#头条创作挑战赛#
Zheng Banqiao (1693-1765), formerly known as Zheng Xie, the word Kerou, the name Li'an, also known as Banqiao, was a native of Xinghua, Jiangsu, and was a representative of the "Eight Monsters of Yangzhou". At the age of thirty-one, because his family was poor, he was so poor that he chose to sell paintings in Yangzhou, but he couldn't support himself at all. Later, he inadvertently got the funding and was admitted to the exam, and then he was admitted to the Jinshi, and he served two terms as a magistrate in Shandong, for a total of 12 years. During his tenure, he did a lot of practical things for the people, and he was famous for his civil affairs. After going to the official, he still chose to sell paintings in Yangzhou, gaining fame and fortune. His poems, calligraphy and paintings were all unique at that time, and he was a representative literati painter of the Qing Dynasty.
Author: Jiu Ge
As a servant in Shandong, he has been trapped in Wusha for 12 years
During his stay in Beijing, Zheng Banqiao reunited with the Shenjun Wang Yunxi, who admired him very much. During the banquet, Yunxi even lifted his sleeve robe, personally cut the meat and handed it to Banqiao, and proudly said that his behavior was not much better than Tang Xuanzong's practice of mixing Li Baiyu's hand, but it was just a difference in order.
When he was just a junior high school, Zheng Banqiao hoped to become a Shijing official in order to fight for his grandfather, but in the end he only made up for the lack of a magistrate. This is undoubtedly a big gap with Zheng Banqiao's vision, which can be seen from the "Seven Grades of Official Ears" idle seal that he often stamped on his later calligraphy and painting works.
In the spring of the seventh year of Qianlong (1742), Zheng Banqiao raised his head and drank the last cup of farewell wine, bid farewell to Yunxi, and went south to take office. His destination was in Fan County (formerly part of Shandong, now part of Henan).
It is said that the new official took office with three fires, and on the first day of Zheng Banqiao's tenure in Fan County, before he had time to ascend to the court, he first sent people to punch more than 100 holes in the wall of the county government's yamen. The onlookers were inexplicable, shocked and frightened, and did not know what Zheng Banqiao wanted to do, but after seeing the "results" of the wall, this Xinzhi County smiled with satisfaction, and only then explained that this was "out of the bad Xi of the former officials".
Pictured: Zheng Banqiao calligraphy
Zheng Banqiao's first career was relatively stable, and the people in Fan County were relatively peaceful, and there were not too many cases of lawsuits, so Zheng Banqiao's life was very leisurely. He drank when he had free time, and when he was high, he slapped the table and sang loudly. The song spread out of the door, and a kind-hearted official felt that the impact of the county's daytime indulgence was not good, but it was inconvenient to go directly to the court to advise, so he told the Rao family. Later, Zheng Banqiao restrained slightly, drank before getting off work, drank behind closed doors, and went home when he was drunk and fell asleep with his head covered.
In addition to drinking in the Yamen, Zheng Banqiao began to linger in the land of fireworks in the Qinglou again, playing with prostitutes, and writing and painting for them when he drank too much. Once, when he had to reprimand a beautiful man who had committed gambling, his heart was so painful that he almost burst into tears, and then he tried to suggest that the flogging of the buttocks in the criminal law should be changed to the flogging of the back. This once made Jin Nong very envious and wanted to join in the fun together. But in fact, Zheng Banqiao has an extremely clear understanding and principle of male sex, he knows that he is old and ugly, male prostitutes approach him only for his money, and he does not allow male prostitutes to interfere in foreign affairs, otherwise he will be expelled immediately.
Zheng Banqiao is a down-to-earth and low-key official, he does not sit in a sedan chair when he travels, does not sound gongs to open the way, does not disturb the people, but always wears civilian clothes to inspect the countryside, observe the people's conditions, and understand the needs of the masses. He once wrote a poem "Fan County Poem", in which nearly 500 words detailed the historical evolution, geographical location, agricultural and sideline industries, native products, farming labor, market trade, marriage and so on, which shows Zheng Banqiao's deep feelings for Fan County. Many times when the superiors came, they had to go to the ridges in the field to find someone: "A few times to ask each other in the mansion, Longshang sleeps and watches the coupling farming."
Once, when the micro-service was on patrol, Zheng Banqiao passed by a family and saw a Xiucai who only ate one meal a day because of his poor family, but he kept reading all day long, and he was very hard. This reminded him of the situation when he was young and poor, so he wanted to give that Xiucai a gift to help him, but Xiucai refused, and three years later, he was promoted.
Zheng Banqiao was not depressed because of a rejection, and the next time he met a candidate from Sichuan, he also took the initiative to lend a hand. At that time, the candidate surnamed Li won the first place in the county examination, but the other candidates coaxed him out of jealousy that he was not a local and did not allow him to take the exam again. Li Sheng asked Zheng Banqiao for help, and while crying, he expressed his heartfelt feelings, saying that he had moved to Fan County for 17 years, and if he wanted to go back to his hometown to take the exam, first, the mountains and rivers would be far away, and secondly, the language would be incomprehensible, which would simply force him to kill himself. Zheng Banqiao sympathized with him, but reported to his superiors but was accused of bending the law for personal gain. Zheng Banqiao had no choice but to reluctantly remove his name and accept Li Sheng as a painting apprentice, so that he could protect himself in the future.
Due to his dissatisfaction with his superiors, once when Zheng Banqiao went to Jinan on a business trip, his boss asked him to compose a poem to praise Baotu Spring, the first famous spring in Jinan, during the banquet, and he took the opportunity to point out Sang and scold Huai in the poem: "The original original is in vain, and the river is lost in silence; ”
Picture: Zheng Banqiao's calligraphy and painting
After serving in Fan County for five years, Zheng Banqiao was transferred to Wei County (now part of Shandong) as the magistrate. Weixian County is located on the shore of the Bohai Sea, rich in sea salt, is an economically prosperous rich capital, known as Little Suzhou. However, from the autumn of the year before Zheng Banqiao's transfer to the spring of the 14th year of Qianlong (1749), Weixian County suffered from seawater flooding year after year, floods and droughts devastated the land one after another, famine and great epidemics were rampant, so that countless people died of starvation and disease.
When Zheng Banqiao arrived, he was faced with Weixian County during the worst period of the disaster, and compared with the peaceful scene of Fan County, there was a difference between heaven and hell. Zheng Banqiao immediately ordered to "open a position for loans", but the official next to him remained motionless, because the Qing Dynasty regulations at that time stipulated that it was illegal to open a position without the approval of his superiors. Zheng Banqiao was furious: "When is it, when we declare it level by level, the people will starve to death." If there is any punishment that comes at me, I will bear it. "Finally, the warehouse was opened to release grain, and the people could receive grain with IOUs. However, it was still not enough, and when the harvest failed in the autumn, the price of grain soared, and the poor could not afford to buy it at all, so Zheng Banqiao had to donate his incorruptible silver to supplement the difference between the buying and selling prices of grain.
Donations alone are not a long-term solution, and Zheng Banqiao came up with another trick: fundraising. He built a large number of infrastructures, repaired cities and dug ponds, recruited hungry people from near and far, and ordered the rich families in the township to take turns to build sheds and cook porridge every day to give alms to the people. As for those who secretly hoarded large quantities of grain at home, Zheng Banqiao forced them to sell grain at the current price. Under the relief from various parties, countless people have survived.
Picture: Zheng Banqiao's calligraphy and painting
In order to avoid the recurrence of the situation such as the flooding of the city, after the disaster situation improved a little, Zheng Banqiao took the lead in funding the rebuilding of Weixian County. Because the previous Weixian city wall was an earthen wall, it could not resist the erosion of floods and torrential rains, and it was in disrepair and dilapidated, and the rebuilt Weixian finally had an extra layer of protection. After repairing the city wall, Zheng Banqiao took the lead in raising funds to rebuild the City God Temple and Wenchang Pavilion to soothe the injured bodies and minds of the people after the disaster.
Hunger and cold caused theft, and in the winter of Weixian, there were frequent cases of robbery and theft, which made Zheng Banqiao quite a headache. He came up with a plan to recruit a group of locals and form a guard squad to patrol the streets and alleys and hunt down criminals. At first, the effect was good, but gradually there were people in the squad who abused their power, they reversed black and white, and when they met peasants who traveled normally at night, they slandered them as thieves, and they had to blackmail others to prove their innocence, or they would be hanged, and when they encountered children playing cards, they also falsely accused them of gambling and forcibly extorted money. On the contrary, in the face of those real criminals, they sat idly by after receiving the stolen money. After receiving the complaint, Zheng Banqiao reviewed his work management while investigating and dealing with it, and immediately disbanded the team after confirming the facts.
In addition to knowing mistakes and being able to change, Zheng Banqiao is also very pragmatic and flexible in handling government affairs. In Wei County, Chongren Temple and Dabei Nunnery were built opposite each other, and there was a monk in this Chongren Temple who fell in love with a nun who met by chance with a nun in the opposite door. The villagers noticed this incident and felt that it violated the rules of Buddhism and was immoral, so they tied them up and twisted them to Yamen, and asked the county to send them to the county. But Zheng Banqiao felt that since the two were in love and of similar age, he enlightened them to return to the vulgar and be worthy of being a couple. He himself also wrote a poem to bless the two: "Who hooked up the affair case? ”
Picture: Zheng Banqiao's calligraphy and painting
Zheng Banqiao did not forget to bring the younger generations in office, there was a child Han Ho County tried to win the first, he was very appreciative, saw that Han Hao's composition is good, but there are drawbacks of length, so he wrote a poem to suggest that Han Hao "read more ancient books to open his eyes, less nosy and raise his spirit", "delete the complicated and simplify the three autumn trees, and lead the new February flowers of different standards". This made Han Hao's composition level suddenly improve a lot.
That's it, Zheng Banqiao insisted on "attaining ambition and adding Ze to the people", and insisted on not oppressing people with officials. At that time, his brother in Wufang, his hometown of Xinghua, had a land dispute with the Zhou family, and the fault was his own, but the clan brother wanted to use the momentum to slander the Zhou family. After Zheng Banqiao learned about this from his cousin Zheng Mo's family letter, he thought that his brother was too unreasonable, "even if he is accused in the Yu case, he will only comment on the axiom of the matter, and he can only be managed by the Zhou family", and he did not mean to favor his relatives at all.
Zheng Banqiao only had another son when he was fifty-two years old, and he especially loved this only youngest son, for fear that the old nightmare would recur. But even if his beloved son is heartfelt, Zheng Banqiao still did not forget to tell his cousin in his letter to his cousin Zheng Mo, asking him to tell Guo and Rao on his behalf, don't be too indulgent and dote on his young son, and must "love must be his way". Zheng Banqiao asked his cousin to control his nephew on weekdays, he believes that the child "is a trivial matter in reading, a scholar, and an official, and the first thing is to be a good person", and hopes that the child will be a loyal person, and he must know how to share delicious and fun things, not to bully others, and not to abuse the children of ordinary people, and to know how to "always be an ordinary person in heaven and earth, and be generally cherished".
When his son was a little older and could ask his master to be enlightened, Zheng Banqiao wrote a letter back to his cousin and told him that he wanted him to educate his nephew to treat Mr. Teacher and his classmates with respect and politeness, and not to call him by his name. When the children come from poor families, they should find an excuse to inadvertently distribute some pen, ink, paper and inkstones, and on rainy days, if they can't go home, they should stay for dinner, and then give them a pair of old shoes so that they can wear them, so as not to stain the shoes and socks that their parents have made for them with great difficulty. In order to let the youngest son better understand these truths, Zheng Banqiao also compiled four smooth five-character quatrains, integrating these truths, "Let my son read and sing, sit on the threshold under the moon, and sing with the second wife, two mothers, uncles, and aunts, so that you can trick the fruit and eat it." It shows Zheng Banqiao's good intentions. It's a pity that this only son, who was infused with all his care and love, died of illness at the age of six. Since then, Zheng Banqiao has not added a son, and in his later years, he inherited a son from his cousin.
In February of the thirteenth year of Qianlong (1748), Qianlong went out to inspect Shandong, Zheng Banqiao was sealed in the history of calligraphy and painting, followed Qianlong to Mount Tai, and lay on the top of Mount Tai for more than 40 days. For this reason, he also engraved a seal of "Qianlong Dongfeng Calligraphy and Painting History" to record this incident. There is no doubt that this is the pinnacle of Zheng Banqiao's officialdom honor, and since then, it has been important for the government to rule the literary name.
Picture: Orchid bamboo Fangxin
It's just that he has been an official for many years, and he has not advanced to the first level, Zheng Banqiao has long been increasingly tired of officialdom, and he laughs at himself as "a seven-grade official in Shandong", "an old and sleepy black yarn for 12 years", and "my generation is an official and a troubled person". He became the oldest among his colleagues in Shandong and the longest-serving veteran official in the county, and deeply experienced the helplessness of "being unable to advance and retreating".
He hung two huge plaques in his residence in Weixian, and wrote them with the "six-and-a-half-minute book" that he was best at in his life, one was "rare and confused", and the other was "suffering is a blessing".
Regarding "rare confusion", Zheng Banqiao said to himself: "It is difficult to be smart, it is difficult to be confused, and it is even more difficult to turn from smart to confused." Put it down, take a step back, feel at ease at the moment, and don't want to be blessed later."
As for "suffering losses is blessings", he understands it like this: "Those who are full will lose the opportunity, and those who lose will gradually make a profit." If you harm yourself, you will benefit others, and you will gain peace with others. The peace of mind in my heart is peaceful and peaceful, and the blessing is imminent."
Once he had nothing to do with fame and fortune, Zheng Banqiao's intention of returning to the field and retreating gradually became stronger, and he wrote down one poem after another of "thinking of returning" and "thinking of home", and frequently dreamed of Yangzhou.
The geese are in the sky, the duckbill boat of Dongwu has been in the field for more than 30 years. Less is better than people who are old today, with white sideburns, who has pity?
The official house is cold and smokeless, the south of the Yangtze River is thin and has fields, and you don't need green money to buy Qingshan. A few thatched huts are still there, outside the autumn water, by the sunset.
——郑板桥《唐多令·思归》
Photo: Zheng Xie, "Xingshu Self-made Tang Duoling Fan", collection of Shanghai Museum
I dreamed of Yangzhou, and I thought of Yangzhou dreaming of me. The first is the green willow of the Sui embankment, which is unbearable. The tide hits the three more melons and the moon, and the rain is ten miles of Hongqiao fire. More red, fresh, cold, not round, cherry.
He Rixiang, Jiangcun hiding, He Rishang, Jianglou sleeping. There is a poet so-and-so, and there are all wine people. The flower path is not without new embellishments, and the sand gulls have a lot of homework. Offering the white head to the person who bends his waist will not be left.
——Zheng Banqiao, "Man Jianghong, Homesickness"
When an official returned, he also sold paintings in Yangzhou
In the seventeenth year of Qianlong (1752), Zheng Banqiao was sixty years old, and at the end of this year, he ended his seven-year term in Weixian and ended his twelve-year career as an official eunuch. In March of the following year, he returned to Yangzhou, where he had been thinking about his heart, and saw the blossoming spring scenery of Yangzhou in March for another year, and decided to sell his paintings for the rest of his life.
Twenty years ago, carrying wine bottles, the spring breeze leaned on the drunken Zhuxi Pavilion.
Now planting Yangzhou bamboo, Huainan is still green.
——Zheng Banqiao's "Ink Bamboo Picture" inscription poem
Pictured: Zheng Banqiao's "Ink Bamboo" vertical scroll
In fact, Zheng Banqiao experienced a huge ideological struggle between continuing to be an official and resigning from an official to sell paintings. In his letter to his cousin, he thought that it was very hard to be an official, and the income he earned was not as good as writing books and selling paintings.
"Everyone is happy to be an official, but I am suffering from being an official today. If they do not dare to bend the law for bribes and accumulate evil money to harm their children and grandchildren, they will earn very little money every year, and they will not be able to enter the official career, and they will sell books and paintings, and their income will be several times higher than that of their incorruptible income. I knew today, and I regretted not at the beginning. ”
——Zheng Banqiao, "Zheng Banqiao's Family Letter"
However, for being an official, Zheng Banqiao has the most simple idea of "self-cultivation and family governance and peace in the world" among scholars in the old era, and he was also fearless of blows and devoted himself to the people. Moreover, Zheng Banqiao has a boss in Weixian, who takes great care of him, and every time he visits him on business, he will be rewarded with blue eyes, and even sometimes invite him to stay in the flower hall to eat together, without the slightest boss shelf. The included knowledge made Zheng Banqiao both grateful and troubled.
The government office listened to Xiao Xiaozhu, suspected to be the voice of the people's suffering.
Some small Caozhou county officials, one branch and one leaf are always concerned.
——Zheng Banqiao, "Weixian County Bureau's Chinese Painting Bamboo Wu Nian Bobao Dazhong Chengkuo"
Pictured: Zheng Banqiao's calligraphy work
But in the end, Zheng Banqiao still decided to go to the official, one of the fuses was that someone accused him of corruption, and he disobeyed the officials many times when he asked for relief for the people in the past, and under various factors, he still chose to leave Weixian. On the day of leaving, three donkeys were lined up in front of the yamen, Xiao Soap Li rode one to lead the way, and the other carried two splint books and a musical instrument, Ruan Xian. The empty third donkey, Zheng Banqiao, wearing a hood and felt coat, held the saddle and turned back to tell the new Lingyin standing in the lobby: "I, Zheng Xie, have been falsely accused of corruption, and I will return today, my luggage is light and simple, and I don't know where the huge amount of money is embezzled." ”
The donkey was crowded with the people of Weixian who had heard the news and ran to save them, and they couldn't see the end at a glance, as if they had already regarded Zheng Banqiao as their most beloved parent official. Zheng Banqiao arrived at the time of the worst disaster in Weixian, and brought Weixian back on track step by step. He also painted his best ink bamboo and autumn chrysanthemum to say goodbye to the people:
The black yarn is not an official, and Xiao Xiao's sleeves are cold.
Write a thin bamboo, and make a fishing rod on the autumn wind river.
——Zheng Banqiao, "Returning to the Inside, Painting the Gentlemen of Wei County"
After Zheng Banqiao left, the people of Weixian County were grateful for his kindness, and also sent people to paint a portrait of Zheng Banqiao, and the portraits were posted to worship, and spontaneously established a shrine for him in Weicheng Island Temple, and sacrificed every year.
Zheng Banqiao returned to Yangzhou after living in the Zhulin Temple in the north of the city, on the day of receiving the wind and washing the dust, many friends and young people in the county who love calligraphy, painting, poetry and literature have come, there is a Yangzhou Xiucai Li Xiao Village to Zheng Banqiao sent a couplet: "Three unique poems, calligraphy and painting, an official returns." cleverly said Zheng Banqiao's life strengths and life experiences.
Among the friends of Yangzhou, Zheng Banqiao's closest is Li Yi, when Zheng Banqiao was still in office, he wrote a letter to his cousin: "Quickly load my inkstone, quickly bring my manuscript." Selling paintings in Yangzhou, with Li Tonglao. The "Li" in the family letter refers to Li Yi, who also offended the powerful and went to the government to sell paintings again in Yangzhou. Now Zheng Banqiao is no longer the thirty-year-old unknown little painter who first stepped into Yangzhou and no one cares, but a great literati who has poetry, calligraphy and painting, and his fame has long surpassed that of his fellow countryman Li Yi. In Yangzhou, "those who ask for paintings must be called Futang (Li Yi's characters); ”
Zheng Banqiao has re-lived the life of selling paintings in the "old Banqiao 20 years ago", but the number of people seeking books and paintings has increased suddenly. The once secluded Zhulin Temple is now always visited early in the morning, one after another. In addition to the princes, the princes, the scholars, the sao people, the old monks in the mountains, and the Huangguan refiners, more buyers were salt merchants. Even if "painting bamboo is more than selling bamboo for money", this group of people still "has a piece of paper, only a word book, and it is rare and hidden".
When Zheng Banqiao was young, in order to take the imperial examination, he worked hard to Xi the neat and beautiful pavilion style (at that time, the imperial examination hall examination paid special attention to calligraphy, often taking good or bad writing as the standard for admission, and the prescribed book style was called pavilion style). He began to take the Fa Lishu (one of which is called "Han Eight Points"), mixed with grass, line, and regular script, and created his own "six and a half books", known as "Banqiao Style". Lishu strokes are undulating, Zheng Banqiao took its characteristics, and interspersed the size, length, square, thin, and sparse staggered strokes of the strokes, just like "stone paving streets", and there are rules in indulgence. "Six-and-a-half book" is a revolution in the art of calligraphy, just like the "lacquer book" that Jin Nong is good at, full of "weirdness" and personality.
Jiang Shiquan, the third master of Jiang Yousan in the Qing Dynasty, praised Zheng Banqiao's six-and-a-half-minute book "writing is like an orchid, and the waves are strange and ancient", which perfectly matches Zheng Banqiao's painting, and truly achieves the integration of poetry, calligraphy, painting and printing. Zheng Banqiao's lifelong favorite painting bamboo, stone, and orchid, he said that he is a "four-hour orchid, a hundred evergreen bamboo, an invincible stone, and a person who remains unchanged for thousands of years".
Insist that the green mountains are not relaxed, and the roots are in the broken rocks.
Thousands of blows are still strong, and the wind blows from east to west, north and south.
——Zheng Banqiao, "Bamboo and Stone"
Pictured: Zheng Banqiao's "Bamboo and Stone" calligraphy
It is rumored that he "does not live in Banqiao without bamboo", saying that he always has to choose a place with bamboo to live, and his house must be planted with many green bamboos, and he often goes to the bamboo forest to watch. His infatuation with bamboo made him paint bamboo without a teacher, but to look at the bamboo shadow on the paper window powder wall, and wave it with his hand. After painting bamboo, Zheng Banqiao put forward the creative theory of "bamboo in the eye", "bamboo in the chest" and "bamboo in the hand".
Although Zheng Banqiao made a living by selling paintings in his later years, he painted all according to his will, painting one when he was happy, and not painting if he was unhappy:
"If you write and paint all day long, you can't rest, you have to scold people; if you don't use your pen for three days, you want to come to a piece of paper to relieve its dull atmosphere, which is also my Cao's cheap appearance. If you ask me to draw but not to paint, and if you don't ask me to paint, you want to paint, which is extremely incomprehensible. I understand people here, but laugh and listen to it" ("Inscription").
Usually faced with a rich but pretending to be a vassal and elegant salt merchant, Zheng Banqiao was unhappy most of the time and was reluctant to write. However, the common people casually helped Zheng Banqiao a little, such as cooking dog meat at home and giving him a copy, but Banqiao who could get delicious dog meat sent a calligraphy and painting as a reward. Therefore, there was a cunning Yangzhou salt merchant who had been begging Banqiao to write and paint, and felt that what he bought from others was not enough to save face after all, so he had a plan.
One day, Zheng Banqiao went out to enjoy the bamboo, and when he passed by a courtyard, he heard the sound of the piano, and the tip of his nose was still lingering with bursts of rich dog meat. Zheng Banqiao was very excited, knocked on the door and went straight in, and saw an old man with white eyebrows sitting in the courtyard playing the piano, and a young man standing next to him was stewing dog meat, dog meat was tumbling in the boiling soup, and it was almost cooked. At the end of the song, the old man didn't ask Zheng Banqiao's name, so he invited him to sit down and taste a piece.
After eating other people's dog meat, Zheng Banqiao wanted to repay the kind old man, and when he saw that the walls of his house were empty, he offered to write two calligraphy and paintings for him. The old man got up happily, and then asked the young man to bring a set of pen, ink, paper and inkstone, and said to himself: "I heard that there is a Mr. Zheng Banqiao here who writes calligraphy and painting very well, but unfortunately I haven't seen it, I don't know how it is true?" After the painting was finished, the old man asked him to sign the payment. When Zheng Banqiao heard this, he was a little suspicious, because the old man's name was the same as the name of a salt merchant. The old man said quietly: "It's just the same name."
Photo: Zheng Banqiao "Bamboo"
However, the next day, the salt merchant invited guests to hype up the fact that he had received calligraphy and paintings from Zheng Banqiao, which made Zheng Banqiao know, and only then did he realize that he had won the "dog meat plan" and regretted it.
In order to avoid similar personal disputes appearing again and again, Zheng Banqiao simply set a precedent and formulated "Banqiao Runge":
Dramatically six taels.
Medium width four taels.
A small two-two.
A book strip and a couplet.
Fan, bucket five dollars.
It is better to give gifts and food than silver. What is given by the public may not be what the younger brother likes. Send cash, the heart is happy, calligraphy and painting are good. Gifts are entangled, and credit is especially relevant. The old man is tired, and he cannot accompany the gentlemen to make useless words.
Painting bamboo is more than buying bamboo, and the paper is six feet high and costs 3,000.
Ren Qu talks about the handover of the old theory, only when the autumn breeze passes through his ears.
Qianlong has been a man, and the humble monk is a scholar. Itabashi Jung-sub.
——Zheng Banqiao, "Banqiao Runge"
Picture: Zheng Banqiao "Banqiao Runge"
Zheng Banqiao simply posted the price list of calligraphy and painting publicly, unlike the literati painters who had always held the pipa and half-covered their faces, and there were always some unfashionable literati dignified, but chose to put down the shelves of "scholars" and entered the market generously, becoming the first Chinese painter to sell paintings at a clear price, and also became "the first person in the economic history of Chinese calligraphy and painting to officially affirm the labor value of calligraphers and painters in monetary form and resort to words, which has had a great impact on it until today."
In his later years, he died in the era of the Eight Monsters of Yangzhou
Zheng Banqiao sold paintings in Yangzhou in his later years, and could sell an average of three or four hundred paintings a year, "getting more than a thousand gold, less than hundreds of gold", and the annual money of Runge was more than double his annual salary in Weixian. But his life is poorer than when he was an official, and he even returned to the embarrassment before becoming an official.
This is probably because Zheng Banqiao still follows the humanitarian tradition of Chinese intellectuals in his bones, and when he returned to his hometown in Xinghua, "when he met the poor of the deceased and the villagers, he took (gold) and gave them away", and the money was quickly dispersed, so that he struggled for most of his life to build a thatched house in the township where he liked to plant bamboo around the house and had no money. However, when he went to live at Li Yi's house, he did not feel that he was undignified and arrogant.
Photo: Mural at Zheng Banqiao Memorial Hall
In the twenty-seventh year of Qianlong (1762), Li Yi died in Xinghua at the age of 77. Zheng Banqiao cried bitterly when he went to pay tribute, shouting, "This year, 70 years old, Lanzhu Yijin, regret that the church is no longer restored, and there are no more people who discuss painting matters."
Two years later, Jin Nong died of illness in Yangzhou at the age of 78. Zheng Banqiao set up a spiritual seat at home and cried bitterly at Jin Nong's self-portrait. Previously, Gao Xiang, Li Fangying, and Wang Shishen in the "Yangzhou Eight Monsters" group had passed away one after another, and Huang Shen had also entered his old age, leaving only Jin Nong's disciple Luo Ping the youngest.
At the end of December 12, 1765, Zheng Banqiao died in his hometown of Xinghua at the age of 73.
At this point, the era of Yangzhou's eight monsters slowly came to an end and withdrew from the stage of history. After Jiaqing, Yangzhou's salt industry declined, and Yangzhou could no longer produce more than or similar to the "Yangzhou Eight Monsters" literati painter group.
The legend of "Selling Paintings in Yangzhou" has finally become the swan song of the times!