If there is poetry hidden in the heart, the years will never defeat the beauty
Reply to Calendar and Books in the background to get a poetry calendar and free books
Today's excellent lesson, click to listen to the poetry lesson → the school owes to the child
As one of the eight masters of the Tang and Song dynasties, Liu Zongyuan's talent and learning made Han Yu appreciate it.
The lonely and nameless Liu Zongyuan struggled to walk on his career path, and who knows that his ancestors were once "relatives of the emperor and the state". And when he threw himself enthusiastically into the reform of the empire, he was relegated to a remote place.
And it is the frustration of life that has created Liu Zongyuan's "Eight Records of Yongzhou" and has also achieved a generation of literary artists Liu Zongyuan.
Liu Zongyuan is a famous writer of the Tang Dynasty in China, together with Han Yu of the Tang Dynasty, Ouyang Xiu of the Song Dynasty, Su Xun, Su Shi, Wang Anshi and Zeng Gong, and called "the Eight Masters of the Tang and Song Dynasties". What is less known is that his ancestors were once relatives of the emperor and the state, but Liu Zongyuan's life was not "stained" because of this, and his life was also full of ups and downs.
The ancestors were once relatives of the Emperor and the state
Liu Zongyuan was born in Hedong (present-day Yongji, Shanxi) of the Liu clan. The Tang Dynasty people like to say that their ancestors came from high gates, many of which cannot be believed, but Liu Zongyuan's family is a real door valve nobleman.
During the Northern Dynasty, the Liu clan in the area east of the Yellow River, together with the Xue and Pei clans, was called "Hedong Three Surnames". After the founding of the Tang Dynasty, the Liu clan was also relied upon by the imperial family.
During the reign of Emperor Gaozong of Tang (649-683 CE), Liu Jiaguang served as an official in Shangshu Province (equivalent to the State Council) with more than 20 people at the same time, and his power was temporary.
But it was also during the reign of Emperor Gaozong that the Liu family began to decline. At that time, Liu Zongyuan's Gao Bozu (who was a brother to Liu Zongyuan's Gaozu ziXia), Gaozong's first empress dowager Wang Was the niece of Emperor Gaozong.
In the harem struggle, Empress Wang was defeated by Wu Zetian, and Liu Zaixiang was also implicated, first degraded, and then simply killed. After Wu Zetian came to power, he cracked down on the old surname, and the Liu clan was demoted from an imperial relative to an ordinary person, leaving only a good family style.
Liu Zongyuan's old friend Han Yu said that Liu Zongyuan was upright and sincere, regardless of the stakes, and did not hesitate to fight for his ideals. Liu Zongyuan's character is inherited from his father, Liu Zhen. Liu Zhen was an official in Jinzhou (in present-day Shanxi Province), and his superior was a rough and murderous warrior, and no one in the government dared to offend him. When he saw that the innocent tortured were about to be killed, only Liu Zhen would argue with reason, and even resist the whipping stick for the innocent person himself, even if the boss was angry, he did not retreat.
Liu Zongyuan's mother, Lu Shi, also came from a family and was well versed in poetry and writing. When Liu Zongyuan was 4 years old, his father was alone, and Lu Shi took his children to live temporarily in the countryside on the western outskirts of Chang'an. There were no books in the house, so she memorized dictations.
Slightly older, Liu Zongyuan began to travel with his father, who was an official in other places, increasing his insight and exercising his literary style. At the age of eleven or twelve, he lived with his father for a time in the shogunate of Li Jian in Xiakou (present-day Wuchang District, Wuhan, Hubei Province).
There were many talents in the Li and shogunate, such as the famous Wenren Deyu and Yang Ping at that time. Liu Zongyuan has attracted attention in his father's circle, and is regarded as a "boy with a strange name", and Yang Ping also betrothed his 9-year-old daughter Xu to him.
In 789, Liu Zhen served as a palace attendant, a minor official in the supervision department, but during the trial of the case, he offended the powerful chancellor Dou Shan, and was framed and demoted to Kui Prefecture (夔州, in modern Fengjie County, Chongqing). 17-year-old Liu Zongyuan sent off his father, walked nearly a hundred miles, and did not give up, while the strong father, only said to his son, "I have no eyes", and embarked on a distant road.
Ambitious but politically frustrated
In 797, Liu Zongyuan was officially appointed as the orthographer of jixiandian academy in the Examination of Erudite Hongzi (by the Bureaucracy, roughly equivalent to the talent selection examination held by the Ministry of Personnel today), and he was only 26 years old.
Jixiandian Academy orthography, equivalent to the proofreader of the Royal Library, is a petty official who has just entered the stream. According to the custom of the Tang Dynasty, jinshi was born, was given the orthography, and then served as the county commander and county lieutenant of Gyeonggi (equivalent to the county chief and the head of the county public security bureau), and then returned to the central government as an official, which was the fast track on the road to his career, and Liu Zongyuan was transferred to the county lieutenant of Lantian (present-day Lantian County, Shaanxi Province) in the Gyeonggi region at the end of his 3-year tenure at the Jixian temple academy.
In fact, he did not arrive, and because of his talent, Liu Zongyuan was left in Jingzhao Province (equivalent to the capital city party committee) to take charge of paperwork. At the same time, he was also active in the circle of talented people in Chang'an, and had a very strong friendship with Liu Yuxi, Han Yu and a group of other handsome people. These young talents have great ambitions and often do their best together.
In 803, Liu Zongyuan had just turned 31 years old, was transferred to the inspector Yushi Lixing (equivalent to the assistant to a senior official of the State Supervision Department), and entered the decision-making center of the imperial court, and his friend Liu Yuxi and three others were also promoted at the same time.
During this period, Liu Zongyuan began to make friends with Wang Shuwen. Wang was a native of Shanyin, Yuezhou (present-day Shaoxing, Zhejiang) and had great political ambitions. He was a master of chess, having played chess with Tang Shunzong, who was still the crown prince at the Eastern Palace, and was deeply trusted for helping the prince gain a foothold in the complicated court struggles. Wang Shuwen is good at making friends and looks for talents for the prince everywhere. Liu Zongyuan and his friends were close to Wang Shuwen's political views, and they all became a force he relied on.
In 805, Emperor Dezong of Tang died, and Emperor Shunzong successfully ascended the throne and began to carry out reforms. Liu Zongyuan was promoted to the rank of Foreign Lang (equivalent to a senior official of the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Education) in this year, and under the leadership of Wang Shuwen, these young officials quickly implemented the new policy, punished corrupt officials and cool officials, straightened out finances, suppressed the feudal towns, cracked down on eunuchs, and acted vigorously. Tang Shunzong's era name was "Yongzhen", and the history of this innovation is called "Yongzhen Innovation".
However, once the officialdom decays, its decline and fall becomes inevitable - the Tang Dynasty has irretrievably reached the late stage, and the strong backlash encountered by Wang Shuwen and others can be imagined. It was particularly unfortunate that if Shunzong was a sober and healthy emperor, he could still rely on them to some extent, but unfortunately, a year before he ascended the throne (804 AD), Shunzong suddenly suffered a stroke, could not speak, and his physical condition was getting worse and worse. The suspicion of the hundred officials of the imperial court about the unauthorized power of Wang Shuwen and others has not been interrupted since the day Emperor Shunzong ascended the throne.
In this situation, the suppressed eunuchs, feudal lords, and disgruntled courtiers quickly gathered into opposition. The crown prince Li Chun forced Shunzong Chan to take the throne himself, which is the historical Xianzong. Wang Shuwen, who had no military power at all in his hands, could only be captured in the face of such a change.
As soon as Emperor Xianzong came to power, he announced that Wang Shuwen, Liu Zongyuan, Liu Yuxi, and other officials would be demoted to the local government to become Sima (司馬). The so-called "Sima " are idle officials who are not allowed to participate in the handling of government affairs outside the local establishment, which is actually equivalent to exile.
Liu Zongyuan, who studied hard as a teenager, entered the highest core of politics in his youthful years, but ruthless politics also made him fall from the peak to the bottom in a blink of an eye.
Passing away with grief
Liu Zongyuan's deposed Yongzhou (永州, in modern Yongzhou, Hunan Province), located in the upper reaches of the Xiang River, belonged to the hilly area, which was a very economically and culturally backward area in the Tang Dynasty. After Liu Zongyuan arrived in office, he had no residence and could only take shelter in the West Wing of Longxing Temple in Yongzhou City.
In May of the following year, the old mother who came with him died of long-distance bumps, coupled with the heat and humidity of the south, and could not afford to be sick, and because of the lack of medical treatment, she gave up. Before her mother died, she said to her son, who was in a state of mind, "I don't have to dwell on the past, and I have never felt bad." ”
After the death of his mother, Liu Zongyuan's own health deteriorated rapidly, his spleen was enlarged, he had indigestion, and when he was serious, he had a seizure once or twice a day, he could not eat, his vision was blurred, and as soon as the voice of others spoke was high, he was flustered. He himself understood some medical theory and wanted to buy some poria to regulate, but the result was that the market sold counterfeit poria with taro, and the illness worsened when he ate it.
After staying at Longxing Temple for four or five years, he had his own home. The new home was facing the stream, the ground was humid and hot, and soon he was suffering from beriberi and his feet were swollen.
Compared with the pain of the body, the depression in the heart is more painful. Liu Zongyuan was talented in his early years, his career was very smooth, his personality was straight, he did not avoid the stakes, and he was called a "crazy person" in Chang'an.
As the core figure of the "Yongzhen Reform", when he was in power, the people who came to persuade him to queue up at the door were nothing more than to take the door and get an official and a half-post. For these demands, Liu Zongyuan refused to favoritism and "could not be one in a hundred."
With the loss of Liu Zongyuan's political power, people's envy of his talent and resentment of his unwillingness were vented out at the same time, and the filthy words that scolded him were constantly heard, and some people even relied on slander and slander to curry favor with the upstarts.
Liu Zongyuan lived a lonely life in Yongzhou and rarely interacted with people. He hoped to return to Chang'an, and after 5 years in Yongzhou, he kept writing letters to his relatives and friends in the capital, hoping that someone could help, but people could not do anything. At that time, under the rule of Emperor Xianzong, current affairs had calmed down, but Liu Zongyuan stayed in despair for 10 years and could not see a way out.
A friend heard that Liu Zongyuan was in pain, came to visit from afar, saw that he was not sad, and thought that the legend was untrue. Liu Zongyuan said to him, you know what? The sorrow of the long song is too much to weep, and I have no pain of tears, which is more than 1,000 times more than that sadness.
In 815 AD, things seemed to have taken a turn for the better. Wei Guanzhi, the chancellor at the time, was very sympathetic to the plight of Liu Zongyuan and others, and recalled Liu Zongyuan, Liu Yuxi, and 5 others to Chang'an. After receiving the news, Liu Zongyuan was very excited and returned to the capital in a month. In the midst of excitement, Liu Yuxi wrote a poem called "Drama Gifts to See the Gentlemen of Flowers", which was not without ridicule for the upstarts in Chang'an.
The magnates who did not want to see Liu and Liu return to the political arena seized on this poem and made a big fuss and resolutely opposed their return to the imperial court. The shadow of Yongzhen's coup did not completely fade in Tang Xianzong's mind, and the opposition immediately received his support.
Liu Zongyuan and others returned to Chang'an in February, and on March 14 announced that they would all serve as assassins in remote areas. Liu Zongyuan was appointed assassin of LiuZhou (柳州, in modern Liuzhou, Guangxi), 2,000 miles further away than Yongzhou.
In Liuzhou, Liu Zongyuan did his best to serve the political side, achieved a lot of political achievements, and was deeply loved by the people. But the sorrow of wandering tormented his sick and weak body, and the sadness in his heart did not ease for a moment. At the time of his death in Liuzhou, Liu Zong was only 47 years old.
The article will be passed on later
The exertion of suffering on man is difficult for those who have not experienced suffering to understand. Su Shi's younger brother Su Rui once said that before my brother did not degrade Huangzhou, our articles were comparable, but after Huangzhou, I could no longer look at his back. This situation also happened to Liu Zongyuan.
In his early years in Chang'an, Liu Zongyuan was famous for his literary style. Leaving Chang'an, in the long and almost desperate life of derogatory people, his articles have increasingly faded away the superficial rhetoric, pursued the wen to the clear way, and moved to the profound realm of profound and elegant health, among which theoretical novels such as "Feudal Theory", landscape sketches such as "Eight Records of Yongzhou", and poems such as "Jiang Xue" and "The Snake Catcher Says" have become models for future generations to learn. This is undoubtedly the result of his deepening thinking and continuous improvement of his spirit.
In the lonely and derogatory land, Liu Zongyuan deeply reflected on his ups and downs in life, believing that the early years of his progress were smooth, and indeed there were some "young and good things, and then could not be stopped", plus "sex and wilderness", no doubt rebelled against the magnate. However, he did not become sleek because of this.
A year after he arrived in Yongzhou, Wang Shuwen was given death, accused of chaos in the country, and public opinion and accusations flocked to him. Ordinary people should remain silent even if they do not try to clear their relationship with "sinners", but In his letter to his friends, Liu Zongyuan still truthfully mentioned that he was friendly with Wang Shuwen in his early years and "made friends for ten years".
After the political frustration, because of his original sharpness and talent, Liu Zongyuan was exhausted and ridiculed, but he still gave the greatest criticism to the attitude of political mediocrity and self-preservation. In a letter to his father-in-law, he made it clear that the kind of old-man officials who have no edges, no promises, and no deeds are the great harm of politics.
After Liu Zongyuan's death, his coffin finally returned to Chang'an, where he had been thinking about day and night. His friend Han Yu sent him an epitaph from the distant city of Yuan (present-day Yichun, Jiangxi Province), which read: If Liu Zongyuan had grown older in his early years as he had later become sima and assassin, perhaps he would not have left Chang'an; after the denunciation, if someone could pull him along, perhaps he would not have fallen to this point; however, if he had not been so desperate and helpless to the extreme, perhaps the article would not have been "passed on to posterity" as it is now.
What is the gain or loss between a Liu Zongyuan who has a prominent career and a Liu Zongyuan who is frustrated in the official field and desperate in life, but whose articles are "passed on to the future"? History cannot be discerned, just as fate is irresistible. But the value he has left in the long river of history will definitely be recognized by future generations!
【Copyright Notice】This article is from "Global People", the copyright is owned by the original author. If you have any questions, please add poetry world small editor WeChat signal wh-pos001, small editor waiting for you to be friends.