On the twelfth day of the eighth month of the lunar calendar in 1841, three days before the Mid-Autumn Festival, the poet Gong Zizhen died violently at the Yunyang Academy in Jiangsu Province at the age of 49.
The news of Gong Zizhen's death reached Beijing, and the government officials in the capital who had been reprimanded and scolded by him were secretly relieved: this thorny head had closed the bird's beak.
Those who like his poetry cannot help but feel the sorrow of the impermanence of heaven. Some even attached a beautiful love story, believing that the poet they liked did not die of a violent illness, but had an emotional entanglement with a certain lady that had to be said, so that he was poisoned.
There is not much basis for this claim. The death of a poet is no more noble than the death of a farmer, and although he wrote some ordinary lines of poetry during his lifetime, death is equal for everyone.
However, Gong Zizhen's death meant that the society that he had originally denounced as a thousand horses and horses could not be heard at this time.
The behavior of Gong Zizhen's life, I think the most can be summarized is the four words of angry youth. The history books say that Gong Zizhen was intelligent since childhood, and at the age of 12 he learned to recite the "Explanation of Words and Characters", at the age of 14 he studied the ancient and modern official system, at the age of 16 he read the "General Catalogue of the Four Libraries", and at the age of 27, he was in the middle.
This kind of prodigy character often does not have a good ending, just like the ancients said: the hour is over, and the big is not necessarily good.
The primary reason why Gong Zizhen became an angry youth was that he had been famous for many years. Experience tells us that a talented person, a person with a sharp weapon, once he encounters too many setbacks, he will inevitably become grumbling, and his view of the world will be shocking.
Gong Zizhen was 38 years old when he entered the army. Ironically, he was able to get the title, not because of how well the article was written—at least to the examiners—but because of his national fame as an angry youth.
That year, the official who read Gong Zizhen's examination paper was named Wang Zhi, and the examination at that time, like now, was to hide the candidate's name. Maybe Gong Zizhen's point of view is too extreme, and Wang Zhi laughs like watching a sketch. According to the king's meaning, of course, it will not be admitted.
No, Uncle Wen Ping, another official who read the examination papers, took the examination papers and looked at them, asserting that this examination paper belonged to Zhejiang Province, and the candidate must be Gong Zizhen. This person loves to scold people the most, and he is also the most capable of cursing. If we don't recommend it, I'm afraid he'll scold it even harder.
In this way, the angry young man Gong Zizhen won the jinshi for this inexplicable reason. His experience in the old man's home tells us that if a student's grades are not satisfactory, the best way is to learn to scold people until the teacher is afraid.
Logically, Gong Zizhen should be grateful to his mentor Wang Zhi for accepting him. But someone asked Who Gong Zizhen's house teacher was, and Gong Zizhen said: It is very strange! It turned out to be the nameless young man Wang Zhi.
Wang Zhi was very unhappy, and complained to Uncle Wen Ping: According to what you said, he was admitted, but his husband still did not buy it.
Speaking of which, Gong Zizhen and I can also have a little relationship: my hometown of Fushun, Sichuan, is the hometown of the famous scholar Duan Yujie, and the old site where the old man studied is still well preserved. Duan Yujie is Gong Zizhen's maternal grandfather.
Duan Yujie once warned Gong Zizhen: Strive to be a famous courtier, a famous Confucian, and not a famous scholar. But Gong Zizhen did not become a famous courtier, nor a famous Confucian, but an authentic celebrity. This is not that Gong Zizhen likes the style of mingshi's crazy poetry and wine, but the times refuse to give him the opportunity to be a famous courtier and a famous Confucian.
In his lifetime, Gong Zizhen only held some idle posts without power and power, and his political future was extremely bleak. Although he once shouted angrily: I advise The Heavenly Father to shake it up and demote talents in an eclectic manner.
However, since ancient times, Providence has been difficult to ask, how can a dusty official entrust his full passion to His Majesty the Emperor in the Forbidden City and the Gonggong Gonggong in the Imperial Court?
At the age of 47, Gong Zizhen resigned from the government and went south, and at this time he was even more desperate and frivolous. Poetry and wine, beauty and sword, these things accompanied his lonely old age. He often drank heavily, speaking amazingly, and sometimes ascending to the extreme, sobbing, and the viewer was not moved.
It was precisely after witnessing the fate of ruling the world that the madman began to appeal to the extreme: Then let the world be in chaos. In the face of this sick era in which there are neither talents nor talents, not even thieves and thieves, Gong Zizhen is more bitter and confused than the drunks in those drums and songs because of his sobriety and prescience.
The son of the angry youth Gong Zizhen, he was later among the angry youths. If you want to select the top ten angry youths in the late Qing Dynasty, two of them in the Old Gong family will be on the list.
Gong Zizhen's son is called Gong Xiaogong, just like Gong Zizhen, Gong Xiaogong is also extremely talented. Even more powerful than his father, Gong Xiaogong was proficient in Manchu, Mongolian, Tibetan and English, and studied both Chinese and Western.
Gong Xiaogong called himself Ban Lun, which means that he has no king, no father, no Kun Zhong, no friends, and only loves a concubine, so he is called Ban Lun. Gong Xiaogong's half-lun is not just casual talk or complaining, but doing what he says.
When he read his father's writings, he must put his father's god card in front of him, holding the book in one hand and a wooden stick in the other, and whenever he reads what he thinks is wrong, he hits his father's god card with a stick: Look, you are wrong again!
Gong Xiaogong can be regarded as the earliest foreign gold collar, and his fluent English has greatly amazed the British ambassador. During his service as Ambassador of the United Kingdom, including the Ambassador, he was respectfully addressed by everyone.
After the Sino-British post-war peace talks, Gong Xiaogong attended the meeting as an attaché of the British ambassador. At the meeting, he made every effort to make things difficult for Prince Gong, who represented the Qing government. Prince Gong was very uncomfortable, and rebuked him: You Gong family have been favored by the country, why should you bloat for the tiger?
Gong Xiaogong replied: My father is talented but cannot enter Hanlin; I myself am even more poor and have to go to foreigners to beg for a living. At the moment, Prince Gong was stunned.
After the British and French forces invaded Beijing, they burned the Yuanmingyuan, which is a well-known historical fact. However, when asked who introduced the Anglo-French coalition forces into the Yuanmingyuan, many people do not know.
Who is it? It is the son of the angry youth Gong Zizhen, and another angry youth Gong Xiaogong.
Just as Engels called Dante the last poet of the Middle Ages and the first poet of the new century, Gong Zizhenshu was the same: he lived on the eve of the collapse of the feudal edifice, and this sensitive and unbridled angry poet felt more than his contemporaries that the turmoil of reality had begun.
Gong Zizhen's bitter crying and turmoil implied his despair for that incurable era, but deep down he still loved the decaying dynasty and the divine state under the dynasty. The so-called deeper the love, the more painful it is.
When he arrived at his son Gong Xiaogong, although he was also an angry youth, the anger of father and son was fundamentally different.
What I worry about is that if Gong Zizhen Jiuquan knew, what kind of expression would he face his son who was only half-lun and the miserable world of bean cuts after his death?