Li Zhen, Wen Ling.
One
Li Zhen (1527-1602), as early as his death, had the name of "heretic".
Some people worshipped him, followed him, and regarded him as a "strange man"; some people denounced him as a "little man", calling him "crazy and rebellious" and saying that "non-holy cannot be". Perhaps, as Huang Renyu said in "Fifteen Years of the Wanli Calendar", Li Yan was originally a "philosopher of self-conflict."
It is often said that to get to know a person, look at the friends around him. What kind of existence is a "heretic" like Li Zhen, his "circle of friends"? Could it be that "full of screens" are all different and different? This is really an interesting topic! This article also makes a "brief biography of heresy" on Li Zhen's travels.
Mr. Li once said that he "took his friends for their lives." Some people will be a little bit of his circle of friends, found that he is too much "iron powder", and no matter the fame or status, many people are far away from him. Li Yan only won the rank of a person, and the official was only an idle petty official such as a teacher, doctor, and secretary, and finally retired from his post as the prefect of the border side. He always whirling around the "grassroots" and cannot rise up, the main reason is that the origin of the lifter is too low. In the Ming and Qing dynasties, only the middle-aged jinshi could have a better career, and "lifting (people) to supervise (students)" was discriminated against. You can look at Li Zhen's circle of friends, who have a high reputation, there are Hui Yuan (the first place in the test, such as Yuan Zongdao, Tao Wangling) Zhuangyuan (Jiao Hu), the official position is prominent, there are four governors (Liu Dongxing, Mei Guozhen, Wang Keshou, Gu Yangqian), Gu Yangqian is still his boss when he was the prefect of Yunnan - respect and inferiority, it is a friend of pitching, and it is extremely difficult!
From this point of view, a "crazy Zen" Li Zhen and his friends did not make friends with wealth and wealth in a secular position, but interacted with each other on the basis of spiritual equality. Li Yan's circle of friends was formed in the pursuit of scholarship and thought.
Bronze statue of Li Zhen's former residence
Two
When Li Yan was in charge of his career in his early years, he had great doubts about Cheng Zhu Lixue, believing that he was "playing straight to the ear" but had not found a new direction for his studies. At the age of forty, he went to Beijing to elect officials and was given an errand as a secretary of the Ceremonial Department. This official was poor and small, and the reason why he accepted it was because "the capital of the People of the Beijing Division, Gai Will Visit and Learn." It was very late for Li Yan to learn in the year of confusion, but this step was of great significance to the transformation of his life.
In Beijing, Li Yan was "seduced by his friends Li Fengyang and Xu Yongjian" and began to read Wang Yangming's books. It is "enlightened", even a "stubborn" person like him, who also "has to believe it".
Although there were many characters in Beijing, but the atmosphere was conservative, in the fifth year of Longqing (1571), Li Zhen, who was tired of the "floating and complicated capital of the Capital Division", took the initiative to request to move the official Nandu and change to a foreign lang of the Nanjing Punishment Department. Nanjing was an important town for teaching at that time, and the influence of psychology was particularly great. Here, Li Zhen and his newly acquainted friend Jiao Hu and others took the knees day and night to discuss the study of the question; he also met the famous scholars Wang Qi (a disciple of Yang Ming, the founder of the Wang Men in Zhejiang), Luo Rufang (a representative figure of the Wang Xuezuo sect), and Wang Xi, the son of Wang Geng (a disciple of Yang Ming), the founder of the Taizhou School, as a teacher.
Life in Nanjing was the beginning of Li Yan's academic career. Here, I meet regularly with many friends and friends to improve my learning. He wrote in the "Small Introduction to the Duration of the Session": "The duration of the session cannot be changed, the order of Judah is irrevocable, and the military order cannot be reversed." Therefore, the heavy meeting period is a heavy road and a heavy friend. For him, lecturing is a military order, and valuing friends is a heavy tao; his lifelong pursuit of "friends who overcome himself" is actually the pursuit of self-transcendence.
If Li Zhen is willing to be a restrained petty official, the case is laborious, and the waist is bent for rice, his personality and talent will be forever suppressed; and the psychology that advocates the liberation of personality and "everyone in the street is a saint" gives him a window of release. The prosperity of the study of the heart is a typical example of spiritual decisions, and the famous scholars of Yangming Houxue, such as Wang Geng and Wang Xi's father and son, are all common people, but their Daoist friends and students are many high-ranking officials and eunuchs. When Li Yan changed from a lowly official to a scholar, his circle of friends immediately changed drastically--the tempering and exchange of ideas was the link between Li Zhen and his friends.
Portrait of Geng. The three Geng brothers: orientation, concentration, and theorems, are all famous scholars
Three
Li Yan not only learned miscellaneously, but also did the number of ways to do learning, such as reading history and focusing on "defending injustices", he said: "How many grievances have been made since ancient times, who is with the defense of Xue?" Therefore, when reading history, it is really like making enemies with millions of people, and once they are opposed, they naturally sacrifice prisoners and give their heads. Reading history like this, in terms of world view, he is even more "the enemy of millions of people." This determines that the "miracle theories" that Li Yan has made in his lifetime are bound to cause great criticism. One of his best-known "heretical views" is his opposition to Confucius's right and wrong. Confucius died as early as the Spring and Autumn Period, and the future generations are numerous, far ahead of the previous generations, how can Confucius determine the "right and wrong" of everything? The so-called "right and wrong of Confucius" is actually the right and wrong of the disciples of "saints" for two thousand years, that is, the values of successive generations of "King"; Confucius is just a label of authority. Li Zhen ignored Confucius's brand, and he also held a purpose of "defending the snow", so all the discussion was self-determined, "so that no one can be bound by famous religions" - no wonder people regard him as a heretic.
Li Zhen has a special charm, talking to people, can make the talker forget about himself. Tang Xianzu listened to his lectures when he was young, and many years later he still said with envy: "To find his genus is like a beautiful sword." Gu Yangqian, the old boss of Yunnan, also said: "Whenever I talk to my husband, I can't bear to go at night." Li Zhen's friends Jiao Zhen and Geng Theorem were also because of a conversation, so they made a lifelong friendship. Just think, if Li Zhen has no "different" place - different from ordinary people's talk and insight, how can these celebrities be overwhelmed?
At the age of fifty, Li Yan left Nanjing to take up the post of prefect of Yao'an in Yunnan, where he said that the trip was "not a conspiracy, but a straight face." He has reached half a hundred years, after all, he still has the drag of his wife and daughter's family affairs. Before leaving, he made a contract with his friend Geng Theorem, and at the end of his three-year term, he resigned from the government to come to the meeting, exchange knowledge, and "climb the other side together."
Three years later, he came to Huang'an, Huguang, on an appointment. At this moment, he "returned to the land with both parents, seven brothers and sisters married each other", the family obligations were slightly exhausted, and he was relaxed, and since then he has been in Huang'an and Macheng, and has lived for about twenty years. In the late Ming Dynasty, there were many talents in eastern Hubei, and the famous Huang An Sangeng and The Three Yuan of The Public Security all had a close relationship with Li Zhen. Quanzhou, Fujian Province, is the birthplace of Li Zhen, and yellow and hemp are his spiritual home.
Since Huang Anto sheltered in the Geng clan, Li Zhen has mainly relied on friends to help him for a living. Because he no longer worked for his livelihood, every day "only read day and night, did not dare to release the scroll with his hand, did not dare to stop waving the pen, from the age of fifty-six to the age of seventy-four, every day is just like this", entering the peak period of writing.
Public security three Yuan
Four
But life under the fence is not peaceful. After the death of Geng Theorem, the contradictions between Li Zhen and his brother, the great bureaucrat and scholar Geng Zhi (Shizhi Hubu Shangshu), intensified. Geng regarded Li as the "madness of the last school", and Li resolutely defended the right of "heretics" in thought. Geng Zhi, who had a deep relationship with xinxue, was the highest status in Li Zhen's circle of friends and the first to turn friends into enemies, and their polemics became a main line that affected Li Zhen for the second half of his life.
Although the atmosphere of the late Ming Dynasty was open, it was still extremely easy for power to imprison and harm thinkers, as evidenced by Zhang Ju's devotion to lecturing when he was in power, and the death of the psychological scholar He Xinyin (Geng Zhi rebuked him as "madness"). Li Zhen, who was sending food, launched a fierce debate with the "host", which made his living environment increasingly harsh. Lady Huang insisted on returning to her hometown in Quanzhou, and Li Yan sent his wife away and stayed behind, "fighting" alone. The following year, when his wife died, he simply cut his hair and escaped Zen, becoming a monk who ate meat.
After the contradictions between Li and Geng became public, Li Yan was forced to move to Macheng, and his "circle of friends" was also disturbed.
For example, Jiao Zhen, who was also Li Zhen's close friend and Geng's proud protégé, attacked from his teacher and friend, and although he and Li Zhen continued to write books, and many of Li Zhen's works were also engraved in Nanjing with his help, he began to deliberately keep a distance from them. Li Zhen felt deeply in a difficult situation, and once wanted to go to Nanjing to join him, but because he was poor and poor, he could not make the trip. Not wanting to be anxious about the seventeenth year of the Wanli Calendar, Li Yan immediately wrote a letter, hoping to go to Beijing to find him. But Jiao Zhu actually entrusted people with words, "there is no idle space day and night", and refused. Just at this time, Gu Yangqian was appointed as a waiter in the household department of Nanjing, and invited Li Zhen to go to his jiaoshan (which belonged to Zhenjiang), which was very close to Nanjing, and Geng Xiang was doing the imperial history of the capital in Nanjing- "the four directions of the north and south can be eared", but Nanjing can not go.
Those who want to go cannot go, those who can go cannot go, but this free man of thought is so unfree in his body! Interestingly, the Qing Revision of the "History of Ming" was a biography of Geng Zhi, with Li Zhen's small biography attached to the back, and these two enemies had to be eternal neighbors in the same volume of history!
At this time, Li Zhen's writings (such as "Collecting Books", "Burning Books", etc.) and commentaries on novels and operas (such as "Water Margin", "West Chamber", etc.), with his sharp brushwork and unique insight, were widely spread and famous, but he himself fell into the quagmire in Macheng, and many people slandered him, slandered him, and intended to expel him. This is a curse!
The three Yuan brothers of the public security (ZongDao, Hongdao, and Zhongdao) have admired Li Zhen for a long time, but they have heard many rumors about his "wild rebellion", and although they are close at hand, they dare not see it suddenly. It was not until the eighteenth year of the Wanli Calendar that they met in Wuchang, and at first sight, they were very happy with each other, and Li Yan made great expectations for these three juniors who were more than thirty years younger than him. Later, the "Three Yuans" became the benchmark figures in the history of Ming Dynasty literature, and the "sexual spirit" they advocated was the practice of Li Zhen's "childlike heart theory", which made the retro style of the literary world have an important turn in the late Ming Dynasty.
In order to let the teacher temporarily avoid the unfavorable environment, Yuan Hongdao personally accompanied Li Zhen to Wuchang to relax and live in the suburbs of Hongshan Temple. Here, an official who had been admired for a long time plucked up the courage to visit, and he was Liu Dongxing, who was then the envoy of Huguang. After the conversation, Liu Dongxing did know that Li Zhen was "a person who has a way of fruit, although he abandons his hair, he covers a person who has a good deed." Liu Dongxing, who was famous for "ruling the river", later became a Shangshu of the Ministry of Works, and although he was not called Li Zhen's protector, whenever Li Zhen was in a difficult situation, he would take him to his side to temporarily rest his feathers.
The tomb of Mr. Li Zhuowu in Tongzhou, Beijing. The tombstone is inscribed on the Ming Dynasty Emperor Jiao
Five
Li Zhen finally couldn't stand in Macheng, and someone secretly set a fire and burned the Zhifo Temple where he lived to ashes. Li Yan was forced to leave his second hometown and migrate, like a dog that lost his family. It was not until the twenty-ninth year of the Wanli Calendar (1601) that he was taken to live in Tongzhou, Beijing, by another admirer, the former Yushi Ma Jinglun.
This choice was wrong, and the next year, Li Zhen actually died in Beijing prison.
Beijing was the "first good" capital of the Ming Dynasty, and the Taoists were like a great enemy of the arrival of this heretic, and soon after, a "dare to advocate chaos, confuse the world and slander the people" was played, and then a brush with the holy will of the people was brushed down, and the seventy-three-year-old man was imprisoned. After imprisoning Li Zhen's body, his works were banned. Ma Jinglun blamed himself for this, and despite his family's obstruction, he resolutely accompanied Li Yan to Beijing and imprisoned.
Li Zhen, who was at the end of his rope, could not help but be miserable and sad, and killed himself in prison!
In the last few years of his life, he was in a state of exile, and some of his friends, some of them died, some of them "cut off friends halfway", and some of them gradually drifted away, and some people seemed to be separated, such as Jiao Gang, who was very proud after the middle lift, and even borrowed an epitaph to write an epitaph to severely criticize Li Zhen who had been "faithful". Who would have thought that the "unscrupulous and even more" heretics of his pen would have been promised to be "the second seat of the Holy Gate"?
Even the Three Yuans, who were also friends and disciples, did not have no reservations about Li Zhen. After Li Zhen's death, Yuan Zhongdao wrote "The Biography of Li Wenling", saying, "Although it is good, it is not learned." He cannot have five scholars, and he does not want scholars to have three" -- unwilling scholars, such as meticulous practice and non-cultivation, good rigidity, and ease of being reasonable, are all criticisms of Li Zhen.
Li Zhen was lonely, and in his later years he called himself "old bitter", old and suffering from no friends; this was the greatest pain for him who "took friends and friends as his life". When he was falsely imprisoned, "acquaintances were inclined to the point of refusing to help" (including Jiao Zhu himself, who said this). Didn't Li Zhen die of sadness?
After Li Yan's arrest, Jin Yiwei suggested that he be escorted back to his hometown. However, for decades, Li Yan traveled north and south, but he was reluctant to return to his hometown, because his hometown of Quanzhou was the fortress of Cheng Zhu Lixue, and he would never be welcomed as a famous heretic. Instead of returning to the old realm into spiritual imprisonment, it is better to die a painful death!
Li Yan did not die from his ideals (the so-called "martyrdom"), he said that "the heroes do not forget to be in the ravines, and the warriors do not forget to lose their roots", he is fighting with death, making a model of death, and giving "displeasure" to his worldly view.
After his death, Jiao Hu felt deeply guilty and personally wrote a tombstone for his deceased friend.
Many years later, Liu Tong from Macheng wrote the "Imperial Capital Scenery and Material Strategy", which specially wrote about the "Tomb of Li Zhuowu" in Tongzhou as a scene in Beijing. Li Zhen is lonely and long-term in this place, and the future generations are in turmoil, and the price of his voice is suddenly high and low (from "villain" to "fighter"), what does it have to do with him? However, when it comes to Ming Dynasty thought, it is impossible not to mention Li Zhen, and Mr. Zhuo Wu should be able to say: I am not alone!
Hu Dan (Professor, Master Supervisor, School of Literature and Media, China Three Gorges University)
Proofread by Faye Wong
Source: Purple Cow News