Millennium Wang Anshi - "Ming Concubine Song" "Public Case"

2021 is Wang Anshi's 1,000th birthday. For a thousand years, the controversy surrounding Wang Anshi seems to have never stopped, is he the "great man of the first world" or the culprit who caused the "disaster of Jingkang"? What kind of political legacy did he leave to future generations, and to what extent did he influence the course of Chinese history after the Song Dynasty? In order to clarify the above problems, The Paper's Private History specially launched the special topic of "Millennium Wang Anshi", inviting a number of Song historians to show the appearance of Wang Jinggong from multiple dimensions such as politics, literature and philosophy for the benefit of readers.

In the fourth year of the Northern Song Dynasty (1059), Wang Anshi wrote the famous "Two Songs of ming concubines":

When Concubine Ming first left the Han Palace, her tears were wet and her sideburns were drooping. The low wandering shadow has no color, and the king is not self-sustaining. When he returned, he blamed Dan Qing's hand, which he had never seen in his life. The origin of the intention could not be painted, and at that time, Mao was killed in vain to prolong his life. Once I went to know that I did not return, I was pitiful to exhaust the Han Palace clothes. The voice wanted to ask about Senan, only the annual wild geese flew. The family has spread the news from miles, and it is good that they will not remember each other in the felt city. Jun is not seen, Nagato is closed, and there is no north or south in life.

Concubine Ming first married Hu'er, and the felt car was a hundred HuJi. The words of lust are unique, and the pipa is self-aware. Gold plucked the spring wind hand and looked at Fei Hong to persuade Hu Jiu. The maid of the Han Palace wept darkly, but the pedestrians on the sand looked back. Hann is shallow and deep, and life is happy to know each other. Poor Aozuka is gone, and there are still mourning strings left to this day.

Wang Anshi presented the "Book of Ten Thousand Words" to Emperor Renzong this year, proposing a series of measures to change politics, but it did not attract the attention of Emperor Renzong, and also attracted the displeasure of the ruling ministers, and his heart was filled with frustration and loneliness, and the poem borrowed "Ming Concubine" was actually pouring out the block of self, so the theme of the poem could surpass the previous poet Chant Zhaojun's stubbornness, with a strong personality color and profound thinking on life. The so-called "life is frustrated without north and south" and "Han En is shallow and deep, and life is happy to know each other", such a bold and decisive discussion expresses the strange and unfair feelings that the poet Huai Cai did not meet and was not willing to be buried, as well as the self-esteem and pride of the king who saw it and refused to give up.

Wang Anshi's poem immediately caused a sensation and response in the poetry world, and for a while, poets such as Ouyang Xiu, Mei Yaochen, Zeng Gong, Sima Guang, Liu Chang, and so on, each of them competed to sing harmony, which became a grand event. Ouyang Xiu, in particular, was very satisfied with his two pieces and works, and regarded them as the most proud works of his life, and once boasted to his son after drinking, "In the second part of the Ming Concubine Song, Taibai cannot do it, but Du Zimei can do it; as for the first part, zimei can't do it, but I can do it." Poets of comparable talent can often stimulate each other's creative potential in singing and singing, and Ouyang Xiu's self-satisfaction and self-praise for his own "Ming Fei Song" "Ling Cross Li Du" actually reflects the extraordinary sound of Wang Anshi's original singing from the side.

Wang Anshi's "Ming Concubine Song" soon spread from the Beijing Master, and the fifteen-year-old Huang Tingjian had already read this poem when he visited Wang Hui (Zi Shen Father) in Yingyin with his uncle Li Chang and asked Wang Hui for advice. Wang Hui was a scholar proficient in Confucianism and a close friend of Wang Anshi, but he was quite critical of the Ming Fei Qu, mainly because the sentence "Life is frustrated without north and south" in the poem, which he believes is not to distinguish between Yixia's language, contrary to the confucian sages' subtle words, the so-called "Yidi has a king, it is not as good as the death of Zhuxia", how can it be said that "south" is no different from "north", that is, Huaxia and Yidi? Unexpectedly, Although he was young, Huang Tingjian, who had a more poetic temperament, did not take this for granted, he did not think that Wang Anshi's poem contained any "Huayi discernment" problem, but that poetry had reached the height of "no hatred" in both intention and writing; but Wang Hui borrowed the "great righteousness" derived from it, and it was inconvenient to refute it with the depth and super subtlety of poetry art, so he attacked the shield of the other with his spear, and also quoted the words of the saint to resolve it, "But Confucius wanted to live in Jiuyi, that is, 'What is ugly when a gentleman dwells in it?'" This means that the saint Juyi is yi, and there are stubborn yi and xia, so why cling to the "distinction between Huayi"?

This small controversy ends with the Confucian scholar Wang Hui's heartfelt admiration for the young poet Huang Tingjian, but it has to be admitted that Wang Hui's "small words and great righteousness" style of interpretation provides another way of interpreting the Ming Concubine Song. Of course, Wang Hui, as a good friend of Wang Anshi, did not maliciously attack the other party, he only read the poem with a more conservative and narrow Confucian vision rather than the poet's aesthetic vision, so it caused a "over-interpretation" of the poetry. Coincidentally, around the end of the Northern Song Dynasty, a tai student named Mu Baoyi also criticized Wang Anshi's "Ming Concubine Song", he said that poetry can be resentful, but it cannot lose the confucian righteousness of Yazheng, as Wang Anshi said, "Han En is shallow and self-deep, and life is happy to know each other" "Life is frustrated without north and south", then Li Ling, who surrendered to the Xiongnu in the Western Han Dynasty, is also forgivable and does not violate the "famous religion"? He also cited Sima Guang's "Ming Concubine Song" singing and writings as an example, believing that its "words are strict and righteous" and much more beneficial to famous teaching than Wang's poems, and recommended that Taixue students read Sima Guang's poems.

If it is said that the interpretation of Wang Anshi's "Ming Fei Qu" by Wang Hui, Mu Baoyi and others is to look at "literature" from a "scriptural" perspective, so it seems unspeakable and pedantic, then, with the northern Song Dynasty being destroyed by Jin, the national contradictions began to transform into the main contradictions of the Song Dynasty, especially when the Southern Song Dynasty unanimously attacked Wang Anshi as the "source of trouble", the interpretation of the "Ming Fei Qu" was further endowed with a lingering "political connotation".

The first to "solemnly condemn" the Ming Concubine Song were Fan Chong and Song Gaozong. In August of the fourth year of Shaoxing (1134), Fan Chong, who was in charge of revising history, entered the Song Gaozong, and the two junchen reached a consensus on how to liquidate Wang Anshi's "historical responsibility", that is, Wang Anshi's change of law destroyed the ancestral law and the foundation of the country, and was the culprit that led to the demise of the Northern Song Dynasty. In the process, Emperor Gaozong mentioned Wang Anshi's "adultery", and Fan Chong immediately replied: When Cheng Yi once discussed with his ministers that Wang Anshi's worst disaster in the world was to corrupt the hearts of the people in the world, the subject did not realize it at that time, and only now did he deeply feel the same way. Just as many poets have written "Ming Fei Qu", they all regard Zhaojun's departure from the Han Dynasty and exile to the Xiongnu as "infinite hatred"; while Wang Anshi's "Ming Fei Qu" says that "Han En is shallow and self-deep, and life is happy in knowing each other", if this is the meaning, then there is no sin for a thief like Liu Yu who surrenders on his knees and has no father and no king. Now those who have betrayed the grace of the King's Father and are willing to be thieves are in line with the meaning expressed in Wang Anshi's poem, which is why he has corrupted the hearts of the people in the world.

Fan Chong's interpretation of the Ming Concubine Song was carried out in the historical context of the Southern Song Dynasty court's comprehensive criticism of Wang Anshi. It is also worth mentioning that Fan Chong was the son of Fan Zuyu, a member of the Yuan dynasty, and Fan Zuyu died in the Zhezong Dynasty for opposing the change of law, and Fan and Wang Shi could be described as feuds. Knowing these backgrounds, it is not difficult to understand why Fan Chong made such an interpretation of the Ming Concubine Song. Of course, the key figure who laid the tone for the guidance of public opinion was Song Gaozong, so Fan's evaluation was further developed after "discussing Wang Anshi's adultery from above"; and through Fan Chong's evaluation, it further confirmed Song Gaozong's thesis on Wang Anshi's "adultery", and in line with the official historical positioning of Wang Anshi by the imperial court, comprehensively defeated Wang Anshi from a moral and political point of view.

Unlike Wang Hui and others, Fan Chong's interpretation of the "Ming Concubine Song" is not a "misreading", but a naked distortion, a so-called "want to add to the crime, there is no excuse for the blame"; but in the special historical period of the Southern Song Dynasty, especially under the guidance of the official public opinion that deliberately blamed the national peril on Wang Anshi, Fan's argument was extremely easy to incite people's national sentiments of hatred and hatred, so there were many responders. For example, Luo Dajing compared Wang Anshi's "Ming Concubine Song" with Bai Juyi's "Xianghe Song Lyrics Wang Zhaojun". Bai Juyi's poem is written like this: "The Han envoy returned the message, and when will the gold redeem the moth's eyebrows." If the king asks the concubine about the color, Mo Dao is not as good as when he is in the palace. This is a common theme of the ancients chanting Zhaojun poems, that is, the meaning of "love does not forget the jun"; through contrast, Luo Dajing issued a "soul question" to Wang Anshi: Since it is said that "the joy of life is in knowing each other's hearts", if "the heart does not know each other", the courtier can betray his king, and the wife can abandon her husband? What a "paradoxical and hurtful" remark, and what a difference between Bai Juyi's ideological realm and Bai Juyi's poetry!

Some people also combine the "Ming Fei Qu" with Wang Anshi's other arguments, so it is more and more confirmed that his "mental skills are not correct", such as Shao Bo excavated Wang Anshi's evaluation of Feng Dao, and combined with the poem "Ming Fei Qu", pointed out that Wang Anshi's "affirming Feng Dao" was derived from it. Feng Dao was a prominent eunuch of the Five Dynasties, the Four Dynasties and Ten Emperors, Ouyang Xiu called him "a man without shame", Sima Guang even denounced him as "a traitor to the You", while Wang Anshi had a different opinion, he affirmed Feng Dao's historical merits as a prime minister and being able to "bend down to settle people". In fact, Ouyang Xiu and Sima Guang disdained Feng Dao in terms of personality and integrity, while Wang Anshi's "Ya Ai Feng Dao" focused on the merits of his auxiliary government and people, and their different evaluations of Feng Dao were due to different angles of argument. Shao Bo did not make a specific analysis of this, but simply grasped Wang Anshi's remarks that had affirmed Feng Dao, and then connected them with the so-called "rebellious" words of the "Ming Concubine Qu", thus further confirming Wang's "improper mental technique" and "bad world mind technique".

During the Southern Song Dynasty, some people also rewrote the "Ming Concubine Song" to express their dissatisfaction with Wang Anshi, when a young poet named Xu Sishu in Linjiang wrote a "Ming Concubine Song" to use the audio-visual of the Zhengwang poem: "Concubines are willing to be Hu women, and if they are untrustworthy, they would rather be the Lord of The Ming Dynasty." He has been wounded and deceived, and he should not make the king even more deceitful. Pipa, however, dissolved his heart, and it took one song to finally hate what to hate. Hazy haze stains palace flowers, tearful eyes ripple when it rains. Special rooms do not rely on gold bribes, how many special houses are abandoned like soil. Ning never went deeply, thinking about Jun one step at a time. Hu Shan did not think about the way back, only wrote the pipa hard. Jun does not see, there is no word to eat Gu Gaoxin, and the birth daughter is not suspected of marrying Pan Ou. In response to Wang Shi's "Yixia does not distinguish" and "no father and no king", Xu Shi vigorously exaggerates the national consciousness and the idea of loyalty to the king, which has been recognized and praised by the people of the time, and has become famous.

Ever since Fan Chong refuted the Ming Fei Qu with the method of "Cursing the Heart", this theory has had an extremely far-reaching impact because it occupies the moral high ground in a dignified manner, and the distorted interpretation of Wang Anshi's "Ming Fei Qu" has also become a historical public case. Throughout the Southern Song Dynasty, few scholars dared to challenge the "great righteousness" and dispute Fan's arguments. Li Bi, the compiler of the Commentary on the Gongshi of Wang Jingwen, may be one of the few examples. When he annotated the Ming Concubine Song, he first quoted Fan Chong's discussion of the poem to Emperor Gaozong, and then put forward his own opinion: Wang Anshi's poetry was only out of the poet's instinctive pursuit of novelty, so there were those bold and unheard of arguments, not intentionally to undermine the "Great Defense of Yixia" or "the great righteousness of the monarch"; Fan's attack on Jinggong's "improper mental skills" was actually suspected of being a weaving association. However, Li Bi also vaguely admitted that "(Jing) Gongyu means that it is not" and "I don't know the loss of his words", that is, Wang Shi itself is indeed prone to ambiguity, thus attracting criticism. It can be seen from this that although Li Bi deliberately defended the misinterpretation of the Ming Concubine Qu and the personality of Jing Gong, which is already valuable, he still did not dare to completely deny and overthrow Fan's theory, thus further proving the great influence of Fan Chong's theory.

Statue of Wang Zhaojun

It was not until the later Liu Chenweng commented on Wang Anshi's poems that the interpretation of "Literature" was slightly restored to the "Ming Concubine Song". He explained that "the family has spread the news from miles, and it is good that they will not remember each other in the felt city." These few sentences are the words of Zhaojun's family to comfort Zhaojun who are far away, and it is Wang Anshi who has made a speech sent by his family instead of the poet himself; in this way, "life is frustrated without north and south" reads "but sees the north and south" and "does not suspect the north and south", because what is expressed in the poem is a touching and profound love of relatives, and this universal love is beyond the region and the nation, and it is not distinguished between the north and the south or Yixia, and it is the common human feeling. As for "Han En's self-contempt and self-depth, life is happy in knowing each other's hearts", Liu Chenweng explained that this is the opposite of the truth, just like the poem "Xiao Ben" in the "Book of Poetry, Xiao Ya", the essence of "resentment" is actually the "benevolence" of "relatives"; so these two poems exhaust the grievances of the lonely subjects who have been alienated by the king, and reading them can make people cut off their intestines; it is believed that these two poems are the meaning of "no king and no father", but in fact, the "resentment" of the poet is the embodiment of "loyalty". Liu Chenweng's valuable point is that he was able to view Wang Anshi's "Ming Concubine Qu" with a relatively pure literary critical attitude without being influenced by the discussion of using historical right and wrong to "make Wang Anshi a villain", and made a fairer interpretation and evaluation of this poem.

From the evaluation of Wang Anshi's "Ming Concubine Song" by the Song people, especially the Southern Song Dynasty, it can be seen that there is an evaluation tendency of "poetry like its people". In the view of the Song people, "poetry" is the poet's "heart matter", in other words, poetry expresses the poet's intention and reflects the poet's mental skills. Influenced by this literary concept, although the poets of the Song Dynasty paid more attention to personal cultivation and moral pursuits, in the field of criticism and appreciation, it is also easy to bring about the emergence of pedantic theories such as emphasizing indoctrination and light on aesthetics, wearing chisels and attaching to the society, and as a result, poetry and character will be firmly tied together, thus achieving the purpose of praise or criticism. The Song people exposed the "different aspirations" of the "Ming Fei Qu" by criticizing Wang Anshi's "adultery", and further confirmed the "treacherous evil" of Wang Anshi's heart technique by criticizing the "sinister" of the "Ming Fei Qu", thus forming a strange circle of interpretation that seems reasonable but is actually absurd. In particular, when this method of interpretation is divorced from the category of literary criticism and from the rational inquiry of seeking truth from facts, and is mixed with complex factors such as party struggle and political liquidation, the bad consequences brought about by it are not only the destruction of literary aesthetics, but also the means and tools to suppress opponents and kill people during party and political struggles. The large number of "literal prisons" that appeared in the Song Dynasty has proved this.

It is worth noting that although people like Fan Chong and Song Gaozong wanted to prove Wang Anshi's "treachery", they were not so mad that they had trained most of Wang Anshi's poetry into prison. In fact, not no one thought so, according to the "Quotations of Guishan Mountain", a certain disciple of Yang Shi once said that wang Anshi's footnote in his poem in his later years could be used to determine his sin of "slandering the Temple of the Divine Sect". Yang Shi was a disciple of Cheng Yi, and Cheng Men and Jing Gongxinxue had a dispute over the academic road, and Yang Shi himself once denounced Wang Anshi for "improper mental skills" and "heresies harming people" to Song Qinzong, but he strongly opposed and reprimanded his disciples for this way of attacking opponents through "literal prison". Just as Yang Shi said: When a gentleman does things, when he follows the principles, he cannot learn from him because everyone today exposes other people's poems and slanders the government; moreover, it is a manifestation of "no way" to be imitated by prohibiting people from advising the government and the gains and losses of speech on the charge of "slandering and slandering"; this is a manifestation of "no way", and it is even more impossible to follow. It can be seen that Yang Shi is very soberly aware that once the vast and endless literary prison is involved in the way of deep literature and zhouna, and a political convention is formed from it, the disaster caused will not only be an individual, but the entire group of literati and doctors.

Perhaps it is precisely because of this mentality that the discussion of Wang Anshi as a "villain" or a "traitor" throughout the Southern Song Dynasty was incessant, but the way of discussing poetry that attacked the hearts of others in the name of "Great Righteousness" like Fan Chong's commentary on the "Ming Concubine Qu" (similarly, there may also be a poem of "Shang Martin"), but it was less likely to occur in the Song people's evaluation of Wang Anshi's other poems. On the contrary, when the Song people got rid of the interference of other factors such as party struggle and politics, and looked at Wang Anshi and his poetry with a pure literary eye, they presented a completely different situation.