About the author
Deng Guangming (16 March 1907 – 10 January 1998) was a Chinese poet. historian. Born in 1907 in Linyi County, Shandong Province. He graduated from the Department of History of Peking University in 1936 and has since devoted his life to teaching and researching ancient Chinese history, and has been a professor in the Department of History of Peking University. Later, he served as the director of the Department of History of Peking University, the director of the Center for the Study of Chinese Medieval History, and the deputy director of the National Committee for the Collation and Research of Ancient Books in Colleges and Universities, and was successively elected as the chairman of the presidium of the Chinese Historical Society and the president of the Chinese Song History Research Association. Scholars praised him as "the first person in the history of the Song Dynasty at home and abroad in the twentieth century". (*March 16 is the birthday of Mr. Tang Kwong Ming))
After Wang Anshi returned to Jiangning for the second time in October of the ninth year of The Ninth Year of The Year of Xining, in the middle of the east gate of Jiangning Province and Zhongshan, in a very deserted area called Baitang, he purchased a piece of land, built several houses, planted some trees, and slightly made a home as his mansion. There are no other homes around the mansion, and the houses are only sheltered from the wind and rain, not grand and magnificent, not even the walls have been built, and they look like small hotels located on the side of the road. Because it is seven miles away from the Baixia Gate of Jiangning City in the west and Zhongshan in the east, Wang Anshi named it Mid-Levels Garden. In fact, in terms of geographical location, the name of the mid-level mountain is very accurate, but in terms of its scale, it is very disproportionate to call it a garden. After Wang Anshi built it, he took advantage of the situation and dug a canal to break the water, so that it could be connected with the Jiangning City River. After that, when Wang Anshi wanted to enter Jiangning City, he also occasionally hired a small boat to travel through this canal. This paragraph is based on the "Wang Jingwen Gongshi Li Bi Notes" Volume IV, "Titled Banshan Temple Wall Two Songs" under the title of the annotated text.
Not far north of the Mid-Levels Garden, there is a mound of earth bones, which is said to be the site of Xie An's former residence in the Eastern Jin Dynasty, which has always been called Xie Gongdun. This is the place where Wang Anshi often runs to recreation. There, rubbing the moss-covered stones, imagining the deeds that Xie An had accomplished and the scene of living in this place, he lingered and forgot.
"Wang Anshi, Political Reformer of the Northern Song Dynasty", Deng Guangming, Beijing Publishing House, February 2016.
Wang Anshi often traveled around Jiangning, sometimes riding horses and sometimes riding donkeys. The horse was given to him by Song Shenzong, and the donkey was bought by himself. A lead was also hired. Later, when the horse died, he rode a donkey. He refused to do so when he suggested that it was best for the elderly to travel with their shoulders (palanquins), and replied, "The prince of the ancients, to the point of no means, has not substituted man for animal." Sometimes he also likes to take the "Jiangzhou car", sitting in one compartment by himself, and the other compartment is sat by friends who are traveling with him, if there is no travel companion, that is, by a servant.
Every time he travels, it is all casual and without any pomp. For the wind and the sun, I don't care at all. Wang Cheng recorded a story in the "Memoirs":
At the end of Yuan Feng, Wang Jinggong was in Jiang Shan Yeci, crossing the donkey in and out. It was in the middle of the summer, and Li Mao went straight to the waiting meeting, that is, Yu Daozuo met him. Jing Gong She staggered to each other and sat straight with Mao on the road. Jing Gong to Wuzi, while Mao straight sat on the Hu bed also. The language was very long, the sun turned to the west, Mao Zhi ordered Zhang Umbrella, and the sun was leaking on Jing Gong's body, Mao Zhi said left and right to make the umbrella move on the gong, Gong Yue: "No need." If he makes an ox in the hereafter, he must plough the fields with him every day. ”
Su Rui once said in a sonata that Wang Anshi was a "man of the mountains", probably because Wang Anshi's clothing, dress, manners, and actions were not as civilized, elegant, and luxurious as the ordinary scholars and doctors at that time. And this true color of his has not changed since he was the prime minister for many years.
There is a Buddhist temple in Zhongshan, called Dinglin Temple, because it is close to the Mid-Levels Garden, and whenever he does not travel elsewhere, Wang Anshi will go to Dinglin Temple. There was a house dedicated to him, where Wang Anshi often read, wrote, or received visiting guests. It was here that the famous calligrapher Mi Fu met Wang Anshi, who named the house Zhaowen Zhai and wrote it on the spot. The famous painter Li Gonglin painted a vivid portrait of Wang Anshi wearing a hat and belt, which was also hung in this Zhaowen Zhai.
After Wang Anshi retired to Jiangning, and perhaps after he had already established a residence in Baitang, he wrote two poems, one entitled "Yuanfeng Xing Shi DeFeng", the whole poem is:
The four mountains reflect the red sun, and the back of the field is like a turtle.
Mr. Huyin sat in the grass room and watched the ditch car look at the autumn fruit.
Thunder and lightning are gushing clouds, and the rain in the middle of the night is lost to Tinggao.
Dry grass hair buried in the cowrid, beans dead more Su fat pod hair.
Hang the keel upside down, buy wine to pour the guests to chase the labor.
Three years of grain is as low as water, and now I see Nishi Seiseifu.
Yuanfeng sage and heavenly communication, long live the thousand autumns with this.
Mr. Gu is not poor in the wild, and the land is beaten to the old Song Yuanfeng. Linchuan Anthology, Volume 1.
There is also "Houyuan Fengxing "Stepping Song"", the whole poem is:
Ge Yuanfeng: Ten days and five days a rain and wind.
Wheat travels for thousands of miles without soil, and even the mountains and clouds are planted.
The water is long and thick, and the keel is long and dry and hangs from the beam.
The anchovies came out of the net to cover the island, and obtained bamboo shoots fat and won the milk.
A hundred dollars can get a drink, although it is not a long day to hear the drum.
Wu Er'er sang and danced, but dao was happy and painless.
The old man's water flows southwest, and the willows are in the middle of the boat.
Take advantage of the happiness to sleep under the white, and everyone laughs without worry. Linchuan Anthology, Volume 1.
The collected poems of Wang Anshi that have been handed down to the present generation, including Wang Jingwen's public poems annotated by Li Bi, are all incompletely edited, and there are problems with the collection of wang Anshi's poems: there are many omissions, there are also other people's works mixed in, and the order of the poems is not arranged according to the year of writing. Although it is difficult to determine the date of their writing in the two poems quoted above, they must have been written shortly apart, and in Li Bi's notes, under the title of "Later Yuan Fengxing", Zeng Annotated Yun: "Or it is said that the public wants to listen to the divine examination in this way, and hopes to repeat the phase, and this fallacy is also." I think that Li Bi is quite right to call the or people's theory a fallacy, and both poems can be seen as words describing the joys of peasant life, which may well contain self-consolation for the agricultural undertakings he did successively when he was in power, but never contain the desire to restore his position. In these two poems, we can see Wang Anshi's leisurely mood after retiring in Jiangning, and we can also glimpse one of his poetic careers in Jiangning, so it is quoted here.
In order to ensure that the Northern Song Dynasty regime could achieve "the same moral return and one law keeper" in terms of ideology, and that "morality is at the top and customs are at the bottom", Wang Anshi re-annotated the Zhou Guan, the Shang Shu, and the Book of Poetry, the so-called "Three Classics and New Righteousness" by their father and son and Lü Huiqing of the Law Reform School during his reign. In it, they vigorously deduced and brought into play the parts of the teachings of the Dharma and Buddhism that were combined with the ideas in these books, while deliberately expounding and giving full play to the parts of the teachings of the Dharma and Buddhism that were combined with the ideas in these books. In conjunction with the Three Classics and New Meanings, he himself began to compile a book on the subject of textual exhortations, the "Sayings of Words". When he resigned for the second time, the work of compiling the "Zi Shu" had just begun, so after returning to Jiangning, he mainly engaged in the ZhaoWen Zhai of Dinglin Temple, which was mainly to continue to write the "Zi Shu".
Wang Anshi believes that the significance of compiling the "Character Sayings" is very important, and he said in the "Preface to the Sayings of The Characters of Xi Ning":
The word begins with one or two and is born to infinity, like the word of the mother, so it is called the word. The sound of its sound is open and open, and it is scattered in and out, and its form is balanced and straight, evil and righteous up and down, inside and outside, all have righteousness, all are based on nature, and cannot be done by human private wisdom. With Fu Fu xi bagua and Wen Wang Sixty-four, the same system is used differently and treated together to form "Yi". The first king thought that it could not be ignored, and the world and the future generations lost their laws, so they were three years old together. The same, morality also. ......
Yu read Xu Shen's "Sayings", and when he realized the meaning of the book, he recorded it in twenty volumes, which was attached to the meaning of the sutra pushed by the disciples.
Unfortunately, the literature of the previous kings has been lacking for a long time, and the careful memorization is not possessed, and it is too bad; and it is not in line with the shallowness of the rest. Although, the mediocrity is not the heavenly general XingSwen also, but to Yu praise its beginnings? Therefore, its teaching must begin from here. Those who can know this are already nineteen years old in moral sense. The Collected Works of Linchuan, vol. 84.
These words fully show that although Wang Anshi was "in the mountains and forests" at this time, he still "had Wei Que in his heart." As far as the content of the "Zi Shu" and its ideological nature are concerned, at that time it was already referred to as "Qin Xue", because it was not only "the ability of the American merchant martingale to practice benevolent government", but also explained what Li Si had done. The History of Song, vol. 346, "The Biography of Chen Cisheng". This is obviously a book that runs through the contents of the Dharma's thought. Therefore, although Wang Anshi at this time was no longer directly in charge of the government, he still wanted to use the "Character Sayings" and the "Three Classics and New Righteousness" to achieve the purpose of influencing the thinking of the Time by using the ideas of the Jurists, and the purpose of serving the Northern Song Dynasty regime by using the jurists' techniques.
However, after all, he was a person who had dismissed the official, and Wang Anshi, who retired in Jiangning, tried to treat the grievances he had formed in the past because of his political career. For example, although he sometimes felt a little angry about Lü Huiqing's various acts that betrayed him, he often had to write the three words "Fujianzi" to show it, but in the early years of Yuanfeng, when Lü Huiqing "removed the funeral of his mother, crossed jinling, and asked for peace with An Shi", Wang Anshi wrote a calm and very rational reply to him, saying:
The same heart with the public, even the different intentions, are all related to the affairs of the state, and there is nothing wrong with it. The same dynasty has helped me alone, so why should I regret it? If man is fair or righteous, and I have nothing to do with it, then what is more public than me? "Interesting things are convenient", I don't know what he said; "examining the truth and discussing the situation", it is advisable to show that this is so. The exhortation was re-informed, and the view was stunned. Those who used to be in our country are sincerely suspicious; then those who are in the public today still have the old evil thoughts. Ran Gong was magnificent, and Fang Jin was a saint, while An Shi was suddenly decaying and dying, and he was especially in the mountains and forests. Fun to give up a different way, then they are wet, it is better to forget each other. Want to be fun in the morning and night, but good food is time for self-love. Linchuan Anthology, vol. 73.
Although there is also a sentence in this reply that reads, "It is better to forget each other", which slightly indicates rejection, but the full faith is pure and practical, and it is not like the sharp and eloquent words used to treat conservatives when in power.
For Su Shi, who had always stood on the side of the opposition and was relegated to Huangzhou because of this, when he moved north to Ruzhou and passed through Jiangning, Wang Anshi actually received him as a close friend. Zhu Ben's "Qu Huan Old News" records its events:
Dongpo from Huang migration Ru, through Jinling, Jing Gong ye suit riding a donkey in the boat, Dongpo did not crown and greeted the day: "Shi dares to see the great minister with wild clothes today!" ”
Jing Gong smiled and said, "Li Yi is set up for my generation!" ”
Dongpo said: "Shi also knows itself, and xianggong can't use it under the door." ”
Jing Gong was speechless, but he beckoned Jiang Shan.
Cai Yun's "Poetry of the Western Qing Dynasty" also records this incident:
Between Yuanfeng, Wang Wengong in Jinling, the eastern slope from Huangbei to move, the day and the public tour, all on the ancient script, that is, the taste of Zen. Gong sighed and said, "I don't know if there are such people for hundreds of years." ”
Su Dongpo arrived in Jinling in July of the seventh year of Yuanfeng, and probably stayed for many days before leaving, because he had plans to buy a farmhouse in Jinling, but after failing to do so, he went to Yizhen again. When he arrived at Yizhen, he wrote to Wang Anshi and said:
Those who are close to him have been invited many times, and they have been taught with great kindness. ...... Shi Shi wanted to set up a field in Jinling, shu had to accompany the staff, old under the Bell Mountain, not only has it been unsuccessful, now Yi Zhen has been more than twenty days, the day to seek the field is a matter, but whether it is still unknown. If you are lucky, the flat boat comes and goes, and it is not difficult to see the public. Su Shi's Collected Writings, vol. 50.
From this letter, it can be seen that when Dongpo stayed in Jinling, Wang Anshi entertained him with great hospitality; it can also be seen how sincerely Dongpo admired the poet and scholar Wang Anshi of the previous generation.
At this time, Wang Anshi not only talked about some topics related to "chanting poems and speaking about Buddha" for Su Shi, but also for some other people who visited the Mid-Levels Garden or Dinglin Temple, most of them talked about some of the same topics, basically not talking about current affairs.
But this only reflects the deep contradiction in Wang Anshi's life and thought, and this life of talking about poetry and Zen buddhism is only one aspect of this contradiction; more precisely, it is only a way of socializing with people whose political views are completely different. A figure like Wang Anshi, who has the courage to shoulder the heavy responsibility of changing the law, cannot be indifferent to realpolitik, the fate of the country, and the future of mankind. Only to people who are truly like-minded, ideologically and politically, are he happy to talk about such issues. In a poem he wrote to his son-in-law Cai Bian ("Shi Yuandu")," he said: "This year, Zhong Shannan will be divided into gardens. ...... Old-fashioned world-weary, deep in the sinus. ...... The son of the invitation alone, the business strategy to the end of the universe. "Linchuan Anthology, Volume I. That is ample illustration of this. Therefore, he not only regarded the compilation of "Zi Shuo" as a political task to be consciously fulfilled, but also confided his true feelings in one of his poems "Cane Quinoa":
Yao and Ji are not dreaming from time to time, and they know that Yu Xi has not completely forgotten. Linchuan Anthology, vol. 27.
In the fifth year of Yuanfeng (1082), Wang Anshi wrote a seven-sentence poem entitled "Six Years", summarizing his feelings in the six years since his retirement from Jiangning:
Six years of lake and sea old invasion, thousands of miles back an inch of heart.
Looking west at the gate of the country, scratching his hair short, the Nine Heavenly Palace was five clouds deep. Linchuan Anthology, vol. 30.
This also shows that he is always deeply concerned about the political situation in the imperial court.
In the spring of the seventh year of Yuan Feng (1084), Wang Anshi fell seriously ill and once became in a coma for two days. Emperor Shenzong of Song also sent an imperial doctor to come to him for consultation, and after many treatments, he was cured. After recovering from his illness, he felt that the Mid-Levels Garden that he had been operating for several years and the hundreds of acres of land in the vicinity were all a burden, so he reported to Emperor Shenzong of Song that the Garden had been converted into a monk's temple, and that Song Shenzong had named it "Baoning Zen Temple", and all the barren fields purchased in Shangyuan County were ceded to the Taiping Xingguo Temple in Zhongshan. This incident can only be a manifestation of his depression and temporary decline in his fighting spirit after his illness. In the autumn of that year, Wang Anshi's family rented a small single-family house on the banks of the Qinhuai River in Jiangning City, and no longer built their own house. However, Jinling is extremely hot in summer, sometimes in autumn, the small courtyard is narrow, there is no place to cool, it is to fold the pine branches and fences to withstand the summer, because of the "Autumn Heat" poem "Wang Jingwen GongShi Notes" Volume V. To remember it. The first half of the poem is as follows:
The fire is indestructible, and the narrow house has no escape.
Weaving reeds weave bamboo to follow the fence, and set up pine oak strips.
He had to sit down, because there was room for Su to accompany the stage.
Qiu Yang Lingqiu is even more violent, and I want to be Kunming ash.
The golden streams and jade are strange, and the birds burn the fish and rot as a pity.
Li Bi placed a note on the poem's title: "At the end of Yuan Feng, the former prime minister of the Gong Dynasty enshrined the temple, and the ugliness of the residence was even this, and now the worshipper of the first house, regard this as worthy!" "However, if this is not the case, it will not be Wang Anshi."
In March of the eighth year of Yuan Feng (1085), Emperor Shenzong of Song died. Wang Anshi wrote poems of mourning, but he was also very worried about changes in the political situation. He had to spend more time flipping through books, and often wrote poems commenting on historical figures and events to dispel his worries. Li Bi wrote in the "New Flower" poem annotation of the "Notes on the Poetry of Wang Jingwen":
Tian Zhicheng Junyun: "As a Jinling liquor official, when there are veterans of the Jing Gong Office who come to sell wine, they must ask the public to stop moving, Bing Yun: 'Xiang Gong only reads in the academy every day, and always sighs with his hand on the bed, and people can't guess what it means'. ”
After he heard the news of Sima Guang's worship, his worries turned even more into fear. When someone told him, "There is a conductor in the near future, and he is not allowed to read "Character Sayings"," he was even more stimulated. From then on, he fell into great resentment and pain, and the books could not play a role in dispatching. Not only did he always touch the bed with his hands and sigh loudly, but sometimes he went around the bed all night, unable to sleep. When his relatives and friends saw this, they tried their best not to let him hear some of Sima Guang's measures to abolish the new law, but they could not hide it for a long time. When he heard of the abolition of the laws of The City of Yi, Fangtian Junta, and Baojia, he could still force his composure, and when he knew that the law of exemption from military service would also be abolished, and that he would have to resume the law of errand service as before the law, Wang Anshi could no longer hold on to it, and said in shock, "Is it so far?" After a pause, he said, "This law cannot be stopped!" An Shi and the previous emperor discussed the second year of the line, and all of them were exhausted. "Zhu Xi's Records of the Words and Deeds of Famous Ministers of the Three Dynasties" Volume 6 bis "Records of the Words and Deeds of King Wen gong of The King of Xiangjing".
The abolition of the Law of Exemption from Military Service and the reinstatement of the Law of Sent Service were in the spring of the first year of the Yuan Dynasty (1086), when Wang Anshi was already ill. After that, all kinds of news from Kaifeng made him more worried and unable to discharge, and his illness became worse and worse. By the first six days of April of that year, the sixty-six-year-old man had ended his life of fighting and died.