In March 1644, the peasant rebel army led by Li Zicheng captured Beijing, and Emperor Chongzhen hanged himself, officially ending the 276-year reign of the Ming Dynasty.
In April of the same year, the Qing army, led by the Ming general Wu Sangui, rushed into Shanhaiguan in one fell swoop, defeated Li Zicheng, occupied Beijing, and established the capital here.
This year is the year of Jiashen, so this history of "you sing and I will take the stage" is also called "Jiashen National Change".
The Jiashen National Revolution is an important time node for regime change, and it is also the beginning of the darkest moment in the life of the lyricist Li Wen.
Li Wen, whose name is Shuzhang, is a native of Huating, Jiangnan (now Songjiang District, Shanghai).
He is very talented, and when he was young, he was quite famous for poetry, and together with Chen Zilong and Song Zhengyu, he was called the "Three Sons of the Clouds".
However, the fate of these three childhood best friends after the fall of the Ming Dynasty was very different.
Chen Zilong was determined to resist the Qing Dynasty, but he was unyielding in defeat and threw himself into the water and martyred; Song Zhengyu had a weak personality and took the initiative to participate in the imperial examination of the Qing Dynasty, and later entered the court as an official.
Compared with the two old friends, Li Wen's fate can be said to be a trick, but she wanted to be loyal to the monarch but had to be clear, and finally died of depression.
Some people may ask, if he really doesn't want to surrender to the new dynasty, he can choose to kill himself, since he chose to be an official in the Qing court, doesn't it mean that he gave up his loyalty to the monarch and patriotism, and chose to bend the knee to serve the enemy?
This really wronged Li Wen.
He was raised in the fifteenth year of Chongzhen of the Ming Dynasty (1642), and when Li Zicheng occupied Beijing, he was in the capital with his father.
The father was martyred for the first time, and as a son, in order to be able to collect his father's bones, "begging for three or four days with blood, but he had to be cowardly."
He almost starved to death, but he did not dare to die until he could return his father's coffin to his homeland.
Here I have to mention Gong Dingyu, one of the "three masters of Jiang Zuo".
He was a jinshi in Chongzhen's seventh year, and in Chongzhen's fifteenth year, he was promoted to the military department. When Li Zicheng captured the capital, he said that he wanted to be martyred, and his concubine, Gu Hengbo, one of Qin Huai's Bayan, directly took the rope over.
However, Gong Dingyu not only refused to die, but used Gu Hengbo as an excuse to say to people, "I want to die, but Concubine Nai refuses to do anything."
Gong Dingyu first surrendered to Li Zicheng, and later when Dolgon entered Beijing, he took people out to greet him, and officially became an official of the Qing Dynasty.
His wife looked down on him and was unwilling to accept the canonization of the Qing court. Most of his former colleagues and friends were also very disdainful of him, and even Dolgon belittled him and said, "Such people should only sit with their necks bent and meditate, and why should they talk about others."
After he entered the court, he recommended a lot of Hanchen to the Qing court, Li Wen was one of them, Gong Dingyu said in the recommendation form that he was "wonderful in the world, learning to follow the ancients Li Wen, the countryman is unparalleled, and the name is full of Jiangzuo." Shilu Tianlu is really rare".
So Li Wen, who didn't dare to die, lost the opportunity to escape, and had to enter the Qing court, starting the last three years of her life.
Li Wen Shiqing was involuntarily, and when she heard that her old friend Chen Zilong had been insisting on resisting the Qing Dynasty in Jiangnan, she was even more ashamed.
once dissected his heart, "Since he lost his body, he who did not dare to reopen the books of the deceased knows that the righteousness is no longer than that of a gentleman."
Such emotions often appear in the poems he sent to his friends, such as "The mountains and clouds roll up by themselves, and the sea water blows mud and cannot be walked", "In the past, it was a treasure on the table, but now it is a roadside li." Once the name is over, He Yan is a gentleman", which is very straightforward to express the feelings of shame and self-blame.
Today, I want to read a poem that he seems to be sad and sad, but in fact it is also a self-ashamed "Waves and Sands: Yanghua":
The golden wisps of dawn and the wind are remnant, and the snow is clear, for whom did they fly up to the jade carving? Unfortunately, after the new rain in Zhangtai, they stepped into the sand.
There is no reason to provoke, the blue bird is empty, and the green grass is dreaming of spring. In the shadows, the ecstasy Luo sleeves are thin, with tears flicked.
"The golden wisps of dawn and the wind are remnant, and the snow is clear, for whom does it fly up to the jade carving? Unfortunately, after the new rain in Zhangtai, he stepped into the sand. ”
The goose-yellow willow branches are blown by the morning breeze, and the snow-white poplar flowers flutter in the bright sun. You say, for whom did it fly on the jade carving fence?
Unfortunately, after a new rain, it became heavy and fell into the long street, where it was trampled into the mud and sand by pedestrians.
"The Three Sons of the Clouds" have all written Yang Huaci, Chen Zilong wrote "pity him and fly Natafei" and "Little people know about the end of the world", which is written by Yang Hua; Song Zhengyu wrote "Dongfeng Li, keep him like a dream, send him like a guest", which is a metaphor for Yang Hua.
At first glance, Li Wen's words are as sad and sad as them, but if you read them carefully, you will find that his Yang Hua is written about himself.
He used the white poplar flowers as white as snow to describe himself, but unfortunately he only lived for a thought, and had to support himself in the "jade carving".
Zhangtai was originally the place where the Qin King met during the Warring States Period, and after the Han Dynasty, it became the name of a street in Chang'an, and the Tang Dynasty used it to refer to Chang'an, but after Han Yi's poem "Zhangtai Liu", later generations used it to refer to the "metallurgical travel place".
Yeshi said that the Tang Dynasty poet Han Yi had a concubine Liu, and the two were separated in the Anshi Rebellion. Liu was afraid that something would happen to him, so he lost his hair and became a nun, but he didn't expect to be occupied by the generals. After the recovery of the Jingshi, Han Hong sent people to Chang'an to find the Liu clan, and prepared a white bag full of sand gold, and a poem was inscribed on the bag:
Zhangtai willow, Zhangtai willow, the color is green today?
Even if the strip looks like it hangs down, it should be folded by the hands of others.
Han Hong's original intention was to ask the concubine if she would marry someone else, and Li Wen borrowed this allusion, which was obviously a metaphor for being forced to enter the Qing court.
Like Yang Hua and Liu, he was exposed to the wind and rain for no reason, his life was scattered, he was insulted, ravaged, his reputation was lost, and he was trampled on.
"There is no reason to provoke, the blue bird is empty, and the spring dreams are green. In the shadows, the ecstasy Luo sleeves are thin, with tears flicked. ”
The poplar flowers are dyed with mud for no reason, even if they are picked up by the blue birds, what is the use? This spring color is like a dream, and it passes by in a hurry with the duckweed.
can only hide in the dark and feel sad alone, raise the thin sleeves, and gently and quietly wipe away the tears.
The "blue bird" in the word was originally a mythical divine bird that transmitted letters, and here he recommended his "nobleman" to the Qing court.
A small former dynasty jinshi, who directly entered the court as an official and wrote an edict for the new imperial court, may be a prosperous step in the eyes of others, but in Li Wen's eyes, all the grace and prosperity at this moment are just a spring dream.
And the stain of his commitment to the new dynasty is the shame that he was forced to fall and be defiled, and no matter what he used, he could not wash it away.
In Su Shi's Yang Hua lyrics, there is a famous sentence that says, "The dawn has rained, where is the trace? Spring is three parts, two parts of dust, and one part of water. ”
In his eyes, the destination of the poplar flower is to float into the pool, turn into a pool of finely chopped duckweed, and disappear with the flowing water.
Li Wen also used the meaning of Dongpo in her lyrics, and wrote about her bleak life experience as drifting and uncertain as poplar flowers, duckweed, and flowing water.
They are all equally clean, so they are all equally susceptible to dirty, and they are all equally susceptible to external influences, forced to deviate from their own direction, and it is difficult for them to decide where they end up.
Chen Tingzhuo commented that this word "sighs about current affairs, it is not suitable to say it, it can only be used in the style of comparison, that is, it must be subtle in comparison."
Indeed, how can such a thing be proclaimed under alien rule?
He can only compare himself with Yang Hua, use images like Zhangtai to satirize the new dynasty, use wind and rain, mud and sand to metaphorize his fate, and use green and flowing water to secretly sigh about his life experience, and then secretly cry alone, helpless.
After two years in the Qing court, Li Wen was allowed to send her father's coffin home.
After burying his father, perhaps he finally let go of the big stone in his heart, this poet who once "didn't dare to die" became depressed and died on the way back to Beijing.
Because his poems often reveal his thoughts about the Ming Dynasty and his self-hatred for "losing his body" in the Qing Dynasty, his work "Later Collection of Tatezhai" was banned and destroyed during the Qianlong period, which is really sad and lamentable.
Read poetry, taste life, and get the true taste.
We can get a short period of silence in poetry, and we can taste a long-term pleasure.
To read more good poems and good words, you can check out the book below.
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