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Su Dongpo inscribed two "Cold Food Rain" on the famous "Cold Food Post", and he is known as the four masters of calligraphy in the Northern Song Dynasty, this "Cold Food Post" also has multiple literary and artistic values, not only by the literati and inkers, princes and nobles of the previous dynasties competing for collection, but also scattered to Japan, and finally bought back by collectors, now in the National Palace Museum in Taipei.
I met Su Dongpo for the first time
Written by Yi Ruofen
Shanghai People's Publishing House
August 2024
In this 100,000-word book, the author leads readers to Dongpo from a first-person perspective and starts a journey of encounter with Dongpo. She also told the moving story of Su Dongpo's writing of "Cold Food Post" in the book: survived the Wutai poetry case, tasted the warmth and coldness of the world, and still recorded his life with writing, which is Su Dongpo whom we admire and love.
So there are Dongpo monks in the world
This meeting, reunion after a long absence.
"Cold Food Post" is written with two poems of "Cold Food and Rain":
Since I came to Huangzhou, I have passed three cold foods. I want to cherish spring every year, and I can't regret spring to go. This year, it rained bitterly, and the autumn was bleak in February. Lying and smelling begonia flowers, mud swallow branch snow. Secretly stealing it, the middle of the night is really powerful. He Shu is a sick young man, and his illness has turned white.
The spring river wants to enter the house, and the rain is coming. The hut is like a fishing boat, misty in the clouds. Cook cold vegetables in the air, and burn wet reeds in the stove. That knows that it is cold food, but see black paper. The monarch's gate is nine deep, and the tomb is thousands of miles. I also want to cry and be poor, and I can't afford to blow the ashes.
This is the fourth cold food festival that Su Dongpo spent in Huangzhou, the land of debasement, in the sixth year of Yuanfeng (1083) of Shenzong of the Northern Song Dynasty. The Cold Food Festival is 105 days after the winter solstice of the lunar calendar, a day of traveling and sweeping tombs to worship ancestors. The people of the Song Dynasty attached great importance to the cold food festival, the Spring Festival (Yuan Day), the winter solstice, and called the three major festivals of the year, with a seven-day holiday. The holiday has little meaning for Su Dongpo in Huangzhou, because he has nothing to do, to be exact, he can't work.
I used to think it was funny, and I gave Su Dongpo a Ziwei Doushu life chart, and found that he would encounter a catastrophe in his life in the second year of Shenzong Yuanfeng (1079), which is also a bit of hindsight. That year, because of his continued opposition to the new law and his criticism of the government in his poems, he got a handle and sued the court, and the "Wutai Poetry Case" occurred.
"Wutai" is the Imperial Historical Observatory, which is the central organ responsible for supervising, picketing, and impeaching officials. There are many cypress trees near the Han Dynasty Yushitai, and there are crows on the trees, so "Yushitai" is also called "Wutai". In the book "Accompany You to See Su Dongpo", I said that Su Dongpo is "an international best-selling author in prison". In the official document impeaching him, he said that his works "are small and carved in stone, and spread both at home and abroad." Some were engraved into books, while others were carved into stone, and were popular in both China and abroad.
For example, Su Song, a contemporary literati, said that Su Dongpo's "article was transmitted to Fangzhou", and commented: "The year before last, the Goryeo envoy passed through Yuhang, begging the city to return." Goryeo had a Wenchen named Jin Jin who sent an envoy to the Northern Song Dynasty, learned the name of Su Dongpo's brothers, and imitated the names of his sons "Jin Fushi" and "Jin Fuzhe"! The two brothers were also very promising, and Kim Fushi compiled the "History of the Three Kingdoms", which is the earliest complete history book on the Korean Peninsula. When the Goryeo envoys arrived in Hangzhou, they all knew that they were going to buy Su Dongpo's anthology and see what he wrote.
Such a KOL has too much influence, if the people and foreigners know that our Great Song Kingdom has any decrees that are not treated by Su Dongpo, wouldn't it shake the imperial court and ruin the national prestige? You have to discipline him!
We can also see from this that the development of printing in the Song Dynasty promoted the speed and breadth of dissemination. The cold food festival was not allowed to light a fire, and the people obediently obeyed the rules, but the nobles and princes went their own way, still lit candles, and enjoyed themselves all night. In the Tang Dynasty, Han Hong wrote the poem "Cold Food", using "Han Palace" to refer to the current dynasty, sarcastically:
Spring City is full of flying flowers, and the cold food east wind and willow slope.
Candles were passed in the Han Palace at dusk, and light smoke dispersed into the house of the five marquis.
Why didn't anyone use this poem to open the knife, saying that Han Hong exposed the scars of the imperial court? Because it is not possible to talk about "small plates, large carved stones, spread Chinese and foreign".
Statue of Su Dongpo
After layers of interrogation, Su Dongpo squatted in prison for 130 days. When he regained his freedom, his official title was "to appoint the inspection of the school, the Shangshu and the water department, the foreign lang to serve as the deputy envoy of the Huangzhou regiment, the state resettlement, not to sign official affairs", such a long official title, in fact, is the imperial court to place the derogatory officials of the fictitious position, the rank is lower than his previous post Huzhou Zhizhou Liupin official, even lower than the Fengxiang Mansion Jiedu judge he originally served, can only receive a small allowance, can not live in the official dormitory.
So in order to support his family, Su Dongpo had to roll up his sleeves and go to the field to farm. His cultivated land is in the east of Huangzhou City, so there are Dongpo monks in the world, and we call him Su Dongpo. The Huangzhou period was the peak of Su Dongpo's creation, and some masterpieces with the theme of red cliffs were written in Huangzhou. Kuangda is bold, optimistic and positive, these labels are basically Su Dongpo's happiness in Huangzhou, which gave us a positive influence. However, looking at the emotions in the poem "Cold Food Post" is completely different.
Cold food and rain
Let's first return to the content of the two poems "Cold Food and Rain". Su Dongpo said that he has spent three cold food festivals in Huangzhou, and he wants to cherish the good spring every year. But no matter how much you cherish it, spring will still pass. It just so happened that it rained a lot this year, and it had been raining for two months, and it didn't seem to be spring yet, and the weather was still as cold as autumn. I heard that the begonia flowers I admired had been stained by rain and mud. Time seemed to be sneaking away in the middle of the night, and the power was unmatched. It's like a sick teenager who has just recovered from a serious illness, his hair has turned gray, and he has become an old man.
The rain was so heavy that the river was about to enter my room. My little house was like a fishing boat, drifting in the mist of water vapor. I cheered up and tried to cook a little cold vegetables in the empty kitchen. A broken stove can't be lit, and a rain-soaked reed can't make a fire. It turned out that today was the Cold Food Festival with a ban on fire, and I saw crows flying by with paper money that had not been burned. Thinking that the gate of the imperial palace was as far away as the Nine Heavens, I was thousands of miles away from Meishan, Sichuan, my hometown where I was going to sweep the tomb. I also want to be like Ruan Ji, sitting on the ground and crying at the end of my life. But my heart is like ashes that have been burned out, and I can no longer make a fire and want to cry without tears.
Why is Su Dongpo so sad, depressed, depressed and lonely? The answer lies in the first two sentences of the poem: "Since I came to Huangzhou, I have passed three cold foods." Why do you want to emphasize that you have spent three cold food festivals in Huangzhou? Because according to the grinding system of the Northern Song Dynasty, the general term of office of an official is three years, unless otherwise appointed, about three years, and then evaluated and promoted. Now that it is the fourth Cold Food Festival, which has exceeded the term of office of the imperial court, Su Dongpo is secretly anxious in his heart: When will there be a new appointment in the imperial court? Do I have to stay in Huangzhou all my life?
In the past, we thought that "Cold Food Post" was written in the fifth year of Yuanfeng (1082), and I read the poem "Cold Food and Rain" that talked about "bitter rain this year, and autumn in two months", and compared with the poem he wrote to Chaogu, "The Great Cold Step to the East Slope Gives Nest Three": "The spring rain is like dark dust, and the spring breeze blows down people." There are several houses on the eastern slope, and the nest is next to each other. The empty bed is ruined, and the stove is depressed. ......" believes that it should be the sixth year of Yuanfeng (1083). The continuous spring rain and broken stoves described in the poem are similar to the scenes in the poem "Cold Food and Rain". Su Dongpo had been sick that spring, and in a letter to a friend, he said that his eyes were red, and he coughed due to phlegm, and he was sick in bed. Therefore, the poem says "lying down and smelling the begonia flowers" and "the beginning of the illness has turned white".
In addition to work and health problems, I also found that Su Dongpo's eldest grandson in 1082, 5-year-old Su Qitian, was broken, no wonder he felt that life was not there