(The Woman Who Told History – Issue 1026)
After Zhu Yuanzhang first established Daming, the empire was in a situation of being in ruins and waiting to be rebuilt. However, Zhu Yuanzhang knew very well in his heart that when overthrowing the Yuan Dynasty and fighting for hegemony, he was fighting for force, and at this time, he mainly relied on generals who could command troops to fight, so-called immediately attacking the world. However, after the Jiangshan came down, when it came to governing the empire, at this time it was not enough to rely on the set of military generals, and what was needed to govern the empire was political talent, the so-called maxia ruling the world!
However, the establishment of Zhu Yuanzhang's regime was not able to win the hearts of everyone, such as those old ministers who were loyal to the Yuan Dynasty, and those scholars who looked down on Zhu Yuanzhang's regime, they were opposed to the Zhu Ming regime. However, zhu yuanzhang, as the master of the empire, he wanted to take a posture to resolve this contradiction, and Zhu Yuanzhang's appeasement effect was still good, and indeed a large number of scholars and landlords belonged to Zhu Yuanzhang. But there are also some people who always maintain a rejection attitude toward Zhu Yuanzhang -- such as the one we are talking about today -- Zhu Yuanzhang forcibly summoned this person to be an official, and he said: If you force it again, I will jump into the sea! Zhu Yuanzhang had no choice but to quickly let him go.
Who is this person? Zhu Yuanzhang recruited him, and since he refused to obey, why didn't he kill him? This time decomposition.
This man's name was Yang Weizhen, and he was born in 1296 AD. About his birth is still very legendary, shi zai his mother Li Shi gave birth to Yang Weizhen, had a very peculiar dream, dreaming that on the moon, there is a lot of money falling into a golden cup.
Since the birth of ancient nobles, their mothers have many records of having different dreams, such as those emperors, basically all have similar legends. According to this point of view, the dream made by Yang Weizhen's mother is definitely an auspicious omen, so Yang Weizhen should also be rich and noble, but in fact, Yang Weizhen's fate is slightly more complicated.
Reading is the most common way out in ancient times, but most readers are normal readers, but Yang Weizhen's reading path is quite legendary. When he reached the age of study, his father Yang Hong built an attic on the steep hill of Tieyan Mountain, and hundreds of red plum trees were planted outside the attic, and tens of thousands of books were hidden in the attic.
After doing all this, Yang Hong asked Yang Weizhen and his brother Yang Weihan to climb up the ladder, and then he asked people to draw the ladder. This ladder is smoked, not for two days a day, but for five years. In these long five years, Yang Weizhen and Yang Weihan never came down again.
In the past five years, the food that Yang Weizhen and Yang Weihan ate was transmitted by means of tools, that is, the dishes contained in the history books. Since they could not come down, Yang Weizhen and Yang Weihan could only spend all their energy on studying hard except for eating and resting. Such an educational method, the author believes that it is more effective than the "head overhang beam cone thorn stock"!
Judging from the subsequent results, Yang Hong's education is very successful, and the two children have become great talents. Yang Weihan was a very famous painter and educator at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, especially good at painting bamboo, the most famous masterpiece is "Orchid Bamboo Stone Three Show Diagram", together with Song Ke, Wang Fu, Xia Chang and called the Four Greats of Ming Bamboo.
Yang Weizhen's achievements are more prominent than those of his brother Yang Weihan, and he has achieved remarkable achievements in poetry, calligraphy and painting. In addition, Yang Weizhen has also gone further in his career.
In 1327 AD, Yang Weizhen, who had been studying hard for many years, passed the scientific examination and entered the high school. The Yuan court arranged for Yang Weizhen to go to Tiantai County to become a county yin, and the 31-year-old Yang Weizhen first entered the career, embracing a passion for the people and wanting to do practical things for the local people. To this end, the first thing he did was to hold a meeting, strictly investigate, and rectify the work style of local officials, and as a result, many problematic officials were found.
However, local corrupt officials and corrupt officials have extremely complex interests with all parties, so they are involved in every move. Yang Weizhen punished the local officials who had problems, but touched the cheese of other officials. Therefore, Yang Weizhen's Tiantai County Yin did not do long before he was falsely accused by the local evil forces through various means and deposed.
However, Yang Weizhen was also a jinshi of the imperial court, and the complete dismissal would inevitably have a bad impact, so he was not allowed to be the county yin, but let him become a smaller official, the commander of the Qianqing salt field. Strictly speaking, this official was no longer an official of the yuan empire's official system, but was demoted to the rank of an official. Despite this, Yang Weizhen still embraced the original intention of doing things for the people, and under his efforts, the salt tax was reduced, but he also paid the price, that is, he lost the qualification for promotion within ten years.
After that, Yang Weizhen also participated in the compilation of the history books of the Liaojin and Song Dynasties, and later, he was appointed by the imperial court as the Confucian scholar of Jiangxi, but at this time, the Yuan court was already weakening day by day, and uprisings were rising in various places, so Yang Weizhen did not go to take over this official position, but wandered the rivers and lakes.
When he was in the Zhejiang area, Zhang Shicheng, the boss here, had already heard of Yang Weizhen's name, so he sent someone to invite him, but he invited yang Weizhen many times, but he did not invite Yang Weizhen. Zhang Shicheng knew that Yang Weizhen was very famous, and to be able to invite him was equivalent to inviting a force to cheer him on. Therefore, he let his brother Zhang Shide personally go to the door to ask, but Zhang Shide naturally did not invite, but Zhang Shide also brought another layer of Zhang Shicheng's meaning, and asked for something if he could not ask for it. As a result, Yang Weizhen analyzed Zhang Shicheng's forces from the position of Yuan Zhi and gave him eight words:
"If there is no internal change, there will be external disasters."
In the end, in the midst of the herd of deer, he was defeated by Zhu Yuanzhang, captured and committed suicide, and did not get a good death.
Yang Weizhen, who no longer entered the career path, lived in seclusion in Songjiang in his later years, mainly engaged in poetry, calligraphy, painting and other artistic creations. Because of his talent, eccentric style and unusual style of writing, he was given many titles by the people of the time, such as "Wen Demon", "Generation poetry", "Iron Cliff Body", "Late Yuan Jiangnan Poetry Taidou", "Late Yuan Three High Priests" and so on. In particular, his calligraphy works are quite stylish, and a seven-word poem is auctioned for millions of dollars.
Later, after Zhu Yuanzhang established the Ming Empire, he needed the help of various celebrities, on the one hand, to increase his prestige, on the other hand, to gather talents. Zhu Yuanzhang had long heard of Yang Weizhen's great name, and specially sent Hanlin Zhan Tong to take the letter of appointment stamped with the emperor's great seal and personally go to the door to invite it. As a result, Yang Weizhen refused to go out of the mountain, politely refusing the good intentions of the Ming court.
But how could the imperial court let it go? There was no way, Yang Weizhen fled to his hometown in order to avoid the headhunters of the imperial court, but the pursuing soldier's legs were as fast as his, and as soon as he arrived at his hometown, the pursuing soldiers arrived. However, Yang Weizhen was indeed very intelligent, and he deliberately mispronounced the words in the hands of bing Ding, who thought that Yang Weizhen was an illiterate old man and let him go.
In this way, can Yang Weizhen stop? No, in the third year of Hongwu, the imperial court's yousi sent a message to Yang Weizhen and sent someone to urge him, but Yang Weizhen had no choice but to come to the capital Nanjing and meet Zhu Yuanzhang, the emperor of the Ming Empire.
Zhu Yuanzhang said: "I cherish talents and hope that Aiqing can serve the country." ”
Yang Weizhen's answer was unceremonious, he said:
"Your Majesty does everything I can, but if I am not strong, I can do it, otherwise there will be death in the sea."
The translated meaning is roughly that the emperor should stop forcing me, and if he forced me again, I would only be able to commit suicide by jumping into the sea.
Zhu Yuanzhang saw that Yang Weizhen was so determined, he did not even dare to be angry. If you change someone, Old Zhu is angry, I am afraid that my head will not be protected. But Yang Weizhen is famous outside the world, the world knows, killing it is not only a matter of Yang Weizhen, but also shakes the hearts of readers in the world. At the beginning of the empire, Zhu Yuanzhang knew the importance of people's hearts and the importance of stability, so he couldn't bear to dare to do anything to Yang Weizhen, and finally let Yang Weizhen stay in the capital for more than 100 days and then leave on his own.
On the day yang Weizhen left, Song Lian (Zhu Yuanzhang spoke highly of Song Lian, calling him "the head of the founding ministers") wrote a farewell poem, two of which were:
"Not subject to the five-color edict of the king, the white robe is proclaimed to the white robe."
In 1370 AD, Yang Weizhen ended his legendary life at the age of 74!
References: "History of the Ming Dynasty", "Huang Rensheng Yang Weizhen and the Literary Trends of the Late Yuan and Early Ming Dynasties".