Tang Bohu, Zhu Zhishan, Wen Zhengming, and Xu Zhenqing were the four talents of Suzhou who were famous in Jiangnan in the middle of the Ming Dynasty, and among these four people, only Tang Bohu was a rare all-rounder who integrated poetry, painting and characters.
His poetry and paintings are absolutely stunning, showing his wild and uninhibited side, while looking at his ink treasure, he can't see the slightest madness. With his masterpiece "Falling Flowers Poetry" as an example, it can be seen that Tang Bohu's writing strokes are dignified and dignified, free and handsome, quite the style of Zhao Mengfu, and also have the penmanship of Li Beihai.
In the ancient history of our country, a talent like Tang Bohu is indeed talented and unique, but the real Tang Bohu is not as popular as in folklore, but a down-and-out literati who has a life of ups and downs and sorrows and loneliness.
When he was young, his talent was just beginning, but his family was on the verge of disaster
Tang Bohu, also known as Tang Yin, according to folklore, he was born in the year of Gengyin, so he was named Tang Yin. However, according to the archaeological research of later generations, although Tang Bohu was born in the year of Gengyin, he was born on the ugly day of the moon.
Tang Bohu was born on March 6, 1470 in Wu County, Suzhou Province, with his ancestral home in Jinchang, which is now Jincheng, Shanxi. Many people will find that most of the paintings used in Tang Bohu's paintings are "Jinchang Tang Yin", which is why this is why.
Tang Bohu's father, named Tang Guangde, runs a Tang Ji restaurant in Suzhou, and Tang Bohu is the eldest son in the family, so his father has very high expectations for him.
Because none of Tang's ancestors had ever been a scholar, let alone stepped into the official arena, his father Tang Guangde did not hesitate to visit the famous teachers and ask them to teach Tang Bohu Qizhi.
Tang Bohu was 3 years old literate, 6 years old writing and painting, a little talented, when Tang Bohu was a little older, Tang Father found Shen Zhou, the founder of the Wumen School, and Zhou Chen, a great painter of the Ming Dynasty, to guide his son in painting techniques.
The talented and intelligent Tang Bohu really did not live up to his father's expectations, and Tang Bohu, who studied hard, was only 11 years old, and his poetry, paintings, characters, and piano were famous in Suhang, and at the age of 16, he won the first place in the children's entrance examination.
In 1489, Tang Bohu married Xu Shi, the second daughter of xu Tingrui, a famous doctor of the Ming Dynasty, xu shi wen wan xianshu, the husband and wife love very much, after marriage, Xu shi added a male to the Tang family.
At that time, Tang Bohu had a wife and a young son, and the family business was safe and prestigious, which could be described as an unlimited future. However, the world was unpredictable, life did not always go smoothly, and the Tang family suffered many changes in the following years, which was very miserable.
After tang Bohu won the first place in the township examination, he was able to become an appendage of Suzhou Fuxue, and he always focused on reading with lofty ambitions, and he studied in the prefectural courtyard almost every day. However, when Tang Bohu was 22 years old, his parents became seriously ill one after another, and as the eldest son in the family, Tang Bohu sacrificed a lot of time to study in order to take care of his parents, and he did not take the imperial examination that year.
2 years later, his wife Xu Shi became pregnant again, which should have become a happy event for the Tang family, but in fact, Tang Bohu's father was already terminally ill and delirious. Soon, Tang's father died, and Tang Bohu's bedridden mother also died due to excessive sadness.
After taking care of the aftermath of his parents, his wife Xu Shi also arrived at the time of Linbin's birth, Tang Bohu made sufficient preparations for the birth of his second child with a mood of anticipation, and it was expected that Xu's Linbin died of difficult childbirth on the same day, with one corpse and two lives.
Xu's departure left Tang Bohu full of sorrow all day, and a few months later, the catastrophe continued - his wife was less than a year old, and Tang Bohu's son also died tragically.
Tang Bohu beat his spirit and organized a funeral for his young son. After the funeral, Tang Bohu married his sister to a foreign land after being sad, but the fate was uncertain, and his sister who was married away also died of an accident a year later.
In 3 years, 5 close relatives of the Tang family have all passed away one after another, and such a heavy and merciless blow has attacked Tang Bohu together, and this talented man who has always been cheerful and free has since become depressed, and his hair has been white before he reached the age of establishment.
In the Tianfu public examination, he "xie yuan", but went to Beijing to take the test but was wronged in the field
The sudden changes in the Tang family caused the entire family to decay from then on, and when Tang Bohu was depressed, he often closed the door to thank guests and borrowed wine to dispel his sorrows. During those melancholy years, fortunately, thanks to a good friend Zhu Zhishan who tirelessly relieved him from the side, Tang Bohu gradually stepped out of the shadows.
Zhu Zhishan believed that with Tang Bohu's talent, it would certainly not be difficult to lift people in the examination. So with the financial support of several friends, 29-year-old Tang Bohu participated in the public examination of Ying Tianfu and won the honorific title of "Xie Yuan". Tang Bohu, who was unconcerned and full of ambition, went to Beijing to participate in the examination the following year, but this time, Tang Bohu was accidentally implicated in a "fraud and bribery case", and his fate was once again ruthlessly rewritten.
In 1499, Tang Bohu went to the capital alone to participate in the examination, and on the way he met Xu Jing, a rich scholar from Jiangyin, and the two were both people, quite likely to see each other and hate each other, so they decided to go to Beijing together to go to the test.
Xu Jing's family was relatively well-off, this time into beijing with a total of 10 book children and servants, Tang Bohu and Xu Jing found a place to live in the capital, they took their servants to the streets to tour, always attracting passers-by to look sideways, thinking that they were big businessmen from other places.
Because Tang Bohu and Xu Jing's "position" of entering Beijing was somewhat ostentatious, therefore, after the end of the three examinations, the capital immediately spread such a "gossip": Xu Jing, a huge rich man in Jiangyin, bribed officials and obtained the subject questions in advance. And Tang Bohu, because he had been going in and out with Xu Jing after entering Beijing, was also suspected of being a person who bribed the examination papers.
Rumors reached the emperor's ears, and the imperial court immediately took action to file a case to thoroughly investigate whether there was anything wrong with it. But after some investigation, it has been proved that the rumors are false rumors.
In order to calm public opinion and incidents, the Ming court gave the "top three" of the meeting to others. The emperor cherished Cai cai and thought that Tang Yin and Xu Jingwen were on the pen, so he let them go to the county seat of Zhejiang to become county officials.
Tang Bohu had lofty ambitions and extraordinary talent, refused to bow down, categorically refused the emperor's kindness, and returned to his hometown of Suzhou with a sense of resentment.
Shi Tu did not hesitate to send love to the landscape and the countryside, and became a reclusive jianghu scholar
Although "Heaven has given Qiying, and the talent is invincible", Tang Bohu is arrogant and resigns from the government. Leaving the capital and returning to Suzhou Province, Tang Bohu became more and more angry the more he thought about it, and began to have doubts and resistance to the imperial court and the imperial examination.
In order to make a living, Tang Bohu, who was "a lonely man", became a jianghu scholar who "sent love to landscapes and rivers, calligraphy and painting to make a living". He experienced a sudden change in his living environment and the frustration of the imperial examination, and gradually developed a life concept of "going with the flow" and "having fun in time".
Soon, he sold some of his ancestral property, bought a piece of land outside Suzhou, and set out to build a "Peach Blossom Nunnery", where there was both a different pastoral pleasure at four o'clock and a sense of seclusion from the hustle and bustle.
It can be said that the "Peach Blossom Nunnery" became the beginning of Tang Bohu's desire for landscapes, and it was also a good place for him to heal his heartache.
Since the death of his wife Xu Shi, Tang Bohu has not let loose the skeleton, he once spent less than a year traveling through the famous mountains and rivers, stretching his chest, and at the same time accumulating a lot of inspiration and materials for his painting creation.
After returning to Suzhou, Tang Bohu immersed himself in the creation of poetry and painting, and excellent and exquisite works became a "luxury" that people sought after and snapped up for a time. Tang Bohu, who was recognized and praised, was very pleased, and at the same time, he became carefree because of the sale of calligraphy and paintings.
In addition to the daily creation of calligraphy and paintings, Tang Bohu will also follow his friends to visit the Qinlou Chu Pavilion, indulge in wine, and entertain himself.
Although Tang Bohu and Qiu Xiang have been mentioned in some novels and TV series, it is really a mystery whether Qiu Xiang is a person or not, and who his surname is. But Tang Bohu did leave 2 poems related to Qiu Xiang: one for "I Love Qiu Xiang" and one for "Si Qiu Xiang".
According to the history of Ye, Tang Bohu was friendly with an official prostitute named Shen Jiuniang during the Hongzhi period, and the two who were good at calligraphy and painting were later married. But unfortunately, Shen Jiuniang was physically weak, and after many years, she also left Tang Bohu early and died.
In his later years, Tang Bohu was alone again, and his body, who could not run the family and borrowed wine to pour sorrow, gradually became weak. Later, Tang Bohu was unable to produce paintings often because he was ill, and his life was in trouble, and he was fortunate to have the help of his friends Wen Zhengming, Zhu Zhishan, Wang Pet and others so that he would not suffer from freezing and starving. At that time, Tang Bohu had long since lost his temper and had long since become a bald old man who had fallen into disgrace.
On January 7, 1524, Tang Bohu, who had been ill for many years, died at home at the age of 54.
The real Tang Bohu in history is not an amorous talent who is idle and frivolous, and has no worries about money, he has experienced the death of his wife and son, the frustration of the officialdom, the downfall, and the loneliness of old age, and he has tasted bitterness and experienced many twists and turns in his life, but he is really a poor person who has been deceived by fate!