Couplets are treasures of Chinese culture, reaching their peak from the Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China, and the united families have emerged from generation to generation, becoming a genre comparable to Tang poetry, Song Ci, Yuan Qu and Ming novels. In the Ming and Qing dynasties, from the princes and ministers to the common people, every New Year's Day, they liked to paste the Spring Festival, and spit out the old and the new to show their joy.
The Kangxi Emperor was the longest-reigning emperor in Chinese history, and he began to study at the age of five, with a degree of diligence that no one else has ever matched. Kangxi required himself to memorize the ancient Chinese texts taught by his master one hundred and twenty times a day, so Kangxi himself was also an all-rounder in literature and martial arts, and he was also very interested in couplets.
During the Kangxi Dynasty, there was a minister named Li Guangdi, who was outstanding in learning. He successively served as a Hanlin editor, an official Shangshu, and a scholar of Wenyuange University, and assisted Kangxi in quelling the "Rebellion of The Three Domains" and "unifying Taiwan", and was an important minister of the imperial court.
Two days before the Spring Festival of one year, Kangxi suddenly asked Li Guangdi to write 100 pairs of Spring Leagues to replace the old leagues of the Imperial Palace. This was not a simple matter, Li Guangdi knew it in his heart, but the emperor's order was difficult to violate, and he did not dare to resign, so he had to accept it.
Seeing Chinese New Year's Eve, close friends, especially family members, frowned. Li Guangdi didn't write a single one, which made everyone anxious. Talking to the emperor is not a word, that is a great sin of deception!
At this time, everyone saw that Li Guangdi was not in a hurry to take out a pen, ink and paper, slowly and leisurely wrote a pair on the table and then instructed the book boy to wash the pen to show completion. Everyone immediately wondered: you just wrote one, this is still 99 pairs?
Everyone went forward one after another, and they were relieved to see the content of the Spring League. It turned out that this pair of Spring Leagues was written:
Seventy-two great sages underground, wise and colorful
There are twenty-eight stars in the sky, and all the places are spring
There are seventy-two sages in this upper league and twenty-eight stars in the lower league. 72 plus 28, exactly 100, to a hundred, can be described as a clever use of numbers. The union is now very successful, replacing one hundred pairs, and the other 99 pairs are redundant.
Li Guangdi gave the Spring League to Kangxi, and Kangxi admired it. In this way, Li Guangdi only used a pair of couplets to make a difference, and also received a commendation from Kangxi.
It can be seen that it is good to be talented.