Yang Hongji's song "Rolling Water in the East of the Yangtze River" sang the opening words of "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", the sigh of "the green mountains are still there, several degrees of sunset red", and the freedom of "how many things in ancient and modern times are paid for laughter and talk" have become more deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.
However, many viewers and readers may not know that the words entitled "Linjiang Xian" are not written by Mr. Luo Guanzhong, the author of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, but were added at the beginning of the chapter by the literary critic Mao Zonggang Mao Lun in the early years of the Qing Dynasty when he revised the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and the author was Yang Shen, a great talent in the middle and late Ming Dynasty.
The reason why Yang Shen was able to write such a song that saw through the red dust and penetrated the world was because he had a unique and painful life experience that was difficult for ordinary people to taste.
In today's parlance, Yang Shen was a typical "second generation official", his father Yang Ting and the four dynasties of Emperor Xianzong, Emperor Xiaozong, Emperor Wuzong, and Sejong, and during the period of Emperor Wuzong and Sejong, he was ranked as the prime minister. Relying on his outstanding talent and family background, Yang Shen's first half of his life can be described as raining and raining, winding and wind, and achieving things in his heart, all the way to the green light.
The most beautiful day was the sixth year of Emperor Mingwuzong Zhengde, and at the age of twenty-three, he won the first place in the First Division of the Xinwei Ke Temple Examination, which is the legendary Champion. The scene at that time, as written in the poem of the Tang Dynasty Mengjiao- the spring wind was proud of the horseshoe disease, and the Chang'an flowers were seen in one day.
There are not a few titles in Chinese history, but there are very few titles among the literary scholars, as if in addition to Wen Tianxiang, there is only Yang Shen, the protagonist of this article and one of the three great talents of the Ming Dynasty.
Yang Shen was indeed a talented man, he was able to export chapters when he was a teenager, and at the age of twelve, he wrote the "Ancient Battlefield Text" that surprised the literati and scholars, and later won the favor of Li Dongyang, a brother in the literary circle at that time, with a "Yellow Leaf Poem", thus becoming famous in the literary and art circles in Beijing.
Unfortunately, the great talent Yang Shen actually did something that we modern people seem to be completely stupid, and thus embarked on a life path full of miserable wind and rain, muddy and bumpy, and worse, this is still a road of no return.
In 1521, the most famous Emperor Huahua in history died with the famous ancient and modern Ming Wuzong Zhu Houzhao, who was famous for the signboard of the dragon play phoenix in the upper reaches of Meilong Town. Zhu Houzhao's era name was Zhengde, but he was neither righteous nor virtuous when he did things, and as a result, he died indulging in lust at a young age, not only pitting himself, but also pitting his father, because he was the only son, and there was no heir left, which was equivalent to his father's imperial line cutting off his children and grandchildren.
Therefore, who will inherit the throne becomes a question.
Yang Shen's father, Yang Tinghe, who was a Zaifu, quoted the "Brother and Brother" in the Imperial Ancestral Training, and the Empress Dowager Shangshu requested that Lixing offer The Eldest Son of Zhu Youji, the Prince of Lixing, and Emperor Wuzong to inherit the throne from his younger brother (i.e., cousin) Zhu Houxi.
The empress dowager had no better option and indicated permission. As a result, Zhu Houcang, who was far away from the capital, ushered in his unexpected spring, coming to the capital from Hubei Anlu (present-day Zhongxiang, Hubei) two thousand miles away, and becoming the first leader of the Ming Empire.
Zhu Houxi ascended the throne in the sixteenth year of Zhengde, and according to the custom, he had his own era name Of Jiajing the following year, and he was also known as the Jiajing Emperor.
As mentioned above, the newly succeeded Jiajing Emperor was not the son of the previous emperor, nor was he a brother of the previous emperor, but a cousin, and this special inheritance relationship led to the famous "Great Ceremony" incident in history.
The Jiajing Emperor wanted his deceased father, Zhu Youhang the Prince of Xingxian, to receive the title of emperor behind him, but Yang Tinghe, who welcomed him to the throne, and others resolutely disagreed, and demanded that the new emperor, in accordance with historical practice, call his uncle Zhu Youjun the Emperor of Hongzhi the Father Emperor and his own father Zhu Youhang the Prince of Xingxian the Uncle of Xingxian the Emperor as his uncle.
Although the Jiajing Emperor was only fifteen years old, he was very tough, refused to compromise and threatened to abdicate. Under this circumstance, Yang Tinghe was forced to resign and return to his hometown.
After the Jiajing Emperor forced Yang Tinghe away, he ignored the opposition of most of his courtiers and formally issued an edict to his biological father Zhu Youhang the Prince of Xingxian as Emperor Gongmu.
At this time, Yang Shen had already taken over the banner of the "Guardian Sect" in his father's hand, and he and Wang Yuanhua, a jinshi in the same year, gathered more than two hundred imperial court officials and excitedly said to everyone: "The state has been raising soldiers for one hundred and fifty years, and the battle is dead and righteous, and it is today." Therefore, they were excited and rushed to the Area of Jinshui Bridge and Zuo Shunmen to cry in unison, expressing strong protest against the Jiajing Emperor's transgression of etiquette and obstinate behavior.
When the Jiajing Emperor saw that the Yang family's lao tzu had just left, and his son took the lead in opposing him, Long Yan was furious and ordered the Jinyi Wei court staff to be these trouble-making officials. The so-called court staff, that is, beating the ass with a staff above the court, was the main way for the Ming emperor to teach and punish his courtiers. Therefore, for a time, the sticks fell together, the flesh and blood flew everywhere, and sixteen people were killed on the spot, which was tragic to imagine.
It's far from over.
Ten days later, Yang Shen, who was physically and mentally strong enough, joined forces with six courtiers to weep in public in the court again to express stronger protest. The Jiajing Emperor fought back even more fiercely—not only was he again punished with a court staff, but he also exiled Yang Shen, Wang Yuanzheng, and Liu Ji, who were the leaders, to the turbulent frontier regions.
Yang Shen, a weak scholar with no strength in his hands, finally arrived at his destination after several months of hardships and five thousand miles of fear, and once the nerves that had been tense were relaxed, they could not be harvested, Yang Shen was seriously ill, and his body gradually recovered after several months.
In fact, for Yang Shen, who suffered a political blow and was exiled to the poor, it will take some time for the pain of physical labor to be healed, but what is really difficult to soothe is the mental trauma.
Yang Shenben was a person who was willing to read and write diligently, and he had a wide range of interests, including subsets of history, poetry and music, jinshi calligraphy and painting, astronomical geography, and knew everything. Although his exile was a heavy blow to his lofty ideal of governing the country and the world, it also gave him enough leisure time to read and write and show his talents.
It seemed that everything was moving in the direction of returning to the right track, and Yang Shen had been looking forward to returning to the imperial court and restarting his political career, but the hatred of the Jiajing Emperor for him had not diminished with the passage of time, not at all.
The Jiajing Emperor often asked the relevant officials about Yang Shen's recent situation in Yunnan, and if the answer was positive, his expression would immediately turn cloudy; if the answer was negative, such as "old disease", his face would immediately become cloudy and sunny. The Jiajing Emperor reigned for forty-two years, and there were six times of amnesty for the world, but each time he would add this sentence: Except for Yang Shen.
When Yang Shen learned that the emperor was so "concerned" about him, the idea of returning to Beijing to revive slowly faded, but the mood of playing the world and enjoying life became more and more intense. In addition to reading and writing, Yang Shen often indulged in alcohol and entertained himself, and after getting drunk, he indulged in the shape of a skeleton.
Yang Shen's pain comes not only from the disillusionment of political ideals, but also from the parting of life and death as a sinner who has a hard time returning home. When his father died, he could not see the last glance; he could not fulfill his father's responsibilities when the child grew up; and he was full of guilt for his wife Huang E, who endured humiliation and was unswerving.
Yang Shen and Huang E's two have deep affection and raise eyebrows, although they are far away from thousands of mountains and rivers, they often sing in poetry and sing harmony and express their heartfelt feelings, the most touching of which is Yang Shen's "Linjiang Xian • Shu Jiangnan Jiangling Bei Nei" and Huang E's "Send Outside".
The latter is a seven-law poem:
Yan Fei once did not live in Hengyang, why did the jinzi send Yongchang?
Three spring flowers and willow concubines thin life, six commandments wind smoke jun broken intestines.
The return to the sorrow of the twilight, its rain and its rain complaining about the rising sun,
Smell the empty knife ring covenant, when the golden rooster under the night lang?
In the twenty-eighth year of Jiajing, that is, in 1548 AD, Yang Shen, who had spent twenty-four years of wind and rain baptism in the border areas of Yunnan, entered the year of Huajia. According to the Great Ming Law, prisoners who had reached the age of sixty could redeem themselves and return home, but no official dared to accept Yang Shen's demands, because the Jiajing Emperor, who hated him to the bone, still sat high on the throne of the dragon chair in Beijing.
When Yang Shen was nearly seventy years old, with the acquiescence of local officials in Yunnan, he went to stay with friends in Luzhou, which was closer to his hometown of Xindu, Sichuan, but unexpectedly this matter was known to the inspector, who was afraid that the Jiajing Emperor would surrender to him, and hurriedly sent someone to escort Yang Shen back to Yongchang, where he was serving his sentence. Yang Shen came from it, sang a long song and cried, and wrote the heart-wrenching poem "Feelings of Illness on June 14":
More than seventy years of life have been whiteheaded, and the law is clearly allowed to retire.
He has been made a bashan monk, and has been reincarnated as a prisoner of the Dianhai Sea.
Chinese has had the belief that the leaves have fallen back to their roots since ancient times, but the great talent Yang Shen did not return to the hometown he thought about day and night.
In 1559, that is, in the thirty-ninth year of Jiajing, the seventy-one-year-old Yang Shen died of illness in Yongchang, Yunnan Province, where he had been exiled for thirty-five years, and on a day not long before his death, Yang Shen looked back on his life experience of honor and humiliation, ups and downs, and upheavals and displacements, and wrote down the "Linjiang Immortal" that has been handed down to this day:
The water rolling in the east of the Yangtze River, the waves exhaust the heroes.
Success or failure turned to the sky, the green mountains are still there, and the sunset is red several times.
White-haired fisherman on the river, used to watch the spring moon and autumn wind.
A pot of turbid wine is happy to meet, how many things in ancient and modern times, all are in laughter.
Two hundred years later, Cao Xueqin once concluded with such a short poem for her masterpiece "Dream of the Red Chamber": "Full of absurd words, a handful of bitter tears." All cloud authors are stupid, who understands the taste? ”
Yang Shen, who was two hundred years earlier than him, was: one Que Linjiang Immortal, two bitter tears. All cloud author epilepsy, who understands the taste?