If you want to say that in history, the people who are jealous of talents and die young, Li He can definitely be regarded as one. He was young and intelligent, he was able to write poetry at the age of seven, until he was 27 years old, and he left us many poems in his meteoric life, and there are more than 200 extant poems, almost all of which are classics. But the talented man had a bumpy career and a difficult life, so that he died depressed in a good year, leaving too many regrets for the world.
one
Li He was born in Changgu Township, Fuchang County, Henan Province, and if he pushes forward a few generations, his origin is not low, because his ancestor was Li Tangzong, so he often called himself Li Changji, the grandson of the Tang Dynasty.
It is said that it is so, but the truth is that by his generation, the family road has been very depressed. His father, Li Jinsu, was the former county commander of Shaanxi County, and it was very difficult to support a large family, so Li He's family was very poor.
He later had a poem: If you want to separate thousands of miles, it is hereby easy to fight millet. It means to go thousands of miles to earn a living, in exchange for the grain of Shengdou to support the family, which Li He wrote when he sent his little brother to Jiangxi to make a living in Luoyang.
Li Hecai is quick-witted, seven-year-old can poetry, especially good at "disease books", that is, writing things is relatively fast, and it is also easy to learn from an early age. Historical records record that Li He usually likes to ride a donkey to take the small house out to collect wind, and when he has inspiration on the road, he will write down good poems on paper, put them in the bag he carries, and immediately organize them into poems when he returns home, so he often sleeps and forgets to eat. The mother looked in her eyes and said very painfully: "Is this child going to vomit out his heart and liver before he stops?" ”
It is precisely because of such hard work that Li He's poems have slowly gained some fame. At that time, Han Yue, a member of the literary circles, liked to promote the younger generations, and many young students would be like Han Yu to write poetry, and when Han Yue read Li He's "Yanmen Tai Shou Xing", he couldn't help but clap his hands, saying that if this poem was written by contemporary people, I must go to see it, so I would go to Li He.
So Han Yu met with Li He for the first time, and it happened under such circumstances that Li He wrote "Gao Xuan Guo" in person to record this incident, and Han Yu was more sure of Li He's talent, and told him to study hard and wait for Ding Yu to go to the imperial examination at the end of his period.
two
In 810, Li He took the Henan provincial examination with great ambition, and in one fell swoop he was qualified to go to Chang'an to enter the army. However, when Li He went all out to prepare for the imperial examination, he received the news of disqualification from the examination, on the grounds that Li He's father was named Li Jinsu, and the word "Jin" was homophonous with the "jin" of "jinshi", which was a violation of the father's secret, and as a son of man, he should avoid it.
People are not red, this is the envy of the villain. Li He didn't know what to do about this, so he could only go to Han Yu, who was also a teacher and a friend.
Han Yu was also anxious when he heard it, Li He was a very optimistic descendant of himself, and he must not be buried like this, so he quickly wrote to defend Li He, and even said that he threw out the statement that "his father's name is Li Jinsu, he can't take the entrance examination, then if his father is called Li Ren, can't his son be a man"?
Even Han Yu's arguments could not change the result of Li He's failure to take the imperial examination. Reality was so cruel to him, he could only leave the capital city that he had once eagerly longed for with a sad and desperate mood, return to his hometown in Changgu, and when he left the city, he wrote a poem "Out of the City" to record his complicated feelings.
Osmanthus flowers look sparse under the pressure of heavy snow, crows are hit by projectiles and fly back with injuries, and it is gratifying to go home to relive the joy and warmth, but it is really sad that it is impossible to get the official seal and return home. The beloved person will endure the pain and ask what is wrong, and after hearing about such an encounter, he can only cry silently.
Maybe this matter of Keju hit him too hard, so that there was always a shadow of depression in his heart, the situation was born from the heart, the mood was not beautiful, and doing anything would be affected, which may be the more important reason why he was weak and sick.
In 811, probably on han Yu's recommendation, the imperial court let Li He enter the army in the form of yin supplement and made a fenglilang from Jiupin. This position was mainly responsible for various events held by the imperial court, such as sacrifices and worship.
Although he embarked on a career path, Li He soon lost interest in this job, which is typical of living more money and less welfare, getting up early and staying up late and being scolded, Li He often complained to friends.
Saying that when I was 20 years old, I felt that my life was gray, and I felt like my heart was dead, and I drank every day to spend this damn time.
When a person's soul is wandering, the body has absolutely nowhere to rest, so this errand, barely worked for three years, said that he resigned from illness.
three
After returning home, his health improved slightly, and the days continued, so he wanted to find an errand in the south. So he set off from Anhui all the way south, to Jinling, Huzhou, Hangzhou, and then continued south to Guangdong. After that, through Hunan and Hubei, the cloud traveled a large circle, "Kyushu personnel are like this", although I have seen a lot of different scenery, but still found nothing, can only slip back to Changgu, in the villagers "reading useless" words all day long frowning, sighing.
In fact, Li He's heart still wants to make meritorious achievements, he is ambitious, since the Wenlu road is not good, then take the martial road.
"Why don't the boys take Wu hooks and charge Guan Shan Fifty States." Please go to lingyan pavilion for the time being, if a scholar is a scholar and a thousand households." In the ninth year of Yuan He (814 AD), Li He threw himself into the army of Xi Shimei at the recommendation of his friend Zhang Che of Luzhou, and he served as an aide in the army of Xi Shimei in the Zhaoyi Army, responsible for secretarial work. However, the northern feudal towns were stubborn, and the rebellion was more and more, Xi Shimei rebelled against him, and went to Luoyang to recuperate after illness, and his friend Zhang Che also withdrew back to Chang'an, and Li He, who had been an aide for three years, had no way to go, so he had to support his sick body and returned to his former residence in Changgu.
Mourning is greater than heart death, this time back, Li He no longer pursues fame, plus his health is not good, he began to sort out his poems with illness.
Perhaps it is related to Li He who used to be a fenglilang and often had to deal with sacrifices, or perhaps it is related to his own bumpy and frail and sickly body, which has a fantastic and magnificent world in his pen, and words such as soul, ghost crying, and blood tears are abundantly filled in his poems.
There are souls looking for dreams in the wind, there are evil ghosts that light pine flower lanterns that flicker on and off, there are paper money on the graves that hiss in the robbery of ghosts, there are ghosts floating in the air above the cemetery, there are ghosts singing everywhere...
At first glance, it only feels ghostly, creepy, seemingly weird, but actually very ironic. It is because of this ethereal and strange, extremely romantic and imaginative poetic style that it is unique and self-contained in the poetry world, so Li He is called "poetry ghost" by later generations.
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It was the late autumn of 816 AD, when Li He was 27 years old, and his body was already very weak at this time, and he lay on the bed, next to his sister who took care of him.
The long-hazy weather was sunny today, and the autumn sun sprinkled through the old window ledge in the room and shone on Li He's face. The room was filled with a bad smell of medicine, and Sister Li He got up to push open the window to get air.
At this time, Li He's eyelids on the bed squirmed, and he opened his eyes with difficulty, as if he had exhausted all his strength. He saw the light of the room and wanted to reach out and grab it, but now he couldn't lift it.
"Flying light and flying light, only to see the cold and warm moon, to fry life."
When the sister heard Li He's movements, she was overjoyed and hurriedly trotted over.
"Changji, how do you feel?"
Li He did not answer, his eyes were cloudy as he looked at his sister for a while before speaking.
"Sister, I just saw a god riding a red dragon, holding a wat board with a taikoo seal and dressed in crimson clothes, and he came to his house and told me to leave. I said that my mother was old and sick, and I still had to take care of my mother, but I really couldn't leave, or I would forget it. But he told me that the Emperor of Heaven had built a white jade building and wanted to invite me to write a praise. He also said that life in heaven is not bitter at all, so come with me. ”
When my sister heard the words, the tears couldn't stop flowing down, she had been in the room all the time, except for the ray of sunshine, who had ever come, which was clearly a sign that her brother was returning to the light.
"Sister, the world is too bitter, I want to leave, my mother will please you, I am so unwilling..."
A tear quietly bloomed from the corner of his eye, and when it dripped on the pillow towel, Li He was already out of breath.
This story is recorded in Li Shangyin's "Li He's Small Biography", saying that Li He's sister told it, and people were sighing after reading it.
epilogue
Li Hehe, like Wang Bo, was only twenty-seven years old when he died, and it was a pity that the young talents were too bad. But with his short life, he left a different magnificence in the starry Tang Dynasty poetry circle.
"Taibai Xiancai, Changji Ghost Cai". Li Heneng, along with the poetry immortal Li Bai, the poet Saint Du Fu, and the poetry Buddha Wang Wei, was called by posterity - the poetry ghost, he probably did not belong to the human world originally.
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