In ancient times, it was normal to be demoted as an official in the dynasty. And the demeaning of poets abounds. As a poet, if a friend is degraded, it is common for people to write poems to comfort. The pain is that oneself is degraded, and so are friends; in this case, what kind of spark will burst out of the poet's inspiration?
Fan Zhongyan lived in the era of internal and external troubles in the Northern Song Dynasty, and the internal class contradictions became increasingly prominent, and the external Khitan and Western Xia tigers were eyeing the tiger. In order to consolidate power, the political bloc led by Fan Zhongyan began to carry out reforms. But there was strong opposition. Reforms ended in failure. Fan Zhongyan also offended the chancellor Lü Yijian and demoted Dengzhou in Henan. In the spring of the fourth year of the celebratory calendar, Teng Zijing guarded Baling County. In the sixth year of the Qing calendar (1046 AD), Fan Zhongyan, at the request of Teng Zijing, wrote down the ancient Xiongwen: "Yueyang LouJi".
It can be seen that the life of the derogatory person will not only not hit the poet, but also make the poet burst out of greater sentiments and write greater works. Speaking of demeaning at the same time, Liu Zongyuan and Liu Yuxi are a pair of difficult brothers and brothers, and they are all degraded again and again. Tang Xianzongyuan and Liu Zongyuan broke up with Liu Yuxi in Hengyang in 815 and went to their respective places of debasement. On the occasion of the separation, Liu Zongyuan wrote this poem "Farewell to dreams":
All things have been in the 20 years, this morning at a crossroads.
If the Emperor is allowed to return to the field, he will be a neighbor in his later years.
Twenty years: Liu Zongyuan and Liu Yuxi were both in the middle of the jinshi at the same time, and by the time they wrote this poem, they had spent twenty-two spring and autumn seasons. For more than twenty years, we have been working together, working together, writing poetry together, reforming together, and being degraded together.
I didn't expect that today we were going to be separated, and when we were degraded at the same time, the ancient road was windy and smokey, and the future was vast, wouldn't it be painful!
The poet seems to have foreseen that it would be difficult to have a chance to reunite this time, so he endured grief, hid this vague sense of foreboding, and met his friends in a comforting tone: If one day the emperor is gracious and allows them to return to the field to live in seclusion, then they must be neighbors, white-haired, and spend their old age.
Then, in the southern climate and hard work, Liu Zongyuan fell ill, and alas, he could not hope to return to the field and neighbors. Write down a will to deliver all the manuscripts to Liu Yuxi. When Liu Yuxi received the bad news of Liu Zongyuan, he was devastated, and immediately sent someone to take care of the aftermath, and devoted all his energy to sorting out Liu Zongyuan's posthumous works, raising funds and printing, so that these works could come out to comfort his friends in the spirit of heaven.
Coincidentally, the poet Liu Changqing also encountered a situation in which both were degraded. He wrote in "Re-sending Pei Langzhong to Jizhou":
The apes cry at the head of the twilight river, and the people are sad and the water flows by themselves.
The same work is farther away from the subjects, and the green mountains are a lonely boat.
Liu and Pei were recalled to Chang'an together and were also degraded and pitied with the same disease. A sentence "The same work is farther away from the subject, and the green mountains are a lonely boat", in the "far" word prefixed with a "more" word, one's own expulsion has been unfortunate, and Pei Langzhong has been degraded farther away, focusing on the other party's misfortune, so that the pity for the same disease, relying on the meaning of others, is more abundant and profound. "A lonely boat in Qingshan Wanli" corresponds to the "water flowing" in the second sentence, and "Qingshan Wanli" closely follows the previous sentence "farther", which not only writes the loneliness of Pei Langzhong's journey, but also accompanies him to the far away only Wanli Qingshan, and also expresses the poet's deep affection.
Being degraded is already "self-harming", while friends are degraded "farther" and more lonely. This poem expresses the author's deep affection for his friends and comes from the bottom of his heart.