Mr. Lu Xun in his collection of memorable essays "Chao Hua Xi Shi", there is a recall of his own young reading situation, wrote that when he read the "Fifth Talent Book", he was always confused, thinking that the title of the book is very strange, and when he grew up, he found that it was the great talent Jin Shengsi, according to the ranking of the basic classic masterpieces in his heart, so he had a deep impression on Jin Shengsi.
Jin Shengsi was born in 1608, when it was still the thirty-sixth year of the Ming Dynasty, when the Ming Dynasty was still there, but it disappeared after a few decades, so Jin Shengsi was a person in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties. When he was young, his family conditions were not very good, and he was not able to enter a private school until he was nine years old, which was quite late to start, but Jin Shengsi was very talented, and he was admitted to Xiucai when he became an adult.
Originally, after taking the Xiucai examination, it should be an examination person, and then the examination into the military to become an official, but Jin Shengsi had some "crazy temper" in his heart, he did not continue to take the meritorious name after the examination, nor did he have the intention of becoming an official, but buried his head in poetry, focused on reading every day, and made a lot of annotations to many books, and also set his favorite six books as "Six Talents Books", and the "Fifth Talent Book" that Mr. Lu Xun read when he was a child was also derived from this.
At that time, Qian Qianyi, the literary leader of the Ming Dynasty, sighed after reading Jin Shengsi's article, saying: "This extraordinary person is also, or a god and evil spirit", believing that the reason why Jin Shengsi was able to write such an article was because he was dominated by the gods, which shows how powerful Jin Shengsi's article is.
Jin Shengsi originally had the surname Zhang, but after the death of the Ming Dynasty, he changed his surname to Jin, and changed his name to Renrui, changing the word to Shengsi, which means that he is the Xiangrui of the world, even if the saint sees it, he will sigh for it. Judging from his move to change his name, Jin Shengsi had very deep feelings for the Ming Dynasty, but something happened in the seventeenth year of Shunzhi (1660).
That year, the Shunzhi Emperor also heard about Jin Shengsi's reputation, and specially asked Jin Shengsi's article to watch, and after reading it, he sighed and said: "This is a master of ancient Literature, and it is not possible to look at him with Shiwen's eyes." "This is a very powerful person who writes ancient texts, don't use today's set of standards to evaluate him, this evaluation of the Shunzhi Emperor reached Jin Shengsi's ears, and he was very touched by this."
After all, in the eyes of people at that time, Jin Shengsi was an out-and-out "strange person", but he was recognized by the emperor, and Jin Shengsi "wept with feelings and prostrated his head to the north" for this, and was very grateful to the Shunzhi Emperor. In 1661, the Shunzhi Emperor died, and Jin Shengsi, who heard the news, went to the Temple of Literature to mourn the death of the former emperor, and many Jiangnan scholars also wept there in protest against the harsh punishment of the local county order.
After this matter was known to the new emperor, in order to combat the power of the Jiangnan Shi clan, he ordered that Jin Shengsi and the Jiangnan shizi who cried with him should all be beheaded, on the charge of "alarming the spirit of the former emperor and intending to rebel". Before the execution, Jin Shengsi, who was about to be beheaded, pleaded with the prison officer for paper and pencil so that he could leave a suicide note for his son to explain the aftermath, and the prison officer also heard of his name for a long time, and he agreed very happily.
After getting the pen and paper, Jin Shengsi quickly wrote a suicide note and went to the execution site, and his son found that there were only 16 words on it after getting the suicide note, "Wu'er remember, dried beans are eaten with peanuts, there is a ham taste", but after trying, he found that in fact, dried beans and peanuts are added together, and there is no taste of ham, after consulting many people, he still does not understand what Jin Shengsi's suicide note is about, after a hundred years, no one can understand.
Reference: The Life of Kim Sung-si and His Literary Criticism