The Great Revival

I would like to share a nice (only if you can appreciated it as I do) clip that I streamed and edited from a historical series, The Great Revival. In Chinese, it's called "卧薪尝胆".

卧薪尝胆:
【解释】:睡觉睡在柴草上，吃饭睡觉都尝一尝苦胆。形容人刻苦自励，发奋图强。

First, let's talk about the video clip first. In the clip, the main actor is the King of Yue, Guo Jian (越王勾踐) around the time near to the end of the Spring and Autumn Period of China's history. His kingdom, Yue (越国), was a small state under threat by the bigger kingdom, Wu (吴国). In order to protect his kingdom, he made a pre-emptive attack on the Wu kingdom, resulting in a total loss for Yue. His kingdom was enslaved and the King of Yue was captured and sent to the Kingdom of Wu to serve as the King of Wu's personal slave. Three years of hardship, as portrayed in the video of all the hardship he endured and suffered, including the rape of his queen (in the clip when he tore the manuscript to vent his anger), he endured and suffered in silence. With his "humbled humiliation" and "obedience", he was allowed to return back to his kingdom.

Not wanting to forget, he tasted a bitter gall everyday, remembering his bitter lesson; and he slept on a bed of tree sticks instead of the comfortable bed to constantly alert himself of his hardship before, preventing complacency. He reformed the kingdom for ten years till finally the chance for revenge is near. The King of Wu is embarking on a power hegemony struggle with Kingdom of Jin. His own Yue's troop is now well-trained and in high moral, and his kingdom is now rich after a decade of reforms.

Therefore, in the video, the King of Yue, is pensive and is about the make the final decision whether to take revenge, a gambit for all or nothing. If he succeed, he will gain back his kingdom, and perhaps that's of Wu's as well. If he loses, he will be dead before long and his kingdom will vanish from history.

The rest is history, as recorded in the historical records (史记).

[Note: The background music is 7MB, and if it streamed fine for you, this video of 9MB shouldn't be a problem as well. But remember to pause the background music first.]




Lesson for us:

History bores well for those who learned their lessons. You can fall down and get hurt. But remember, so long as you are not dead, you need to get up yourself and bring yourself to the next level, always remembering the lesson learned from your experience. In that you do that humbly and studiously and with patience; and there will always be a day, a day of reckoning, where you reap what you have sowed over the years.