Recently, I have read some sketch notes and reminisced about old essays of my predecessors, and I have seen several strange women with Lan Xin Hui. They may be beautiful or virtuous, or both beautiful and virtuous, or talented or gentle and considerate, or both talented and gentle and considerate, or ordinary or strange, or there are strange things in the ordinary... Although their fates are different, they are one thing the same: in their lifetime, they have made their lives and their most beautiful youth bloom to the fullest, especially in front of the men they love deeply, they will be feminine, quiet, warm, considerate and other feminine virtues and charms, leaving a feminine image in foreign history.
(1) Wang Zixiang
Wang Zixiang is married to a family full of elegance in Qiantang, Zhejiang. Unfortunately, she had a short life, married at the age of nineteen, and died of illness at the age of twenty-two.
Her husband, Chen Peizhi, was not only a famous poet of the Qing Dynasty, but also a capable official, and during his tenure, he dredged rivers and canals and hunted down thieves. After Zixiang's death, Chen Peizhi wrote down the famous work of mourning the death, "XiangqiLou Reminiscences", which recorded his and Zixiang's lives from acquaintance and love to separation. One of Zi Xiang's sisters-in-law and one of her sisters made a preface to the book.
Zixiang's father-in-law, Chen Wenshu, was an enlightened educator in the Qing Dynasty, who actively advocated female learning and accepted more than 30 female disciples in his lifetime. After Zixiang's death, Chen Wenshu personally wrote the Zixiang Recitation to commemorate her. The father-in-law wrote a mourning text for his daughter-in-law, which was not only out of line with the etiquette in the Qianjia era, but even treated as a joke, but Mr. Chen Wenshu resolutely ordered his pen to write a curse in spite of the world's ridicule, praising Zixiang for his "virtue and purity", and frankly expressing his sadness and sorrow, which was rare in ancient times.
What's even more strange is that Zixiang's mother-in-law, Ms. Gong Yuchen, also wrote a biography for her - "Zi Ji's Small Biography", and the mother-in-law wrote a biography for her daughter-in-law, which is unheard of. In the biography, Ms. Gong Yuchen said that Zixiang was "duanxiu jingmu, the divine light is clutched, and if the qionghua is illuminated in the spring..." "Ji Zhi has not yet arrived, knows its beauty, does not know its shushen also; even to, knows its shushen, does not know its thriftiness; for a long time, knows its diligence and thriftiness, does not know its virtuous filial piety." But it has been read for several years, and the truth of his filial piety has become clearer and clearer from obscurity, and he feels that nothing is intrusive." She is also known as disgusted with cunning, simple in nature, elegant in demeanor, and has a forest style. One winter, when I saw her learning to sew cotton clothes, I was not sleepy until late at night, and I was very distressed. It can be seen from this that she does not understand this daughter-in-law, and the deeper she understands, the more she loves it. Later, Zi Xiang fell ill and wanted to go back to her mother's house to visit her relatives to alleviate the suffering, her mother-in-law listened, very worried about the wind and rain along the way to aggravate her condition, very relieved, so she let Chen Peizhi ask God for help. After Chen Peizhi asked for a peace sign, she put her mind at ease and allowed Zi Xiang to go on the road. It is indeed rare for a mother-in-law to care so much for her son's concubine.
The Chen family is a poetry and book family, with a large population, there are four concubines of the father-in-law Chen Wenshu alone, and Zixiang can get praise from top to bottom in such a large family with complicated relations, indicating that she is a person who is very good at running the family and doing things and is very thoughtful. After reading the "Zi Ji Xiao Biography" written by his wife, Mr. Chen Wenshu wrote a letter to his son, asking him to "repay The Pen and Ink" to Zi Xiang. Later, Chen Peizhi obeyed his father's orders and wrote an article to commemorate Zixiang, which led to the poignant "Reminiscences of Xiangqi Lou".
After Zixiang's death, Chen Peizhi's wife Wang Duan and his two sisters, as well as Chen Peizhi's father's concubine Guan Yun, wrote several poems in her memory. Among them, Wang Duan wrote eight poems and wrote a preface, Guan Yun gave four poems, Chen Peizhi's eldest sister gave two poems, and the second sister gave three poems, praising Zixiang's beauty, talent and virtue, and doing his best to remember it.
Wang Zixiang's death made the whole family so moved, what kind of woman was she?
Wang Zixiang was a native of Moling (present-day Nanjing), grew up on the banks of the Qinhuai River, and had a good family education. She had ten sisters, and all but one of them died prematurely, and the other eight were all married into the eunuch family. Zixiang was the youngest of the ten sisters, and one of her sisters said she was "the youngest, the most beautiful, the most talented, the most virtuous, and rarely the most filial."
At the age of nineteen, Zi Xiang was a particularly assertive woman. Before she married Chen Peizhi, she already knew that the Chen family was a family of poetry books, read Chen Peizhi's poems and greatly appreciated them, and also knew that he had a virtuous wife, but when she met Chen Peizhi on the banks of the Qinhuai River, she did not reveal her admiration for Chen Peizhi, but in person, she asked him to give poetry on the spot to recognize his poetic talents, and only then did she return a poem that said, "Several lives have cultivated to the point of being like jade, and listening to the sound of the flute twenty-four bridges", euphemistically expressing her admiration for Chen Peizhi. In the context of Qin Huai's Zhuyan vying to marry Chen Peizhi as a concubine, Zi Xiang's calm and prudent manner was even more precious.
Although Wang Zixiang was a concubine, she had a close relationship with her husband's wife, Wang Duan. Wang Duan was a proud female student of Chen Peizhi's father, and a famous female poet of the Qing Dynasty, who wrote ten volumes of "Naturally Eager to Learn Poetry Notes" and eighty volumes of the historical novel "The History of Yuan Ming Yi" (which was later burned after somehow being written). She is incomparably talented, brilliant, and can recite poems at the age of seven, and Can recite Gengxin's "Wai Nan Fu" and Mu Hua's "Hai Fu" only twice. "Haifu" is relatively short, while "WaiJiang Nanfu" is more than 4,000 words long, and even if adults read it dozens of times, it is not easy to memorize it, let alone a seven-year-old child. After marrying Chen Pei, she completed the compilation of the "Selected Poems of the Thirty Houses of The Ming Dynasty" during the prayer for her in-laws. However, due to the fact that she often stayed up late when compiling Ming poems, she was too hard, and she suffered from insomnia and became extremely weak. In order to continue her heirs, and in order to give herself more time to devote herself to the study of literature and history, she strongly persuaded her mother-in-law to give Chen Peizhi a concubine, and entrusted her sister-in-law and aunt to find a beautiful lady for her husband. Later, when she heard that her husband had become acquainted with Zixiang, the queen of Molingcai, he once again spoke to her in-laws, saying that she had seen this woman and calling Zixiang "unusual gold powder comparable." In this way, the in-laws Chen Wenshu and Gong Yuchen listened to his advice, sent the media concubine to lead the way, and gave Zixiang to his son to marry into the door.
In ancient times, most of the wives and concubines were jealous of each other, jealous of the wind, and rarely could get along peacefully, but Zixiang and Wang Duan were different, they lived under the same roof, but they got along like close friends. Wang Duan was sick, the doctor said that it was infectious, but Zi Xiang was not afraid, every morning when he got up, he did not freshen up, did not eat, first for Wang Duan to hold soup and medicine, for several months without wearing clothes. Zi Xiang later suffered from hemoptysis (probably today's so-called tuberculosis), missing her mother's relatives, Wang Duan personally planned for her return to the province, and wrote poems to comfort her. Later, Zi Xiang was stained with deep boils, and a fortune teller said that Chen Peizhi had "broken mirror relatives", but the method of "little star replacing the moon" could be solved. Wang Duan was worried that ZiXiang would really die of illness, so he persuaded her husband to take another concubine for him according to the fortune teller's words to save Zixiang's life. Although Chen Peizhi felt that this practice of "peach zombie Li Dai" was too unfair to latecomers to accept, Wang Duan's advice also reflected her true feelings for Zixiang. As Chen Peizhi's wife and concubine, the two respected each other on weekdays, played moon poetry, and got along harmoniously, as Chen Peizhi lamented in a poem: "Exhausted, purple complaining." In the eyes of an old-fashioned man, it is the most ideal situation for wives and concubines to get along like this.
In daily life, Zi xiang and Chen Peizhi talk about poetry and current affairs, and know each other; they answer each other's poems with Wang Duan, and they are close to each other' sisters. Sometimes, she wrote poems herself, not only for Wang Duan, but also for her mother-in-law, which is a rare scene in the relationship between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law in ancient and modern times.
Zi Xiang is a simple woman, who abandons lead Hua and devotes herself to housework and filial piety to her in-laws. Mother-in-law Gong Yuchen fell seriously ill, and Zixiang burned incense and prayed, "Willing to take the place of the body." The mother-in-law is most afraid of thunder, so whenever there is a thunderstorm, she and her husband will stay by her mother-in-law's side. Chen Peizhi was busy with official duties, and Zixiang picked up warm tea on the cold winter night to wait for her husband, and she had to get up early in the morning and wait for her in-laws to live. When he was dying, when he heard thunder in the distance, he remembered his mother-in-law who was afraid of thunder, and regretted that he could not accompany his mother-in-law with her husband. Her feelings for her mother-in-law are equally touching.
What is even more valuable is that Zi Xiang is frank, far-sighted, and has outstanding knowledge. One day, Chen Peizhi's superior asked him to manage 370,000 water conservancy reservoirs, and in the eyes of ordinary people, the water conservancy project was a fat difference, but Chen Peizhi was worried that this errand would easily drag him into the water, and resolutely refused. After Zi xiang learned of this, she greatly praised her husband's behavior and warned him: People are turbid and clear, and it is easy to arouse the suspicion of others; you should treat yourself strictly and tolerate things, so that you can avoid disasters. She also advised Chen Peizhi not to be too conniving with her subordinates, not to just listen to compliments, and to be self-vigilant at all times, reflecting her insight into the hearts of the people in the career.
In the cold winter month, Chen Peizhi was entangled in official duties, and at the end of the year, he could not return home in the snow and wind, and he could not help but feel guilty of failing his wife and concubine, at which time Zixiang exhorted: The work you are doing now to dredge the river has won a piece of praise, which can be described as "not living up to this trip, where is the regret of living up to the fragrant"? This kind of insight is not something that ordinary women who are obsessed with poetry and words can have.
Chen Peizhi's poetry is full of talent, and he is quite admired by some Qinglou women. Some of these women gave him embroidery pa, some sent him miscellaneous pendants, Zi Xiang saw no jealousy, and collected them for him one by one, including a carved cage grasshopper, she even loved to play with it herself. She said to her husband: Those women give these things, it is the common sentiment of people, and you are not the kind of person who attracts flowers and butterflies, who will ask this as a fault?
Chen Peizhi traveled far as an official, and Zi Xiang persuaded him to find another sensible woman who was similar to him to "serve in the morning and at dusk", so that "although there are thousands of mountains and rivers, my heart is comforted." When Zi Xiang was dying, she still remembered what happened after her death, and asked one of her sisters-in-law to find another concubine for her husband and take care of her in-laws and husband. Her affection for her husband's money has gone far beyond the privacy of the bed.
Chen Peizhi, although he occasionally enters the flowers, does not make fat powder. One of his younger sisters said: "Although my brother has many good encounters in his life, he is always polite to prevent himself from self-sustaining, and refuses to get involved in a slight and frivolous trip." Madame Wang Duan said to him: "The taoism of the wind, not touching or back, should be the supreme magic method in the country of incense." Under the tolerance, he was silent again. Chen Peizhi claimed that he was "afraid of provoking more hatred than much" to disappoint the hearts of those Qinglou women, and Zixiang said that he was doing "love heaven and good fruit". Chen Peizhi listened to it and joked: "There are thousands of ande golden houses in Ande, and the beauties in the world are all happy?" Zi Xiang only smiled in return.
Chen Peizhi is a talented man with YanFu, and Wang Zixiang is also a beautiful person with both blessings and wisdom, and the two can be called immortal lovers. But unfortunately, Heaven is jealous of having a lover, and the two have only been in love for more than three years, and Heaven has broken this beautiful marriage mirror.
Zi Xiang loved the moon and rain the most before she died, after her death, Chen Peizhi sat alone in the Xiangqi Building, watching the moonlight, listening to the sound of rain, all of them were heartbroken, so they wrote several poems about looking at the moon and listening to the rain to express their nostalgia, these poems are still reading to this day.
By now, almost two hundred years have passed since this story. In the past two hundred years, how many people have read the "Reminiscences of Xiangqi Lou" and covered up the long aftertaste, recalling this poignant and strange relationship, and recalling this red dust past. In the past two hundred years, how many long sighs have drifted in the long winds of the world...
(2) Chen Yun
Chen Yun is the "loveliest woman in Chinese literature" praised by Lin Yutang.
But Lin Yutang's evaluation is not well recognized by some female readers, who believe that this is a man's perspective, and women may not see it that way. Therefore, I think lin Yutang's sentence may be more appropriate if it were changed to "the most lovely woman in the eyes of men in Chinese literature".
Chen Yun's cuteness lies first and foremost in being particularly empathetic. When the cauliflower is yellow in the spring, her husband Shen Fu wants to see the flowers and drink outside Suzhou, but he does not want to bring his own wine and vegetables to drink cold drinks on the flowers, nor does he want to drink in the nearby small shop, and he does not want to see the flowers come back to drink again, he only wants to drink hot tea wine against the yellow flowers, but he and his friends discuss the good strategy of drinking hot drinks for half a day. At this time, his wife Chen Yun came up with an idea: at that time, you can hire an old man who sells wontons on the street, and he has all the pots and stoves there, isn't it convenient? As soon as this plan was made, it won a piece of approval. The next day, Shen Fu and his wife invited a group of friends to come outside the city, accompanied by the beautiful wind and yellow flowers, watching the bees and butterflies dancing around the willow shade, so that the old people waited on fire, hot tea, warm wine and delicious food, lively and lively drinks will rise. Friends sit or lie down, Tao Ran sings, the day is near dusk, and the excitement is dispersed. After drinking, Chen Yun asked everyone: "What about today's fun?" Friends said, "The power of the non-lady is not as good as this." This is the highest appreciation for Chen Yun. Being able to get the praise of her husband's friends shows that Chen Yun can not only fulfill her husband's wishes, but also a very affinity woman.
Shen Fu's family is poor, but Chen Yun can create a rich interest in a poor life. Husband is a scholar, like to learn calligraphy and painting with friends, engraving stamps and even talk day by day, watch them chat happily, Chen Yun often quietly go outside to pull out the wine, ordinary melons, vegetables, fish and shrimp once they are in his hands, become delicious, so that her husband and his friends talk about a lot of fun; she and her husband go to the mountains, pick up chic grained stones to form a bonsai, and then put in the corner of the bonsai mud to plant white ping, cider, so that the whole bonsai looks exquisite like Penglai Xiandao; husband likes the head vase flowers, she in order to increase the charm of flowers and plants, catch mantis cicada butterflies on the flower stalk, When she was in the countryside, she planted lentils in a sand pot, and made a wooden shelf six or seven feet high so that the lentils climbed into a green screen that could move around... All these kinds of clever and wonderful ideas often came out of Chen Yun's heart, making Shen Fu's ordinary days infinitely interesting.
Because the two have similar interests, Shen Fu is also happy to fulfill his wife's wishes in some things. In the early autumn of a certain year, Chen Yun heard that there was an abandoned garden near Canglang Pavilion in a quiet environment, and he was very eager, so Shen Fu sought his mother's permission and took his wife to rent there. The neighbors were an old couple, and when they saw them coming, they picked vegetables from the garden and sent them to eat. The two fished during the day, sang together at sunset, set up a bed by the fence to cool off, drank to the slight drunkenness under the moon, and listened to the neighbors tell the story of karma... Such a quiet and leisurely idyllic life makes them forget the hustle and bustle of the city. Chen Yun said happily to her husband that in the future, you can buy ten acres of vegetable gardens here, you paint, I embroider, for the needs of poetry and wine, "cloth vegetables and rice, cola for life, do not have to make a long trip." Shen Fu deeply agreed with this.
The two can live together and play together. There is a daffodil temple near their home, every time it comes to greeting the gods, the lights are clustered and very lively, Chen Yun wants to see it, but as a woman, it is inconvenient to go out. Shen Fu encouraged her to dress up as a man, and when her mother was not at home, the two secretly ran to the temple to play. When he met an acquaintance, Shen Fu lied that this was his cousin's secret. Another time, Shen Fu wanted to go through Taihu Lake to mourn, Chen Yun very much wanted to see what Taihu Lake looked like, and also wanted to go with it, so she told her mother-in-law that she wanted to go back to her mother's house, and asked Shen Fu to wait for her at the ferry port first, and then she came by palanquin. On this day, she saw the vastness of Taihu Lake and opened her eyes. In the evening, Shen Fu finished mourning and returned to the boat by the lake, and the two invited the cheerful boat girls to drink together, watching the fishing fire fill the river, the moon on the East Mountain, and returning home with pleasure.
Although Shen Fu and Chen Yun lived during the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, they were not people who were mud on ancient rituals. Shen Fu's placement of "Boudoir Memories" at the beginning of "Six Notes of Floating Life" is enough to explain his open mind. Chen Yun is ten months older than Shen Fu and is Shen Fu's cousin, she was intelligent from an early age, and she was able to recite the "Pipa Line" when she first learned to speak. When Shen Fu was thirteen years old, he told his mother: If you are looking for a daughter-in-law, you will find a cousin like this. His mother loved Chen Yun's soft personality and agreed to the marriage. After the marriage contract was concluded, the parents of the two families did not prohibit the exchange of two children as in ordinary feudal families. One winter, Chen Yun's cousin got married, and Shen Fu's mother took him to the wedding. After sending the guests, Shen Fu said that he was hungry, and Chen Yun quietly pulled his sleeve, pulled him to his bedroom, and gave him the hot porridge and small dishes that had been hidden in advance. Unexpectedly, this matter was bumped into by her brother, so he shamed her: Well, just now I was looking for porridge to eat, you said no, it turned out to be secretly hidden for your future son-in-law! Chen Yun was embarrassed and the whole family laughed. On this small matter, we can also see the enlightened atmosphere of the Shen and Chen families.
On the wedding night, the two reunited like close friends, Shen Fu plunged his hand into Chen Yun's arms, felt trembling, and lay down in her ear to ask her why her heart beat so fast, "Yun looked back and smiled, and felt a wisp of love shake into the soul, hugging it into the account, not knowing that the East is white." Such a beautiful and lingering situation can be written with such bold pen and ink, which probably required some courage at that time. This also indirectly reflects how much the author loves and pities his wife and feels how satisfied this woman is.
Shen Fu not only married a lovely wife, but also met a sympathetic gentleman. After marriage, his father told him to go to Huiji to study, and he missed his wife, "Living in March is like ten years apart... Whenever the wind is born in the bamboo courtyard, the moon is on the banana window, the dream is upside down", the gentleman saw that he was unhappy, and he asked him to go home and do it. Shen Fu "Rejoiced that the people of Tongshu were saved." After boarding the boat, I felt like a year... Entering the room, they greeted each other, shook hands without speaking, and the two souls suddenly turned into smoke and fog, and felt a sound in their ears, and they did not know that they were even more so." Haha, this is exactly what the young couple Xiao Beisheng newly married looks like. Looking at the whole book of "Six Records of Floating Life", the words "pull into the arms" and "laugh down the remaining nostalgia" are common, which shows the intimacy of the two.
Chen Yun has a ladylike personality, daily at home, often smiling, not seeing anger, respectful to her in-laws, and popular with her subordinates. For the husband, not only the husband advocates the wife, even if the husband does not advocate, she will think for him in advance. Shen Fu did not have the idea of taking a concubine, but Chen Yun was bent on finding him a beautiful and charming concubine. Later, I met a man named Huan Yuan, who knew Wen Mo quite well, Chen Yun liked it very much, so he tried to match, and Huan Yuan finally agreed. It was only later that the garden was taken away by others, and this matter did not come to fruition.
Chen Yun was not a particularly learned woman, but she was indeed a very cute woman. Perhaps, it is precisely because of her cuteness, her frankness, her natural charm of Qing Shui Hibiscus, and her gentle and frugal personality that Lin Yutang's interest in translating "The Six Memories of Fusheng" into English has aroused Lin Yutang's interest. It seems that Mr. Lin Yutang wants to introduce this woman who is full of classical Chinese culture to the readers of the world.
(3) Guan Qiufu
Guan Qiufu is another of the most adorable women in ancient China, who is praised by Lin Yutang.
Guan Qiufu can write poetry, write and draw, play chess, speak and argue, and has a deep knowledge of Buddhism. Her poems are elegant, her calligraphy and paintings are beautiful, and her husband Jiang Tan calls her "ten times more talented than me." The husband and wife filled in poems, boiled tea with the piano, traveled to the mountains and rivers, visited monks to find plums, Zang No characters, studied Buddhist scriptures, and spent ten years of happy married life.
Guan Qiufu was Jiang Tan's cousin, and the two became related during the Daoguang years of the Qing Dynasty. When I was a child, the two families lived close together, and the two often played together. One year, Guan Qiufu followed her father to her cousin's house for dinner, and after the meal, she secretly wrapped up the preserved fruit on the table and did not give it to her cousin Jiang Tan to eat, saying that she wanted to take it home, and when Jiang Tan saw it, she untied the silk scarf on her body and teased her: I tied you up to see if you could go home? As a result, Qiu Fu was scared to cry, and the whole family laughed when they saw it.
When the two children did not guess, the two were called "good children and good women" by the elders. However, after they were engaged, they were not able to meet freely like Shen Fu and Chen Yun. In the fifteen years from betrothal to marriage, the two did not meet several times on the road, but they were intimidated by etiquette and could not say a word.
On the wedding night, the two sat happily in the lights and flowers, reuniting as before, and talking happily. From the playful things when she was a child, she gradually talked about poetry, and Qiu Fu wanted to verify her husband's poetic talent, so she proposed to chant poems. I didn't expect such a chat to be a night, until the early morning Yahuan urged the two to get up and freshen up. Cave room flower candles, a couple of newcomers even talk about poetry at night, but also a big rhyme.
On the first day of this marriage, it was actually the life of the two poets.
Guan Qiufu is as sentimental as Lin Daiyu, and also has the same talent as Daiyu. When Dai Yu saw that the red was falling on the ground, she buried the flowers; qiu Fu saw that the peach blossoms were destroyed by wind and rain, so she picked up the petals and built them into a word: "Halfway through the spring, the flower life is as short as spring." Overnight the red spring gradually filled, and the wind and spring did not matter. Building to the last "spring" word, a gust of east wind blew through, blowing the handwriting chaotic, and Qiu Fu was stunned - like another Daiyu.
One day, after hearing the melancholy sound of rain hitting the banana, Jiang Tan wrote an inscription on the banana leaf: "Whoever grows the banana in many ways, early is also Xiaoxiao, and late is also Xiaoxiao." Qiu Fu saw the follow-up: "It is Jun's heart that is too boring, planted bashos, and complained about bashos." Although it is a drama pen, it also shows his poetic talent.
Guan Qiufu is the author of "Dream Shadow House Words", the word style is gentle, and there is a great wind of Li Qingzhao. This "Bodhisattva Man" best represents her style: "The green window is full of wind and rain, and a spring dream is shorter than the sky." The wine woke up and brushed his hair, and the sunset went upstairs. The old worries can't be sold, resting on the double eyebrows. Mo Dao iron is the intestine, and the iron intestine is also injured now. ”
Qiu Fu is frail and sickly, but this does not hinder her pursuit of Yaye. After marriage, she followed her husband to learn the piano and played "Pingsha Falling Goose" and "Han Palace Autumn Grievance", which was moving. She followed her husband's friends to learn to paint peonies and practice calligraphy, showing a high level of understanding.
Although Qiu Fu and Jiang Tan were married on the orders of their parents, their love was far better than that of many free mate choosers today. One day, jiang Tan read Chu Ci and read the sentence "Sorrow and sorrow and separation", qiu fu wet her cheeks with tears when she heard it, and said: How can you let me hear such a sad sentence? It can be seen that the feelings of the two are deep.
Jiang Tan is just a poor talent, but he is cheerful. One of his friends was going on a long trip, so he asked more than two dozen people at home to send them off. During the banquet, friends guessed the order of fist fighting, drank heavily, and then rode on the wine to play drums and pianos to write poems and splash ink to paint. When she was happy, she found that the wine was gone, and Qiu Fu quietly walked to the street and took off the jade pawn on her wrist to change the wine. From this incident, it can also be seen that although the two are very affectionate, Pingsuri's life is also tight enough.
These two people have an ideal spiritual life, but they lack the ability to cope with real life. When Jiang Tan's parents were alive, they funded their husband and wife some money and grain every month, but even so, the two often needed pawn clothes to get by, and finally, the winter clothes and summer clothes were pawned, and the two naturally went to the point where the scoop was empty and the salary was not continued.
Although Jiang Tan later got a few acres of land property left to him by his father, but as a scholar, he was not good at farming, after Qiu Fu died of illness, he quickly pawned the field property, and finally turned to his friends, and even starved to death, leaving behind the book "Autumn Lantern Trivia", recording his happy married life.
From this point of view, the word cultivation and reading cannot be wasted, only ploughing and not reading, and the literary atmosphere is insufficient; only reading does not cultivate, and there is no food and clothing. Therefore, it makes sense that traditional Chinese regard farming and reading as the ideal way to govern their families.
(4) Dong Xiaowan
Dong Xiaowan was an official prostitute in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, and was the same as Li Xiangjun, Liu Ruyi, Chen Yuanyuan, etc. as "Qin Huai Bayan". When she was nineteen years old, she married Mao Xiang (Mao Peijiang), one of the so-called "Four Princes of the Fu Society", as a concubine, and died at the age of twenty-eight. After her death, She sighed that "a lifetime of pure happiness, nine years to occupy, nine years to fold."
Although Mao Xiang is a person with the ambition to serve the country, he is also a male brother who likes to chase famous prostitutes and has a romantic temperament, and is also a self-centered person with a strong macho mentality. When his parents and his wife and concubine were facing danger at the same time, he always gave priority to his parents and ignored his wives and concubines, and took it for granted that this was the right choice. He once looked at Chen Yuanyuan, who was "light and rhymed", and wanted to take her as a concubine. At that time, his father was in the midst of war, and Chen Yuanyuan was plundered by the giants, so he had no choice but to abandon Chen Yuanyuan and comfort himself: "In the midst of urgent and strict relatives, a woman has no regrets." ”
After hearing that Dong Xiaowancai was the crown of Qin Huai's zhuyan, he went to visit many times, but he never saw it. After that, it was difficult to see Xiao Wan, and I felt that she was "fragrant and jade-colored, natural and charming", and admired her endlessly, when she was sixteen years old. After that, I missed Xiao Wan for three years. Three years later, by chance, Mao Xiang happened to pass by Xiao Wan's residence, so he hurriedly stopped the boat to visit him. At this time, Xiao Wan was sick, and when he saw Xiang Xiang, he felt that the illness had been greatly cured, and hurriedly put on a drink to invite drinks, and during the banquet, the two talked very happily. Xiao Wan had long heard some celebrities talk about Maoxiang, and this time she talked about the wine freely, so that she turned her admiration for Maoxiang into real love. After drinking, Xiao Wan wanted to keep him overnight, but refused on the grounds that he was in a hurry to go home to see his parents for fear of delaying the next day's trip.
Although Xiao Wan is an official prostitute, but her love is single-minded, since she fell in love with Maoxiang and thought that he was the man she relied on all her life, she began to pursue Maoxiang bitterly.
The next day, Xiao Wan dressed up neatly and boarded a boat to send Xiang Xiang. Thinking that she was going to take the examination again, and going home to serve her mother, it was very inconvenient to take Xiao Wan, plus Xiao Wan's official prostitutes at this time, after she fled, the officers and soldiers of Wumen were also pursuing her. He wanted to get rid of her but couldn't get rid of her, and he couldn't bear to stop her, which was very difficult. But seeing that Xiao Wan had already made up his mind, he had to leave her on the boat and send her all the way for twenty-seven days. These days, Xiao Wan wore a white Western cloth light shirt as thin as a cicada's wing made for her, and on the river, four or five boats chased them to watch; when the two climbed the mountain, thousands of people followed them. These two handsome men and beautiful women are admired by people as gods and immortals. But even so, Mao Xiang urged Xiao Wan to return to Wumen every day, but Xiao Wan followed him and resolutely refused to return. In the end, He promised her to go to Wumen to take the exam and pick her up at Jinling, which persuaded Xiao Wan to turn around. When parting, Xiao Wan lost her voice and cried bitterly, and although she pitied Xiao Wan, she saw that Xiao Wan promised to return to Wumen, and she was finally able to return lightly, as if relieved. At this time, although Xiao Wan was obsessed with Risking Xiang, when Risky Xiang considered his own gains and losses, he would still abandon Xiao Wan.
After Xiao Wan left Xiang Xiang, he began to eat vegetarian food and waited for him to fulfill his contract, but Xiang Xiang reneged on his word. He did not go to Wumen to pick up Xiao Wan before taking the test. Xiao Wan couldn't wait for him, and in dementedly, he took an old woman and boarded a boat from Wumen to Jinling. Unexpectedly, they were robbed on the way, and the two hid in the reeds, and did not eat or drink for three days and three nights. It was not easy to get to Jinling, and she was afraid of affecting the Yingju exam of Maoxiang, so she went through two days alone, and only after the exam was completed did she dare to see him. Unexpectedly, at this time, Mao Xiang received the news that his father had returned home from the fire, so he could not care about placing Xiao Wan, and hurried back to visit his father, Xiao Wan cried and wanted to go home with him, and Mao Xiang's iron face was cold and unwilling, and he left alone. After taking the risk of leaving, Xiao Wan hurriedly took a boat to chase him, and when he encountered the wind on the way, he almost overturned the boat and almost lost his life.
In desperation, Xiao Wan returned to Wumen, but because she no longer received customers, she was penniless and wore summer clothes in the winter. Xiao Wan's good friend Liu Ru couldn't bear to see it, so he begged her husband Qian Qianyi to come forward and pay for Xiao Wan's life, and sent Xiao Wan to the home of Rugao Xiang in Jiangsu Province.
When Xiao Wan arrived in Rugao, Mao Xiang was at home drinking with his father. When he heard the news, he did not dare to tell his father or leave the table. However, his wife Qin Shi made a thorough consideration for him, not only secretly arranged a clean accommodation for Xiao Wan, but also hung a curtain on her bed, prepared utensils, food, and lights. Qin's virtuousness greatly touched Mao Xiang and Xiao Wan. In the four months of living in another room, Xiao Wan no longer touched the instruments commonly used when she used to be a singer and prostitute, washed away the lead, carefully learned needlework, did not go out for a month, and single-mindedly became a good family woman. Four months later, Qin personally brought Xiao Wan into the house and introduced her to the whole family.
After Xiao Wan officially became a concubine of Mao Xiang, she worked hard and complained, and devoted herself to serving Mao Xiang's mother and wife, especially getting along well with Mao Xiang's wife, and she had not mixed her mouth once in nine years. She regarded the two sons of Xiang Xiang as her own, and was very affectionate, and when she saw that the children's articles were not written in a bad way and beat them, Xiao Wan quickly helped the children revise the articles and did not sleep until late at night. When Mao Xiang was editing Tang poems, Xiao Wan had been helping him to copy transcripts, and sometimes the two of them discussed the compilation of books, tirelessly; the two discussed Chu Ci and the poems of Du Fu, Li Shangyin, Wang Jian, and others, and Xiao Wan often had unique insights.
In the days when she helped her husband compile Tang poems, Xiao Wan collected the contents of the materials she read about women's clothes, diet, utensils, needles, pavilion songs and dances, birds, birds and animals, etc., and compiled the book "Yan Yan".
Xiao Wan wrote well. First he studied Zhong Xuan, and then he studied the Cao'e Monument, often writing thousands of words a day. She not only used the good calligraphy she learned to write small fan noodles for her relatives and friends, but also used to register the use of chai rice oil and salt at home and the entry and exit of silver money, and the registration was not bad.
Xiao Wan likes to paint, and the small bushes of cold trees she paints are moving. After arriving at the impostor's house, she has maintained her love of painting, showing the old collections among players from time to time. Even when fleeing, she would first bundle up the collection of calligraphy and paintings and take them away. Today, a painting she painted at the age of fifteen, "Colored Butterfly Figure", is said to be still in the Collection of the Wuxi Museum.
Xiao Wan's alcohol was quite large, and he once showed his pride at a wine banquet and drank a group of singers and prostitutes under the table. However, after entering the impostor's house, because she was not good at drinking, she also gave up drinking, and just accompanied her husband to quietly taste the mustard tea with the aroma of baby meat under the moon before the flower.
Xiao Wan is a particularly attentive woman. Once, in order to avoid thieves, the impostor family wanted to cross the river in the middle of the night, and before leaving, the father of the impostor asked: Some broken silver is needed on the road, where can I find it in this hurry? Mao Xiang asked Xiao Wan, and Xiao Wan immediately took out a small bag for him and said that he had divided the silver of the ten taels into hundreds of pieces, which contained both a few pieces of broken silver and a few dollars, and each piece of silver was marked with weight and could be used at will. The father of Xiang Xiang was surprised and sighed when he saw the situation: How can this child have time to do such a delicate thing!
Xiao Wan made a good meal. Her diet is extremely simple, and each meal is only a few pieces of tempeh. However, He likes to eat sweet, wind-smoked food and seafood. In order to satisfy her husband's appetite, she always tries to make all kinds of food that meets his taste. She is good at making incense, picking it at the beginning of the flower, adding salt plums to pickle, and a year later opening the stored porcelain altar, the color of the flowers is as bright as when it was first picked, and the fragrance formed by the flower juice is strangely fragrant. The one she did best was begonia dew, followed by plum dew, rose dew, rose dew, dangui dew, and chamomile dew. When Xiang Xiang was drunk, she could take out dozens of flower dew to relieve him. She also boiled peach juice and watermelon juice into a variety of pastes with a thick and strange smell; washed and dried the soybeans nine times, peeled the bean skin, and added condiments such as melon apricot ginger cinnamon to make a special tempeh; and pickled the lotus, bamboo shoots, goji and artemisia in winter and spring into chic small dishes. The fire meat she makes has the taste of pine and cypress, the wind fish she makes has the taste of fire meat and venison, the drunken clams are as bright as peach blossoms, the bones of the drunken sturgeon are as clean as white jade, and the baked rabbits and crispy chickens are as delicious as snacks. To this day, the oily meat she invented is called "Dong meat" by the Rugao people, which is comparable to Dongpo meat; her crisp sugar made of sesame seeds, fried noodles, caramel, pine nuts, peach kernels and sesame oil as raw materials, known as "Dong sugar", has become a famous local specialty of Rugao.
A singer-prostitute who is accustomed to a life of fine clothes and jade food, through the production methods of various delicacies, and then the wisdom of improvement, even let her cooking skills to this point, its motivation is only out of love for a man. This kind of love even made her eliminate herself.
During an escape, He xiangxiang supported the old mother with one hand and dragged his wife with the other, and he couldn't take care of Xiao Wan, so he wanted to leave her. However, his mother and wife did not want to go, so they asked him to take Xiao Wan. On the way, Xiao Wan specifically instructed Mao Xiang: In the face of great difficulties, you must first take care of your mother, then take care of your wife, son and brother, leave me alone, as long as they are okay, I will die without regrets.
After fleeing, the family became dispossessed, and He fell ill with malaria for five months. During these one hundred and fifty days, Xiao Wan slept next to Xiang Xiang every night, and when Xiang Xiang was cold, she held him and warmed him with her body, and when Xiang Xiang was hot, she undressed and dissipated heat for him. When she couldn't take the medicine, she brought it to his mouth with her mouth. Taking the risk of defecating, she carefully observed the change in the color of the urine and urine to judge whether his condition was good or bad. She was grumpy and sometimes reprimanded her, and she did not change her face, as warm as ever. On a hot day, she sat by the stove and boiled medicine, did not wipe sweat, did not catch mosquitoes, and waited by the pillow day and night until he recovered. Due to the long-term protection of the patient, overwork, Xiao Wan gradually became as pale as wax, skinny as wood, the mother and wife of Xiang Xiang looked at it, touched and very uncomfortable, wanted to replace her, but she said: If the husband is alive, I am tired and dead as alive; if the husband dies, I live in this world of wars and horses, who can rely on it?
He had been seriously ill three times in five years, and each time he got sick, he thought he couldn't survive, but because of Xiao Wan's careful care, he came back to life again and again.
Xiang Xiang was cured of his illness, but Xiao Wan was terminally ill and eventually died. In addition to his grief, he wrote a book called "Memories of Yingmei'an" to commemorate the deceased concubine Dong Xiaowan. This book set a precedent for qing dynasty reminiscences.
(5) Dynasty Cloud
Wang Chaoyun was Su Dongpo's concubine.
Su Dongpo had the glory of being a mid-level soldier with his younger brother Su Rui, and had served as an official to the Rebbe Shangshu and Hanlin Bachelor, but the second half of his life was bumpy, he had been demoted seven times in five or six years, and the record time was to be demoted three times in a month.
Seeing that he was degraded again and again, several concubines beside him left him one after another. Only Wang Chaoyun has been firmly following him, giving great comfort to the hearts of a generation of literary heroes.
Chaoyun was originally a prostitute in Qiantang, and when Su Dongpo was demoted to Hangzhou Tongju, one day he was drinking with friends on the edge of the West Lake, and he saw the light singing and dancing of Wang Chaoyun's temperament and was very fond of it. After the dance, the singers and women sat down to serve wine, and Chaoyun sat right next to Su Dongpo. At this time, Chaoyun changed into the bright makeup of the song and dance, a plain dress, Chuchu moving, suddenly inspired Su Dongpo's inspiration, which led to the famous song "Drinking on the Lake after the First Eye After the Rain": "The water is bright and sunny, the mountain color is empty and rainy; it is always appropriate to make the West Lake more than the West Lake, light and thick." Under the admiration, Su Dongpo adopted Chaoyun as a maid, and this year, Chaoyun was twelve years old. Since then, Chaoyun has followed him from Hangzhou to Mizhou, from Mizhou to Xuzhou, from Xuzhou to Huzhou, from Huzhou to Huangzhou, and never abandoned.
During his time in Huangzhou, Chaoyun grew to the age of eighteen, and Su Dongpo, under the persuasion of his second wife Wang Yanzhi, took Chaoyun as a concubine. After that, Chaoyun accompanied Su Dongpo from Huangzhou to Changzhou, from Changzhou to Dengzhou, from Dengzhou to Kyoto, from Kyoto to Yangzhou, from Yangzhou to Dingzhou, and then from Dingzhou to Huizhou... He traveled throughout eastern and southern China. In the past twenty years, Chaoyun has carefully taken care of Su Dongpo's living, relieved him, opened his heart, served the seat and blessed the wine, and has no complaints or regrets, becoming su Dongpo's confidant of suffering.
When he was in Huangzhou, Su Dongpo's family had a very difficult life, and when there was no place to live, he built his own grass house; there was not enough food to eat, so he took his family to a slope in the east of Huangzhou to plant crops. During this time, Chaoyun also willingly followed Su Dongpo in a jingchao cloth skirt to help him take care of the life of the whole family. She uses Huangzhou's cheap fat pork, low heat slow stew, made of fat but not greasy pieces of meat, Su Dongpo is very fond of, this kind of meat, is the "Dongpo meat" we can still eat today.
Chaoyun is a person who knows Su Dongpo in particular. After Su Dongpo was recalled to the imperial court, he retired home one day, pointing to his stomach and asking several concubines: "Do you know what I have here?" One replied: "The belly is full of articles." Su Dongpo did not think so. Another said, "It's full of insight." Su Dongpo also shook his head. When she reached Chaoyun, she smiled and said, "You are a belly out of place here." Su Dongpo heard the words, laughed heartily, and praised: "The only one who knows me is Chaoyunye." From then on, he loved Chaoyun even more.
Su Dongpo once compared himself to Bai Juyi, believing that he was much happier than Bai Juyi. When Bai Juyi was old and weak, his beautiful concubine Xiao Man left him, but his concubine Chaoyun was able to share happiness and suffering with him. After sighing, Su Dongpo wrote a poem to give to Chaoyun, saying that she was "not like Yang Zhi Bei Lotte".
Chaoyun had given birth to two children for Su Dongpo, and after giving birth to a second child in Huizhou, she contracted the plague and died soon after, at the age of thirty-four, this year, Su Dongpo was sixty years old. After Chaoyun's death, Su Dongpo buried her in a pine forest in Huizhou according to her will, and built a pavilion on the tomb to commemorate her, and the pavilion pillar was engraved with a pair of trees: "It is not appropriate, only Chaoyun can recognize me; play the ancient tune alone, and think of Qing qing every time it rains." From then on, Su Dongpo no longer accepted other women, and lived in widowhood until his death at the age of sixty-six.
Before Chaoyun's death, Su Dongpo had written several poems about her, but it didn't feel particularly good to read, but after Chaoyun's death, he wrote this poem "Xijiang Yue • Plum Blossom", writing about Chaoyun's courage and natural beauty that he was not afraid of miasma and who lived in Lingnan:
The jade bone was melancholy and foggy, and the ice posture had its own fairy wind. When the sea nymphs are dispatched to explore the fang bushes, hanging upside down the green hairy phoenix.
Plain noodles are often powdery, and makeup does not fade lips. Gao Qing has gradually dawned the clouds and the sky, and does not dream with pear blossoms.
Su Dongpo built a house in Huizhou, and originally planned to live with Chaoyun for the rest of his life, but unexpectedly, one of his small poems expressing his leisurely mood caused trouble again: When the chancellor Zhang Saw that he was still living so comfortably in Huizhou, in one breath, he directly demoted him to danzhou in hainan, the southernmost point of China. During the Northern Song Dynasty, being demoted to Hainan was a slightly lighter punishment than execution. What a sixty-year-old man would feel like to be belittled after losing his beloved woman. When Su Dongpo walked alone to the most barbaric place of the Great Song Dynasty with the damp sea breeze, did he still have illusions about this imperial court?
