"Zhuangzi*The Thief and the Metatarsal".
In the society of Spring and Autumn (which is actually not limited to Spring and Autumn), small thieves are arrested, while thieves become vassals. Xiao Bai, the Duke of Qi Huan, killed his brother to become the ruler of Qi, and then took his sister-in-law for himself when he became the ruler. For such a man, the famous sage Guan Zhong willingly assisted him. Tian Chang, a minister of Qi, killed the king of Qi, stole the state of Qi, and became the king of Qi himself. Even for such a thief, the sage Confucius received the money given to him by Tian Chang without any shame. If we talk about it, this kind of thing is really not worth mentioning, but even the sages did not criticize them. What is so strange about this? The book of Shangshu says: "Who is evil and who is beautiful? The one who succeeds is the first and the one who fails is the last."
This is also true in later societies. In the Northern Song Dynasty, Su Shi said in the Preface to Kong Beihai's Praise, "The world considers characters by their successes and failures, so (Cao) Cao gets to be among the heroes." Unfortunately, such loud and clear statements by Zhuangzi and Su Shi are not often heard. In contrast, the idiom of "don't judge heroes by their successes and failures". Most of the people who make this appeal are on the losing side. The Kuomintang was defeated and fled to Taiwan. Taiwan's newspapers talk about it, they often use the phrase "do not judge a hero by his success or failure".