Sa Zhenbing was born in the Xianfeng period of the Qing Dynasty, received modern naval education at an early age, and studied in England. In his prime, as an officer of the Beiyang Marine Division, he fought side by side with Liu Butou, Deng Shichang and others. He was one of the few survivors of the Beiyang Naval Division after the defeat of the Sino-Japanese War, and served as the admiral of the Qing Dynasty and the chief of the navy in the early years of the Republic of China. When he died at the age of 94, he was already in the third year of the People's Republic. A legendary figure who has experienced four historical periods of the Qing Dynasty, Beiyang, Jiang Ji republic and people's republic.
It is widely rumored on the Internet that this century-old man once had such an incident in his later years: "In 1951, when the Chinese volunteer army entered Seoul after three battles in the Korean War, Sa Zhenbing learned of this and recalled the lament of Jia Wu more than 50 years ago, and immediately composed a poem: 'Fifty-seven years is like a dream, the whole country has fallen to Seoul, the dragon swims in shallow water, do not give up on yourself, and finally have a raised eyebrow and breathe a sigh of relief.""
Sa Lao died in 1952, so he did experience the invasion of Seoul by the Volunteer Army to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea before his death, so is this poem his work? Judging from the content of the poem, it is undoubtedly touching. However, from the formal point of view, it is really difficult to believe that it is from the hands of Sa Lao. Because although it is the format of the old poems, it does not conform to the rules of the old poems at all. First of all, it doesn't rhyme.
The ending words "city" and "heaven" in the second and fourth sentences are completely different, or even not close. Don't say that writing poetry is just a slip of the tongue, and it will not rhyme to this point. One might suspect that it may be due to the difference in ancient and modern sounds. However, the age of Sa Lao's life is only a hundred years now, and the pronunciation of Chinese has been basically fixed, and there has not been such a big change. Moreover, even according to the ancient rhyme book, which was also the "flat water rhyme" that all poets have followed for hundreds of years, this poem does not rhyme.
The rhymes of the four ending words in the rhyme of Pingshui are: Dream Go To Sound One Send To the City Xia Ping Ba Geng Abandoned Go To Sound Four Heavens Xia Ping Yi Xian All are different. According to the flat water rhyme, it obviously does not rhyme. So this is not a matter of ancient and modern sounds, whether it is ancient sounds or modern sounds, they do not rhyme. Some people also say that these four verses may not be required as a last sentence, and the rhyming rules of ancient poetry are not much more flexible.
It is true that ancient poetry is more free in grammar than in the near-body poem (law, absolute), but it is definitely not to say that it is possible not to rhyme. However, it can rhyme (near-body poems can generally only rhyme with flat rhymes); can rhyme neighbors (that is, two adjacent rhymes in pingshui rhymes, such as "thirteen yuan", "fourteen cold" and "fifteen deletions" in shangping, if it is a near-body poem, then all rhymes can only be taken from one rhyme part, and if it is an ancient poem, it can be taken from the adjacent rhyme part, which is also regarded as rhyme); it can be taken up (when selecting "adjacent rhyme", the upper rhyme part and the de-rhyme part can be selected at the same time (the sound is not OK)).
However, the two rhymes of "Eight Geng" and "Yi Xian" in the above poem, although they belong to the same level, are far apart and are no longer "neighbor rhymes" at all.
Therefore, even according to the requirements of the ancient poem, the poem does not rhyme. And if you think of it as a dead sentence (near-body poem), it is even more troublesome. Because the near-body poem has higher requirements for rhyme, in addition to the first sentence can rhyme with neighbors, even sentences (two or four sentences of the absolute sentence; two four six8 sentences of the rhythmic poem) must rhyme with the same rhyme, and the rhyme of the neighbor rhyme is also called "rhyme", which is foul.
The Tang Dynasty is in the transition period from ancient poetry to near-body poetry, and the situation of rhyme is still relatively common. Song poetry pays special attention to the grid, and this kind of situation is almost non-existent.
Secondly, the requirements of the near-body poem for ping shu are also very strict, and these four sentences are more problematic according to the absolute sentence ping shu: the first sentence: "Zai" should use the flat sound word, and the wrong use of the slang sound. "Such as" should use the word 仄音, use the flat sound. Second sentence: "Guo" should be used in the flat sound, and the "guo" was used ("guo" is now pronounced in Mandarin, but in the pingshui rhyme is the indicted word); "death" should be used for the ping sound, and the flat sound was used. Three sentences: "Self" should be used in the flat sound, and the slang sound was used. Only the last sentence (平) 仄平仄仄平, 平仄 is correct.
In summary, these four sentences may reflect a touching emotion in content, but from the perspective of poetic rhythm, they are completely unqualified, and people who do not understand old poetry at all will write them. As an old figure born in the former Qing Dynasty and growing up in the old society, will old man Sa Zhenbing have no common sense of poetry? At the age of 11, he entered a Western-style school to study the Navy, but before that, he must have received an old-style enlightenment education, and he would not have no concept of the poetic grammar.
And the source of this poem, which seems to be found at present, is online (including Chinese Wikipedia, Baidu Encyclopedia), but it is not included in Sa Benren's "Sa Zhen Bing Biography". The book contains another poem written by Sarao after liberation:
On the second anniversary of the liberation of China, the cultivators now have their own fields.
The law of curing bandits is strict and there is no alarm, and the rescue of neighbors is full of merit.
A lifetime of hard work has been great, and peace and ambition in the four seas have been strong.
I am ashamed of my decadent age and difficult to achieve achievements, and the small poems are blessed to help publicize.
This was done by Sarao on national day in 1951. The content is a general praise, which may not be commendable in terms of artistic level, but from the perspective of grammar, this is a seven-law song with four flat and eight stable. The whole passage rhymes with Ping Yi first, ping is accurate, and the neck and jaw are neatly aligned.
This fully shows that Sa Lao may not have much poetic talent, but he is absolutely knowledgeable, can write near-body poetry, and until his old age he was able to write such neat rhythmic poems, so it is absolutely impossible to make such a "last sentence" without rhyme and without elegance.
That "fifty-seven years like a dream" is likely to be a forgery, and it is even very likely that some netizens who have done good things in recent years and do not understand old poems have made up for Sa Lao. At this point, it seems that the truth has been found, but on the contrary, it is impossible not to have some regrets in my heart.
After all, Sa Lao may have been the only general of the Beiyang Marine Division who had the privilege of surviving to the 1950s; after all, it was in that defeated war over Korea that he lost almost all of his comrades-in-arms and suffered the shame of surrender; after all, he was one of the few who could witness with his own eyes that on the old road where Ye Zhichao and his ilk had retreated in a hurry and fled back to the Yalu River in one night, a Chinese army was like a bamboo and took Hanjing directly...
This veteran soldier who has fought for the country all his life should have a lot of emotions! How I hope that I can record his mood with pen and ink!
Finally, in "Sa Zhen Bing Biography", we really found a poem by Sa Lao related to the Korean War:
The division into the three Koreas made a big noise, and the situation in Haidong was much better.
The US military has been defeated repeatedly and will eventually be difficult to revitalize, and the Chinese people will dare to take it lightly.
The conspiracy to break the long-cherished covenant and aid the DPRK and the righteous deeds of the people are in agreement.
China and the Soviet Union are on the verge of peace with the same heart.
This is a neat seven laws, although its words may not be as "burning" as the forgery, but it makes us clearly feel the mood of the century old man who rejoiced because of the victory of the Chinese army and the spirit of unity and vigor of the whole Chinese people in this battle to establish the country. The national fortunes that were exported at the hands of the Qing government at that time finally ushered in a turning point; the scattered, decadent, and pathological nation from the flesh to the spirit seemed to bloom overnight with the light and dignity that she had once illuminated history. Now it may be difficult for us to accurately estimate, what a relief this brings to Sa Lao!
Sa Zhenbing, zi Dingming, admiral, from the famous Semu family in Fuzhou. Born in the sixth year of xianfeng in the former Qing Dynasty, he died on April 10, 1952, the third year of the reign of new China.
After the fall of the Qing Dynasty, due to the limitations of history, Sa Zhenbing became a force in the warlord melee period, and also supported the Nineteenth Route Army of General Cai Tingkai. During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Sa Zhenbing, who was already over eighty years old, actively wandered all over the country to propagate the anti-Japanese struggle to save the country, and a major progressive change occurred in his thinking.
In 1940, Sa Zhenbing, who was in Xi'an at the time, set out to visit Yan'an, but was intercepted by Zhu Shaoliang, a close confidant of Chiang Kai-shek, but this did not stop the patriotic old man Sa Zhenbing from turning to the revolution. After the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Sa Zhenbing supported the CCP, refused to flee to Taiwan with the reactionaries, and did a lot of useful work for the liberation of Fuzhou.
Objectively speaking, the old man Sa Zhenbing supports the CCP not because he knows socialism very well, but because he realizes with decades of experience that "only the Communist Party can save China." In 1951, the Chinese Volunteer Army invaded Seoul, sweeping away the gloomy clouds of decades of defeat in Northeast Asia.