"Eight immortals crossing the sea, each showing divine powers" originally refers to the legend of eight immortals with superb magic in ancient times, who spent the Queen Mother's peach birthday feast and used wine to show their divine powers and cross the vast East Sea.
Now it is a metaphor for people doing things together, using their own skills or methods to compete with each other and compete for places.
So, is there a prototype of the Eight Immortals in history? Where did the legend of their crossing the sea come from? And listen to the author one by one!
Friends who like to read "Water Margin" know that when the Song Dynasty sentenced major criminals, they often distributed them to Shamen Island.
This Shamen Island is the Miaodao Archipelago in changdao county in Shandong Province, surrounded by the sea on all sides and far from the mainland, and is an important place of exile for prisoners in the Song Dynasty army.
It is said that during the Jianlong period of the Northern Song Dynasty, because the number of prisoners on the island was increasing, and the imperial court only gave rations to three hundred people every month, there were often grain grabbing and armed struggles.
Li Qing, the chief of the island guarding the prisoners, was quite troubled by this, and repeatedly went to the imperial court to apply for grain, but was shelved by the corrupt household officials in the DPRK.
Li Qing was helpless and finally forced out a treacherous plan, that is, once the number of prisoners on the island exceeded three hundred, they secretly threw more than one person into the sea and drowned.
After drowning more than seven hundred people, the matter gradually leaked out, but after the imperial court knew about it, it still did not care, and Li Qing became more and more emboldened, and even drowned the prisoners semi-openly.
One day, when a dozen prisoners knew that it would soon be their turn to be executed, they took advantage of the middle of the night to hold a piece of wood, jumped into the sea, and desperately swam to Penglai Mountain, thirty miles away.
As a result, at night, the sea was windy and the waves were high, and only eight people finally swam to the bottom of Danya Mountain in the north of Penglai City and hid in a hidden cave.
Soon, these eight people were found by the fishermen nearby, who were afraid of revealing the identities of the prisoners, so they lied that they had come from afar, and the fishermen looked at these disheveled people and were greatly surprised, thinking that they were gods and immortals, and the news soon went away, and the more they spread, the more gods they spread.
Later, someone built a temple there to bless the peace of the party, and eventually, eight prisoners were given the name of the Eight Immortals. The legend of "crossing the sea" also came from this.
In fact, the legend of the Eight Immortals has a long history, but the character stories in it are different.
It was not until the middle of the Ming Dynasty that the scholar Wu Yuantai wrote a novel entitled "The Eight Immortals of shangdong in the Journey to the East", which clarified the names of the eight immortals, namely TieQiu Li, Han Zhongli, Lü Dongbin, Lan Caihe, Zhang Guolao, Cao Guo's uncle, Han Xiangzi, and He Xianggu, and finally brought together the eight immortals scattered in various dynasties.
Below, we will briefly describe the biography of the Eight Immortals one by one.
Tie Quan Li, the head of the Eight Immortals, also known as Li Ningyang or Li Xuan, zi quan'er, in present-day Shimen Lijiaba, Jiangjin District, Chongqing, born and died about 363 BC - 291 AD, was described by posterity as a beggar, lame and abducted, because of the borrowing of corpses to return the soul to become immortals.
Han Zhongli, compound surname Zhong Li, name Quan, a general at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, so known as Han Zhongli, because of the failure of the conquest of the army, lived in seclusion in Jinzhou Giethoorn Mountain, by the iron abduction Of Li enlightened into immortals, immortals have flying swords to cut tigers, point stones into gold.
Lü Dongbin, formerly known as Lü Yan (Lü Yan), was a native of Yongle Town, Ruicheng, Shanxi, a jinshi during the reign of Emperor Yizong of Tang, who had served as a county commander, and later, due to war, lived in seclusion with his wife in the ZhongnanShan Monastery, calling himself a "Hui Daoist". It is said that his husband and wife respected each other in the cave, so they were called Lü Dongbin by posterity, and at the age of 64, they met Han Zhong and became the head of the sword immortals.
Lan Caihe, zi Botong, Tang Dynasty, born in Tanghe ancient town Shilongmen, personality free and bold, often drunk holding a bamboo board, walking in the downtown singing, proficient in winemaking skills, after the Han Bell away from the degree, riding the clouds away.
Zhang Guolao, whose real name is Zhang Guo, calls himself a Shanggu Yao shiren, because he is very old, and posterity will add an old character. Wu Zetian heard of his name and sent emissaries to summon him, but soon after he entered the dynasty, he held his breath and pretended to be dead, and after being buried, he disappeared without a trace.
In the twenty-first year of Tang Kaiyuan, Zhang Guolao was recommended to Tang Xuanzong by Shi Weiji of Hengzhou, and the official title of Yinqing Guanglu Doctor soon resigned from his official position and lived in seclusion in Zhongtiao Mountain, Shanxi, often rapping with musical instruments made of bamboo, and was known as the ancestor of Daoqing. The Song Dynasty poet Pan Langyou Huashan once had a poem called "Looking up and looking down at the donkey", which was added to Zhang Guolao, and since then the image of Zhang Guolao riding a donkey has been handed down.
Han Xiangzi, also known as Qingfu, a Tang Dynasty man, was the nephew of the great literary scholar Han Yu, who was said to have been enlightened by the iron abduction Of Li and Han Zhong very early, cultivated into immortality, and was also a prodigal prince with excellent literary style, often holding a flower basket in his hand, making the peony blossom in winter, and then writing some inexplicable verses on the petals.
Once, he wrote a piece of it that read, "Where is the family of the Clouds Across the Qinling Mountains, and the snow embraces the blue and the horses do not move forward." The petals were given to Han Yu, and Han Yue didn't know what it meant? Han Xiangzi did not answer either, but left silently.
Later, Han Yu was demoted to chaoyang for obstructing Tang Xianzong not to meet the bones of the Tianzhu Buddha, angering Long Yan. When Han Yue walked to Languan, heavy snow fell in the sky and was stranded in the local area, at this time Han Xiangzi came to see him again, Han Yu realized his poetry puzzle, and Han Xiangzi became famous from then on.
He Xiangu, the only woman among the Eight Immortals, formerly known as He Qiong, was born in an ordinary family in Tang Gaozong's Lingling, and when she grew up, she met a white Hu Immortal who gave a peach and never ate human fireworks after eating. When Wu Zetian heard this, he was very envious, and sent someone to give her a chaoxia costume, which was immediately full of light and attracted the worship of the people from all over the world. Later, during the Northern Song Dynasty, he was invited by TieQiu Li to participate in the Juxian Conference, and thus ranked eight immortals.
Cao Guo's uncle, the uncle of the Northern Song Dynasty Renzong Dynasty, because his brother Erguo's uncle was involved in a forced rape and murder case, he was both arrested by Bao Gong to shield his brother, and he was about to die under the knife, Renzong took Empress Cao to personally intercede, Lao Bao did not comply, immediately killed Erguo's uncle, Renzong had no choice but to amnesty the world, Cao Guo's uncle was rescued, and from then on he saw through the red dust and entered the mountain to cultivate.
A few years later, Han Zhongli and Lü Dongbin found him and asked, "Where is the Tao?" Uncle Cao Guo replied, "The Tao is in heaven." Lu Dongbin asked again, "Where is the sky?" Uncle Cao Guo pointed to his heart and said, "The heart is heaven, and the heavens are the Tao." The Second Immortal laughed when he heard this, so he gave him the True Secret Will, and not long after, Uncle Cao Guo became an immortal and left.