovers. Refining the autumn stone, an old body dies. Du Zi learned the art of elixir, a fishy smell all day long. Cui Jun praised the efficacy of the elixir, no clothes in winter. Ill or violent, no more than middle-aged. Only not taking, an old life is delayed. Moreover, when young and strong, I was also addicted to lust. But addicted to meat and blood, unable to distinguish mercury and lead. Hunger swallows hot food, thirst drinks cold spring. Poetry has five hidden spirits, wine has three dantian. Destroyed by the Japanese, it is still rough. Teeth are not missing, the limbs are still light. Opened to the seventh rank, full but still sleeping. And what goes into the cup, the rest goes to heaven.
The person mentioned in the poem was the famous poet of the Tang Dynasty, Han Yu, who fell ill because of taking the elixir. The person mentioned in the poem was the famous poet of the Tang Dynasty, Yuan Zhen, who lost his life because of his obsession with alchemy.
Du Zi was naturally the famous poet of the Tang Dynasty, Du Mu, who also never ate meat because of his obsession with the elixir. Cui Jun was Cui Yuanliang, who was also a good friend of Bai Juyi.
These people were all obsessed with the elixir, which led to extremely serious consequences. Basically, all of them died in their middle-age, and none of them could break through their middle-age. Bai Juyi's health was also deteriorating, so he wrote this poem to warn future generations not to take the useless elixir. It was better to live well, so that they might be able to live for a few more days.
Those who took the elixir were almost all celebrities and the most outstanding talents in the Tang Empire. Even if ordinary people wanted to take it, they probably didn't have the financial resources to do so.
There were people who died prematurely after consuming immortal pills in every dynasty. The people of the later dynasties did not learn the lessons of the previous dynasties at all. Of course, it could not be said that they did not learn on purpose, but they were controlled by their own desires. When they were young, perhaps they did not care about immortal pills and felt that they were meaningless and fake things. But as they grew older, the human body would always have a tendency to decline, which was the so-called aging.
People were greedy for life, especially the rich and powerful. They were even more greedy for life. They longed to be young forever and be full of vitality. This desire was extremely strong. As a result, some warlocks took advantage of the aristocrats' desire to live forever and made them take the elixir of immortality. They made them believe that as long as they took the elixir of immortality, they would be able to live forever in this world.
The emperor had the most wealth of all kinds, so he was the one who wanted to live forever the most. He was also the kind of person who was cheated the most. Since ancient times, the number of emperors who died after consuming immortal pills in pursuit of immortality was as many as the hairs on an ox.
It was the same for the Egyptian pharaoh. In order to live forever in the human world, in order to be reborn after three hundred years, he spent a huge amount of manpower, material, and financial resources to build the pyramids that attracted the attention of the world. However, his dream would never be realized, because all of it was an illusion. It was all fake.
Since ancient times, many wise emperors in Hua Xia had been ruined by elixirs. Many emperors insisted on not touching elixirs in the beginning, but as they grew old, they began to believe in elixirs. It was unknown whether it was because they were old and confused.
The founding emperor of the Great Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang, had always believed that the elixir of immortality was a lie and should not be trusted. He also said that Qin Shi Huang and Emperor Wu of Han worshipped immortals in order to live forever. They were tired out, but they did not get anything. So, they changed their minds to rule the world. They ignored everything, which showed that they did not believe in immortals. But in his later years, he also made the same mistake. He favored Zhou Dianxian and other Taoist priests and began to take all kinds of elixirs. It was believed that taking elixirs was one of the reasons why Zhu Yuanzhang accelerated his death.
Zhu Yuanzhang's son, Zhu Di, also died early because of taking elixirs. There were more emperors after him. It was as if everyone wanted to ascend to become an emperor, but in the end, everyone died faster because of taking elixirs.
The emperors after him watched the emperors before him die because of taking elixirs, but they did not care at all. They did not learn from their mistakes and continued to take elixirs, causing generations of emperors to die early. It could be said to be a tragedy.
Were there emperors in history who did not believe in elixirs at all? Of course, there were. That was Emperor Kangxi. On a tour to the south, someone offered Kangxi an elixir to nourish his health as a secretary to gain his favor. As a result, he was scolded by Kangxi. It could be seen that Kangxi did not believe in elixirs at all. It could be said that this was very rare.
Of course, there were even more ways to nourish one's health in the later generations. It was simply subverting one's understanding. Everyone knew that the way to nourish one's health was nothing more than physical nourishment, quiet nourishment, medicinal nourishment, food nourishment, and so on. However, in the later Hua Xia Empire, there were people who came up with a lot of very strange ways to nourish one's health. For example, hand therapy, drinking water therapy, halogen alkali therapy, catgut burying method, climbing turtle therapy, and even crazier chicken blood therapy.
The so-called chicken blood was to use a syringe to inject the blood of a small rooster into a person's body, thus playing the role of nourishing and curing diseases.
This great god was a doctor of Shanghai Yongan Cotton Factory. He gave himself a shot of fresh chicken blood in public. After that, he felt hungry in less than three hours and ate eight taels of rice at noon. This practice of using one's own body as an experiment quickly dispelled the patients' doubts. Starting from one o 'clock in the afternoon, more than forty people were injected with chicken blood. Some coughed frequently and recovered after five minutes. Some gasped for breath and could not sleep for several months. After the injection, they slept very soundly that night. Some had stomachaches, but after the injection, they were no longer in pain. It could be said that it was extremely magical.
Of course, these were all false situations. They did not exist at all. There was no reason to speak of. After ten months, they were eliminated. After that, no one was injected with chicken blood.
No matter how crazy various ways of nourishing one's health were, they all reflected the human's desire for life, the fear of death and time. The richer and happier one's life was, the higher his desire for life and the stronger his desire for immortality. Thus, he unknowingly fell into the trap of the warlocks.
In ancient times, because only the rich and powerful could enjoy a rich standard of living, only they would have the energy and financial resources to pursue the so-called art of immortality. In the economically developed later generations, because almost everyone could eat, there were more and more people pursuing the art of immortality. Many retired old people were pursuing the art of immortality, and this became a cash cow for many criminals. A large number of health care companies, seeing the old people's desire for longevity, produced a large number of very ordinary nutritional products, but boasted that they could prolong life. This made many old people spend all their years of savings. Once they were sick, there was no way to treat them because the money was used to buy useless health care products. How could they have money to see a doctor?
The most important thing for people was to know their destiny. They knew how long they could live. They knew that humans could live for at most a hundred years or even only a few decades. People would age and die. They could not force themselves to live forever, and they could not pursue immortality at all costs.
After Ang Lee left the pyramid, he thought about a lot of problems in his mind. He thought about many problems in ancient and modern times, from the pharaoh's desire to be reborn after three hundred years to the current situation of the rich and powerful who were afraid of death. From there, he thought of many ridiculous stories.
Sometimes, people were extremely stupid. They were so stupid that they couldn't even believe it. They were so stupid that later generations felt that they could definitely surpass this fool. It was like a street vendor. When talking about the ignorance of the ancient emperor, he would boast shamelessly to the people around him that if he could go to ancient times to be the emperor, he would be much better than the incompetent emperor. He would be able to make the country rich and powerful, and he would be able to flatten the whole world.
In fact, of course, it was not so simple. An emperor had to consider all aspects of the problem and know how to balance the interests of all sides. If he was not careful, it might cause a crisis in the imperial court. He might not even be able to keep the throne. It was not a problem for him to die.
There were also people who thought that how could the emperor and the famous people be so stupid? How could they not know that the lifespan of a white person was only a few decades? The previous emperors had already been killed by the elixir. Why would the later emperors take this harmful elixir? How could they be so stupid?
Thinking about it carefully, this was a bit too inconceivable. However, this was because many of the later generations were very ordinary people. They did not have many things, and their desires were naturally limited. The ancient emperors had supreme power and endless wealth. They had too much wealth, so naturally, they were very unwilling to give it up. It was too painful for them to give up everything that they had worked so hard to get.
Take the famous Qin Shi Huang for example. He had the luxurious Epang Palace, the entire world, the best gold, silver, and jewels in the world, the most beautiful women in the world, the most delicious food, and the ability to kill others at any time. All of this would come to an end with the passing of his life, and he would definitely be very unwilling in his heart. It was not easy for him to unify the six states, and he should enjoy this glory forever. How could he lose all of this?
Therefore, he very strongly wanted to live for a few more days, or even live forever in this world and dominate the world forever. This kind of desire was unimaginable for an ordinary person. After all, ordinary people would not have all of this. It was not easy for ordinary people to support themselves. How could they dare to think about immortality? They did not even have the time to think about this problem. After all, time and energy were used to work to support the family. How could they have the time to think about immortality?
In addition, those who were happy and proud of their lives were bound to be greedy for life, while those who were in pain and frustration did not have such a strong desire to live. They were too tired to live and wanted to rest, to rest forever.
For example, the delayed retirement in the future. Many people who were engaged in more difficult occupations felt very desperate when they heard the news. However, those who didn't need to work were very happy. They hoped that they could work until they were 100 years old and serve the poor forever. Their awareness was very high.
Why would people have such a high consciousness? Could it be that after they got older, they did not want to work hard anymore? They did not want to go back and enjoy their old age. Were they really wholeheartedly serving the people? This was obviously not persuasive. They did not need to work at all. They only needed to spend some energy to command.
Because they didn't have to work very hard, they naturally had no objection to delaying their retirement. Anyway, they just had to come over every day to take a look, command their subordinates, and let them be responsible for the work. This way, their lives were more orderly, which was good for prolonging their lives. If they were in a bad mood, they could also teach their subordinates a lesson so that they could vent their anger. It was still good for prolonging their lives.
Of course, these were relatively secondary reasons. The most important reason was that once they retired, they would lose the power in their hands. No one would pay attention to them in the future. In this way, they would be more aggrieved. If they were always in position, they could hold the power in their hands for a longer time. Thus, they could work for many people and receive certain benefits from it.
Anyway, in any unit, the older leaders were a group of people who were taken care of. Their work was definitely not very hard. Any dirty and tiring work would be left to the young people. They were only responsible for commanding and guiding. It was not too easy.
The ancient emperors were even more so. As long as they were in the position of the emperor, they could enjoy everything. Especially many more powerful emperors, they could be the emperor with ease. They could leave the more difficult work to the ministers, and they only dealt with the most troublesome problems themselves. The rest of the time, they could go to the backyard to have fun. It was not too comfortable.
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