Li Daoyuan, a famous scholar of Jinan, wrote all his life about landscapes and rivers, but died because of the water

Public Network Poster News Editor Xu Kunjie

"From the seven hundred miles of the Three Gorges, there are mountains on both sides of the strait, and there is no gap..." Li Daoyuan's Three Gorges is magnificent and majestic, and it seems to be in it when he reads it, but Li Daoyuan has never set foot in the Three Gorges in his entire life, not that he does not want to, it is that he cannot.

Li Daoyuan was born in the Northern Wei Dynasty, and the north and south were divided, the gang was disturbed, and the soldiers were in chaos. Unlike today, going out of the high-speed rail plane, mobile phone in hand, free to travel the world. Like an eagle, he was trapped under the jurisdiction of the Northern Wei regime, roughly equivalent to the area north of the present-day Qinling and Huai Rivers.

In this way, he was still able to start a walk-and-go trip in the chaotic world, and his footprints also traveled to most of China south of the Great Wall and east of the Qinling Mountains, and they were all expensive deep tours! Where does Li Daoyuan's money come from? Just as people are curious about Li Bai's perennial travels but has endless money.

Li Daoyuan was born in the family of officials, in today's parlance, "the second generation of officials". His father, Li Fan, was a military master, talented and resourceful, who had served as a general in Pingdong and the Assassin of Qingzhou, and after settling down in Shandong, he gave birth to five babies, and Li Daoyuan was the eldest.

In the year of his dance, Li Fan died, and Li Daoyuan inherited his father's title of Marquis of Yongning and was routinely demoted to the rank of Bo Yi. After 3 years of filial piety, he began to become an official.

The young Li Daoyuan was able to serve as the emperor's secretary in his 20s and draft documents, holding important positions, and his writing and extraordinary talents were revealed.

While serving in the capital, Li Daoyuan traveled to almost all the attractions on the outskirts of Datong, inspected the volcanoes, hot springs and coal fields there in detail, and even found murals, all of which he recorded in detail.

This was due to the importance that Emperor Xiaowen Tuoba Hong placed on him, and every time he went to a foreign country to investigate, Li Daoyuan accompanied him. According to Volume III of the Notes on the Water Classics, "Yu Yitai and Zhong, shang shulang, toured the north from Gaozu. ”

Indeed, Emperor Xiaowen Tuoba Hong was ambitious and young. In the eighteenth year of Taihe, Tuoba Hong moved the capital to Luoyang in the name of "Southern Expedition", comprehensively reformed the old customs of Xianbei, learned from the Han people, and changed his surname to Yuan, so that the people wore Han costumes and spoke Chinese, which was called "Taihe Reform" in history. This year, he was only 28 years old, 6 years older than Li Daoyuan, and his age was similar, so the two young people had more common language and communication.

It's just that people don't have a thousand days, and flowers don't have a hundred days of red. Within a few years, Tuoba Hong, 33, died, and the Northern Wei regime went from its peak to decline.

To a large extent, Li Daoyuan's ideal of scientific expeditions to the motherland's thousands of mountains and rivers was also cast in Tuoba Hong's unified ideal of ending the destruction of life and the division between the north and the south.

However, seeing that this young emperor had died prematurely, Li Daoyuan had a relationship in his heart. Because of the mutual achievement of ideals, they once felt sorry for each other, and now Tuoba Hong's sudden and early death, everything is like a flash in the pan...

Later, Li Daoyuan left the capital to serve as an official, and served as the Taishou of Yingchuan, the Taishou of Luyang, and the Assassin of Dongjingzhou. Among them, during his tenure as the Assassin of Eastern Jingzhou, the barbarians sued him for being carved, and Li Daoyuan was wronged and deposed.

Frustrated by the officialdom, Li Daoyuan plunged into academic research, visited the dudu canal, traveled around, and for many years went out with his father and the king to investigate, accumulated a lot of geographical knowledge, and finally wrote a geographical masterpiece "Notes on the Water Classics", and later generations also formed a special study of this book - Li Xue.

As for the places where the feet cannot be touched in the "Notes on the Water Classics", Li Daoyuan supplemented it with ancient records, he referred to a large number of ancient books and documents, citing as many as 437 kinds, which is the true sense of "walking thousands of miles and reading thousands of books".

40 volumes, 300,000 words, 1252 large and small rivers, more than 500 lakes and swamps, nearly 300 underground water such as springs and wells, more than 30 volts, more than 60 waterfalls, nearly 2,000 place names, more than 70 karst geomorphological caves, more than 140 species of plants, more than 100 species of animals, more than 30 natural disasters, and nearly 20 earthquakes. There are 2800 county-level cities and other cities, 180 ancient capitals, about 1000 settlements smaller than the city, about 100 bridges, and nearly 100 Jindu... This series of numbers may make our understanding of this geographical tome more emotionally concrete, if you haven't read it.

Today, it is difficult for us to imagine and appreciate that 1500 years ago, this young man did not know how many pairs of shoes he had worn, ate and slept in the wind, and used his feet to trace and measure these more than 1,200 large rivers and rivers, only love can withstand the long years, only love can explain all this.

It should be noted that Li Daoyuan lived with his father in Qingzhou from an early age and did not leave there until he was 21 years old. Qi Zhiji, confucius's hometown, Li Daoyuan's ears and eyes. Therefore, he has a special affection for Shandong, and he has been admiring Jinan for a long time, and the ancient city of Jinan with a long history has become a beautiful and charming landscape in the "Notes on Water Classics".

He wrote about Baotu Spring in Jinan, which is called "the source of the spring, the water gushing like a wheel", the spring water is as big as a wheel, and the "first spring in the world" is not worthy of the name.

Write the ancient Daming Lake, "there is a living room on the pool, left and right catalpa trees, negative sun pitch, eyes to the fish and birds, extreme hope of mizuki Mingser, can be described as the nature of the beam, things I have no violation", the water flow is clear, the fish and birds depend on people, and the human scenery is one.

Writing Hua does not pay attention to the mountain, it is called "single pepper Xiuze, not even the tomb to exalt; the tiger's teeth stand up, and the lone peak is specially pulled out to pierce the sky." Green cliff green hair, look at the same point Dai", the pen of God, dozens of words, write all the beauty of the mountains.

The Notes on the Water Classics is not only a masterpiece of geography, but also of immeasurable literary value, a collection of beautiful landscape essays that influenced the writing of later generations of travelogue essays. Li Bai, Du Fu, Liu Zongyuan, etc. were all nourished by the Notes on the Water Classics.

For example, Li Bai wrote in the poem "Early White Emperor City": "Between the clouds of the White Emperor, thousands of miles of Jiangling will return one day." The apes on both sides of the strait could not stop crying, and the light boat had already passed through the Ten Thousand Heavy Mountains" Was inspired by the Three Gorges of Li Daoyuan' Record, and took its words and quoted them.

The late Tang Dynasty poet Tortoise Meng once wrote: "Mountains and rivers cannot be separated from the body", which shows how popular this book is in the folk.

Su Shi not only quoted and commented on the book in his essay "The Record of Shi Zhongshan", but also praised the book in his poem: "Oh I am happy, and the Water Sutra is also read many times." It can be seen that the "Notes on the Water Classics" has been respected by many famous scholars. They searched with all their might, and they copied it, and they read it diligently and praised it endlessly.

It is difficult to imagine that in a chaotic world, such a huge work with far-reaching influence on future generations can be completed, but in the main history, only the "Book of Wei" and the "Northern History" are recorded, a total of only 612 words, and there is no historical record of him in the past.

In the history books, it is said that "Daoyuan is studious and has read many books", he has a straight, fierce, and extremely serious personality, he can't rub a little sand in his eyes, he enforces the law strictly for officials, and he is not at all like the military master's father who handles things smoothly. This fierce temperament made him suffer in the later stages of his career, and thus became a victim of political struggle.

It is said that Emperor Xiaowen Tuoba Hong had a son named Yuan Yue, who liked to read Buddhist scriptures and read a lot of books, but his temperament was strange, he was not close to women, and he beat concubines at every turn. He has a "male close friend" named Qiu Nian, who is extremely fond of him and obedient.

Under this layer of relationship, Qiu Nian asked Yuan Yue for the fat difference of electing officials for the imperial court, and blatantly betrayed the officials and lords, and was corrupt.

Li Daoyuan has always been upright, jealous and hateful, and justice in his chest is like a raging fire, forbearance is impossible, and there is no word "forbearance" in his dictionary of life. Therefore, he set up an ambush in advance, captured Qiu Nian in one fell swoop, and imprisoned him. As soon as Yuan Yue heard that his close friend had been arrested, he immediately ran to the empress dowager to intercede, trying to bail Qiu Nian.

Just when the imperial court was about to give up the investigation of Qiu Nian's adultery, Li Daoyuan raised his knife and fell, and Heixin Qiu Nian cried out for his life. At this point, Li Daoyuan completely offended Yuan Yue, ignoring the love that his father Tuoba Hong had once felt sorry for.

Yuan Yue gritted his teeth in hatred for him, and wanted to kill Li Daoyuan every minute, just waiting for a justified opportunity. Finally, the Yongzhou Assassin Shi Xiao Baoyu was exposed, and no one in the DPRK asked for a dialogue, and Yuan Yue pushed Geng Zhizheng Li Daoyuan at this time.

In this way, Li Daoyuan was appointed as the ambassador of Guan Right, leading a group of people into danger, and eventually trapped in the Yinpan Pavilion. The pavilion is on the mountain, usually drinking water is to rely on the well under the mountain to draw water, the way to get water has been blocked by the rebels surrounded, they have also tried to dig a well on the mountain, but even a dozen zhang did not find any trace of water, even the last little water has been drunk.

The day was a little cold, coupled with the water cut off for more than ten days, the dry and cold air was filled with despair, as if the echo of the three gorges ape song could be heard hundreds of kilometers away, miserable and desolate. The water of life has been completely cut off, there is no military defense, they really can't hold on...

The rebels took the opportunity to besiege li Daoyuan, and Li Daoyuan was killed, along with one of Li Daoyuan's younger brothers and two sons, who was 59 years old. Before he died, he shouted angrily, rebuked the traitor, and resolutely did not bend his knees... He walked for half a lifetime, the mountains and rivers were restored, and finally there was no way.

If Li Daoyuan had been a little more reclusive in his career and had not become a victim of political struggle, what kind of writing would Li Daoyuan have written? If Li Daoyuan's footsteps were not limited by geographical space, what would the Notes on the Water Classics look like? However, history has no ifs, only the lamentations of future generations.

He did not live up to this dusty and rushing era, and it was the times that failed him. From the time of his birth to his death, li Daoyuan had been in a state of disintegration, and he had not seen a unified country except for the disturbance of Gange.

He should hope for the reunification of the country, and deep down in his heart there must be a desire to restore the vast territory of the Chinese Empire, and then like an eagle, he will fly freely over every piece of the motherland and inspect every landscape he loves.

Li Daoyuan (c. 466–527), also known as Shanchang, was a famous geographer and writer from Zhuo County, Fanyang County, Northern Wei (present-day Zhuozhou, Hebei), who wrote the 40-volume Commentary on the Water Classics, a geographical masterpiece of literary value. During the reign of Emperor Xiaowen of the Northern Wei Dynasty, he served as Langzhong of the Shangshu Ancestral Hall, Langzhong of the Shangshu Lord, Yuan Pihuan of Taiwei, and Lieutenant of Yushi. During the reign of Emperor Xuanwu, he served as the governor of Dongfu in Jizhong, Yingchuan Taishou, and Luyang Taishou. Law enforcement was severe, and he was later the ambassador of Guan Right, and was killed by Shi Xiaobao, the assassin of Yongzhou.