Preface
For a person who claims to be a poet, it is natural that his poems will be left as far as possible and spread as far away as possible, so that he can promote his talent and fame and let the world know that his literary brilliance is brilliant.
However, in the Northern Song Dynasty, there was a poet who did not take the usual path, and people said that Zhang Ruoxu "pressed the whole Tang Dynasty alone", then "Spring River Flower Moon Night" is at least a whole poem, the poet of the Northern Song Dynasty, only this poem has been handed down, but the popularity of this poem even exceeds the famous works of many writers in history.
What is the content of this poem, and why can it be passed down through the ages with just two lines?
1. Fan Wenzhenggong
There was such a person in the Northern Song Dynasty, he was brilliant, although it was only a county inspection, but because the work was done very well and he loved the people like a son, he was quite loved by the people in the place where he worked, but he worked in his position for a long time but was not promoted, this person is Su Lin.
If we want to talk about Su Lin, then we must first mention another person, this person is Fan Zhongyan, the famous minister of the Northern Song Dynasty, why does it have anything to do with Fan Zhongyan? Because Su Lin's short poem was written to Fan Zhongyan.
Fan Zhongdrun came from a humble background, and his family was very difficult when he was a child, so Fan Zhongdrun cooked a pot of porridge in order to save food, and then left it overnight to wait for the porridge to cool into porridge jelly and then ate it in four days, so that he could save a lot of money for reading and Xi.
Under Fan Zhongyan's diligent and arduous study Xi, in the end, the emperor lived up to his wishes, and after more than ten years of hard study, Fan Zhongyan became a high school scholar and began his own road to becoming an official.
Fan Zhongyan is a very generous and gentle person, because he has suffered a lot, so after he got out, he began to be very keen to help others, especially those students who are hanging beams, and for his colleagues and summer officials, Fan Zhongyan is also quite kind, he likes to promote officials who he thinks are talented, so that they can realize their political ambitions for the country and the people.
It is precisely because of Fan Zhongyan's characteristic of knowing people and being good at his duties that there are many students who want to worship under Fan Zhongyan, and there are quite a few people who want to be promoted to official positions through Fan Zhongyan.
In 1043 AD, in order to enrich the country and strengthen the army, under the initiative of Fan Zhongyan and others, the Northern Song Dynasty began to carry out the relevant reform work of the Qingli New Deal, but this change only lasted for two years, and finally although Fan Zhongyan and others still had hope, but due to the excessive resistance to the change, it was finally over, and Fan Zhongyan himself also applied for decentralization to the local work because of the huge pressure in the imperial court.
And the story of Su Lin and Fan Zhongyan happened when Fan Zhongyan was the governor of Hangzhou.
2. Inspections
In 1049, Fan Zhongyan was transferred to Hangzhou as a governor, and the people here were very happy when they heard that Fan Zhongyan was coming, and they wrote a letter of worship for themselves, wanting to get acquainted with Fan Zhongyan.
Although Fan Zhongyan failed to change the law and was squeezed out of the central government, Fan Zhongyan's reputation is still well-known, and there are many officials in the court who have studied under Fan Zhongyan or were recommended by Fan Zhongyan, so he is still very influential in the court, not to mention that the emperor also respects Fan Zhongyan very much.
When Fan Zhongyan came to Hangzhou, he was also very happy as the inspector of Hangzhou's subordinate county, because in this way he had the opportunity to communicate with Fan Zhongyan, and he could learn more about being an official from Fan Zhongyan, so that the people could live a better life.
Fan Zhongyan attaches great importance to what he sees with his own eyes, so after arriving in a place, he will personally go to various administrative divisions to observe whether there are any shortcomings in the lives of the people and the administration of officials, although Fan Zhongyan is already an old man at this time, and he will also personally inspect it after arriving in Hangzhou.
And this is also where Su Lin admires Fan Zhongyan very much, he is also a local official, and he is also a parent official who is dedicated to the people, Su Lin knows best how tiring it is to do everything by himself like Fan Zhongyan when he performs government affairs, so when Fan Zhongyan came to the county to which he belonged, Su Lin did his best to entertain Fan Zhongyan.
When inspecting the work in the county, Fan Zhongyan saw that the atmosphere here was different from other places, and in most places, the people were afraid of the officials, which was a normal phenomenon, and Fan Zhongyan would not force every local official to love the people like children.
But here, Fan Zhongyan saw that when they walked on the road, many people would take the initiative to smile and greet Su Lin after seeing him, although it was just a simple sentence of "Lord Su, how is your work today", but the familiarity contained in it cannot be pretended, Su Lin must have gotten along with the people in the county very well.
Su Lin felt a little embarrassed when he was always interrupted by the people when chatting with Fan Zhongyan about government affairs along the way, so he said to Fan Zhongyan apologetically: "The people are all out of good intentions, I hope Lord Fan doesn't mind." ”
Fan Zhongyan had a very good impression of Su Lin, but after seeing him apologize, he was puzzled, and asked rhetorically: "The people greet you, this means that you have done a good job, and it is too late for others to behave in front of Shangguan, why do you still feel sorry?"
Su Lin breathed a sigh of relief after hearing this, and at the same time, he was relieved by Fan Zhongyan's tolerant words and laughed.
III. A Thousand Ancient Phrases
Fan Zhongyan always had to return to the Hangzhou government to deal with other work after the local inspection, not to mention that there were still many people in Hangzhou who were waiting to make friends with Fan Zhongyan to deal with, so the contact between the two came to an end temporarily, but it didn't take long for Fan Zhongyan to receive another letter from Su Lin.
Fan Zhongyan originally thought that Su Lin wanted to report something in government affairs, and wondered why he didn't take the form of an official document, but after opening the letter, he saw only two lines written on the paper, the first line was a greeting, saying that he was not talented, and wrote a poem that Fan Gong wanted to evaluate, and then the following line was the poem he wrote:
The buildings near the water get the moon first, and the flowers and trees are easy to spring.
Fan Zhongyan was stunned for a moment after seeing it, laughed randomly, pointed to the letter and said to the servant: "Su Lin is very talented!"
But this is only a poem about the scenery, it even has only one sentence instead of a whole poem, why did Fan Zhongyan praise it so much? It turned out that Su Lin was lamenting the beauty of the moonlight and flowers on the surface, but in fact he was expressing his irony through the beautiful scenery.
Fan Zhongyan will recommend talents, this is a thing that people know, after coming to Hangzhou, I saw those talented people and good officials and recommended them to the imperial court, but these recommendations are all in the case of these people's requests, and Fan Zhongyan will not make his own decisions without requests.
But Su Lin didn't know about it, seeing that everyone else had been promoted, and he had been praised by Fan Zhongyan, but there was no sign of change in his work, so he wrote this residual poem to express his dissatisfaction with Fan Zhongyan, saying that only those who were far away from Fan Zhongyan could be promoted, and he forgot about himself as a distant magistrate.
Fan Zhongyi didn't feel angry after seeing it, but was amazed by Su Lin's ingenuity, and after sighing, he also took out the letter paper and wrote a letter of recommendation for Su Lin, and as the letter was sent to the capital, Su Lin, who had never met Huai Cai, was gradually used.
epilogue
Since then, "the building near the water gets the moon first, and the flowers and trees are easy to spring" has become a famous phrase that has been passed down through the ages, and has gradually been simplified to "the building near the water" in later generations, which is specially used to satirize those improper behaviors who seek benefits for themselves by taking advantage of their positions.