In ancient times, there were three immortals for scholars, namely "Liyan, Lixing and Lide", among which "Liyan", which represents "writing books and speaking", is the most valued. However, it is not easy to write an article that shocks the world, and how many people spend their entire lives in obscurity.
As a result, in the Tang Dynasty, there were some gentry who specialized in befriending great poets, hoping to be famous with a poem.
The most successful in this regard is undoubtedly Wang Lun. Although he was not talented and mediocre, he easily became famous through the ages and became a household name in later generations.
And the secret is also very simple, that is, to befriend the great poet Li Bai, establish a deep friendship with him through various means, and finally get his poems.
Of course, Wang Lun's success is also inseparable from the payment of real money, so how much stroke did it impress Shixian?
Clever means to invite Li Bai to visit
During the Tang Dynasty, poetry developed to an extremely prosperous stage and became the mainstream literary carrier at that time. Whether it is officialdom or folk, poetry lovers are like carp crossing the river, innumerable.
Even the royal family held him in high esteem, not only treating poets as guests, but also making poetry a key part of the imperial examination.
As a result, the Tang Dynasty wrote good poems from the top ministers to the ordinary officials, and the poetry has become a necessity for officialdom communication at that time.
If a brilliant psalm can be written during the feast, the whole feast will be remembered.
The popularity and popularity of the great poets of the Tang Dynasty are not lost to today's "film and television superstars". Even the princes and nobles were proud to be friends with the poets.
But great poets are a scarce resource after all, and there are even fewer who like to socialize with others, sing and participate in banquets.
Tang Dynasty banquet poems and singing harmony
Therefore, ordinary people have little chance of getting in touch with top poets, and if they want to attract the attention of the other party, they must use ingenuity.
Relatively speaking, "Poet Immortal" Li Bai definitely belongs to the one that is easy to access.
On the one hand, he loves wine as much as his life, and as long as he can provide good wine, he will not worry about not attracting this great poet.
On the other hand, in today's words, Li Bai belongs to a typical "social cow", and rarely shirks and resists in the face of sincere invitations from friends.
Therefore, at that time, many dignitaries and nobles tried to invite Li Bai, and several of them really got what they wanted.
For a time, Li Bai's "fan brothers" went out one after another, trying to establish contact with idols, including Wang Lun, who loved Li Bai's poetry very much.
But at this time, Wang Lun was just a small Jing County Order, although he had a slight literary name, but he was far inferior to the "poet immortal" Li Bai.
If you invite rashly, there is a high probability that you will be rejected by the other party, so after carefully studying Li Bai's hobbies, Wang Lun came up with a brilliant plan, and then waited for the opportunity to come with peace of mind.
In the fourteenth year of Tianbao, Li Bai lived in the mansion of Li Yangbing in Nanling, who was a famous calligrapher at that time, and his seal script was known as "a person after Li Si".
Not only that, Li Yangbing is also Li Bai's uncle and cares for his nephew.
Nanling is in present-day Wuhu City, Anhui Province, while Jing County, where Wang Lun worked, is in Xuancheng City, present-day Anhui Province, and the two places are not far apart.
After receiving the news that Li Bai was in Nanling, Wang Lun thought that the time was ripe, and immediately wrote a letter to invite Shixian to come to Jing County to play.
At first, Li Bai was not interested in Wang Lun's letter, and only thought it was an ordinary letter sent by a "fan brother".
Unexpectedly, after the letter was opened, it made his eyes light up. The content of the letter is very simple, but there are two sentences in it that arouse Li Bai's interest, only to see Wang Lun write: Mr. is so swimming? There are ten miles of peach blossoms here. Is it good to drink? There are 10,000 hotels here.
For a person like Li Bai who is uninhibited and loves wine, the combination of beautiful scenery + fine wine is really attractive, so he couldn't wait to set off and went directly to Jing County.
Taohuatan in Jing County
Spent a lot of money and was favored by Li Bai
After rushing to Jing County in a hurry, Li Bai quickly felt what it meant to be "fraud".
To be honest, the natural scenery of Jing County is still very good, not only with beautiful mountains and rivers, but also with clear ponds and green water and many natural wild scenes.
However, there is a huge gap between its scenery and the "grand scene" described by Wang Lun in the letter, and Li Bai did not find ten miles of peach blossoms after turning around, only a few peach trees.
The so-called 10,000 hotels are even more empty talk, Li Bai has been looking for a long time, and he has only found a decent hotel.
With resentment and grievances, Li Bai came to Wang Lun's mansion according to the address described in the letter.
Suddenly hearing of Shixian's visit, Wang Lun was so excited that he couldn't help himself, he rushed to the front hall as soon as possible, and bowed his hand to Li Bai.
But Li Bai's complexion was not good, and he bluntly said that he had been deceived. Wang Lun didn't panic, he immediately put on a smiling face, and first admitted it calmly.
Then he changed his words and bluntly said that the so-called "ten miles of peach blossoms" refers to the peach blossom pond that is about ten miles long and has pleasant scenery.
And the "Wanjia Hotel" described in the letter refers to the shop that Li Bai discovered, but the owner happens to be surnamed Wan.
After listening to Wang Lun's explanation, although Li Bai was still quite angry in his heart, he was also amused by the other party's witty response.
Then, while admitting his appreciation and love for Li Bai's talent, Wang Lun said that he had prepared an elegant and unique wine for him to taste.
After learning that the other party was his "fan brother", and at the same time there was a fine wine, Li Bai's inner dissatisfaction was completely eliminated, and he happily walked into the back hall with Wang Lun.
This time, Wang Lun did not deceive Li Bai, the wine he prepared was sweet and sweet, with a hint of unique taste, which made Li Bai full of praise.
It turned out that the wine provided by Wang Lun was made with his own unique secret recipe, and the dew on the lotus leaves in the early spring morning of Peach Blossom Lake was added, and there would be a clear sweetness when you tasted it.
The two of them drank until late at night that day, and Wang Lun proposed that Li Bai could stay for a few more days, just to see the beautiful scenery of Jing County.
Li Bai was full of praise for the wine and food provided by Wang Lun, and almost did not hesitate to agree to the other party's request.
In this way, Li Bai, accompanied by Wang Lun, stayed in Jing County for many days, and the two of them saw all the mountains and rivers here, and lived happily every day.
However, Jing County is a small place after all, and Li Bai saw all the scenery in it after a few days of sightseeing, and then proposed to go elsewhere.
And Wang Lun warmly invited him and kept him many times, but even Li Bai, who has always been generous and bold, is not easy to say goodbye to his face.
In order to avoid embarrassment, Li Bai finally decided to leave Jing County secretly.
Who would have thought that as soon as he got on the parting boat, the sound of dancing and music came to his ears. It turned out that Wang Lun brought a group of people to see him off, and he was performing "singing and dancing" on the shore.
Looking at Wang Lun's big battle, even Li Bai, who was used to seeing big scenes, was quite moved, and the friendship between the two quickly warmed up.
Not only that, after the song and dance performance, Wang Lun also gave Li Bai eight horses and ten official brocades with a wave of his hand.
Facing Wang Lun's fist heart, Li Bai was deeply moved, and then splashed ink and wrote the song "Gift to Wang Lun" that will be handed down to future generations.
Who is Wang Lun?
I believe that many people will be moved by Wang Lun's enthusiasm when they read this story, and he really admires Li Bai.
And Wang Lun was not only sincere, the horses and official brocades he provided to Li Bai were priceless at that time.
Ancient horses, like today's automobiles, were a means of transportation for people when traveling. In fact, the two are not only similar in function, but also nearly synchronized in value.
Therefore, Wang Lun's approach to this day is equivalent to directly giving the idol eight high-quality luxury cars.
According to the price of goods in the early Tang Dynasty, the price of a sturdy horse was at least 50 yuan, which was converted into RMB and the price was about 280,000 yuan.
And this is still the lowest price of horses, Wang Lun gave away horses in excellent condition, and the price will even reach 80 yuan.
In other words, just counting the value of the horse, Wang Lun is equivalent to "rewarding" Li Bai more than 2 million.
The so-called official brocade is likely to be the famous Shu brocade, which was a standard luxury in the Tang Dynasty, and the price of each section of the official brocade was converted into about 20,000 or 30,000 yuan.
In this way, the total value of the property that Wang Lun gave to Li Bai when he saw him off should be more than 2.5 million yuan.
Whether it is ancient or modern, this is an absolute generosity, no wonder Li Bai, who is used to seeing big scenes, will inevitably be moved by it.
Seeing this, I believe many people will be curious, what exactly does Wang Lun do, and why does he have such huge financial resources?
As mentioned earlier, Wang Lun is the county magistrate of Jing County, and if he only relied on Yu Lu, he would not be so wealthy.
According to records, Wang Lun is actually a famous family, and his ancestor is Wang Hua, the founding father of the Tang Dynasty, who earned a huge family business for his descendants.
Therefore, these gifts are of great value to others, but they are also ordinary to Wang Lun.
In fact, in addition to the well-known "Gift to Wang Lun", Li Bai also wrote a number of poems for this friendship,
For example, in the autumn of the fourteenth year of Tianbao, when Li Bai was visiting Xuancheng, he also tried to visit Wang Lun, but unfortunately missed it.
However, Li Bai still wrote "Two Songs of Wang's Farewell Industry" with great interest, in which he tried his best to describe the deep friendship with Wang Lun.
It can be seen from this how deeply impressed Wang Lun left on Li Bai.
epilogue
Li Bai and Wang Lun are both rare temperamental people, although they have not been together for a long time, they both regard each other as like-minded friends. Their friendship has been passed down to this day through "Gift to Wang Lun" and "Two Songs of Wang's Farewell", composing a story through the ages.
At the same time, Wang Lun has also gained the envy of countless readers in later generations, after all, it is rare in the world to easily achieve an epic achievement that will be passed down to future generations with just one poem.
It is no wonder that since then, countless literati have followed Wang Lun's example one after another, trying to intersect with great poets, in order to achieve the effect of "becoming famous in one poem".