The new father was beaten to death by the eunuchs. The sixteen-year-old Huang Zongxi knelt in the snow and swore: I would not avenge this revenge, and I would not be a human being.
Two years later, he walked into the lobby of the Ministry of Justice carrying an iron awl and stabbed his enemy in the chest with his own hands in front of all the officials.
The people called him "Huang Xiaozi", and the emperor spared him the death penalty.
He thought that if revenge was avenged, the world would be at peace.
But the Qing army entered the pass.
He spent all his wealth and led the whole village to fight guerrillas. He fought for four years and lost.
There is no shame in losing a battle. What's shameful is losing and leaving nothing behind.
At the age of eighty-five, he left a will: no coffin, no burial, no monks, no paper money.
He said: Spirit is more eternal than matter.
This is the story of a "loser" living as a thinker.
