Blog

本篇以“决策厨房”为整体框架，对清华简《别卦》《筮法》与上博简《卜书》《卉茅之外》做四重对读。文章依序展开：以《别卦》勾勒宇宙结构的“基础风味库”，以《筮法》建立围绕时令、卦位与爻象的“火候与节律”规则，以《卜书》读取兆纹、诊断局势的“食材状态”，并以《卉茅之外》检视信息流通、官位更替与民心冷暖等“厨房运作条件”。文中的烹饪与风味意象，并非原文本之义，而是当代读者进入这些结构的通感式转译路径，借熟悉的“做菜经验”，去触摸楚简中隐含的秩序感与决策逻辑。
This essay uses the metaphor of a “decision kitchen” to read four Warring States Chu manuscripts together: Bie Gua and Shi Fa from the Tsinghua corpus, and Bu Shu and Hui Mao Zhi Wai from the Shanghai Museum slips. It follows a four-step structure: Bie Gua as a cosmic “flavor library,” Shi Fa as timing and heat-control rules built from seasons, positions and lines, Bu Shu as a diagnostic reading of crack patterns and situational “ingredient states,” and Hui Mao Zhi Wai as the institutional and ethical conditions under which the whole kitchen can still function. The culinary and taste metaphors are not the texts’ original meanings, but a modern synaesthetic translation, using familiar cooking experience to help contemporary readers access the structural order and decision logic encoded in these ancient materials.

清华简《四时》与《八气五味》看似晦涩，却是楚国王室为天地编写的“运营天书”。《四时》用三十七个精密节点建立永不宕机的“时间服务器”；《八气五味》以气与味的周期流转构成万物运行的“元素算法”，并提出五行的操作指令与五祀系统。本文用现代产品思维重读这两篇竹简，揭示楚人如何以“第一性原理”“资源周期”“异常监控”“系统对齐”等理念，主动将人间秩序与宇宙节奏对接，构建一套跨越两千年的“宇宙KPI”。
The Tsinghua bamboo manuscripts Four Seasons and Eight Qi and Five Flavors are not merely ancient calendrical texts—they are the Chu kingdom’s “Universal Operating Manual.” Four Seasons builds a never-failing “time server” through 37 precisely defined nodes. Eight Qi and Five Flavors outlines the elemental logic of the cosmos, defining cycles of qi, functional attributes (flavors), operational rules for the Five Elements, and the Five Spirit Interfaces. This article reinterprets these manuscripts through modern product and systems thinking, revealing how the Chu people aligned human activities with cosmic rhythm through first principles, resource cycles, anomaly detection, and systemic coherence—forming a two-millennia-old model of “cosmic KPIs.”

本文透过上博简《郑子家丧》，分析楚庄王如何在一场邻国葬礼中，完成楚国霸权的“合法性再造”。文章聚焦四个关键步骤：议程设置、道义叙事、规则武器化与旧霸权压力测试，呈现春秋时代权力、秩序与正当性的深层结构。通过对简文的逐段解析，展示楚国如何从“南方蛮夷”转变为“礼法卫士”，并在两棠之战中通过公开挑战完成霸权的最终确认。This article examines how, according to the Shanghai Museum Chu bamboo slip Zheng Zi Jia Sang, King Zhuang of Chu leveraged a neighboring minister’s funeral to reconstruct the legitimacy of Chu’s emerging hegemony. Focusing on four strategic moves—agenda setting, moral reframing, the weaponization of ritual norms, and a final stress test against the old hegemon Jin—the essay reveals the underlying logic of power, order, and legitimacy in the Spring and Autumn era. Through close reading of the text, it demonstrates how Chu transformed itself from a southern outsider into a guardian of ritual order, ultimately confirming its hegemonic status after the battle at Liangtang.

本篇以清华简《邦家之政》《邦家处位》《治政之道》《治邦之道》四篇楚文献为基础，重新勾勒楚式政治哲学的整体框架：秩序如何奠定自由的可能性、规则为何既维护公平又可能成为不公之源、权力为何必须走向自我节制与自我超越。透过这四篇竹简，我们得以看见一个横跨“存在—结构—超越”的完整思想系统：从良序社会的形成，到制度的运行，再到统治者自身的伦理底盘。它们共同构成楚人对“人类组织如何可能”这一终极哲学命题的最早、也是最深刻的回答。Drawing from the four Tsinghua bamboo texts—Bongjia zhi Zheng, Bongjia Chuwei, Zhizheng zhi Dao, and Zhibang zhi Dao—this essay reconstructs the full architecture of Chu-state political philosophy: how order enables freedom, how rules both uphold and distort justice, and why power ultimately seeks self-restraint and self-transcendence. Seen together, these texts outline an integrated triad of existence – structure – transcendence, revealing a coherent system that ranges from the foundations of social order to the functioning of institutions and the ethical grounding of authority. They represent one of the earliest and most profound reflections on the fundamental question: How is human organization possible?

上博楚简呈现了楚国两套截然不同的声音世界：《采风曲目》是一份由王室整理的“宫廷官方歌单”。39 首诗歌被严格按宫商角徵羽分类，每一种调式都有政治用途，是楚国用来观察风俗、监测人心的声音数据库。《逸诗》却像“地下音乐”。因过于私人、质朴、不合礼乐规范，它们被排除在《诗经》之外，却保留了最真实的情感、择友的心意与草木般的自然伦理。当官方歌单用于治理，地下音乐留下灵魂；当制度收编声音，竹简保存野性。两者并存的这一刻，让我们看见楚文明真正的双声轨道。

The Shanghai Museum Chu slips reveal two radically different sound worlds of the ancient state of Chu.
The Cai Feng Qu Mu〈采风曲目〉 functions like a court-curated official playlist.
Its 39 songs are rigorously classified according to the pentatonic modes—gong, shang, jue, zhi, yu—each mode carrying a specific political function. Together they form a sonic database through which the Chu court observed local customs and monitored the sentiments of the people.
The Yi Shi〈逸诗〉, by contrast, reads like underground music.
Too personal, too raw, and too unconstrained by ritual norms, these poems were excluded from the Classic of Poetry. Yet they preserve the most authentic emotions—friendship chosen by the heart, brotherhood expressed through the metaphors of reeds and pine—and a natural ethics as unvarnished as the landscape itself.
When the official playlist serves governance, the underground tracks safeguard the soul.
When institutions absorb and codify sound, the bamboo slips quietly preserve its wildness.
In the coexistence of these two archives, we glimpse the true dual sound-track of Chu civilization.