Cao Pi saw two cows fighting, and asked Cao Zhi to improvise poems, which could not have cattle characters, and the result was passed down for thousands of years. Cao Zhi's "Seven-Step Poem" was not written under cao Pi's coercion, but a self-pity poem.
Cao Cao had a total of 25 sons in his lifetime, 3 of whom he liked the most, one was Cao Chong, who was called an elephant, but he died at a young age, and the other two were Cao Pi and Cao Zhi. Cao Pi and Cao Zhi were brothers, both born to Cao Cao's concubine Lady Bian (Empress Wuxuan), Cao Pi was the eldest and Cao Zhi was the third eldest. These two Cao brothers were all young talents at that time, and they were literarily equal to their fathers, known as "Three Caos".
Cao Pi saw two cows fighting, and asked Cao Zhi to improvise poems, which could not have cattle characters, and the result was passed down for thousands of years
In contrast, Cao Zhi was more pleasing to Cao Cao and once intended to make him the son of the world, but although Cao Zhi was talented, he was also contaminated with the shortcomings common to the literati, did not pay attention to grooming and restraining himself, drank wine without restraint, acted willfully, and took the military affairs entrusted by Cao Cao as a child's play, and as a result, he gradually lost Cao Cao's trust. What is even more excessive is that during Cao Cao's outing, he took advantage of the wine to sit in the royal family's carriage and horse, opened the palace gate Sima Gate without permission, and indulged in the forbidden road that only the emperor could walk when he held a ceremony, until he played until the Golden Gate. Cao Zhi's move greatly annoyed Cao Cao, and soon after returning to the dynasty, Cao Cao summoned Cao Pi as his son and completely abandoned Cao Zhi.
After becoming a son of the world, Cao Pi finally became a brother in charge after Cao Cao's death, but in Cao Pi's heart, the existence of his younger brother Cao Zhi was always a threat to himself, so he dug pits everywhere to embarrass his brother, the most famous example of which is the "Seven-Step Poetry Incident". Regarding Cao Zhi's "Seven-Step Poem", it was first found in Liu Yiqing's "New Language and Literature of the World" of the Southern Dynasty, and was later quoted in the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms".
The "New Language of the World" records that the Wei Emperor Cao Pi was jealous of Cao Zhi's talents and ordered Cao Zhi to write a poem within seven steps, otherwise he would be executed, and there were strict requirements for the poem: the theme of the poem must be brotherhood, but the whole poem must not contain the word brother. Unexpectedly, Cao Zhi, who was quick-witted, chanted out in less than seven steps:
Boiled beans are held as a soup, and wet as juice.
The beans burned under the kettle, and the beans wept in the kettle.
Born from the same root, why is it too urgent to fry?
However, whether this poem was written by Cao Zhi is still controversial today. Because, in Chen Shou's "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", this poem is not included, nor is there a fragmentary account of this event, which is suspected to be a work of false entrustment by posterity.
The struggle between the brothers certainly exists, but ordinary people cannot do it with poetry. Nevertheless, the incident in which Cao Pi used poetry to embarrass Cao Zhi was not an isolated case. The Taiping Guangji Junjie also records another story:
Emperor Wen of Wei tasted to travel with Chen Siwang Zhi, and when he saw two oxen fighting between the walls, one bull was not as good as one, and he fell into a well and died. The edict decreed that the poem of the dead cow should not be the way of the ox, nor the cloud should be the well, nor shall it be said that it is a fight, nor that it shall be said to be dead, that it shall take a hundred steps, that it shall be made into forty words, that it shall not be completed, and that it shall be beheaded.
What does the above mean? It tells of a time when Cao Pi and Cao Zhi were on a trip together and saw two cows fighting on the way to sign. One of the cattle slowly lost strength and lost the battle, just in time to be killed by a dry well under the top of another cow.
After Cao Pi saw it, he ordered Cao Zhi to make a poem about dead cows, but in the poems, there can be no cow characters, nor can tic-tac-toe characters appear, and it cannot be said that two cows are fighting, and it cannot be said that they are dead. Moreover, Cao Zhi would ride on a horse, and when the horse walked a hundred steps, he would write a poem of four crosses, and if he could not write it, he would be executed immediately.
The records here are complete with elements such as time, place, people, and events, which make people have to believe that Cao Pi really wants to borrow some to put his brother to death. Just when the reader was worried about Cao Zhi's life, Cao Zhi did not hurry to complete the imperial order:
Zi Jian galloped on horseback, and he wrote with a pen: "The two flesh walk in unison, and wear transverse bones on the head." When you reach the head of the earth, the rise is abrupt. The two enemies are not strong, and one flesh lies in the earth cave. It is not as good as the force, and the grand intention must not be leaked. "Endowed, the step is still unfinished."
After the poem was written, a hundred steps had not yet been completed, how fast was this? Historians and writers compare this poem with the seven-step poem, and generally believe that this poem is more difficult, because the poem cannot mention the word ox, but expresses the fact that the two bulls fight, but Cao Zhi exported it into a poem, and it has to be said that his talent is ancient and modern.
After writing the bullfighting poem, Cao Zhi was still not finished, so he wrote a three-cross poem to pity himself, which is exactly the familiar "Seven-Step Poem".
Thirty words of re-composition are self-conscious: "Boiled beans are held as soup, and soy sauce is taken as juice." The purse burned under the kettle, and the beans wept into the kettle. Ben was born from the same root, and he was too anxious to fry. (Taiping Guangji Junjie)
According to the Taiping Guangji, Cao Zhi's Seven-Step Poem is his own sentimental and sad work, not written under cao Pi's coercion.