Cai Wenji's real name is Cai Yan, Wen Ji is her character, and the "Biography of a Young Child" compiled by Liu Zhao, a Liang person of the Southern Dynasty, records the stories of previous generations of "prodigies", one of which is Cai Wenji's "six-year-old discerning piano". Once, Cai Wenji's father, Cai Yong, broke the string, and Xiao Wenji, who was only 6 years old at the time, did not look at it and said that the second string was broken. It was indeed the second one, and Cai Yong was surprised: "You are risking to touch it, right?" Cai Yong then deliberately broke another string and asked her daughter how many were the ones, and the daughter said, "It's the fourth one." After the incident came out, Cai Wenji was considered a prodigy.
In addition to music, Cai Wenji is also good at literature and calligraphy, and the Sui Shu Jing zhi has "Cai Wenji's Collection", but most of the chapters have been lost, and only two poems of "Sorrow and Anger Poems" and "Eighteen Beats of Hu Di" have been preserved to this day, both of which are famous pieces in the history of literature.
Cai Wenji is recognized as a generation of talented women, but "red face and thin life" she has experienced ups and downs in her life, ups and downs in her childhood, three marriages in her life, encountered chaos, loneliness and loneliness, she bears the pain that is difficult for ordinary women to understand, and it is difficult to understand the pain without experiencing it herself.
The Book of the Later Han Dynasty has a brief account of Cai Wenji's tragic experience. In the beautiful years of youth, Cai Wenji married Wei Zhongdao, the Wei family is a large family in Hedong, and Cai Wenji, who was born from a famous family, was combined with it, and she was also a door-to-door pair, and should have been happy. If Wei Zhongdao had not died young, perhaps Cai Wenji would not have been taken into captivity, let alone transferred to Hudi. There are too many accidents in life, and there seems to be a certain fatal necessity in chance.
When Cai Wenji left the Wei family and returned to Chen Liu, it was at the time of political turmoil at the end of the Han Dynasty and the great chaos in the world. From the sixth year of the Eastern Han Dynasty (189) to the third year of Chuping (192), Dong Zhuo practiced a tyranny of dictatorship, known in history as the "Rebellion of Dong Zhuo". In the third year of Chuping (192), Dong Zhuo's subordinate Li Dai and others descended from Chang'an to the east, and were defeated by Sun Jian's volunteers, and Li Dai's troops fled to Chen Liu County, plundering heavily, and Cai Wenji was also taken captive. In the second year of Xingping (195), Li Dai failed to fight against the Southern Xiongnu, and Cai Wenji was transferred to the Southern Xiongnu Army.
According to historians, Cai Wenji later moved to the homeland of the Southern Xiongnu, namely Xihe Meiji (in present-day Hetao, Inner Mongolia). Cai Wenji married Zuo Xian of the Southern Xiongnu, had two sons, and remained in Hudi for twelve years. Although life in Hudi is relatively stable, because of cultural differences and the humiliating status of being taken captive, Cai Wenji has been thinking about her homeland in the Central Plains and looking forward to returning. Until around the twelfth year of Jian'an (207), Cao Cao sent envoys to carry a thousand taels of gold and a pair of white bi to welcome Cai Wenji back to Han and remarry her to Dong Qi.
For such a woman who has remarried many times, Dong Qi's original intention is contemptuous, not to be seen, and it is difficult for the two to integrate their feelings. After several drifts, Cai Wenji, who remarried twice, Dong Qi may have become the last sustenance in her life, but soon after the marriage, Dong Qi committed another capital crime. Cai Wenji let go of a fight, and begged Cao Cao in an almost collapsed manner, pleading to spare Dong Qi,
The Book of the Later Han Dynasty and the Biography of The Daughters of Lienu reads: "And Wen Jijin, Pengshou discipleship, prostration of the head to ask for sin, clear speech, very sad and mournful, all are transfigured." Seeing Cai Wenji, who was out of shape and sour in speech, Cao Cao felt pity, and he knew that if he really killed Dong Qi, Cai Wenji would inevitably be loveless, and he finally withdrew the document and pardoned Dong Qi's crime. There is no record of Cai Wenji's later life in the history books, and the three ups and downs of life contained in the book are enough to remind us of this tough, brave and wise woman.
Why did Cao Cao want to redeem Cai Wenji with a lot of money? And why did he release the death row prisoner Dong Qi for cai Wenji?
Cao Cao has always had a view of the overall situation, he deliberately sent someone to redeem Cai Wenji, obviously not a random move, nor a whim, a very popular explanation is: Cao Cao and Cai Wenji from childhood "green plum bamboo horse", when Cao Cao found out the whereabouts of Cai Wenji, out of "old feelings", so at any cost to take Cai Wenji back, some novels, operas, film and television dramas are based on this as the main line to interpret the story between Cao Cao and Cai Wenji.
Both Cao Cao and Cai Wenji's father, Cai Yong, had served as a councilor of six hundred stones in pin rank, serving for about the same time, and it was possible that Cao Cao had contact with Cai Wenji in his early years. However, from the perspective of age, the two cannot be "green plum bamboo horses", Cao Cao was born in the first year of the Han Huan Emperor Yongshou (155 AD), Cai Wenji's birth year is unknown, according to her marital status before entering Hu Zhong and the main experience of speculation, most scholars believe that she was born around the sixth year of the Han Ling Emperor Xiping (177 AD), that is to say, the two were more than 20 years apart, Cao Cao and Cai Yong were both in the Han Ling Emperor Guanghe years, when Cao Cao was about 30 years old, and Cai Wenji was only a few years old, the two could not be" Green Plum Bamboo Horse".
Therefore, the main reason why Cao Cao redeemed Cai Wenji was that he was good friends with Cai Wenji's father, Cai Yong. Cai Yong was famous in Luoyang and became a leader in the literary world. Cao Cao admired him very much, and often visited Cai Mansion, where he was also a teacher and friend of Cai Yong. Therefore, it can be said that Cao Cao's redemption of Cai Wenji naturally has the factor of missing his old friend.
In addition to the emotional factor, is there any other reason for Cao Cao to take Cai Wenji back? Of course.
When the Eastern Han Dynasty was established, Liu Xiu, the Emperor of Han Guangwu, immediately ordered the revision of the history of the dynasty, and the imperial court set up a special history museum for this purpose, which was named "Dongguan Hanji" because it was located in the Dongguan of Luoyang Nangong's storage archives, classics and school books, so it was named "Dongguan Hanji", which was different from "Houshu" and "Later HanShu", "Dongguan Hanji" is a "history of the dynasty", and every time it develops forward, it continues to write a part, so many famous scholars in the Eastern Han Dynasty have participated in this work.
During the reign of Emperor Ling of Han, Cai Yong and Yang Biao, Lu Zhi, Han Shuo and others participated in the compilation of the "Book of Dongguan Han", of which Cai Yong wrote the most articles, including the "Records of the Ling Emperor" and other biographies 42 and 10 zhi, and later Wang Yun wanted to kill Cai Yong, but this work was still going on, Cai Yong proposed to Wang Yun that the "Book of Dongguan Han" had not yet been completed, and he was willing to atone for his sins like Sima Qian, so as to continue to write the "Book of Dongguan Han", which made Wang Yun firm in his determination to kill Cai Yong.
After Cai Yong's death, the main writer of the "Book of Eastern Han" was Yang Biao, that is, the father of Yang Xiu, a famous strategist around Cao Cao, the relationship between Cao Cao and Yang Biao was delicate, Cao Cao had punished Yang Biao, in Cao Cao's view, Yang Biao was obviously not a suitable candidate to write the history books of the dynasty, but it was not easy to find others, because the conditions for revision of history at that time were extremely difficult, and the archives and books preserved by the imperial court after Dong Zhuo's rebellion and westward migration had been scattered, and many precious historical materials could only be supplemented by personal collections.
Cai Yong was the most famous bibliophile at that time, and after Cai Wenji returned, Cao Cao specifically asked Cai Wenji about the books in Cai Yong's collection: "Lady Wen's family first had many grave books, can you still remember it?" Cai Wenji told Cao Cao that his father left more than 4,000 volumes of books and materials, but "displaced, there are no survivors", but Cai Wenji has a remarkable talent for memorizing since she was a child, and there are more than 400 articles that can be memorized, Cao Cao was very happy when he heard it, and immediately sent 10 scribes as assistants to let Cai Wenji write out the content she had memorized.
Cai Wenji had lived with her father for many years before she went into exile in Huzhong, and was very familiar with what Cai Yong created, and Cai Yong spent all his energy on the writing of the "Dongguan Hanji" at that time, and what Cai Wenji could memorize must be the most important content, or it was related to the "Dongguan Hanji", so Cao Cao attached so much importance to it. After Yang Biao, the best person in Cao Cao's mind to continue to write the "Book of Eastern Han" was Cai Wenji, which was probably the reason why Cao Cao tried his best to promote Wen Ji's return to Han.