There are many moving legends in Chinese folklore, and the well-known "Meng Jiangnu Crying Great Wall" is one of them.
According to legend, during the Qin Dynasty more than 2,000 years ago, there was a Meng Laohan who planted a seed in his yard in the spring, and under his careful cultivation, the seed germinated and grew.
It's just that the melon seedlings climbed along the courtyard wall to the next house, and they also bear fruit at the neighbor's house. When it was harvest season, the two families agreed to open this huge melon and divide it equally.
Unexpectedly, the scene after opening the melon surprised the two families, because there was a white, fat and very cute little girl inside.
Meng Laohan did not marry a wife, and naturally he did not have children, but now that God has given him a child, of course he is overjoyed.
But the neighbors also liked the child, and after some discussion, the two families decided to raise it together. Since the neighbor's surname is Jiang, this little girl has the name Meng Jiangnu.
The year catches up with the month, the month catches up with the day, the days pass day by day, and Meng Jiangnu gradually grows up.
At that time, after the first emperor unified the world, in order to prevent the enemy in the north, he indiscriminately conscripted the people and sent a wide range of conscription to build the Great Wall, which made the people miserable for a while.
There is a scholar named Fan Xiliang, in order to avoid forced labor, he came to Meng Jiangnu's house by chance, and with the help of the other party, he successfully escaped the pursuit.
Fan Xiliang lived in Meng Jiangnu's house for a period of time, and the two who gradually fell in love became husband and wife under the witness of everyone.
It's just that the happy days of the two didn't last long, and Fan Xiliang was still taken away to repair the Great Wall. Meng Jiangnu was very sad about this, but it was useless, so she could only wait at home and wash her face with tears all day long.
The time soon came to winter, and Meng Jiangnu never waited for her husband's message. She thought of the bitter cold at the border pass, and her husband had no cotton clothes to protect against the cold, so she took the cotton clothes that had been made for a few days and nights, and went out to the Great Wall to find her husband.
At that time, finding someone was tantamount to looking for a needle in a haystack, so Meng Jiangnu had to insist on searching along the Great Wall, and after a lot of hardship, she finally had news of her husband, but this was bad news.
It turned out that she learned from her working husband that her husband Fan Xiliang had already died of overwork, and there were too many dead people at the foot of the Great Wall to bury him, so his corpse was filled into the Great Wall.
Seeing no one alive or dead, Meng Jiangnu was very sad and couldn't help crying bitterly. When she cried, she cried for 7 days and 7 nights, which made the listener sad, and she cried with her.
Maybe Meng Jiangnu's cry moved the heavens, or maybe the cry caused resonance, in short, the Great Wall was cried down by her, revealing thousands of corpses inside.
In the end, Meng Jiangnu confirmed the body of her husband Fan Xiliang in a series of ways, which is the story of Meng Jiangnu crying on the Great Wall.
This story reflects people's inner opposition to harsh government, the yearning for a happy life, and the kind of praise for good women. It has been passed down by word of mouth for thousands of years, and it has also appeared in the form of dramas, music, and so on in different eras, and has touched many people.
Therefore, many people also admire the behavior of Meng Jiangnu very much, and in order to praise her spirit, future generations will build an ancestral temple for her in order to commemorate her.
Nowadays, there is a shrine of virginity by the sea in Shanhaiguan District, Qinhuangdao City, commonly known as Mengjiang Temple.
Those who have been to the Mengjiang Temple should know that there is a peculiar couplet there, so peculiar that everyone who sees it can't help but be attracted by it and stop to take a serious look at it and read it.
This magical couplet is praised by Mr. Guo Moruo as the world's first strange couplet, from the famous throughout the country.
Its upper link is: the sea water is facing the morning and the sun is falling, and the lower link is: the floating clouds are long and long.
In the autumn of 1963, Guo Moruo, who was in his 70s at the time, visited the Mengjiang Temple with others, and when the group came to the outside of the main hall, they were attracted by this couplet.
There are only 10 words in the upper and lower couplets, and there are seven words of the same, the words are very simple and easy to recognize, and it is relatively easy to read the tongue knotted, and few people can read him smoothly, so many people feel unremarkable.
But Guo Moruo found that it is not so simple, the reading method is different, the feeling is different, there will be different content, there will be different meanings, this couplet can be said to contain a very high literary realm and philosophy.
He said that the word "chao" can be either the morning and twilight or the tide of the tide, and the long character can be the long of the long term, or it can be understood as the long of growing up.
接着他就给出了一种读法:海水朝,朝朝,朝朝落(hǎi shuǐ porridge,zhāo zhāo porridge,zhāo porridge zhāo luò)。 浮云长,长长长,长长消(fú yún zhǎng,cháng cháng zhǎng,cháng zhǎng cháng xiāo)。
The sea rises and falls, the floating clouds gather and scatter, the tide comes and goes, the clouds gather and disperse, everything changes, and the world is impermanent, which makes people sigh.
Combined with the story of Meng Jiangnu, it also expresses that there is reincarnation in heaven, and expresses the hope that the good qualities of truth, goodness and beauty will defeat evil.
If Guo Mo just reads it like this, it makes people feel that the realm of this couplet is not simple.
Inspired by him, everyone has their own understanding and has several readings.
At that time, everyone was having a lot of fun here.
It is said that there are more ways to read this couplet, and each reading has a different understanding and perception, and one cannot help but be in awe of the wisdom and literary attainments of the ancients while savoring it.