"Split words" is called "measuring characters" in modern times, and was also called "broken characters" in the Tang Dynasty. It is still called "word breaking" in the Gua Shu, which is a method of predicting auspiciousness, which is called superstition in modern times. The so-called "word splitting" is to take the words written by the people who come to the person, and predict the auspiciousness by adding or subtracting the partial head or by disassembling the words into other words. In the evolution of later generations, the five elements of yin and yang and the divine fire were added, which made this prediction technique complicated.
The story shared today is about Xie Shi, a celebrity in a "warlock" between the two Song Dynasties, who is very good at "breaking words". The following are two stories from Yi Jianzhi, because they are about the same person, so I will tell them together. The witness of the latter story is the author Hong Mai's eldest brother Hong Shi (pronounced: Kuo) guanzhi right chancellor, who died with the posthumous title of Wenhui.
Xie Shi Zi Runfu, a native of Chengdu. During the reign of Emperor Xuanhe of the Song Dynasty (1119-1125 in the Western calendar), he came to Kyoshi (崫孰肑梁) to predict people's misfortunes by splitting words, and people only need to write a word at will, that is, use this word to predict, and what they say is all strange. The fame gradually spread, and Emperor Huizong of Song wanted to try it after hearing about it, and wrote a "chao" character for the noble man (the emperor's close subject) to take it to Xie Shi to see what he said.
Xie Shi took the word and looked at it carefully, and then looked at the person who came, and said, "This word was not written by you." The noble man was very surprised and said, "But according to what the word says, don't worry." (I reckon That Song Huizong's skinny gold body is so famous, how he doesn't know!) ）
Xie also said, "Chao Zi, when taken apart, is the word of October 10, not the heavenly man born on this day of this month, who else can write it!" (Emperor Huizong of Song was born on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month of the fifth year of Yuanfeng (1082 in the Western calendar) (later changed to the tenth day of the tenth month of the Yu calendar due to the ominous birth of the may person)) The people around them were shocked when they heard Xie Shi say this, and the nobleman did not speak and quickly ran back to report to the emperor.
The next day he was summoned to the backyard of the palace, and Emperor Huizong of Song ordered the concubines of the palace to write to Xie Shi, and he was very meticulous and thorough according to the theory of the words. The imperial court rewarded him with a Chengxin Lang (military attaché name, a very small sesame official who had no real power). This time it became famous, and people came to ask for tests in an endless stream.
It is said that an official's wife was pregnant for a month (beyond the month) and wrote a "also" word for her husband to take to test the word. Xie Shi said, "This is written by a woman, right?" The official asked, "Why do you say that?" Xie Shi replied, "The predicate helper is Yan Ya Ya Ya, so I know that it was written by the Gong Nei Helper." Is Madame Zun thirty-one years old? The officer said, "Yes! Xie Shi went on to say, "Because there are also thirty (thirty sà) on the word, the next horizontal is a word, so it is said that Chinese New Year's Eve one (this is to deform the word "also"). At present, you are not planning promotion and transfer, and it took a lot of effort to achieve it, right? The officer replied, "I am troubled by this." Xie then said: "Also add water to the pool, if there is a horse, there is no water, and lu chi has no horse. And the wife's parents and brothers, close relatives, none of them exist, and if they are also written, they are one word, and now they see only and do not see others. Should The property of The Lady of the Noble Lady's family also be wiped out? If you take the word also for the soil, it is the word for the earth, and now I don't see the soil. The man replied, "Yes, but none of this is what I want to ask, my wife is already pregnant for a month but has not given birth, so I am worried about it!" Xie Shi then said, "I must have been pregnant for thirteen months, and there is a cross in the word Yiye, and the next painting is thirteen on both sides." There is one thing that is particularly strange that I dare not say, can I finish everything? The official asked him to say it, so Xie said, "Also add worms to the word 虵 (snake), and the concubine of Lady Jinzun is also a snake demon." However, there are no insects (also no insects), so it can not be harmful, I thank the stone has a medicine that can cure, which can be verified for the public. The official was amazed and said that he invited him to go to the house and give the medicine to the official's wife, and then a hundred small snakes were discharged, and the big belly was gone. So the people in the capital regarded him as a god-like person, and they didn't know what kind of magic he had.
In the Yi Jian Zhi Supplement Volume XIX, there is also a story about Xie Shi's word breaking, which I put together.
It is said that Xie Shi, a Shu man, came to Lin'an (the capital of the Southern Song Dynasty, present-day Hangzhou) in the eighth year of Emperor Gaozong's Shaoxing (1138 WESTERN calendar), and for a time it was particularly different. Wen Huigong (文惠公) (author Hong Mai's eldest brother Hong Shi (pronounced: Kuo), Wen Hui is Hong Shi's posthumous nickname. Went to the Lin'an transfer officer (22 years old at the time) and witnessed two things: (The following are two things that Hongmai's eldest brother saw with his own eyes.) ）
Fan Jiangshi's (official)'s wife lost a pearl crown and wrote a "lost" character for her husband to ask Xie Shi. Xie Shi said, "Do you have relatives with the surname Zhu in your family?" Fan said, "My wife's surname is Zhu." Xie asked again, "Is there any one called twenty-eight?" Xie then said, "I think he took it by mistake because of something, and now the thing is still there and can be found." If you find it, you're going to give me ten thousand dollars. ”
After Fan returned home, he told his wife what Xie said, and the wife was very angry when she heard this, saying, "Isn't this nonsense?" Can my brother be that kind of person? Then he called the maid over and asked, "Have you ever borrowed anything when your twenty-eight uncle came to his house in the past few days?" The maid said, "Yesterday the twenty-eighth uncle said that he was going to go out and borrow a hat, but then he returned it when it was useless, and it was packed in a box, and it seems that the box has not been opened." "After speaking, I took the box and opened it to see that the pearl crown that I had lost was under the hat. It is estimated that the original because when drying the hat, the pearl crown was mistakenly put into the box, and the matter was forgotten for a long time. (Simply put, I misplaced myself and forgot about it later.) ）
The second thing was that he lived with Big Brother Hongmai and was also an official waiting to be transferred. Saying that he was sick at that time, he wrote a "Shen" character to ask Xie Shi (that means to see the auspiciousness of this disease), and the word "Zhong" had a dry pen in the middle (a horizontal in the middle), and Xie Shi saw this word sticking out his tongue and just said, "It's okay." The official didn't ask again. At this time, Xie Shi said to the people sitting around him: "Since the Dantian is dry, its people will die." Someone asked, "At what time?" He replied, "But tomorrow." And then it did.
For most people who have read the GuaShu, they may not be unfamiliar with Xie Shi, and there are many small cases and stories about his "breaking words" in later books, of which there are inevitably many side stories. Often rumors are like this, sometimes they catch the wind and shadows, exaggerate the facts or bring their own literary processing. As Zhuangzi said, "The husband and the speaker, the storm is also." "It's like the ripples in the water are getting bigger and bigger. Nevertheless, the latter story is particularly important because its witnesses are the eldest brother of the author, Hong Mai.
Simply based on his "word breaking" style in the story, to deduce how to draw conclusions. The word "lost" was lost, and a stroke was added to the word "Zhu" because it was written by his wife, so he asked whether it was a relative of zhu surname. And because Zhu lost a stroke as a missing word, it was judged to be related to the zhu surname. The so-called twenty-eight is to split the word and have two and eight and crosses, as for what has not been lost and can be found, it is unknown. If you have a knowledgeable friend, you can try it.
To put it simply, this prediction technique looks very simple, but the actual operation is not so easy, the so-called flower is easy to embroider. It is not impossible to play a word game in daily life.