Episode 43 of the hit drama "Qing Ping Le" has a gathering of more than a dozen literati in the House of Representatives at the 15th Shrine on August, during which Wang Yirou wildly plays "Proud Song", and a group of literati and prostitutes sing together to revel. The gathering caused an uproar among the courtiers, which eventually alarmed the emperor, and Su Shunqin, the main head of the Chamber of Music, was dismissed from his post.
Stills of "Qing Ping Le" - The Shrine Meeting
This incident occurred in 1044, when it was the fourth year of the Song Renzong Qing calendar, known in history as the "Prison of the JinxiangYuan", according to the "Zizhi Tongjian Continuation", this incident implicated more than a dozen literati, or were deposed, or demoted, and the serious ones were not hired for life. For a dynasty like the Northern Song Dynasty that treated the literati well, it was indeed a small probability that more than a dozen officials were dismissed just because of a banquet, and for an emperor like Song Renzong, who was considered benevolent, it was rare to issue such an edict.
This incident completely changed the trajectory of the 36-year-old Su Shunqin's life, and since then there has been one less politician in the political arena of ancient China, one more poet with diverse styles in the literary world, and one more garden in the history of architecture - Canglang Pavilion.
We know that a small probability of something happening to a person is rarely due to good or bad luck, and most of it is the final concentrated outbreak after a long period of accumulation.
After the "Prison of the Chamber of Deputies", the literati led by Ouyang Xiu believed that this was a disaster caused by the party, because Song Renzong appointed Fan Zhongyan and others to implement the New Deal, and many of the measures of the New Deal touched the interests of the magnates, so the New Deal ended with Fan Zhongyan and others being degraded.
Su Shunqin was promoted to the position of Jixian School Director of the Academy of Supervision because of Fan Zhongyan's recommendation, and Su Shunqin also supported the New Deal.
Stills of "Qing Ping Le" - Fan Zhongyun
Fan Zhongyan was demoted in June 1044, and the old party had the upper hand in the confrontation between the old and the new, and on August 15, the "House of Parliament" occurred, and the impeachment of Su Shunqin was mainly based on the old party, and the reason for impeachment was that he was guarding himself and stealing public funds to openly summon prostitutes.
In his letter to Ouyang Xiu, Su Shunqin also recalled the incident that caused him a devastating blow, in which he said that he had been resentful in his heart after this incident, and had been shocked many times one night, believing that this punishment was really unfair to himself. Su Shunqin felt that there was a reason for his injustice:
First of all, the Concerto Shrine is the custom of entering the Concerto Academy and has been held for many years. It was just that the concert held by Su Shunqin was different from usual, and the participants in the previous concert were officials of the academy, and the participants in the divine meeting he held were also the yacai of the world.
Second, su Shunqin's funds for holding the party this time are the proceeds from the sale of old paper. Because the duty of the Institute is to issue edicts and runes to the states, and to receive chapters, cases, and deeds from all over the country, it is an organization that collects information and disseminates news, so a large number of documents have accumulated in the Institute.
These documents can be sold after a certain period of time, that is, "selling old paper", and the minister's money obtained from selling old paper is a welfare measure given to officials in the Song Dynasty, and this money can be used as a special fund for the competent official to entertain other officials.
Although the scope of use of minister money is limited, and the use beyond this range is considered illegal, it has become a common practice for Su Shunqin's previous officials to embezzle minister money, so Su Shunqin feels that he is just following the old practice, although it is illegal but reasonable. And Su Shunqin only used "forty or fifty so" (one for every thousand texts, or consistency), and this money was really unnecessary for Su Shunqin to "steal".
In addition, the literati of the Song Dynasty were a group very closely associated with the singers and prostitutes, and in the "Water Margin", The Song Huizong emperor went out of the palace to meet Li Shishi and did not have a sense of violation, so it seems that it is not a big deal for the literati to invite the singers and prostitutes to help them.
Therefore, in the view of su Shunqin, a meal of wine ruined his career, and he really felt wronged and remorseful, and only party struggle that attributed its roots to politics could make him feel more at peace for the rest of his life.
The question is, is the wise man like Song Renzong suddenly naïve enough to listen to and believe? It is a clear fact that Su Shunqin and others were as wrong as many other officials, and just because of the impeachment of Wang Gongchen and others, Song Renzong punished more than a dozen people at once?
It's like many students in class talking to disturb the discipline of the class, because the discipline committee member Wang reported Su to the teacher, and the teacher expelled Su and punished the other members of the group.
Su, who was expelled for talking in class, must have been indignant, thinking that he had just made a small mistake like many people, and where was he expelled? So the first thing he thought about was that his disagreement with the disciplinary committee led to this result, in fact, what he should think most about was why the class teacher was willing to believe Wang's words and expelled him.
If the class teacher's character is defective, it is not within the scope of the discussion of the good wind article, the problem now is that the Zhao Zhen class teacher of the Northern Song Dynasty worked diligently, and there were a large number of excellent students in his class, such as Fan Zhongyan, Ouyang Xiu, Yan Shu, etc., and he would also beat these excellent students, but he would not let him lose the opportunity to go to school forever like Su Shunqin did.
Hao Feng repeatedly read the relevant historical materials and felt that Su Shunqin's encounter was not only the result of the party struggle, but more importantly, Su Shunqin and the literati represented by him moved the cheese of Emperor Song Renzong.
Stills of "Qing Ping Le" - Song Renzong
First of all, from a personal point of view, the "Prison of the Chamber of Songs" was a warning given by the emperor to Su Shunqin.
(1) Su Shunqin's early life
Su Shunqin is a beautiful character, he is a child born with a golden key. His grandfather Su Yijian was the head of the Gengchen Branch in the 5th year of the Taiping Revival of the Song Dynasty, and the official to the governor of the government, that is, the deputy prime minister; his father Su Qi was also talented, and once served as a middle official of the Gongbu Lang and the Zhiji Xianyuan.
Born in such a prosperous state, the family of poetry and poetry, Su Zimei of the Zhong Ming Ding Food Family, is tall and extraordinary-looking, and the key is that there are few great ambitions and eagerness to learn. His excellence won the favor of du yan, the chancellor of the dynasty, so Du Yan betrothed his daughter Xu to this young talent with unlimited prospects.
Stills from "Qing Ping Le" - Du Yan's daughter
Su Shunqin of the official N generation was not like a clumsy disciple like Xue Pan, who did not learn any techniques and was immersed in sound and color dogs and horses; nor was he as rebellious as Jia Baoyu, who did not want to be an official, but was only willing to mix in the gentle township. He has the great ambition of "washing the cleansing with his hands", and before "playing the house of hell", he has been practicing his ideals with his own actions.
At that time, scholars wrote articles that blindly pursued duality, and Su Shunqin used ancient texts and songs and poems to express his own ideas, which loved to praise others as leaders of the Northern Song Dynasty literary circles, and Ouyang Xiu, the advocate of the "Ancient Literature Movement", also praised him.
Su Shunqin established his position very early in literature, and there was a large number of followers at that time; it was also smooth politically, because of his father's relationship, he served as a substitute temple zailang and began his official career. Later, he was transferred to the lieutenant of Xingyang County, and finally passed the jinshi examination by relying on his own ability. In 1044, Meng Fan Zhongyan was recommended to supervise the Jixian School of jinyuan at the age of 36. His future is unlimited in the eyes of many.
Su Shunqin's life before the age of 36 is like hanging up, envying others!
(2) Su Shunqin's path of participation in politics caused Emperor Renzong a headache
Su Shunqin's official position had been very low until he supervised the Academy. However, just as Lu You later said, "He is humble and does not dare to forget the worries of the country", and he actively participated in the construction of the government with his outstanding literary talent.
When Su Shunqin was 21 years old, a fire broke out in the Yuqing Zhaoying Palace, and Su Shunqin, who had a low official position, went to the Dengwen Drum Courtyard to beat the drums and write a word, and the good wind combed the general idea as follows:
Emperor, you slash me with your sword and axe, and I will say it too. When I looked at the weather conditions this year, it was really all kinds of bad, and I thought that this was caused by the improper use of personnel by the imperial court, the many mistakes in government decrees, and the unclear rewards and punishments.
Now that there is a fire again, this is heaven's desire to punish Your Majesty, and Your Majesty hastened to lower the standards of clothing, food, shelter, and transportation, and to reflect on himself, carry out self-criticism, find out his own faults, and issue an edict to the whole country to appease the people, cancel projects that have nothing to do with production, and save the unemployed people.
The ministers of the DPRK, especially Zaifu and your right and left cronies, will be dismissed as soon as they are useless to the country; those who play with power and sell fame and reputation will be resolutely eliminated. Find out the mistakes of the imperial court in governing and punishing, and collect the opinions of the people, so that you can probably turn disasters into blessings.
……
From this chapter, we can see Su Shunqin's feelings of worrying about the country and the people, but a 21-year-old young man pointed the cause of a fire directly to the emperor and discussed the important ministers of the imperial court, so the emperor of rende was probably not very happy, right?
Moreover, although in ancient times, "the unity of heaven and man" was emphasized, and disasters corresponded to people's immorality, it was also written in this chapter that other ministers did not think that the emperor was wrong, but "blamed on the abuse of prisons", and let the emperor pardon some prisoners, unlike Su Shunqin, who directly moved the emperor's cheese and let the emperor lower his living standards.
After the fire broke out in the Yuqing Palace, Song Renzong wanted to renovate the palace, and Su Shunqin quoted the scriptures in this seal and the subsequent Shangshu that the emperor should not do this, and the wording was fierce.
Emperor Renzong of Song issued an edict in the year of Yihai (1035), explicitly warning his subordinates not to go beyond their posts to write and write things, and Su Shunqin was to go beyond his post to write, saying that the edict that the emperor had previously issued was probably not out of the emperor's original intention, and then continued to quote the scriptures to discuss the necessity of listening to good words.
Such a repeated cross-post participation in politics, each time against Emperor Renzong, interfered in his life and thoughts, the emperor estimated that he was dissatisfied with him for a long time, but for such a young man with a full stomach and economy, he could not be punished, and could only let him always let him hold a low-level official position.
Later, Su Shunqin was admitted as a jinshi, but he only changed to the chief bookkeeper of Guanglu, served as the county commander of Changyuan County, and was promoted to be a commentator of Dali Temple, supervising the affairs of the shop in Beijing, and did not entrust him with heavy responsibilities.
During the reign of Emperor Kangding of the Song Dynasty, an earthquake occurred in Hedong, and Su Shunqin, who was in his thirties, threw the Emperor's Letter into the opinion box set up by the imperial court, once again showing his feelings of worrying about the country and the people, and discussing the country's internal affairs and foreign affairs.
At this time, Song Renzong was also more confident than before, Fan Zhongyan recommended Su Shunqin, and after the emperor personally interviewed, he handed over the Song Council to him, and in less than a year, the "Song Yuan Prison" occurred, and Su Shunqin's political career came to an end.
Therefore, Haofeng believes that in addition to the decision made by Emperor Renzong to balance the relationship between the ministers, it is also related to Su Shunqin's personal youth and vigorous manner of advice, demanding so much from the emperor, but he himself has a loss of private morality, guards himself, embezzles public funds to eat, drink and summon prostitutes. This incident was a warning to the emperor. This style of Su Shunqin was definitely not unique during the Song Renzong period.
Secondly, the "Prison of the Chamber of Reps" was a norm of Song Renzong's behavior towards the scholars.
Li Qiang wrote in the article "Celebrating the Style and Literature of the Calendar":
"The Jinsongyuan incident was not so much a malicious political trap by the conservatives as it was a profound adjustment of the code of conduct of the scholars by the feudal rule mechanism."
Emperor Renzong's anger was not due to the forty or fifty demands for public money, but to rectify and guard against this group of wild people. Many of the young talents of the time in this gathering had the spiritual romance unique to the literati of the Northern Song Dynasty. Most of them are wild and uninhibited, such as Wang Yirou's "Proud Song" sung at the banquet, "Drunkenly lying in the North Pole to send the emperor to support, Zhou Gong Confucius drove as a slave", such songs and poems, even the emperor, Zhou Gong and Confucius had to be ridiculed, which is probably a rare thing in the feudal dynasty.
The emperor felt that these scholars might be the pillars of the country in the future, and how frivolous could be worthy of a great responsibility, so when Wang Gongchen and others impeached, Song Renzong dealt with the people in the gathering and specially reprimanded the literati for such misdeeds.
Therefore, this incident also changed the mentality of the Literati of the Song Dynasty, and Su Shunqin's unfortunate warning to the Literati of the Song Dynasty, who contained a romantic spirit, should standardize their words and deeds, restrain their creative emotions, and incorporate their words and deeds into political rationality.
As for Su Shunqin, because of the impact of this incident, he left the capital and his relatives and spent 40,000 yuan to buy a place in Suzhou to build a garden that is still very famous - Canglang Pavilion. The forty thousand yuan in the Northern Song Dynasty was probably more than 18 million yuan now, and the construction was probably a big expense, so it seems that Su Shunqin really did not need to embezzle the forty or fifty public funds.
"The water of the waves is clear and can be mao, and the water of the waves is muddy, and it can be maundy", the name of the canglang pavilion can show Su Shunqin's determination to live in seclusion.
However, how could a literati who aspired to "wash the land with his hands" be willing to live in seclusion, and he died in depression five years later, so that his life was fixed at the age of 41.
His later poems are full of contradictions, some write about hidden feelings, some repent of the past, some cry for themselves, and some express their ambitions that are difficult to reward...
A wine banquet made Su Zimei fall from the peak of her life, and also made the spiritual romance of the Northern Song Dynasty literati come to an abrupt end.