Tolerate

While I was thinking about tolerance of evil, another story from ancient China came to my mind:

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武公十年，娶申侯女為夫人，曰武薑。生太子寤生，生之難，及生，夫人弗愛。後生少子叔段，段生易，夫人愛之。二十七年，武公疾。夫人請公，欲立段為太子，公弗聽。是歲，武公卒，寤生立，是為莊公。

莊西元年，封弟段於京，號太叔。祭仲曰：「京大於國，非所以封庶也。」莊公曰：「武薑欲之，我弗敢奪也。」段至京，繕治甲兵，與其母武姜謀襲鄭。二十二年，段果襲鄭，武薑為內應。莊公發兵伐段，段走。伐京，京人畔段，段出走鄢。鄢潰，段出奔共。

《史記· 鄭世家第十二》

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For those who had difficulty in reading Chinese, here is the English version of the story I found in Wikipedia (which I modified slightly):

Born as the first of two sons and groomed for the throne, Zheng's mother nevertheless preferred her second son. The reason being that she suffered through an extraordinarily painful time when giving birth to Zheng. (Szeto's note: It was a breech presentation.) When Duke Zheng ascended to the dukedom over the violent objections of his mother, she began plotting to get the younger brother, Gongshu Duan (叔段), into power.

First she asked Zheng to give Duan the second largest city in the country (and was a very important fortress) as a fiefdom. Zheng's courtiers begged him to reject the proposal, but out of courtesy for his mother he agreed.

(To be continued.)