The desert is dusty and dark
▓ Wang Yizao / Appreciation and calligraphy
From the military (part 5)
★ Wang Changling
The desert is dark, and the red flag is half rolled out.
The former army fought in Taohebei at night, and it has been reported that it has captured Gu Hun.
Wang Changling (698-757) was a famous poet of the Tang Dynasty. The word Shaobo, a native of Jinyang, Hedong (Taiyuan, Shanxi), is a native of Jingzhao Chang'an. He used to be Jiang Ningcheng (deputy of Jiangning County). Because of "not protecting the fine line" (not informal, not abiding by the red tape of officialdom) and degrading the captain of Long Biao, An Shi was in turmoil, and was killed by Lu Qiuxiao, the warlord of Bozhou Assassin History, on the way back to his hometown. "Seven Songs from the Army" is Wang Changling's representative poem. Here is the fifth poem, which describes the joy of the soldiers on the expedition when they heard the news of the victory of the front troops in the first battle, reflecting the strong combat effectiveness of the Tang Army.
The desert is dusty and dark
In the vast expanse of the Saibei Desert, the wind howled, the dust flew, and the sun's brilliance became dim and dim.
Dusk: The sun is dim, and the sun is obscured by flying sand and rocks. Dusk: Not dusk, but dusk. It reflects the harshness of the battlefield environment, hints at the cruelty of the battle, and exaggerates the tension of the atmosphere.
The red flag was half rolled out of the gate
An army, guided by a half-roll of red flags, braved the violent wind and sand, and rushed out of the gate of the barracks.
Red Flag: The battle flag of the troops going out on the march. Half roll: The military flag is half rolled on the flagpole. It is neither tightly wrapped around the flagpole nor unfolded to flutter in the wind, which is called "half roll". Because the wind and sand are too violent, a half-roll of the red flag can reduce the resistance and not affect the speed of the march. Yuanmen: The gate of the barracks. Yuan: The straight wood driving the horse and ox in front of the car is called Yuan. In ancient times, when the emperor went out to stay, he took the car as the screen and the opposite side as the door, which was called the gate. Later, the gate of the military camp or official office was also called the gate.
The picture depicted in these two poems is like a relief: the soldiers on the border rush to the front. If we use the stage as a metaphor, the first sentence is the stage background, and the second sentence is the foreground relief. From this relief, we can see the urgency of the military situation, the strength of the Tang Dynasty's army, and the heroic spirit of the mighty soldiers who are brave and invincible. We can also expect the outcome of the Tang army's victory, and it seems that there is not much suspense.
The former army fought in Taohebei at night, and it has been reported that it has captured Gu Hun.
Just as the main force was attacking, a battle report came from the front, and our vanguard made contact with the enemy north of the Tao River last night, tried their skills in a small way, defeated the enemy army, and captured the leader of Tuyuhun alive.
Front: The vanguard. Tao (táo) River: A tributary of the upper reaches of the Yellow River, originating in Qinghai Province, flowing eastward, turning to Gansu Province, crossing the Lintao Basin, and joining the Yellow River. The Tao River Basin is an important section of the ancient Silk Road, which is often harassed by foreign peoples and has become an important battlefield for border wars. Tugu (yù) Hun: An ethnic group in the ancient northwest of the mainland, originally a branch of the Xianbei Murong Department in Liaodong, because of internal divisions, the leader Tuyuhun led the troops to migrate westward, and established a regime in the Qilian Mountains and the upper valley of the Yellow River for thousands of miles in the Western Jin Dynasty, also called Tuyuhun, which was conquered by the Tang Dynasty and later destroyed by Tubo.
I am not here to briefly introduce the Tao River and Tuyuhun, not to conduct a detailed discussion of history, geography, and ethnicity. That's a scholar's business, not a poet's business, and I'm going to remove the language barrier.
Removing these two linguistic barriers, we must immediately and clearly outline the dreamlike events written by the poet in light ink from this blurred background: the front army fought at night and captured the enemy's head alive. It is the poet who avoids using thick ink and color to describe the major events in the front, and uses the word "reported" to describe the major events in the side. The earth-shattering cry, the formation of the mountainslide, the scene of broken bones and blood spraying, we have not heard it in our ears but we have not seen it in our ears, and we have not seen it in person but it is like in the present.
Scholar Yu Shucheng once quoted Luo Guanzhong's "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" on the description of "warm wine and beheading Huaxiong" to analogy with the description of the "night battle of the former army" in this poem, which is very inspiring.
The first two lines of the poem describe the scene of the expedition, the first sentence describes the atmosphere of the environment, and the second sentence describes the actions of the characters and creates a group portrait relief, all of which are with real brushwork.
The last two sentences write about an encounter with the "former army". For the scene of the night battle of Taohe, this poem adopts the "virtual pen" writing method, and only uses the two words "reported" to hook together, which is really as wonderful as a thousand shots. Although the reader has not seen it in person, from the words "he has been reported to have captured Gu Hun", he can imagine the swiftness of the war, the huge results, and the high morale.
What's even more wonderful is that the first two sentences of the actual writing give people the feeling of a fictitious background, while the fictitious night battle of the former army gives people the feeling that it is a historical reference, and the scene is wider and richer.
The column "Teacher Wang Says Poetry" was selected for the Qingyun Plan Quality Graphic Award
Wang Yizao
Wang Yizao is a professor at Nanjing Xiaozhuang University, a scholar, poet and calligrapher. Born in Suqian, Jiangsu Province in 1942, he graduated from the Department of Chinese at Nanjing Normal University (now Nanjing Normal University) in 1963. He has successively served as a Chinese teacher at Nanjing No. 3 Middle School, the director of the Nanjing Teaching and Research Department, the director of the Education and Health Department of the Nanjing Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China, and the vice president of Nanjing Institute of Education. Wang Yi studied calligraphy since childhood, and later studied under the famous calligrapher and calligraphy educator Professor Shen Zishan, focusing on Wang Xizhi's "Sacred Religious Order of Collecting Characters" and "Lanting Collection Preface".