The real Taoism is "the skill of the southern gentleman"
According to the most accurate historical data, the concept of "Tao" refers to the Huang Lao Dao family who prevailed in the pre-Qin and Han Dynasties. As the most distinctive political theory, Huang Lao Xue, who advocates self-cultivation and governing the country, has twice become an "outstanding study". It was the official academic research of Tianqi regime in the middle and late Warring States period, and once became the mainstream ideology in the early Western Han Dynasty, especially in the period of Wendi and Jingdi, which had a far-reaching influence on Tianqi politics and Western Han politics.
Sima Tan demonstrated the connotation of Taoism for the first time in The Essentials of Six Classics:
Taoism makes people single-minded, energetic, invisible and supports everything. It is also a skill. Because of the harmony between Yin and Yang, we should adopt the goodness of Confucianism and Mohism, sum up the essence of the law, keep pace with the times, conform to the changes of things, establish customs, and do everything unsuitable. It is easy to operate with reference to the agreement and get twice the result with half the effort. Taoism is inaction, and it is said that everything is ready. In fact, it is easy to do, and its words are difficult to understand. Its technology is based on nothingness and uses conformity. Nothing is impermanent, so we can study the love of all things. Not for things first, not for things later, you can become the master of everything.
In addition, when discussing Laozi and Taoism in Historical Records, Sima Qian, a historian, ingeniously listed the genealogy of his family, suggesting that Sima Shi's family historian, Laozi's Taoism and Huang Lao's family had a certain degree of academic inheritance. Therefore, later, Ban Gu's "History of Han, Art and Literature" also said: Taoist priests flow because of historians. They record success or failure, survival, happiness, and ancient and modern ways, and then know that they should stick to their books, self-denial, and self-restraint. This man also respects southern technology. The so-called "rule by man" is an imperial self-cultivation technique inherited by Taoist scholars from the era of the Yellow Emperor and Laozi Taoism, that is, what Zhuangzi Taoism and Huang Laodao call "the way of being sage inside and king outside", but great men keep silent after in-depth study and never reveal their secrets easily.
Before the Qin Dynasty unified China, the Prime Minister had organized people to compile Lu's Spring and Autumn Annals, which was mainly based on Taoist thought and integrated many ideological theories. Obviously, Lv Buwei wants to take this as the ruling platform after reunification. But later, the superior Qin Shihuang chose centralization of authority, a legalist who evolved from the Huang family, and burned books to bury Confucianism shortly after unifying China, which frustrated hundred schools of thought, including the Huang family. After the establishment of the Western Han Dynasty, due to the destruction of production caused by the long-term war, the government, on the basis of reflecting on Qin's ruling ideology, chose Huang old-fashioned as the idea of self-cultivation, conditioning and enriching the people, and streamlining government decrees to develop steadily, thus creating a prosperous era of "the rule of culture and scenery" in history. Kan Ze recorded that Emperor Jing of the Han Dynasty "took Lao Zi as the classics before establishing Taoism", and Huang Lao Jing was upgraded to the classics before Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty respected the Six Classics. Therefore, people in the Han dynasty called Huang Lao's Taoism "the art of governing the south."
In particular, Huang, who advocated self-cultivation, first put forward the concepts of law, technique, potential, benefit and strength in the pre-Qin era, which made the pre-Qin academic get rid of idealism and began to embark on the road of realism. On this basis, Huang put forward the idea of "Tao gives birth to law", which not only solved the legitimacy problem of law itself, but also opened up the road of rule of law for Taoism to govern the country and safeguard the country. In addition, the Huang family also put forward a series of political opinions, such as "Heaven", "Keeping women for men", "Gentleman being lenient with ministers", "quietism", "Simple folk customs", "Recuperating and ruling the country according to law", "Combining punishment with morality" and "letting a hundred schools of thought contend", which embodied the essence of ancient social politics in China.
According to the statistics of Ban Gu, a scholar in the Han Dynasty, there were 37 Taoist schools in the Han Dynasty with 993 articles, less than 50 Confucian schools 17, but more than 836 Confucian schools 127. It was only later that Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty supported the political forces of Confucianism and overthrew the official opposition forces such as Dou Taihou and Huainan Wang, who believed in the Huang family. After China's entry into WTO, the Huang family gradually declined, and a large number of talents were lost, and most of its works were lost (the Taoist classics recorded in Han Shu Yi Wen Zhi have not been circulated so far 15%). With the rise of metaphysics in Wei and Jin Dynasties, Zhuangzi Taoism replaced the Huang family as Taoism. In addition, at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Shi Tian Taoist strongmen's groups (such as Taiping Dao and Wudou Mi Dao, which were "good at enlightening", and opposition strongmen's groups repeatedly suppressed by the official army) imitated Buddhism in the western regions everywhere, which led many people in later generations to mistakenly think that Taoism was born in seclusion.
Judging from Huang Laotao's practical experience in governing the country, both Qi under Qi Weiwang, Qin under Lv Buwei and later Kawabata Yasunari have achieved good governance results. Even after Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, after Confucianism replaced Huang as the official guiding ideology in form, Huang's thought of governing the country did not completely disappear. Most of the time, the rulers of the dynasty, as Xuan Di, the Emperor of the Han Dynasty, said, were "Confucian orthodoxy mixed with others", sometimes "Confucianism outside, and Huang Lao inside".
Whenever the monarch's imperial power is partially restricted by subjective and objective historical conditions, Huang Lao's Taoists will revive in the political society and bring economic and cultural prosperity. Many emperors in China's history, such as Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty, Song Huizong, Zhu Yuanzhang and Kangxi, have a close relationship with Huang Lao's Taoist thoughts, such as their comments on the Tao Te Ching, their rule over the literary world, Guan Zhen, the prosperity of Kaiyuan and Kanggan, the high economic and cultural prosperity of the Song Dynasty and the achievements of reform and opening up today. Therefore, there is a saying of ruling the world in history and among the people. In addition, Laozi, Zhuangzi, Taoism and Yang Zhu School also have influence on China's traditional politics. The political recluse and the tendency to be born they represent have made China intellectuals form a broad-minded attitude of "being rich is helpful to the world, while being poor is immune to it" in their political life.
In short, unlike many people's imagination, Taoist governance is not empty talk. Governing the country according to the principles of Taoism will lead to social and cultural prosperity, otherwise there will be endless troubles.