What is Tao Yuanming's daily life like when he returns to the garden?

We don't really know Tao Yuanming.

Tao Yuanming's "Returning to the Garden and Pastoral Home" is a masterpiece of pastoral poetry, expressing the boredom of officialdom life and the yearning for rural life, and the simple and sincere emotions have infected countless people.

Chinese people throughout the ages have more or less had the same complex of retreat as him. In the busy, mediocre, duplicitous, deceitful, and bent waist for five buckets of rice, people who don't know what the meaning of life is, will inevitably have a desire to emulate, want to read in the rain and rain, pick chrysanthemums, and be leisurely. However, most people are forced to continue to work hard. People often sigh and think that Tao Yuanming's return to the garden will be better.

This is not actually the case. Tao Yuanming's life after his retreat was the closest to the small peasant and clearly different from the small peasant.

Approaching the small farmer shows that he is very hard, and his life is not so easy. Such a day is completely unacceptable to ordinary scholars. If you see his life with your own eyes, you will even feel contempt.

"The Biography of Mr. Wuliu" is actually Mr. Tao's self-report, he returned to his hometown to farm, but since ancient times, farming has not made money, and it is good to be full. He was also a heavy drinker, and he could not afford to buy alcohol because he had no income. Relatives and friends knew that he was good at this mouthful, and occasionally invited him to drink, so he seized the opportunity and got drunk every time.

The conditions in Tao Yuanming's house are very poor, "the ring is blocked by Xiao Ran, and the wind is not sheltered", and above the earthen wall, there is a thatched roof, leaking wind and rain. The family didn't have money to buy clothes, so they sewed it when it was worn out, but if they couldn't sew it, they tied it in a knot. In addition to himself, there are also old mothers, wives, and children in the family, and many times there is not enough food to eat, so they have to starve.

What can I do?

Many people will say that Tao Yuanming has a lot of friends, and he can live on the help of friends. But Tao Yuanming didn't think so, he lived in the countryside when he was in seclusion, but his friends all lived in the city, and it was difficult to count on friends who were not around. And as a person with independent thoughts, he can't always open his mouth to borrow, so when he has no food to eat, he thinks of a genius idea - to be called Hanako.

The poem "Begging for Food" depicts the scene of Tao Yuanming asking for food. At that time, there was no food to eat, Tao Yuanming went out with a bowl to ask for food. He hesitated on the road, thinking about where to go, who to ask, thinking about it, and finding a family that seemed to be well decorated, so he made a ruthless move, went to a house and knocked on the door, and explained his intention to the owner.

When the host found out, he was very happy, and not only invited him to sit in the house, but also drank wine together, and talked from morning to evening. He praised his master, saying that his master was a benefactor like a drifting mother, but he was not as promising as Han Xin, and only after he died, he repaid his master's kindness in the netherworld.

Drinking alcohol occasionally and eating some meat during the New Year, this is how the peasants lived in ancient times.

Tao Yuanming was originally a county magistrate in Pengze County, east of Jiujiang City, and was assigned a piece of land according to the rules. The area of the land is not small, and the grain grown belongs to the county order. This provided a certain material guarantee for an honest official like him. The family wanted to use this land to grow grain, but Tao Yuanming was reluctant to plant sorghum, because sorghum can make fine wine. The family argued that if they planted all the sorghum, they would starve to death. He compromised with his family and announced that 250 acres of them would be planted with sorghum and the remaining 50 acres would be planted with japonica rice.

However, after Tao Yuanming resigned, this land was gone.

In ancient times, many officials were officials for three years and collected 100,000 yuan. When they resign and return to their hometowns, they will use the money they earned when they were appointed officials to purchase a large amount of land and real estate, so as to complete the initial accumulation of land annexation. And Tao Yuanming is an honest official, and he has no money. Although he was not a good husband, father, or son, he was indeed a good official and a man of great dukes. After returning to his hometown, he couldn't buy land, so he had to cultivate beans in Nanshan - fortunately, he didn't have to pay taxes.

His health is very bad, he often can't do heavy work, and he doesn't take care of the beans for a long time after planting, resulting in "the grass is full of beans and seedlings are thin". This crop is not enough to eat, so the whole family weaves straw sandals and mats every day, and he also does it himself, and after weaving it, he takes it to the market to sell it in exchange for money to buy rice.

Their daily diet is porridge, which they have to cook by themselves. Once, while porridge was cooking, firewood ignited the hut. He began to put out the fire, but the fire jumped too fast and burned into a spectacular wall of fire. Tao Yuanming saw that he couldn't save it anyway, so he knelt down and kowtowed to the fire, and said to the fire god: "Thank you! If it weren't for you, I wouldn't be able to eat!"

This fire may have been the one that destroyed his family house in the summer of the third year of Yixi (407).

Tao Yuanming is a celebrity after all, and it is impossible not to have a little luck.

The officials in Jiangzhou asked him to go out of the mountain and give him gifts, but he refused, but he accepted all the gifts given by his friends when they came to visit. The official and writer Yan Yanzhi is famous all over the world, and the two didn't know each other, but they were both writers, and they were both drunkards, and they sat down together to drink one day and became good friends. Yan Yanzhi's wine is too bad, he hugs the tree when he drinks too much, he can say any dirty words, there have been several drunken immorality incidents, and he is called "Yan Biao". This "Biao" is the same as the Biao of Fan Debiao, the first ruthless man in northern Liaoning, but Tao Yuanming likes him very much.

When Yan Yanzhi arrived at Shi'an to take office, he passed by Xunyang and made a special trip to visit Tao Yuanming. He knew that Tao Yuanming's life was difficult, so he left 20,000 (Wen) money when he left. Tao Yuanming accepted it very unceremoniously, and after Yan Yanzhi left, he asked his son to go to the restaurant as an advance payment for drinking. Every time I take the wine, I let the store transfer the account, saving the trouble of digging out the wallet. But he drank too fast at first, and later learned that he wanted to save, so he often mixed water into the wine in order to "delay Qinghuan less".

He drank porridge, drank wine mixed with water, did farm work, and made straw sandals. Except for the occasional wine money sent by friends, it can be said that Tao Yuanming's life is the same as the life of the majority of farmers. As the old saying goes, "peace and happiness in poverty" is actually like this. A life of poverty is poor, hard, hungry, and often unbearable.

The difference between Tao Yuanming and ordinary people is that he can choose. There is a lot of money not to make, there are officials who don't do it, they have to live a hard life in the eyes of people, under such difficult conditions, Tao Yuanming still maintains a relaxed and optimistic attitude, which is the reason why people admire him.

He also faces the pressure of public opinion. Some scribes and friends admired his courage in resigning, but the villagers did not know anything remarkable about him. On weekdays, I only see that he does not have to pay taxes but is still poor, this person is lazy, drunk, confused, wearing tattered clothes, and often goes to ask for food, walks two steps, takes a sip, and does not know when he will lie on the side of the road or sleep under the flowers of other people. Rural people call this kind of person a second-rate person.

However, Tao Yuanming is different from the Tian family's bastard after all. During the more than 20 years of seclusion, even though he was called up to be a senior official many times, he could not give up. He couldn't change the situation, and he didn't choose the mediocre rich, but the poor and unrestrained, innocent and lazy.

In his opinion, food and clothing must go against his wishes, and freedom means enduring hunger. When he could only choose one of the two, he preferred the latter. Therefore, Liang Qichao commented: "Nature is his loving companion, and he often smiles at him." ”

He chose nature and enjoyed himself in the incomprehensible gaze of the people.

(Excerpted from "The Ancients' Thoughts Are Really Strange", Douzi/Author, Jiangsu Phoenix Literature and Art Publishing House/Publishing)