(Liang Yuan Emperor Xiao Xuan, picture from the Internet)
Emperor Xiaoxuan of Liangyuan in Jingzhou: "Emperor Caizi" who combines writers, painters, calligraphers, and calligraphers
Yu Dazhong
Xiao Yi (萧绎) (16 September 508 – 27 January 555), courtesy name Shicheng , was a native of Lanling ( present-day Changzhou , Jiangsu ) of the Southern Dynasty. In 552, Emperor Xiao was located in Jiangling (江陵, in present-day Jingzhou, Hubei) as Emperor Yuan of Liang, with the era name Ofsan. On January 27, 555, Xiao Xuan was suffocated by Xiao Zhen with an earthen bag and buried in Yingling (颍陵, in present-day Nanjing, Jiangsu), with the title of Shizu (世祖) and the courtesy name of Emperor Xiaoyuan. Xiao Xuan loved to read and was talented, calling himself "Tao Yu Scribe, Ashamed of Wufu", and was a "talented emperor" who combined writers, painters and calligraphers.
("Talented Emperor" Xiao Xuan, picture from the Internet)
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Xiao Xuan was the seventh son of Emperor Xiao Yan of Liangwu. In the thirteenth year of Tianjian (514), he was enfeoffed as the King of Xiangdong, and in the seventh year of the ordinary year (526), he was appointed as the military commander of Jingzhou Thorn History, envoy, and governor of Jingyong Xiangsi, Yingningliang, northern and southern Qin Jiuzhou, and general of Zhenxi. In the second year of the Taiqing Dynasty, during the "Rebellion of Hou Jing" (also known as the "Difficulty of Taiqing"), the Eastern Wei rebel general Hou Jing raised an army at Shouyang (present-day Shou County, Anhui) in the name of the Qing Emperor.com. In the third year of the Taiqing Dynasty (549), he captured the Liang dynasty capital Jiankang (present-day Nanjing, Jiangsu), starved the Liangwu emperor Xiao Yan to death, and successively deposed Xiao Zhengde, the Jianwen Emperor Xiao Gang, and Xiao Dong, and finally established himself as emperor in the second year of Dabao (551), with the state name Han.
In the third year of Taiqing (549), Xiao Xuan sent troops to attack his nephew Xiao Yu the Prince of Hedong and his brother Xiao Lun the Prince of Shaoling, repelled xiao Yu's brother and governor of Xiangyang, Xiao Qin, and ordered Wang Sheng to lead an army to the east to kill Hou Jing and quell the "difficulties of Taiqing".
In the first year of Chengsheng (552), Xiao Xuan was the emperor at Jiangling. At that time, some of the courtiers suggested returning to the old capital Jiankang, but Xiao Xuan did not agree. Xiao Yi became one of the monarchs of the historical capital Jingzhou, and was the first emperor of Southern Liang (also known as "Xiao Liang") to set the capital outside Jiankang.
(Image from the Internet)
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In that year, Xiao Ji, the younger brother of Xiao Xuan and the King of Wuling, was proclaimed emperor of Yizhou. Xiao Xuan sent troops to Sichuan to fight Xiao Ji, and at the same time asked Western Wei to send troops. This move gave Western Wei an opportunity to make Yizhou fall into the hands of Western Wei.
In September of the third year of Chengsheng (554), Xiao Xuan wrote a letter to Yuwen Tai of Western Wei, asking for the redrawing of the border according to the old map, and his words were extremely arrogant. Yuwen Tai was very dissatisfied, and ordered Changshan Gongyu Jin and the general Yang Zhong to lead 50,000 troops to attack Jiangling. In November, the city of Jiangling was destroyed, and Xiao Xuan led the crown prince and others to surrender to the Western Wei military camp.
On December of the third year of Chengsheng's reign (27 January 555), Xiao Xuan, the governor of Xiangyang, suffocated Xiao Xuan with an earthen bag. The Western Wei army selected more than 100,000 men and women from Jingzhou and drove them back to Guanzhong, leaving only an empty city of Jiangling to Xiao Qi.
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Among the emperors who have achieved literary status in the past, "Four Xiao" (Emperor Xiao Yan of Liangwu and his three sons Xiao Tong, Xiao Gang, and Xiao Xuan) and "Three Cao" (Cao Wei father and son Cao Cao, Cao Pi, Cao Zhi) are equally named, and are known as "Three Cao" and "Four Xiao". Xiao Xuan is also the leader of the "Four Xiaos", and his works are the richest among China's 5,000 years of history and hundreds of emperors.
Xiao Xuan is the author of hundreds of volumes, such as "Biography of Filial Piety", "Biography of Zhongchen", "Biography of Danyang Yin", "Biography of Zhu Han", "Neidian Bojiao", "Yu Tao", "Supplementary Quezi", "Yu Dezhi", "JingnanZhi", "Catalogue of Ancient and Modern Names", "Lectures on Lao Tzu", "Style Praise", etc., but most of them have been lost, and only a few kinds of "Ancient and Modern Records of Names" and so on remain. In the Ming Dynasty, there was the "Collection of Emperor Liang Yuan", of which the "Jin Louzi" as the "son" of the Hundred Schools of Thought of the Sons was his representative work.
Xiao Xuan is good at five words, seven words, miscellaneous poems and rhetoric, and is particularly wonderful in refining words, duality and white painting, and his themes are mainly border conquests, grievances and eroticism, and writing scenery and chants. There are 109 extant poems with 119 titles. "Wing Mei", "Spring Day", "Guan Shanyue", and "Picking Lotus Fu" are Xiao Xuan's masterpieces of poetry.
(The picture of "Gong Tu" comes from the Network)
"Gong Tu" is a masterpiece of Xiao Xuan's calligraphy and painting, and it is also the first scroll painting of Gongbi characters in the history of Chinese painting to use foreign gonggong figures as the subject of painting. Xiao Xuan's original work has been lost, and the existing Facsimile of the Song Dynasty, colored on silk, 26.7 cm in length and 200.7 cm in width, is stored in the National Museum of China.
Xiao Xuan's collection of books amounts to more than 70,000 volumes. When the Western Wei army besieged Jiangling, Xiao Xuan was still teaching Lao Tzu at the "Longguang Hall", and the civil and military officials of the imperial court were dressed in military uniforms and listened quietly. Fearing that books and antiquities would fall into the hands of the enemy, Xiao Xuan burned 140,000 volumes of ancient paintings, Fa Ti, and ancient and modern books to a torch. For Xiao Xuan's dying book burning, there are quite a few words in history.
(About the author: Yu Dazhong, a native of Jingzhou, Hubei Province, is a lover of literature and history research and writing)