Zhu Yunming (1460-1526), a famous calligrapher of the Ming Dynasty, was born in the fourth year of Tianshun in the Ming Dynasty, died in the fifth year of Jiajing, and was a native of Changzhou County, Suzhou Province, Ming Dynasty. The characters Xizhe and Xi Zhe, because of their strange appearance, are self-deprecating and ugly, and because they have an extra finger on their right hand, they call themselves Zhizhi Sheng, Zhizhi Sheng, Zhizhishan people, Zhishan residents, Zhishan Qiaoren, etc. Because he had been an official in Nanjing and was sentenced to a position by tianfu, the world also called him "Zhu Jingzhao".
Wang Shizhen, the representative figure of the Ming Dynasty literature "Later Seven Sons", once said that "the calligraphy of the world belongs to Wu Wu, and Zhu Jingzhao Yunming is the most", which can be said to be a full affirmation of Zhu Yunming's historical status. Zhu Yunming can be said to be the key core figure who led the rise of Wumen calligraphers in the book world since Zhao Mengfu in the Yuan Dynasty and before the emergence of Dong Qichang and others in songjiang in the late Ming Dynasty, and has a pivotal position in the entire history of Ming Dynasty calligraphy.
01
A family of literati
The story of the Zhu family begins with Zhu Yunming's seventh ancestor, Zhu Bishan. According to Wu Kuan's "Ming Dynasty Taizhong Grand Master Zizhi Shaoyin Shanxi and Other Places Undertake to Announce the Political Envoys' Right Participation in politics to Zhu Gong Shinto Inscription", Zhu Bishan was transferred from Songjiang to Wumen during the Yuan Dynasty, and his descendants lived here, and Zhu Bishan's positions such as "Experience of Ten Thousand Households" and "Governor of Pingjiang Road" held by Zhu Bishan in the Yuan Dynasty were all important local positions. However, several generations after Zhu Bishan failed to enter the dynasty as an official. It was not until Zhu Yunming's grandfather Zhu Hao's generation that he won the jinshi and entered the career path, and the Zhu family gradually became one of the many prominent families in Wumen.
Zhu Yunming's grandfather Zhu Hao was a solid man when he was young, and he never aimed to pursue a career, but instead studied in Wuzhong County, who was good at "easy learning", and was often advised to be born as an official, and he did not take the provincial examination for a while, and even after receiving the quota of "township recommendation", he did not go to the provincial examination for a time. In the fourth year of orthodoxy (1439), Zhu Hao won the jinshi and ranked fifth in the second division. The imperial court gave him a position to teach the little eunuch to read and write, and Zhu Hao did not want to accept it, so he whisked his sleeves away. After that, he also served as a counselor in the Criminal Division, Du Yushi, and Shanxi. Because he had meritorious service in supervising money and grain in Shanxi, he was promoted to the right to participate in the government of Shanxi Province, so some posterity also called him "Zhu Dashan".
Ming Zhu Yunming "Lin Jiu Xian Poem". ©2013 Guardian Spring Auction
In the eighth year of Tianshun (1464), the sixty-year-old Zhu Hao retired to Wuzhong and often studied poetry and wine with Xu Youzhen, Shen Zhou, Liu Jue, Wu Kuan, Shi Jian, Li Yingzhen and other Wu sergeants Lin Su, and was interested in singing poetry and wine in the mountains and forests. Li Yingzhen once mentioned: "Lieutenant Wu Lin Suxue and his husband and eunuch travel and rest for more than ten generations, and when they look for mountains and waters, they choose to win and swim, and their articles are self-congratulatory, and the poems are also thoughtful, the words love to be grass, and those who seek near and far should be tireless, and they are as elegant and elegant as possible, and they are most admired by people." ”
Zhu Hao's thoughts have a strong Confucian "benevolent" heart, and he often rehabilitates unjust prisons and revives learning and re-education. It is precisely because Zhu Haoguan has a virtuous beauty and has won the hearts of the people, so after his death at the age of seventy-nine, Zhu Hao's parents and his wife Qian Shi were both given the title of Tui Grace by the imperial court. What can still be seen today is that on shen Thursday's thirteen-year-old "Wei Yuan Ya Ji Tu", there is a poem titled by Zhu Hao's own handwriting.
Ming Shen Zhou's "Wei Yuan Ya Ji Tu" (partial). © Liaoning Museum
Zhu Hao's wife Qian Shi (錢氏) was a confucian of WuZhong, whose father was a Tongzhi of Jing'an Prefecture. Qian had four children, one male and three female. The son was named Zhu Wan, the father of Zhu Yunming, and all three daughters later married into the family of official eunuchs. Zhu Yong married the eldest daughter of xu Youzhen, a university scholar, and gave birth to Zhu Yunming. Zhu Yunming's maternal grandfather Xu Youzhen was a prominent figure in the political arena during the orthodox and Jingtai years of the middle Ming Dynasty, and also a precursor to the rise of Wumen scholars such as Zhu Yunming and Wen Zhengming in the book world.
Ming Zhu Yunming Three-body "Miscellaneous Books and Poems" volume (partial). © The Palace Museum
Zhu Yunming was born on the sixth day of the fourth month of The fourth year of Tianshun (January 17, 1460), when his grandfather Zhu Hao was serving as an envoy to Shanxi. Zhu Yunming was six years old when he was young, that is, in the first year of Chenghua (1465), he returned to Suzhou from Shanxi with his grandfather and his family, and on the way back, the gentle beauty of the south and the proud scenery of the north were enough to shock Zhu Yunming and was very unforgettable. And this has a great impact on Zhu Yunming's personality between the scholar and the chivalrous in his life.
When Zhu Yunming returned to Suzhou with his grandfather Zhu Hao, his maternal grandfather Xu Youzhen had also been ordered to return to his hometown. My grandfather was good at poetry and loved grass. His maternal grandfather was a jinshi of the eighth year of Ming Xuande (1433), who was extremely talented, proficient in astronomy, geography, Taoism, and Fangshu, and later appointed as a soldier Shangshu and a scholar of Huagaidian University because of his meritorious service in the restoration of Yingyingzong. Both the two ancestors of the interior and the outside were in high positions, and they had many achievements in calligraphy, painting and literature, and their prestige in Wuzhong was extremely high, and they also had frequent exchanges with Du Qiong, Liu Jue, Shen Zhou, Wu Kuan and other famous scholars.
Zhu Yunming once recalled the situation in his childhood: "When the grandfather Wugong gong traveled to this word, Yunming was on the side with his hair hanging down, and Yu Si was only fifty years old. At that time, the prosperity of the gentry, the contract of merger, the elegance of talk, the suitability of wandering, in the fifty years, all the people who received it did not see similar people, which was really regrettable. ”
In his early years, Zhu Yunming was happy and lucky, and he was fortunate to be cared for by his grandfathers inside and outside and many predecessors, and grew up in a very favorable environment. He was intelligent and precocious, had excellent innate endowments, and had the personal teachings of two great Confucians, and at the age of five, Zhu Yunming could make a large character with a foot square, read a few lines at a glance, and at the age of nine he was able to compose poetry, known as a "child prodigy". At the age of ten, Zhu Yunming had already read a lot of books, with magnificent articles and extraordinary intellect, and was deeply appreciated by many of Wumen's predecessors.
Ming Zhu Yunming's "Liu Junwenwei Listening to Quan" volume. © The Palace Museum
In the fourteenth year of Chenghua (1478), the eighteen-year-old Zhu Yunming married the eldest daughter of Li Yingzhen, a servant of Nanjing, a predecessor of Wumen, and enrolled as a student the following year, and later because of his outstanding learning, he was deeply appreciated by the scholars, and he had to make up for his life, and since then he has embarked on a bumpy and tortuous road to seek fame.
Ming Li Yingzhen "With the Palm Garden". © Heritage Museum of the University of hong kong Chinese
02
In charge of Family
As Zhu Yunming grew older and his reputation grew, he also began to play an increasingly important role in the Wumen cultural circle, and this role change first came from within his family.
Zhu Yunming's maternal grandfather Xu Youzhen died in the eighth year of Chenghua (1472) when he was thirteen years old, and his grandfather Zhu Hao died with his father Zhu Hao in the nineteenth year of Chenghua (1483), when Zhu Yunming was only twenty-four years old.
Ming Zhu Yunming "Thousand Character Text" (partial). © National Palace Museum, Taipei
From Zhu Hao to Zhu Wan to Zhu Yunming, the Zhu family has been passed down for two generations, and with the death of his grandfather and father, the young Zhu Yunming, as the only male in his family, has invisibly become the most important role in the family and social contact. Without the protection of the two ancestors of the inner and outer ancestors, Zhu Yunming in his youth changed from passively accompanying the two ancestors of the inner and outer two ancestors to interact with many predecessors in Wuzhong when he was young, to spontaneously and actively representing the Zhu family and interacting with the famous doors of Wuzhong.
The loss of key figures in the family forced Zhu Yunming in his youth to change his role as soon as possible, so as to maintain and maintain the complex social network related to the family and inherit the poetic Confucian style. In the twenty-first year of Chenghua (1485), Zhu Yunming's maternal aunt Zhu Miaojing died, and Zhu Yunming wrote an epitaph. In the fourth year of Hongzhi (1491), Zhu Yunming's other maternal grandfather Chen Sheng died, and Zhu Yunming also wrote an epitaph.
Ming Zhu Yunming's "Orchid Pavilion Preface" (Wen Zhengming supplement). © Liaoning Provincial Museum
If the writing of these two epitaphs is a matter within Zhu Yunming's responsibility, then when his maternal grandmother Cai Miaozhen died in the twenty-second year of Chenghua (1486), his maternal uncle Xu Zhu wrote the epitaph, which seems to better illustrate the change in Zhu Yunming's status and role in the entire extended family. Perhaps the maternal uncle is not good at poetry, or there are very few people in the Xu clan who are good at poetry, in short, writing an epitaph for a distant relative can show that Zhu Yunming was already the most socially influential figure in the Wumen cultural circle for the entire big family at that time.
03
Wumen leader
In his youth, Zhu Yunming was a scholar and scholar, and due to the appreciation of the calligrapher Sima Yao and the Gongbu Shangshu Xu Guan, Zhu Yunming's reputation was temporarily famous in the north and south of the two capitals, and he became a famous scholar in the world. However, he did not achieve fame in his studies, and even failed the township examination four times in a row.
In August of the fifth year of Hongzhi (1492), Zhu Yunming, who had already participated in the township examination for the fifth time, finally had to raise the Tianfu, and Yunming was thirty-three years old at this time. A total of more than 2,300 candidates took part in the township examination, and 135 qualified candidates, Zhu Yunming took the examination with the "I Ching", ranking 115th. The chief examiner of this township examination is the same Wumen, who was once "lianzhong two yuan" Hubu Shangshu and Wenyuange University scholar Wang Jun. He deeply appreciated Zhu Yunming's answer sheet and believed that Zhu Yunming was a material that could be made.
Ming Zhu Yunming Pro Huang Ting Sutra (partial). © National Palace Museum, Taipei
After more than ten years of hard reading in the cold window, Zhu Yunming can be said to have tasted all the bitterness and coldness on the road to seeking fame, although he has achieved the identity of "lifting people", and his reputation has also been widely disseminated among the literati, but from the long road of passing the imperial examination and going to the top of the career, he has just succeeded half of the way. For the intellectuals of that era, if they wanted to really make meritorious achievements, make a name for themselves, and realize their dreams of the world, the imperial examination was really a necessary road that could not be bypassed.
Ming Zhu Yunming's "Journey to the Eastern Slope" volume (partial). © Liaoning Provincial Museum
After Zhongju, Zhu Yunming's name was even more prosperous, and Shen Zhou once wrote a poem saying that he was "a famous general of the Junjin Dynasty, and the traces of the people will compete for it". During this short and beautiful time, Zhu Yunming and Tang Yin, Wen Zhengming, Xu Zhenqing, etc. often met to talk about literature and art, although in terms of age, Zhu Yunming was slightly older than Tang, Wen, Xu and others, but they worked with each other and improved each other, and they were called "Wu Zhong's Four Talents".
However, it is regrettable that since then, Zhu Yunming's examination to Beijing has repeatedly failed, and the way to the imperial examination has been frequently frustrated. In the fifteenth year of Chenghua (1479), Zhu Yunming was nineteen years old, and the eldest son, Zhu Xu, was born. Twenty-eight years later, in the autumn of the second year of Zhengde (1507), Zhu Xu won the township examination in Yingtianfu, and four years later, in the sixth year of Zhengde (1511), Zhu Xu and his father Zhu Yunming went to the capital to participate in the examination. His son Zhu Continued to win the Jinshi, while his father Zhu Yunming once again fell to Sun Shan.
Zhu Yunming once laughed at himself for "losing his horse in a roundabout way", but his son Zhu Xu was able to go to high school and smoothly enter his career, and he was overjoyed and very pleased, writing a poem lamenting that "fortunate to have Dan Zhen in the world". Zhu Xu was later promoted to The Political Envoy of Guangxi Zuobu, this position belongs to The Erpin, from the point of view of the grade has been higher than his great-grandfather Zhu Hao, in this sense, Zhu Xu can also be regarded as a blue out of blue, Guangzong Yaozu, of course, this is also the last word.
Ming Zhu Yunming "Hetao Drinking Poems" (partial). © National Palace Museum, Taipei
Although God did not open a door for Zhu Yunming on the path of fame and fame, he still left a window for him in the poetry and calligraphy. In addition to his talent in calligraphy as a teenager, Zhu Yunming received a good education through his family. In his youth, this specialty was fully utilized in the open humanistic environment of Wumen.
Ming Zhu Yunming's "To the Covenant Zaizha". © The Palace Museum
Most of the works handed down from Zhu Yunming today are composed in his middle and young years, and many of these works were completed at the request of many predecessors in Wuzhong. In the middle of the Ming Dynasty, Wu Chinese the elegant collection of scholars, in addition to traveling through landscapes and rivers, poetry and wine singing, calligraphy and painting is one of the most important contents and mediums. In the literary and artistic environment at that time, impromptu gifts of calligraphy and paintings, or the common tasting of former sages' calligraphy and paintings, and the praise of chants, were important ways to cultivate or maintain friendship. Under the promotion and promotion of Shen Zhou, Wu Kuan, Wang Jun and other predecessors, as well as tang Yin, Wen Zhengming and other contemporaries of friends, Zhu Yunming further grew into a new generation of leaders in the Wumen scholar group.
(To be continued)
Further reading:
Tang Yin of "Wu Zhong's Four Talents": To death is a teenager (part 1) to death is a teenager (middle) to death is a teenager (part 2)
The Text of "The Four Talents of Wuzhong": The Most Comfortable Person in Wuzhong Landscape (Part 1) The Most Comfortable Person in Wuzhong Landscape (Part 2)
Resources:
"Wu Zhonghaiyue: Zhu Yunming's Life and Examination of Calligraphy" Zhu Guiming
"That Zhu Zhishan who has been "writing my heart by hand" all his life" Qianqian
◇ Some of the information in this article comes from Shanghai Museum, Suzhou Museum, Palace Museum, Taipei National Palace Museum, etc
◇ The pictures not marked in this article come from the Internet, and the copyright belongs to the original author
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