My mom and I are very alike. If asked, specifically what aspects of us are like, I do not know. But all my family members have told me that we are very much alike. She gave birth to me when she was 24 years old so our zodiac sign is the same; both are the ones of rats. One more, we both love to gossip very much. In a popular sense, we love to gossip about celebrities. She holds the knack of the ones from her generation and I hold mine for the ones of my generation. A bit snobbishly, we are very fond of historical things. Nonetheless, I am not her comparable, considering she has studied and honed on ancient scriptures about Confucious, Mencius, and their analects including all available ancient historical books for around thirty years. I am not in a position to evaluate how profound her study is as I, an ignorant in that area. But I conjecture as a person who has been familiar with social science considerably that she must have surpassed the level of any ordinary professional long before. She just does. As just got up from bed, never minding tidying herself for the day, disheveled, she starts her study. Likewise for around 30 years, without missing a day. If the ancient civil service entrance examination still exists, she might even try for it. I haven’t asked her why she studies about those. I reckon that she does because she just loves and enjoys it.
I sent her a message two days ago.
‘Mom, is there any topical ancient Chinese episode that people hardly know about?’
Mom replied ‘Chinese history?’
‘Yeap!’
‘The story about Chen Gong?’
‘What period?’
‘Three Kingdom Era’
‘What makes you impressed about that person?’
‘Unable to find the righteous lord he could serve.’ Cool and I already felt the drama in it.
‘Although he had enough of competence and aptitude?’
‘Sure’ I could feel her affection towards Chen Gong.
‘Wow~~ Cool. Thank you!’
‘Unknown historical figure’
I thought of writing blogs about historical trivialities so I asked mom for the subject. She at once suggested quite an interesting one. She was really as I expected. I browsed about him carefully. As died in AD 198, he is a figure of around two thousand years ago. Around the end of the Han Dynasty when the emperor’s power declined, it was a time when local lords and barons fought one another to gain power. At that time, Chen Gong served Cao Cao at first and then followed Dokyeom and lastly served Lü Bu as his lord to get ruined subsequently with Lü Bu. Both official and unofficial history recorded Chen Gong, not as a particularly righteous person. Though he was considered to have enough talent and intelligence, history evaluated him negatively since he often changed his lord, but still, also regard his change of lords as insignificant due to the lack of supportive historical records.
The most direly dramatic moment of Chen Gong in history was unfolded just before his death in his encounter with Cao Cao. Cao Cao was the first lord Chen Gong served and also he saved Cao Cao when he was in jeopardy. So, Cao Cao wanted to persuade Chen Gong not to be executed and live. But Chen Gong told he deserved to be executed since he wasn’t loyal to his lord and parents, pleading for his death so the law could be enforced fairly and justly. Cao Cao with tears witnessed the last moment of Chen Gong and took great care of Chen Gong’s parents and children after his death.
It appealed less than I thought; the charm of this character wasn’t as much as I thought; something missing.
I sent mom a message again.
‘Though Chen Gong was told to meet unworthy lords, the first lord he served was Cao Cao. Isn’t it true that he didn’t have enough intelligence to tell the situation? His changing the lords from Cao Cao, to Dokyeom, and to Lü Bu lastly, shows that rather than he was unlucky, he seemed to make a mistake from his part too.’
During my walk after dinner, I got two missed calls from mom. Though she didn’t tell, a usually apathetic daughter’s asking about something that she was excited about after all, made her happy.
‘Yes, Chen Gong at first followed Cao Cao. When they visited the house of Lü Boshe, while Lü Boshe’s household honed a sword to kill a pig to serve Cao Cao and Chen Gong, they thought Lü Boshe was to kill them. Feeling threatened, they kill the household of Lü Boshe and ran away from it. On the way, they met Lü Boshe with a welcoming look, having bought a liquor to serve them. Cao Cao, talking to Chen Gong that he needed to fix something, followed Lü Boshe and killed him. This is why Chen Gong departed Cao Cao. As for Dokyeom, he was not a feudal lord but a governor of a town. How Chen Gong came to be with Dokyeom and later departed him is, you know when one has been swept away in political situations, there is nothing much that he can do as you see in our current politics. He was captured while with Lü Bu, he fought back desperately till the last, being worn out. Also, Lü Bu didn’t listen to what Chen Gong advised. Anyway, whereas Lü Bu begged for his life, Chen Gong chose to die honorably, which made him stand out more. I can’t remember all those details though.’
‘Right, Mom. That is how it was.’
Still, I told mom that people’s talking about him as being righteous is too romantic. From the political viewpoint, Cao Cao anyhow got hegemony after all and Chen Gong’s not seeing this likeability was his fallacy. Mom said he was not the type of person who showed himself off and he just silently did what he should do. Compared to others with obstinacy who put themselves up, Chen Gong was even more humble and consistent. Likewise, Mom sided with Chen Gong. What she told are what I couldn’t find by browsing and searching the internet and she must have had this idea from numerous historical books she read before.
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