As mentioned earlier, the Fifth Great Dao King, who was ranked at the top of the list of the top ten masters of the late Qing Dynasty, also mentioned one of his close friends, who was also his brother-in-law, Tan Sitong.
After Tan Sitong failed to change the law, he gave his sword to the Great Sword King Wu for safekeeping, and later I checked the historical data, and his sword originally had a name, called "Feng torch sword".
In addition to this "Phoenix Torch Sword", Tan Sitong also left two homemade pianos, one called "Lei Remnant Qin" and the other called "Crashing Thunder Qin". These two pianos were also the beloved objects of him and his wife Li Yan, who played against each other in front of the lamp one night before he went to Beijing to change the Fa. Subsequently, he carried these two pianos, plus the sword, and resolutely went to Beijing to change the Fa, and never returned...
Yang Jiaofeng on the Late Qing Dynasty Republic of China (formerly towards the Republic) No. 103: Tan Sitong: Shangma can lift the sword, the next pen can be written, and a sentence said by his wife after being imprisoned makes him whimper!
One
If there had been no such transformation, then Tan Sitong's image in the history textbooks might have been a Buddhist scholar, a chivalrous person, a poet, or an artist.
Yes, Tan Si Tong is really such a strange man!
Ben was born in a family of eunuchs, and his whole family benefited from the imperial examination, but he was not interested in the imperial examination, and even hated the imperial examination; Ben was an extremely radical person, but when he was young, he immersed himself in meditation, and even completed a philosophical masterpiece "Renxue"; he thought that he was a literati, and he did not think that he had ever fought the sword to the end of the world, and his martial arts attainments were not comparable to ordinary people...
The reason why Tan SiTong will become such a contradictory individual, I (Yang Jiaofeng) feel that it is inseparable from Tan Sitong's childhood encounters.
Tan Sitong's father, Tan Jixun, although he also served as the governor of Hubei and the governor of Huguang, such a big official. But he is very tolerant of his children, and he lacks his own opinion on the growth of his children.
But Tan Sitong's mother, Xu Wuyuan, is different, she attaches great importance to Tan Sitong's education and usually does not smile. In his "Anecdotes of Lady Xu", he recorded in detail his relationship with his mother when he was a child, as well as his mother's temperament:
"The first lady is virtuous and solemn, the training is not shawn, etc., from step by step to the point of receiving things, all of them are detailed... The old heir recited the book together, and the stalker said that he thought that the father was kind and the mother was strict. ”
On the same hand, Tan Si also wants to lie to his mother, on the other hand, he has to pretend to be strong, and this contradiction between the inner and external performance has formed a fierce collision, which has a great effect on the cultivation of Tan Sitong's personality.
Two
For example, when Tan Si was seven years old, his mother returned to her hometown for a year because of the marriage of her eldest brother, and before leaving, she instructed him:
"Commandments don't miss!"
A seven-year-old child, in his heart, is not willing to be separated from his mother, but his heart is very stubborn, and when he sends off, the mother and son are also stubborn with each other, and neither of them speaks:
"Before the car, my eyes are full of tears, and I will not let it out!"
However, when his mother really left, the young Tan Sitong missed his mother too much and had several serious illnesses in succession. When my mother came back the next year, I asked about the illness, was it because I missed my mother?
Tan Sitong still stubbornly replied no, which made his mother Xu Wuyuan both distressed and relieved:
"This son is stubborn and can stand on his own, and I have no worries about dying!"
Therefore, Tan Sitong grew up under this educational concept, he was stubborn in himself, he did not admit defeat, and his pride also originated from this.
When he was twelve years old, his mother was infected with the plague because she returned home to save her relatives, and when she returned to Beijing, she also infected Tan Sitong's eldest sister and eldest brother, and the three of them died one after another. Even Tan Sitong himself lay in bed for three days without eating or drinking, and walked away behind the ghost door and came back to life.
After this, the second aunt of the Tan family was in charge, and Tan Sitong was even more insecure at home, and this uneasiness did not dissipate until after becoming a family. He also wrote to his wife Li Yan many times, worried that the second mother (second mother-in-law) would be difficult, emphasizing that he should be frugal:
"But we must be frugal, lest people speak ill of you!"
Three
The absence of the mother's love, the father's love is often absent, so Tan Sitong has a good relationship with his brothers, but unfortunately most of his brothers do not live long:
"Reading at night, smelling the wind of the poplar trumpet, and the ghosts whistling." Great fear, running to the two brothers, they are both soothed and warm. ”
Later, his relationship with the Great Sword King Five was so good, and he even became a brother of the opposite sex, which was precisely the reason why Tan Sitong attached special importance to brotherhood!
After the death of his mother and eldest brother, Tan Sitong began to advocate martial arts, and even wrote this pair of couplets at the age of thirteen:
"But the hero will flow to the heavens and the earth, don't have a crazy name from ancient times!"
Tan Sitong didn't just talk about it, but really went to learn martial arts, and he had worshipped many people as teachers. For example, he worshiped Hu Qi, who was also a famous martial artist in the late Qing Dynasty, who practiced Tong Arm Fist, Shape Intention Fist, Tai Chi Quan, Excelling in Horse Fighting and Double Knife; he also followed his father's subordinates to learn horse archery on horseback and imagined himself as a heroic and warlike cavalryman; later he also worshiped the Great Sword King Wu as a teacher, learned sword techniques and single knives, and later did not know what to do, and the two became brothers again...
Ouyang Yuqian, a playwright who has written plays such as "Pan Jinlian", "Zhongwang Li Xiucheng", and "The Unstoppable Spring Light", his grandfather once taught Tan Sitong literature, and he commented on Tan Sitong:
"He likes to strike, he can ride horses, he can dance swords, and I have seen him crouch on the ground and tell two people to clasp his braids, and as soon as he rolls over and stands up, both of them fall."
He even ran to his father's station in Gansu and rode a horse with the people of the Western Regions to hunt, quite like the flying general Li Guang.
Four
Without the later Penghu Reform, Tan Sitong could have become a swordsman, a literati, and a scholar who could study Buddhism instead of recording the annals of history as a reformer.
When Tan Sitong was eighteen years old, he was ordered by his father to marry a woman named Li Yan, the daughter of Li Huangxian of Hunan Observation. His love story with Li Yan can even be compared with Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai, Bai Niangzi and Xu Xian, Niu Lang and Weaver Girl. Of course, those love stories all involve myths and legends, and Tan Sitong and Li Yan are indeed human love.
Tan Sitong has been with Li Yan for 15 years, exceptionally loving, insisting on monogamy, not letting his wife wrap his feet, not taking concubines, and paying attention to equality between men and women.
Tan Sitong made his own "Crashing Thunder Qin" and "Residual Leiqin", often playing against his wife and two people, and Li Yan also supported her husband's active participation in changing the law. I don't know, later learned that Tan Si died after the same death, whether Li Yan ever regretted it, whether he was like the poem written by Wang Changling:
"The young woman in the boudoir has not been worried, and the spring day condenses makeup on the Green Floor. Suddenly seeing the strange head of Yang Willow, the repentant husband and wife looked for a marquis. ”
Li Yan is also a fairly educated, talented woman, after Tan Sitong's death, she extracted two words from the sentence "Endure death and wait for Dugan" and renamed it "Yusheng" to commemorate her deceased husband. Later, she also wrote mourning poems many times to mourn Tan Sitong, and after the Xinhai Revolution, she also served as the honorary principal of Liuyang Girls' School.
Tan Sitong was killed not because he was chasing fame and fortune, but because he died generously for the rise and fall of the nation:
"All countries have changed their laws from shedding blood, and today China has not heard of anyone who has shed blood because of changes in the law, and the reason why this country is not prosperous." Yes, please start with the same heir! ”
Five
After Tan Sitong was imprisoned, he wrote a poem:
"Look at the door to stop thinking about Zhang Jian, and endure death to wait for Dugan." I smiled at the sky with a horizontal knife and went to leave the liver and gallbladder for two kunluns. ”
As for who the two Kunluns are, we have also talked about it before, and the most widely circulated statement is also what Liang Qichao said, referring to Kang Youwei and the Great Dao King Five. If it is from Tan Sitong's own point of view, the two Kunlun may also refer to himself, or add a Tang Caichang.
Tang Cai and Tan Si were old friends, and when they were in the Changsha Shiwu Academy, they were called "Liuyang Erjie". After Tan Sitong's death, Tang Cai was often very sad, fled to Japan, and then returned to China to organize an uprising, and after being arrested, he wrote poems in prison:
"Good heads left to reward old friends, no harm to see the group of demons!"
And Tan Si Tong ming can escape, he did not escape, Jing waited to be arrested, his wife Li Yan also bought the jailer, ran to the prison to meet Tan Si for the last time.
When the husband and wife met, tears fell like rain, and Li Yan did not understand why her husband did not run away, and she also regretted that she did not leave a child for Tan Sitong:
"After so many years of marriage, we have no heirs, and I can't stand you!"
Tan Sitong heard his wife say this, first sighed sadly, whimpered and wept, and then laughed bitterly:
"In this world now, one more child, one more slave, don't do it!"
In this way, Tan Sitong calmly went to his death, and at the mouth of the vegetable market, in the face of the people's incomprehension, he threw eggs and stones, and he still held his head high:
"There is a heart to kill a thief, unable to return to heaven, die where he wants, hurry up!"
Six
In fact, we only know that Tan Si wrote poems and shouted before his execution, but we don't know that he also left a farewell letter to his wife:
"The leap wife is like a face:
Fifteen years after the marriage, the original covenant was kept to die, and now I have betrayed the alliance! Writing this letter by hand, I am still a man in the world, and when you read this letter, I have become a ghost, dead and alive, and I will repeat what I say. But although this body is gone, this feeling is unswerving, and although the small self is destroyed, the large self is eternal. In all lifetimes, dwelling in the lotus flower, such as the bird with the same fate as the Yingling Piga, flying with wings, can also laugh at each other. May the king regard glory as a dream, regard death and humiliation as a common thing, have no joy or sorrow, and listen to its nature. I am with my son in the Western Elysium, and he will reunite and reunite. The soul of the martyr and me, the soul is not far away, and the dream of the king's soul is dependent, and I hope that the king will be cherished.
On August 9, He Tong. ”
Reading this letter now, it still makes people cry, and it is enough to see the depth of Tan Sitong's relationship with his wife Li Yan.
Before Tan Sitong was arrested, he repeatedly refused the bitter persuasion of the Great Sword King V and the assistance of the Japanese embassy, insisting on not fleeing. When he was imprisoned, he gave the "Fengzhi Sword" to the Great Sword King Five, and later this sword was smelted with the Green Dragon Yanyue Sword of the Great Sword King Five. Tan Sitong's "Residual Lei Qin" was also left behind, and it is now in the Palace Museum, but the "CrashIng Qin" has not been known since then.
Tan Sitong was the fifth executor, using a blunt knife, enough to cut more than 30 knives before he lost his breath, it can be said that he suffered greatly, but unfortunately the whole time he did not hum a sound, it was really a man.
His wife Li Yan later wrote a poem to mourn Tan Sitong:
"The past cannot be traced, and a layer of ash is a layer of acacia." In the next life, he transformed into a lotus picker and met the King in Hengtang Water. ”
In the days to come, Li Yan would burn incense and candles and pay tribute to the dead on Tan Sitong's birthday and death day. And often write mourning poems, according to statistics from the death of Tan Sitong to the death of Li Yan, in the past 30 years, a total of more than 200 poems have been written.
These poems, along with Tan Sitong's relics, were placed upstairs and closed doors, which were unknown for 30 years. It wasn't until after Li Yan's death that people discovered these things, and time has passed, and after many years have passed, we can find only a few surviving poems of Li Yan's mourning...
On Li Yan's sixtieth birthday, Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao sent her a plaque with four big characters written "Towel Finisher". However, Kang Youwei, who married five or six young wives, would not understand, without Tan Sitong's "thunder residue" and "collapse thunder", he could no longer play the strings of Hemei...
My name is Yang Jiaofeng, another perspective to see the late Qing Republic of China characters, Yang Jiaofeng on the late Qing Republic of China character series articles continue to update, like please pay attention to it!