Wine and Politics

The Confucian theory of 'rule by ritual' has resulted directly in wine's being used as a political drink. Rites must be implemented in political practice; and a state power has to be maintained by two means: one civil and the other martial. As The 13th Year in the Reign of Chenggong in Zuo Zhuan puts it, 'ceremony and war are two maters of vital importance for a nation.' In ancient China, sacrificial ceremonies were exemplary occasions on which emperors reinforced their rule by ritual over subjects; they were also occasions on which the subjects showed respect and loyalty to emperors who were supposedly ruling on behalf of Heaven. The subjects must uphold the hierarchy demonstrated through the sacrificial ceremonies. In a poem by Southern Song poet Liu Kezhuang, there is a line which goes, 'Prefect Liu Bei and Cao Cao were the greatest heroes under Heaven; who of the rest were qualified to clink goblets with the two? This line, implying that few were even qualified to drink at the same table with Liu Bei and Cao Cao, may shed some light on the rigorousness of the hierarchy. Up to today, ritual is still exerting its influences on our daily life even though observing ritual maybe either a conscious or unconscious act. For example, underlying the arrangement of seats at a banquet table remains ritual. Besides, in political events such as the 'banquet at Hongmen' which determined the result of the war between Chu and Han, 'drunk Cao Cao kilig Yang Xiu' in the period of the Three Kingdoms, Zhao Kuangyin (Founder Emperor of the Song Dynasty) `relieving the generals of their command of military forces with a toast at a banquet, and using poisonous wine in the struggle for the crown, wine had served an important medium.