Examination of The Endowment of Worm on the Knotweed by Kong Zang in His Later Years
Kong Zang was the tenth grandson of Confucius,and served as Taichang during the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty.As for the time of his exemption,scholars may believe that it should be in the third year of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty(126 BC),or that it should be in the fifth year of Yuan Shuo(124 BC),but they generally hold that Kong Zang was exempted from official office once.However,many histori-cal materials show that Kong Zang was reinstated shortly after the dismissal of his official title in the third year of Yuan Shuo(126 BC),and his second dismissal is more reasonable.The Endowment of the Worms on Knotweed is the representative work of Kong Zang,and from the point of view of the place where the endow-ment was written,it is the work of Kong Zang's idle fiefdom.Judging from the content,the meaning of this ex-hortation to future generations is extremely strong,and it is undoubtedly the work of Kong Zang in his later years.Kong Zang borrowed"the worms on knotweed"in The Endowment of the Worms on Knotweed to de-scribe himself,and the"I grew up in the Liao area"is in line with his life experience.Only the dismissal of officials and loss of title in the third year of Yuanshuo(126 BC)corresponds to the words"his person will face a great catastrophe because of this".Based on the above clues,it can be inferred that The Endowment of the Worms on Knotweed was not written by Kong Zang when he was a child,but the exhortation of the de-scendants of Kong Zang after the second exemption from Taichang in the fifth year of Yuanshuo(124 BC).It was a work Kong Zang created in his fiefdom.
The Endowment of the Worms on KnotweedKong Zangreinstatement of the official and restora-tion of the titleexhorting his children and grandchildrenself-metaphor
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