"Thirty and Standing" is a Chinese idiom that comes from the Analects of Wei Zheng: "I have five out of ten, and I am determined to learn." Thirty and standing. Forty without confusion. Fifty and know the Destiny. Sixty and obedient. Seventy and do as the heart desires, and do not exceed the rules. Confucius's "thirty and standing" means that at the age of thirty, things are done in a polite manner, and words and deeds are also very appropriate.
Therefore, to stand in the thirty is to say: "On the basis of studying and enriching oneself in the previous stages, establish one's attitude and principles towards people and life." ”
However, thirty years old is a wonderful age and a threshold in life. At the age of thirty, the knowledge left to you during your studies is gradually forgotten, and the lessons that society has given you seem to be far from enough. The thirty-year-old is like a general in a dilemma, embattled, with a lone army that seems to be at a loss, fighting on the unknown battlefield.
So, at the age of thirty, the carp jumped the best time to leap the dragon gate. Is it to continue to be a carefree carp, or to experience the ascension of the dragon through the wind and waves? For Tang Bohu, a talented man from the city, what kind of mental process did he go through when he faced the obstacle of thirty years old?
Here, we might as well look at a letter.
Five hundred years ago, Tang Yin wrote a letter to his friend Wen Zhengming, and it can be said that the letter writers and recipients of this letter accounted for half of jiangnan talents during the Hongzhi period. This letter is sprinkled with 1,200 words, and from this letter, we can see not only the learning of Tang Dacaizi, but also the bitterness and pain of a man who has recently entered the age of establishment, when he fought against fate.
A mercurial student who grew up in the land of fish and rice since childhood appeared in this letter in a decadent and lonely image, which made people lament the twists and turns of fate. Tang Bohu in the letter, wearing heavy shackles, was beaten to the ground by a group of wolf-like tolerances, and his face was full of bitter tears: "Running through Sanmu, the pawns are like tigers, raising their heads to grab the ground, and the foxes are gathered."
The strength of the Ming Dynasty's judicial organs makes people shudder, let you, how to be a gentleman, how to be arrogant, a pair of shackles, a pair of sticks, just a shock to the wood, to ensure that you crawl all over the ground without human form.
In the letter, Tang Bohu told his friend what happened to him a year ago.
In the twelfth year of Hongzhi, the thirty-year-old Tang Bohu came to the capital with great enthusiasm, no matter how talented or talented, Tang Bohu stood out with the first place, which made him how unasspired? Thirty-year-old Tang Bohu, naturally unwilling to be a wandering carp, transformed into a dragon and ascended to heaven, which was his ultimate ideal.
Many people think that Tang Bohu was born into a famous family, but this is not the case. In his letter, Tang Bohu confessed his origins: "To slaughter the body and to clean the blood with a drum knife." Tang Bohu, who has been in the city since childhood, has been a butcher who kills pigs and slaughters sheep, so the Tang family is just a small family in the city.
Uncle Tang's father did not want his son to become a butcher like himself, so he poured out his family wealth and invited famous teachers to educate Tang Bohu. Tang Bohu was also ready, and the thirteen-year-old Tang Bohu immersed himself in reading, isolated from the world, and studied hard for three years amid the bells and drums of the temple. The kung fu paid off, and the sixteen-year-old Tang Bohu went to Suzhou to take the exam and showed his talent in high school with the first place.
Tang Bohu won the first battle, so that his name spread throughout the north and south of the river. Tang Bohu was not proud and complacent, but continued to study hard, and thirteen years later, he was admitted to the first place. Tang Bohu's qualifications attracted the attention of the people of the world, and Suzhou Thorn Shi Caofeng said: "This is not a small carp, his tail has been ignited with flames, ready to soar into the sky at any time." ”
Tang Bohu not only won praise from local provincial and departmental cadres, but even the leaders from the central authorities praised him. When Tang Bohu took the examination in Nanjing, the chief examiner Liang Chu only said one sentence after seeing Tang Bohu's article: "Isn't this the article written by Xie Yuan?" "Just like that, Tang Bohu High School Xie Yuan."
After Liang Chu returned to the capital, he excitedly said to emperor Cheng Minzheng: "This year, there is a candidate named Tang Bohu, who is a top student in the Jiangnan region, and Mr. Cheng must pay more attention to him!" What is even more coincidental is that Cheng Minzheng was the chief examiner in charge of the examination work at that time, and after listening to Liang Chu's words, he immediately drew up three sets of examination papers and handed them to Tang Bohu to order him to answer.
Naturally, Tang Bohu's answer was like a stream, and Cheng Minzheng was very satisfied.
From the local to the central, Tang Bohu seems to have won an invisible laurel, and his life only needs one legal examination to smoothly transform the dragon. Judging from the previous situation, the last thing Tang Bohu was afraid of was the examination. In a correspondence with Wen Zhengming, Tang Bohu said: "Praise with your tongue and praise it with your mouth. From this, we can see that the public opinion at that time praised him to the limit.
When Tang Bohu was thirty years old, he naturally came to the capital to participate in the examination. That year's exam papers were very strange, and the world's candidates were tied up, and among all the students, only two answer sheets stood out. Cheng Minzheng picked up the two bound examination papers, and without knowing the names of the candidates, he had already guessed the identities of the two candidates: "These two examination papers must be Tang Bohu and Xu Jing." ”
It seems that tang bohu has become a hand-picked champion in the darkness, and before the results were announced, there was such a news circulating in the streets and alleys of the capital: "This year's new branch has been nailed down, that is, Tang Bohu of Wu County." ”
The eyes of the masses are shining, but the eyes of the readers are blood red. At this time, each competitor rightfully regarded Tang Bohu as an enemy: "Shake your fist and be bold, if you go to the enemy, know and do not know, spit on the fingers." Whether they recognize Tang Bohu or not, it seems that every reader regards Tang Bohu as a murderer of his father and an enemy, and points fingers at his thousand husbands.
Finally, the high-ranking officials in the imperial court could not sit still, and a man named Fu Han stepped forward and escalated the matter into a political event.
Fu Han had coveted Cheng Minzheng's position for a long time, and he had long wanted to find a stubble to join him, and this test just gave him a breakthrough to suppress his political enemies. Fu Han instigated a minor official to send a secret fold to the emperor, in which he pointed out that Cheng Minzheng leaked the examination questions, and also added fuel to the incident: "Before the three examinations began, the content and questions of the examinations were already spread throughout the streets and alleys, while Tang Bohu and Xu Jing took the questions and displayed them everywhere: 'Is this a subject that is appropriate for the prosperous world?' ’”
Emperor Hongzhi, who was sitting on the dragon chair, couldn't figure out what was right or wrong, and the emperor didn't care much about the honor of Jiangnan Caizi, but his teacher was slandered, which would always make Banzai Grandpa's face dull.
Therefore, the Hongzhi Emperor handed over the secret fold to the Rebbe for handling, and the investigation results of the Rebbe were: "This secret fold is not out of thin air, it is recommended to check the file and then make a decision." In the end, the results of the examination made Cheng Minzheng relieved, and there were no Tang Bohu and Xu Jing in the examination papers reviewed by Cheng Minzheng. However, this result only gave Cheng Minzheng innocence, and the hat of cheating was still buckled on the heads of Tang Bohu and Xu Jing.
In March after the end of the examination, "Tianzi Zhenhe was summoned to prison", and Tang Bohu was imprisoned.
Tang Bohu, who was full of economics, never dreamed that he would fall into the quagmire of political struggle. This matter is related to the future of the world's students, the honor of the imperial master, and the change of the imperial court pattern. Tang Bohu's knowledge was only to participate in a legal exam, but he did not expect that this exam would bring himself a senseless disaster, and Tang Bohu, who had been studying hard for twenty years, had never learned how to get out of this storm.
We may wish to go back to the camera to see what exactly made Tang Bohu suffer injustice, and which link went wrong?
Tang Bohu set off by ferry when he took the exam, and the examinee Xu Jing and Tang Bohu were in the same boat. Xu Jing was just an obscure scholar, and in order to add points to his own examination papers, Xu Jing wanted to get close to the famous Tang Dacaizi and mix some fame. The two came together in this way, singing day and night on the boat, all the way to Beijing.
What kind of sparks will the two of them rub into between a scholar with a full belly and a scholar with a lot of money?
After the two came to the capital, Xu Jing invited the dignitaries and dignitaries of the capital to come to the party every day, and when they met, they introduced: "This is tang dacaizi who is about to become a champion, and I am a good friend of Tang Dacaizi." Tang Bohu probably acquiesced to this way of introduction, lingering with Xu Jing in various social occasions.
Xu Jing, who has money and a bad stomach, must have trouble, Xu Jing found Cheng Minzheng's entourage, spent a lot of money to buy an exam question, and asked Min Zheng how to take the test. Cheng Minzheng, who was honest and honest, could not resist Xu Jing's soft and hard bubbles, and drew up some examination questions for this dashing and golden student, and Xu Jing took the examination questions to Tang Bohu.
However, unfortunately, Tang Bohu was too excited after doing the exam questions, and told another candidate about it: "This year's exam questions are likely to run in this direction." "This way is a bit like the guessing questions of today's college entrance examination, but in that era, this way of guessing questions was often only one step away from leaking questions.
The fact that Tang Bohu obtained the examination questions was passed on for ten to ten hundred times, and soon spread among the candidates' circles. The next development of the matter was also revealed, Tang Bohu left small braids for others, and also ruined his career. In the year of the upheaval, Tang Bohu had just celebrated his thirtieth birthday, and for Tang Bohu, was he a carp? Or a leap over the gantry?
As a result, there was no suspense, and the imperial court drove the carp flying through the dragon gate back to the mud pond, and tang Bohu was disqualified from the exam forever. This drastic change, which occurred during a critical period of his life, made Tang Bohu's life run counter to his ideals. So, what kind of blow did Tang Bohu suffer? In addition to the prison disaster, his second wife, who was "full of shame and looked at each other", also left him.
Tang Bohu was bored, but he thought that he still had a poor brother, so he could only live in humiliation. In that year, Tang Bohu no longer regarded politicians as his ideal in life, but placed his love on the landscape and chose to embark on the artistic route. His decision may be correct, although Tang Bohu is only eight buckets high, but his personality is difficult for him to gain a foothold in the official arena.
A year later, Tang Bohu was relieved, wrote a letter to his good friend Wen Zhengming, resigned from his job in Zhejiang, and left in a dashing manner. There is no anecdotal rumor that Qiu Xiang is accompanied, and Tang Bohu is accompanied only by the vicissitudes of the world. Tang Bohu came to Lushan, came to Dongting Lake, and walked into the art gallery of the sixteenth century, which was five hundred years and walked out of a broad road of poetry and painting.
Looking back at Tang Bohu's experience at the age of thirty, perhaps, as later generations, we are not qualified to comment on Tang Bohu's frivolity. Let me ask you, a talented man with a full belly, a high-ranking official and a nobleman who hits you with money, and politicians praise you with honor, for a normal person, who has experienced great ups and downs, what reason is there not to be frivolous? Before his death, he wrote a "dying poem":
Born in the Yang Realm and scattered, why should he die and return to the earthly mansion?
The Yang Dynasty is similar, only when it floats in a foreign land.
Therefore, "light madness" may be a kind of "seeing through" for Tang Dacaizi.
Only the ruins of Tang Bohu's former residence remain, but the tomb of Tang Yin in Hengtang, a western suburb of Suzhou, is still well preserved and was renovated in 1955. During the unrest, the cemetery was destroyed and later repaired. The tombs of Tang Yin include: Idle Caotang, Liuru Hall, Mengmo Hall, Cemetery, Shinto, and Archway. The whole cemetery is scattered, and the tranquility exudes a bit of elegance. The tombstone is engraved with the inscription "Tomb of Tang Xieyuan".
Resources:
【Records of Emperor Xiaozong" and "Tomb of Tang Bohu"】