preface
There are many kinds of hermits, the ancients said that the big hidden in the dynasty, the middle hidden in the city, the small hidden in the mountains and forests in the wild. This division of the ancients was based on the relationship between the hermit and the people around him. The so-called great concealment in the dynasty is because the court is an extremely dangerous river and lake, and it will lose its official position and lose its head in an hour. To be able to retreat in such a jianghu, its ability must be extraordinary, otherwise it will be pulled out in a few days. Therefore, the person who can live in seclusion in the court is the master of the world, the best of the hermits, of course, the great cain. The city, on the other hand, is still very frequent in its interaction with people, but the degree of danger is obviously much smaller than that of the court, so it belongs to the hidden. In the countryside, in the wilderness of the countryside, in the place where no one disturbs the plot of land to live in seclusion, the degree of danger is the smallest, this is because this kind of seclusion does not need to contact too many people, naturally no one will calculate, so this kind of seclusion is the least difficult, is the small hermit among the hermits.
hermit
Xiao Cain usually has another elegant name, called the Worldly High Man. Why? Because they need to overcome all the utilitarian mentalities of the world, they also have to endure the loneliness that ordinary people cannot tolerate. Therefore, if there is a hermit who has been hiding in the mountains and forests for decades and does not eat human fireworks, then when he appears in front of everyone with a long beard, he will be called an immortal.
Xiao Cain, also known as the world's high-ranking person
In the Song Dynasty, everyone competed to learn literature, and the literati competed to become officials. However, there are also literati who see through the entanglements of the world, but they are cultured, so they will not become monks, but choose to avoid the dangers of this kind of stormy literati officialdom. How do they do it? For them, it is impossible for them to go to the Immortal Mountains to cultivate into immortals, because they will starve to death. Well, the usual practice is to buy a piece of land to support itself and self-confinement.
There is one here, he is the Northern Song Dynasty celebrity and poet Wei Ye. He lived in a time when the country was still relatively peaceful, and the foreign invasion had not yet reached the interior, only on the border, so that people could still live on their own and have a sense of happiness. In this case, as a literate poet, he could have become an official, so why would he rather give up and go to the land for cultivation? What are his achievements in literature? Let's look back at this history.
Hermit of the Northern Song Dynasty. Poet Wei Ye
One night in 960, a woman had a strange dream in which she dreamed that she was under the moon, holding up her clothes with her hands, not wanting to drop a white rabbit from the moon, and when she woke up from the dream, she gave birth to a little boy. This boy was Wei Ye. Such a boy in a dream is destined to have an extraordinary life, right? Either the high-ranking official Houlu, or the rich and noble Wenda? If you think so, you're wrong. Because his life was very poor, he did not become a decent official, and spent the rest of his life in the farmland.
In the dream, the rabbit fell down and let Wei Ye's mother catch it, so she gave birth to Wei Ye
A native of Sichuan, Wei Yeyan moved to Shaanzhou (陕州, in present-day Shaanxi County, Henan Province) and settled there. After moving here, he has been farming for generations.
Wei Ye has been diligent and studious since he was a child, and his studies are excellent. His father hoped that he would change the law of the three generations of poverty, and that he would be able to take the exam and become an official, so that the family would become famous. Therefore, he vigorously cultivated Wei Ye to read. Wei Ye lived up to his expectations in his studies, and indeed worked very hard, his grades were very good since he was a child, and when he grew up a little, the poetry name began to spread outward, so that many famous literati knew of his existence and took the initiative to befriend him. The people he knew included Kou Zhun, a very famous figure in history.
Kou Zhun visited Wei Ye
In 1006, Wei Ye was nearly fifty years old. At this time, Kou Zhun served as a Zhongshu waiter and Shangshu of the Ministry of Works, and after being framed by the courtiers, he was demoted from the court and resigned to the local government, and went to Shaanzhou to serve as Zhizhou. Kou Zhun once visited Wei Ye's house. Wei Ye used his views on history and his views on the state of the world to persuade Kou Zhun to resign his official post and return to the countryside. Therefore, he wrote a poem to Kou Zhun: "Go to heaven and resign, and return to the flat earth to be a god." "
Such a talent with interpersonal relations and outstanding literary talent, it is easy to become an official by examination. But Wei Ye had never done this in his life. He personally built a grass hall on the eastern outskirts of Shaanzhou, and reclaimed fields around him to grow crops, self-sufficient and self-sufficient. He was a cultivated man of letters, and he planted bamboo trees on his own and chiseled spring water flowing from the edge of the hall, arranging the surrounding rings in a very interesting and quiet way. In his spare time cultivating, he entertained himself by playing poetry and the piano in the springs and forests, and lived a free and secluded life.
Wei Ye Jie Tang cultivated and lived in seclusion
Wei Ye's poems were quiet and with the breath of nature, and were deeply loved by the scholars and doctors of the time, and even spread to foreign lands. Among them, the Khitan Emperor was his fan. In 1008 AD, Wei Ye's high-ranking foreign fan, the Khitan Emperor of the Liao Kingdom, read the first half of Wei Ye's poetry collection, but could not find the second half, so he sent emissaries to the northern Song capital city of Bieliang to ask the emperor song Zhenzong at that time for the second half of the Wei Ye Poetry Collection. This deeply touched Emperor Zhenzong, believing that this Wei Ye was not a mortal, adding glory to the country, and also pasting gold on his face of Song Zhenzong. Therefore, he sent the minister of Chincha to ask Wei Ye to become an official. If this Wei Ye wanted to become an official, with his interpersonal relations and literary strength, he would have been an official long ago. At this time, the emperor Lao Er invited him, and he naturally refused, on the grounds that "the nature of the deer, the tao is crazy, how can you look at the temple" .
Collected Poems of Wei Ye
Some people will be curious, against the emperor's will, is Wei Ye not afraid of death? During the Song Dynasty, refusing an invitation was not a capital offense, and even an emperor could not kill someone because of it. What's more, the Song Dynasty had a court rule of not killing the courtiers. Therefore, the literati refused the emperor's invitation and would not die. Then, if the officials did not do it, preferring to cultivate in the fields and suffer poverty, why did Wei Ye suffer? The reason for this can be seen from the record of him in the Mengxi Pen Talk:
"The Shu people Wei Ye, who lived in seclusion and did not eunuchs, were good at poetry, and were famous for their poetry. The residence is quite humble, and many prominent people in the world swim with it, and Kou Zhongzhen (Kou Zhun) especially loves it. Taste the "Gift of Loyalty poems" cloud: "Good to the heavens to resign riches, but come to the flat earth to be a god." "After the town of Zhongcheng Beidu, Summoning Noo placed under the door." There are prostitutes in the north, beautiful and lively, and the natives call them 'Sheng Zhang Ba'. Because of the government meeting, Zhongshu ordered beggar poetry in the wild, and the poem of the wild gift was called: "Jun is born Zhang Ba of the Northern Province." I am Xizhou Wei San. There is no laughter in front of the bottle, and it is half-baked and half-familiar. "Sit back and laugh."
The above record shows that even if Heaven wants to give him riches, he would rather quit, and in the fields, even if he is poor, it is the day of the gods. The wealth given by heaven here obviously refers to the emperor giving him an official. The reason why he was unwilling to become an official was that he believed that farming in the fields was the day of the gods, and it was the pursuit or ideal of Wei Ye's life. This is why he did not want to live a hard life for the officials.
Of course, farming is hard, but compared to the extremely dangerous jianghu of Chaotang, farming has a kind of quiet, is a kind of enjoyment, hard but not painful, but can enjoy the happiness brought by a quiet life. This was the life that Wei Ambition wanted, and it was also the most fundamental and inner reason why he did not want to be an official.
"Dream Creek Pen Talk"
epilogue
Wei Ye wrote many famous poems during his lifetime. In terms of style, he effectively expressed the poetic style of Yao He, Jia Dao and others, and strived for the neatness of his works. On the other hand, his poems are smooth and simple, and there is no bitter and inexplicable problem in the pursuit of work. For example, in the poem he created "The Seeker Does Not Meet", he wrote: "Where Caizhi has not returned, the white clouds are full of no one to sweep", and in the poem "Spring Remembrance", he also wrote: "The wife likes to plant flowers and work, and the children praise the grass to win." These all show the above characteristics of his poetry.
In terms of the intention of the work, he has a large number of wonderful warning descriptions, such as writing in the "Title PuJiyuan": "A few offshore bridges, a few points of Beizhou Mountain", in the poem "The Wall of the Book's Friend", he wrote: "Wash the salt fish and swallow ink, cook the tea crane to avoid smoke". There are countless other similar verses that reflect this characteristic.
In addition, Wei Ye's poetry sometimes has a desolate expression of emotion. At the beginning of the Song Dynasty, the literati were treated well, the country was stable and external troubles were not obvious, and most of the literati at that time were singing praises of good times, and this kind of emotional poetry was extremely rare at that time. For example, he wrote in the poem "Dengyuan Prefecture City Presents Zhang Gui Engaged": "There are only geese in the north at dusk, and there are no states in the cold west." Several loud plug angles are high and swallowed, and the Jing River is frozen. "
Wei Ye was extremely advanced in cultural attainment, and his prestige spread far and wide. History of Song. There is a special record of this in the Biography of Wei Ye, and the "Caotang Collection" created by Wei Ye had spread to foreign countries as early as the early years of the Great Zhongxiang Fu, such as to the Khitan Emperor, and even the Khitan Emperor became his fans.
Rather than cultivate in poverty than become an official in the dynasty, Wei Ye may be because the great hidden in the dynasty is too dangerous to him, or perhaps he has long believed in his heart that the field is a place to be a god, or perhaps there are other reasons. No matter what the reason for not becoming an official, Wei Ye's spirit of seeing through the world and his profound cultural attainments are all examples for future generations to learn.
Wei Ye built his own grass hall and lived
Resources:
Fu Xuanchun edited "Song Caizi Biography Evidence, Early Northern Song Dynasty Volumes": Liaohai Publishing House
History of the Song Dynasty