Section 1: Passionate about calligraphy
During the Qianlong and Jiaqing years of the Qing Dynasty, the story of "Liu Luoguo, the Prime Minister," was widely spread, and in the minds of the common people, he was the star who set the plate on the scale pole of picking the rivers and mountains, and he was an example of being upright and not bowing to the evil forces. This "Prime Minister Liu Luoguo", who is located in the midst of laughter and anger to resolve dangerous situations for people, is Liu Yong.
Liu Yongzi Chongru (Chinese: 刘墉字崇; pinyin: Līng Yong), a native of Zhucheng, Shandong, was born in the 58th year of the Kangxi Dynasty, died in the 9th year of Jiaqing, and was admitted as a scholar in the 16th year of Qianlong Examination, edited by the Shihanlin Academy, and was a scholar of the Zhiren Pavilion University, and was posthumously given to the Crown Prince Shaobao. He was a famous Lawyer of the Qing Dynasty, and together with Weng Fanggang, Liang Tongshu, and Wang Wenzhi, he was called the "Four Greats of the Qing Dynasty", and had the "Shi'an Poetry Collection" passed down. He was the son of Liu Tongxun, Qianlong's most favored Han official, and inherited his father's fine character of being loyal, honest, and upright, and left a good name for his adulterous counterpart and Kun Dou's wisdom and courage with the Qianlong Emperor's favor.
Liu Yong (1719-1804 AD), also known as Chongru and Shi Xiang, whose father Liu Tongxun was a favorite vassal during the Qian Dynasty, inherited the good qualities of his father's gangzheng and honesty. Although he entered the dynasty as an official and achieved remarkable political achievements, he was first a calligrapher. In terms of calligraphy, he dabbled extensively, and studied all the Tang and Song dynasties. His calligraphy was mainly learned from the Ming Dynasty calligrapher Dong Qichang, who also had the ink rhyme of the famous Tang Dynasty calligrapher Yan Zhenqing, while Liu Yong claimed that his calligraphy was learned from the Wei calligrapher Zhong Xuan during the Three Kingdoms period. He is good at calligraphy and writing, especially in small letters.
Fulfilling the phrase "things change with people", Liu Yong's life was quite bumpy, he experienced many changes, and his calligraphy also showed different styles with his different experiences: in the early years, Liu Yong's path to becoming an official was calm and calm, and his calligraphy was pearls and jade; In middle age, because of his father's involvement, he was dismissed from office and entered prison, and in prison, because of his mighty and indomitable, the calligraphy became powerful and powerful; In his later years, when he has seen through the world and no longer pursues fame and fortune, his calligraphy will gradually become flat, no longer flowing the meaning on the surface of the text as in his early years, but will converge on the strength, so that the calligraphy cotton hides the needle and goes to a higher level.
Section 2: No adverse friendship
Good will be easy to get, but confidants will be hard to find. In this regard, Liu Yong is lucky, because he has such a rebellious friend as Ji Xiaolan. In the twelfth year of Qianlong Liu Yong's portrait, Ji Xiaolan won the first place in the township examination, and he went to Liu Tongxun's mansion to meet his teacher, and he became acquainted with Liu Tongxun's son Liu Yong. From then on, until Liu Yong's death in the ninth year of Jiaqing, the friendship between the two lasted for fifty-eight years.
In the long fifty-eight years, the two of them have experienced ups and downs together, and some interesting stories that happened between them are still widely circulated today.
One day, Ji Xiaolan's friend Jiang Aiting gave him the inscription of the famous calligrapher Huang Tingjian of the Song Dynasty, and Ji Xiaolan was very happy to receive this treasure, but after thinking about it, he decided to give this treasure to his best friend Liu Yong, so as not to violently destroy the heavenly objects. Who thought, after Liu Yong read it, he thought that although there were more than a dozen famous artists in this post, this post itself was a fake, so he politely declined and poured Ji Xiaolan a head of cold water. Later, Ji Xiaolan gave this stele to the people who recognized the goods. After Ji Xiaolan's "Book (Huang Tingti)", he wrote with regret: "Shi An may not be suspicious of him!' This is also one right and wrong, the other is also right and wrong', this is also the name. This time and unpleasantness did not have the slightest impact on their friendship.
But this unpleasantness had no effect on their friendship at all. Soon after, Liu Yong unexpectedly obtained a fragment of the Tibetan Classic, which had been circulating for more than a thousand years, and implored Ji Xiaolan to write a poem for it, and Ji Xiaolan immediately agreed, gladly writing a two-hundred-and-twenty-four-character seven-character ancient poem entitled "Liu Shi'an Xiangguo (Tibetan Classic) Residual Song".
During liu yong and Ji Xiaolan's tenure as officials in the middle of the dynasty, He Kun took advantage of the Qianlong Emperor's favor for himself and flew in the middle of the court, making a blessing in disguise. Although Liu and Ji hated Hekun's evil deeds, they had no choice, because as courtiers, they could not offend the emperor. However, it was absolutely impossible for them to cling to Andun like the other courtiers in the COURT and to woo Himkun. In this dilemma of wanting to do nothing and wanting to give up, they had to reach a consensus in private, to be the "Taiping Qingxiang", relying on humor and humor, hiding in the imperial court, preserving their strength, and waiting for the opportunity. Therefore, in the next twenty or thirty years, they spent most of their time and energy on exchanging bricks, exchanging letters, chatting, fighting mouths, and so on.
Liu and Ji were both familiar with the classics, and they had common interests and hobbies, so together, they talked about the illusory world of ghosts and gods, to the natural laws of people's birth, old age, illness and death, from the gains and losses of the three religions of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism, to the strange people and strange things in ancient and modern China and abroad, the sea and the sky, and talked about everything.
Liu Yong and Ji Xiaolan often write poems and write books for others together, which is also a manifestation of the deep friendship between them. On this point, we can get a glimpse of one or two of the seven masterpieces written by Ji Xiaolan entitled "Shi'an Xiangguo Hand-scroll scrolls are given to Yunlin Shangshu Jizi Shengshi After the Pond Is Titled Into Four Absolutes". Looking at the titles of these four poems alone, I think it is quite complicated, but in fact, things are quite simple. Peng Yuanrui, a scholar of the Ministry of Works Shangshu and an assistant university, first asked Liu Yong to write a scroll for his son Yisheng, and then framed the scroll written by Liu Yong and asked Ji Xiaolan to write a poem, so there were these four poems. After that, the two actually reached a consensus that it was not an article written by Liu Yong, and Ji Xiaolan did not write poetry, at the same time, Liu Yong was the same, and the article that was not drafted by Ji Xiaolan would never be written.
Liu Yong and Ji Xiaolan, one is just and upright, the other is elegant, although they have very different personalities, they are like-minded, and they are not afraid of power. The two of them have been friends for fifty-eight years, and they have always been in the same boat and experienced ups and downs together. The two of them can be said to be close friends who know each other and take care of each other, and they can also be said to be confidants who comfort each other in the sea of sinister eunuchs.
Section 3: Wisdom Fighting and Arsenic
Once, in the forty-sixth year of Qianlong, Liu Yong stepped down from his post as inspector of Hunan and returned to Beijing to take up his post, serving as an official in the dprk with Hekun. At that time, Hekun was supported by the Qianlong Emperor, and he made a fortune in the middle of the dynasty, flying and pulling up. In order to keep the black hat on their heads, the ministers tended to attach themselves to Heyan. However, Liu Yong, Dong Hao, Ji Yun, Tie Bao, and other ministers never gave in to Hekun, which naturally aroused the hatred of Hekun, so Hezhen tried every means to embarrass these ministers.
The Qianlong Emperor wanted Liu Yong to be a servant of the bureaucracy. Because the officials were responsible for the selection and assessment of the world's officials, which was extremely important, and Liu Yong was not used by He Yan, it was bound to be unfavorable to him after serving as a servant of the officials, so He Yan tried to make Emperor Qianlong dispel the idea of making Liu Yong a servant of the officials on the grounds that liu Yong was short, ugly, had a "hump" on his back, and obstructed the national system. But Liu Yong immediately refuted it using Tao Yuanming of the Eastern Jin Dynasty as an example. He said: "Contrary to the words of the lord, in ancient times, there were people with ugly eyes who were officials in the dynasty, and those who were honest and honest officials, and who were full of flowers, there was Mr. Wuliu, Tao Yuanming, and as for whether Tao Yuanming was ugly with oblique eyes, it is not difficult to see from the verse 'Under the eastern fence of the chrysanthemum, leisurely see the South Mountain'. If it weren't for the obliqueness of his eyes, how could Tao Yuanming be able to see the South Mountain in the East Hedge?" Even the Qianlong Emperor praised his ability to think quickly, but He Yan further harassed Liu Yong and asked him to use hunchback as an inscription to prove that he could take on the heavy responsibility of being a servant of the bureaucracy on top of the Golden Ruan Hall. He Kun originally thought that it would be difficult to stop Liu Yong at this time, who knew that Liu Yong exported into a chapter:
The back is hunched over, and the chest is full of warp.
At a glance, he recognized the loyal and the traitor, and jumped the dragon gate on one leg.
Dan Xin Fu Sheji, Tu Brain Xie Huang En.
He who draws on his appearance is a virtuous man.
Not only did he solve the problem of He Yan, but he also implicitly satirized He Yan in the poem, causing He Yan to lift a stone and smash his own Qianlong Emperor's writing like a clear foot, originally trying to prevent Liu Yong from becoming an official attendant, but Liu Yong not only won the emperor's appreciation, but also secured the position of official waiter, and also humiliated himself in front of the emperor and the ministers. From then on, Liu Yong's feud with He yan deepened.
Liu Yong's twenty-four years as an official in the dynasty were also the time when Hezhen was in power in the dprk. Because of Qianlong, Liu Yong could not have a direct conflict with He Yan, but how could he tolerate he yan being so arrogant. Therefore, he secretly fought against Hezhen, knocking on the side to defeat Hezhen's prestige. Liu Yong is naturally intelligent and extremely eloquent, so most of the rounds end with Liu Yong winning and Eating Dumb Losses with Yan.
On the first day of the Lunar New Year, He Yan would definitely go to the imperial palace to pay homage to Qianlong. On this day, Liu Yong put on a tattered dress stained with oil, and let people splash water at their own door and wait by the door. When the palanquin that went to Hezhen passed by the door, he rushed forward to greet him, and asked Hezhen to sit in the mansion, but he had no choice but to get off the palanquin. Who knew that as soon as Liu Yong saw him get out of the car, he knelt on the ground and threw his body to the ground. According to the etiquette of the Qing Dynasty, officials at the same level must treat each other with courtesy. Naturally, He yan did not dare to violate the law, so he reluctantly knelt down and returned the salute. When he got up, the embroidered jacket and the mink fox skirt that he had specially worn to meet the emperor had been stained. After being teased by this, He Yan was angry and hateful, so he ran to Qianlong and cried, but Qianlong laughed and made He Yan helpless.
In the year of Qianlong, there was a great drought in the world, especially in Shandong and Zhili provinces, which were the most seriously affected. In the winter, these two provinces are even more mournful and unbearable. However, at that time, the national treasury was tight, and the imperial court could not fully help the disaster victims, so Liu Yong and Ji Xiaolan came up with a plan to invite the richest man in the capital, He Yan, to enter the urn and collect two silver for disaster relief from He Yan. After agreeing on a specific plan, the two acted according to the plan.
A few days later, He Yan received the news that Liu Fu had smuggled 200,000 taels of silver to his hometown in Shandong and gave it to the victims free of charge. This news immediately made He Yan's spirits very strong, thinking that the opportunity to overthrow Liu Yong had arrived, so he gathered his family and intercepted Liu Fu's caravan. Thinking that he had stolen goods in his hands, he sued Liu Yong for a crime of embezzlement and perverting the law, but what he did not want to pursue was a box of pebbles, and he was caught in Liu Yong's plan, but instead was sued by Liu Yong for the crime of ignoring the lives of 100,000 disaster victims in Shandong and intercepting the disaster relief silver without permission.
In front of the Qianlong Emperor, Liu Yong and He yan did not give in to each other, one of them said that the box was indeed 200,000 taels of silver, and the other one even called out to the middle plan, and insisted that the box contained stones, which made it difficult for Qianlong to make up his mind, but the ministers of the DPRK and the CENTRAL Government testified one after another, saying that they had seen 200,000 taels of silver in two boxes, and in order to protect and protect, the Qianlong Emperor had no choice but to push the boat along the water, and Ling Hexun quickly returned to the palace, took out 400,000 taels of silver, and handed it to Liu Yong to transport to the disaster area to help the victims.
Because of his clever tricks, Liu Yong not only raised 600,000 taels of disaster relief silver for the disaster area, but also provided relief to the people who were struggling on the death line; And his act of not being afraid of power and daring to pull teeth out of the tiger's mouth won the admiration of the Manchu Dynasty's civil and military officials and the praise of the people. And this matter has also been rumored to be a good story. This time, He Yan lost his wife and folded the soldiers, although he hated Liu Yong to the bone, but he could not do anything about Liu Yong.
In the ninth year of Jiaqing, Liu Yong died of illness at the age of eighty-five, and was given the title of "Wenqing". He had quite impressive calligraphy achievements and was a famous calligrapher in the Qing Dynasty. When he was an official in the dynasty, he did not cling to the powerful, was just and upright, and was loved by the common people. He upheld justice, adhered to the truth, and even did not hesitate to commit the crime of the superior, plucking scales from the dragon and begging for the jade seal of the country from the hands of the Qianlong Emperor of Taishang, which showed that he was just and straight.