To take advantage of the danger of others (chéng rén zhī wēi) means to blackmail or infringe on others when they are in danger in order to achieve their own goals. The idiom comes from the Biography of Later Han Shu · Gai Xun, "Xun Su has a feud with Zhenghe, or persuades Xun to repay the gap because of this, Xun Yue: 'Don't, plot to kill good, not loyalty; Taking advantage of people's danger is not benevolent. ’”
Gai Xun, the character Yuangu, was a native of Dunhuang County in the Eastern Han Dynasty. Gai Xun is not only quite talented, but also extremely upright, he was born in the family of the eunuch, when he was young, he was promoted to filial piety and honesty, and later moved to the history of Hanyang County.
Hanyang County is under the jurisdiction of Liangzhou, and Liangzhou Thorn Shi Liang Hu is a good friend of Gai Xun. On weekdays, once Liang Hu encounters any problems in government affairs, he often goes to Gai Xun to discuss.
In the middle of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the rule of the court officials was extremely corrupt, the court officials were busy with party disputes all day long, the eunuchs, relatives, and scholars fought with each other, and the local officials used their power to bend the law and oppress the people, so that the people were miserable.
Wuwei County guarded Huang Jun too much, relying on the support of his powerful people in the court, and was rampant in the local area, in the fish and meat township, corruption, and all kinds of evil, which made the people complain and hate him to the core. However, whether it was a Wuwei official or a Liangzhou official, they did not dare to speak out because they knew that Huang Jun had someone in the imperial court and dared to be angry with him.
However, Liangzhou engaged in Su Zhenghe, but he was not afraid of power, upright official, he hated Huang Jun's actions, and saw that no one dared to bring him to justice, so he personally investigated and collected evidence of Huang Jun's crimes, and prepared to write to the imperial court to request that Huang Jun be severely punished and get rid of this villain for the people.
After the news of Su Zhenghe's investigation of Huang Jun reached the ears of Liang Hu, the assassin of Liangzhou, Liang Hu panicked, he was worried that the investigation of Huang Jun's crime would involve high-level officials in the imperial court, which would affect him. In order not to clash with the powerful people in the DPRK and China, Liang Hu approached Su Zhenghe several times and asked him to give up the investigation, but Su Zhenghe sternly refused.
Seeing that Su Zhenghe was so "ignorant", in order to keep his position, Liang Hu wanted to prevent Su Zhenghe from continuing to investigate by getting rid of him. However, although Su Zhenghe is his subordinate official, he is also an official of the imperial court after all, and he is complicit in the crime of killing the official of the imperial court without permission, which makes Liang Hu, who is greedy for power, unable to make up his mind for a while.
At that time, there was also a contradiction between Gai Xun and Su Zhenghe, so someone informed Gai Xun of the assassination of Liang Hu's intention to kill Su Zhenghe, and suggested that Gai Xun take the opportunity to persuade the assassin to kill Su Zhenghe, so as to resolve the troubles of the boss, and secondly, to take the opportunity to get rid of the enemy, wouldn't it kill two birds with one stone, the best of both worlds.
After hearing this, Gai Xun shook his head again and again, and said righteously, "No, it is not loyal to kill the good; Taking advantage of people's danger is not benevolent. It means that it is disloyal to seek to kill the loyal and good for the sake of one's own personal grudge; It is unkind to take advantage of the danger of others to inflict harm.
Soon, Liang Hu, who had no good solution, thought of his friend Gai Xun again, so he went to Hanyang County to visit, wanting to discuss with Gai Xun how to get rid of Su Zhenghe.
Instead of falling into the trap, Gai Xun persuaded Liang Hu to say, "Raising eagle kites and training them is to make them more ferocious, so that you can help you capture your prey." But now that you've trained it, you want to kill it. In that case, why do you still feed eagle kites? ”
Liang Hu listened to this, suddenly came to his senses, and gave up the idea of killing Su Zhenghe, and agreed to Su Zhenghe's impeachment of Wu Wei Taishou Huang Jun.
Later, Su Zhenghe learned about this incident and was very grateful to Gai Xun and personally came to thank him. However, Gai Xun did not see him behind closed doors, and sent someone to Su Zhenghe to say, "I persuaded Liang Hu not to kill you, but it was for Liang Zhijun, not for you." ”
Gai Xun is such a person who distinguishes between right and wrong, after the outbreak of the "Yellow Turban Uprising", the world was in turmoil, Gai Xun did not retreat because of his resistance to the Qiang rebels, and was promoted to Hanyang Taishou because of his merits. In the second year of Zhongping (185), there was a famine in Liangzhou, Gai Xun took the lead in taking out the grain stored at home, relieved the people, and survived more than 1,000 people. After the death of Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty, civil strife broke out in the imperial court, and Dong Zhuo entered the dictatorship of Beijing, and he was quite frustrated to see the imperial court so gimmick. In the second year of Emperor Xian of the Han Dynasty (191), Gai Xun relapsed due to an old injury and died in Chang'an at the age of 51.