In the last years of the Tang Dynasty, the famous Huangchao Rebellion occurred, the Tang Dynasty regime was crumbling, the world was in chaos, and then Zhu Wen established Hou Liang, announcing the end of a great dynasty, the Tang Dynasty. In the following 70 years, history called the "Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms", of which the "Ten Kingdoms" included the Southern Tang, and the last emperor of the Southern Tang was the famous lyricist Li Yu. But as the king of a country, Li Yu's poetic achievements can be said to far exceed his political contributions.
To a certain extent, Li Yu's words inherit the traditional style of Wen Tingjun, Wei Zhuang and other Huajian poets since the late Tang Dynasty, and are also influenced by Li Jing, Feng Yanwei, etc., vivid and vivid, with sincere affection. Li Yu expanded the field of expression of words, and distinguished himself with his beautiful and profound style, which had a profound impact on the lexicon of later generations. But today's editor is not going to talk about Li Yu's words, but one of his paintings, so what is so special about this painting?
After the establishment of the Song Dynasty, Zhao Kuangyin was determined to recover the "Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun", but the strength of the Northern Liao State was too strong, and Zhao Kuangyin knew that if he wanted to defeat the Liao State, he must first clear the rear, so he formulated the strategy of "first south and then north" and gradually annexed the Central Plains states, in this process, after the fall of the Northern Han Dynasty, the Southern Tang Dynasty became the meat of the Song Dynasty.
In the face of the powerful Zhao Kuangyin, the Southern Tang had to submit, so from the Southern Tang has always been a vassal of the Song Dynasty, after more than ten years of stalemate, Zhao Kuangyin finally sent troops to Jinling and destroyed the Southern Tang, Li Yu, as the last monarch of the Southern Tang, was escorted to Kaifeng by Zhao Kuangyin, and from then on, Li Yu stayed away from the Jinling City of "carved fence jade" and became a prisoner under the ranks.
Together with Li Yu, he was escorted to Kaifeng, as well as his Xiao Zhou Hou and the rare treasures of the Southern Tang Imperial Palace, and in the face of Li Yu, the king of the subjugated country, Zhao Kuangyin was still righteous. Lu You's Book of Southern Tang records:
Yi Hai (乙海), the general of the Right Qianniu Wei ( Thousand Niu Wei ) , was given the title of Marquis of Disobedience.
That is to say, Zhao Kuangyin made Li Yu the "Marquis of Disobedience", and paid homage to the general Qianniu Wei and gave Li Yulu enough food and clothing to let him have no worries about food and clothing.
Li Yu had thought that he would be able to spend the rest of his days with Xiao Zhou in peace and stability, but less than a year later, Zhao Kuangyin died, and the successor to the throne was Zhao Guangyi, emperor Taizong of Song. Zhao Guangyi not only enjoyed the achievements, but also coveted beauty.
In that era, there were two beautiful women, one named Lady Huarui, who was the princess of Hou Shu, and the other was Xiao Zhouhou, the queen of Li Yu. Lady Huarui was dead, and Zhao Guangyi naturally would not miss Xiao Zhouhou. Therefore, after Li Yu was given poisoned wine and wrote the fatal word "Yu Meiren", his life was like a river of spring water, completely gone.
After Li Yu's death, when Zhao Guangyi was churning over Li Yu's rare treasures, he found a painting, which was wrapped very tightly by Li Yu, Zhao Guangyi opened it, only to see that the painting was a cow grazing outside the fence, and the cow painting was vivid, and it was not a mortal product at first glance, so he took it and hung it in the palace.
One night three days later, Zhao Guangyi accidentally saw the painting and found a very strange phenomenon, and Zhao Guangyi was scared out of a cold sweat.
Because he obviously remembered that the cow in the painting was grazing outside the fence, but how did the cow in front of him lie down and rest in the cow pen that ran to the fence, could it be that the cow in the painting would still "run"? This strange phenomenon made Zhao Guangyi feel very scared.
The next morning, Zhao Guangyi hurried to look at the painting again, and found that the cattle had grazed outside the fence again, and in the evening, the cattle returned to the cattle pen again. Zhao Guangyi panicked and quickly summoned the Minister of Culture and Military Affairs, at first the ministers did not believe it, but after everyone had seen it with their own eyes, everyone believed it, and for a time the hundred officials were terrified and the people were panicked.
There was a monk named Zanning, who had always had a good relationship with Song Taizong, who heard about this and took the initiative to enter the palace to uncover the mystery. He said that the reason why the painting appeared "outside the grass fence during the day and returned to the pen at night" was because the painting actually depicted two cows, but the pigments were different, one pigment was ground from the strange stones of Mount Wojiao, which could be seen during the day and invisible at night.
The other is painted with unpipped tears in the shell's abdomen, which can be seen at night and not seen during the day. So, painting two cows with two pigments, it feels like the cow will "run". At this moment, Song Taizong finally understood that it turned out that the person who painted the painting was pretending to make a ghost, and it had nothing to do with Li Yu.
Later, more than 800 years later, the famous French painter John Caton invented a pigment made of mussel shell mixed with calcium sulfide, which can only be seen when the light is very dark, commonly known as "luminous pigment", which caused a sensation.
In fact, they just don't know that luminous pigments are just a kind of pigment in "Paint a Cow". Unfortunately, although many historical materials have recorded "Drawing Cattle", it is not known where this priceless treasure is now.