【Reading by all】The legend that happened in Xiangyang (4)

Xiangyang is a magical land, and there are many legends here. In these stories, there are warriors who slash the dragon, kill the tiger and the scarves, martyrs, filial piety, repay the favor of the turtle, save the dog... Among them, stories such as tiger skin beauty, palindromic Xuanjie, Houmen like the sea, peerless legend, and root and branch are even more passed down to this day, with far-reaching influence, and some have been adapted into dramas and are still active on the stage.

Houmen is like the sea

During the Tang Yuanhe period, there was a reader named Cui Jiao, who was good at literature and art, and lived in the home of his aunt in Xiangyang. There was a maid in the aunt's family, who was born beautiful, proficient in singing and dancing, and was the most beautiful woman in the Hannan area. Cui Jiao and the maid are talented and feminine, love each other, and privately get better.

Later, Cui Jiao's aunt's family was not well-off and her life was difficult, so she had to sell the maid to Xiangzhou Shi Yu, who liked the maid very much, gave Cui Jiao aunt 400,000 pieces of money, and was very fond of the maid.

Cui Jiao's gift of poetry (file photo)

The lover was ruthlessly separated, and Cui Jiao missed the woman endlessly, and often ran to the vicinity of Yufu, hoping to see the woman.

On the day of the Cold Food Festival, the woman did indeed go out. Cui Jiao waited under the willow tree, and the two met, drank and cried, and swore to love each other for the rest of their lives. Parting, Cui Jiao gave the woman a poem:

The princes and princes and grandchildren followed in the footsteps of each other,

Green beads droop teardrops.

As soon as Houmen entered the sea,

Since then, Xiao Lang has been a passerby.

A jealous Cui Jiao person copied this poem down and gave it to Yu Wei. Yu Wei saw it, admired Cui Jiao's talent, and also sympathized with his and the woman's suffering, so he asked someone to summon Cui Jiao to the palace. The people around him could not guess his intentions, and Cui Jiao was also worried, wanting to escape and could not escape, so he had to come to Yu Mansion with a hard scalp.

Yu Wei saw Cui Jiao, shook his hand, and said, "'As soon as Houmen entered the sea, Xiao Lang was a passerby', was it written by Mr. Hou? After receiving a positive reply, Yu Wei immediately asked the two lovers to return together.

Cui Jiao was happy and embarrassed: "Thank you very much, but I am a poor talent, who can come up with 400,000 pieces of money to redeem her!" ”

Yu Wei laughed and said, "Four hundred thousand is a small amount of money, how can it be worth your poem?" You should have written to me earlier. "After saying that, I gave a very rich makeup.

(Bibliography: Song "Taiping Guangji", volume 177 · Yu Wei)

Unparalleled legend

Wang Xianke, a scholar of the Tang Dynasty, was the nephew of the chancellor Liu Zhen.

When The cyclamen was very young, his father died, and his mother took him to live with his uncle. Cyclamen often played with their cousin Peerless, and their relationship grew deeper and deeper.

A few years later, Cyclamen's mother also died, and the young Wang Cyclamen sent his mother's coffin back to his hometown. At the end of the three-year filial piety period, he returned to his uncle's house.

Since then, the cyclamen have seriously studied with his uncle, and when his uncle and aunt saw that he was very outstanding, they gave him the matchless promise. But before they could get married, something unfortunate happened.

One day, not long after Liu Zhen went to the court, he suddenly ran home in a panic and asked his family to lock the gate quickly. Then, while instructing the cyclamen to pack up their valuable things and wait for them outside the city first, he arranged for his wife and Peerless to take care of their belongings, and then met with the cyclamen.

It turned out that Zhu Zhu rebelled, the rebels rushed into the palace, and the emperor fled, and he couldn't take care of Liu Zhen and these ordinary ministers.

Sensing the grim situation, the cyclamen watched his uncle's belongings firmly and waited for his uncle's family at the inn outside the city until dark.

The next day, the city gate opened, and when the cyclamen entered the city, they learned that their uncle's family had been captured by the rebels, and the pursuing soldiers were still hunting down the family members of the ministers outside the city, and Wang Xianke quickly fled to the countryside with his uncle's belongings.

After spending three years in the countryside, he heard that the rebels had been driven away and that the capital had been restored to peace, and the cyclamen returned to the capital to inquire about the whereabouts of his uncle's family.

On the way to inquire, he met an old servant of his uncle's family, Sai Hong. Sai Hong told him that his uncle had been executed along with his aunt because he had been an official under the rebels, and that Peerless had also been taken into the palace to become a palace maid.

Listening to the old servant's words, the cyclamen knew that he had really become a helpless person, so he had to find an errand at the station.

On this day, hearing that the emperor was going to take the palace ladies out of the palace for inspection, the cyclamen quickly asked Sai Hong to secretly observe to see if he could see Peerless. Unexpectedly, Sai Hong actually saw Peerless. Peerless secretly asked Sai Hong to carry a letter to his cousin, which said: "Listening to the history of thorns, it is often said that there is a man with the surname Gu in Fuping County, who is a chivalrous man, if you can ask him, I may be able to meet Lang Jun again." ”

According to what Peerless said, the cyclamen immediately quit the errand at the station and braved the heavy snow to find the Oshi who was surnamed Gu. He went to Maoshan to ask the Taoist priest for a medicine, and after drinking this medicine, the person died immediately, but he could be resurrected after three days. Oshiya asked Yahuan Tou to pretend to be an emissary sent by the palace, saying that Peerless was a rebel against the party, and gave her this medicine to kill herself. Three days later, under the pretext of his relatives, he used a hundred fine silks to redeem the body of Peerless and give it to the cyclamen, who drank the antidote to Peerless, and Peerless was immediately resurrected, but the heroic and righteous Gu Paoya committed suicide.

Later, cyclamen and Peerless returned to Xiang and Deng, and bai-headed and old.

(Bibliography: Qing Wang Wanfang's "Xiangyang Fu Zhi" Volume 40 Miscellaneous References "Taiping Guangji" and "Book of Tang Examinations")

Source: Xiangyang Evening News (December 24, 2021, 16th edition)

Author: Duan Minggui

Edit: Gao Yuan

Proofreader: Huang Yu

Review: Yang Mingyang

Final Judge: Cai Jianwei