Wei Ye (960-1019), poet and hermit of the Northern Song Dynasty, whose poems followed Yao He and Jia Dao, had a light and simple style of poetry. Although he was poor all his life, he did not follow the tide and was praised by future generations. After Wei Ye's death, Emperor Zhenzong of Song issued a zhaojing table, calling him a "shaanzhou virgin" and posthumously awarding him the title of secretary of the provincial writer Lang.
Wei Ye was a poet of the early Song Dynasty and a virgin, who lived in seclusion in the eastern suburbs of Shaanzhou (present-day Shaanxi County, Henan), where he read a wide range of books, was high in eight buckets, watched the stars and the moon at night, did not seek to be heard, and was often followed by literary lovers and scholars at a young age, accompanying him to chant all day long, and enjoying no return.
Wei Ye studied the poetry style of Yao He and Jia Dao in the Tang Dynasty, painstakingly managed, and strived to be unique, bringing a fresh wind to the poetry of the early Song Dynasty. Like in his "Title PuJiyuan": "A few sounds offshore, a few points of Beizhou Mountain"; in "Morning Xing": "There is no fire in the leaf burning furnace, and there is a residual lamp under the reading window", all of which are popular aphorisms, and Wei Ye was greatly shocked by the name of the poem.
Wei Ye was not only famous in the Central Plains at that time, but his "Caotang Collection" also spread to the Liao State in the north and was sought after by the Khitans. At that time, the Liao state could only find the first half of the Caotang Collection, and at the beginning of the Great Zhongxiang Fu (1008), the Emperor of the Liao State also specially sent emissaries to the Song Dynasty capital of Beijing (present-day Kaifeng, Henan) to ask Song Zhenzong for the second half of the Caotang Collection, which gave the Tianzi Song Zhenzong a long light on his face.
Song Zhenzong was also a prince who loved talent and sought wisdom, and Wei Ye entered the vision of the heavenly son of the dynasty because of his outstanding poetic talent, and became the object of the emperor's attention. Soon, Emperor Zhenzong of Song issued an edict summoning Wei Ye to beijing and sealing him to an official position.
Ordinary people have a cold window of ten years, just for the title of the gold list, and then enter the DPRK as an official. Wei Ye could win the emperor's favor with only one collection of poems, and as long as he could seize the opportunity, he could immediately leap the dragon gate and go straight up.
However, to everyone's surprise, Wei Ye, as a talented poet, not only should not be summoned to Beijing, but instead wrote to Song Zhenzong and said: "I am really stupid, my talent is clumsy, and I like freedom and neglect etiquette, please let me continue to wait in the pastoral grass and be a farmer who has no quarrel with the world." In this way, he politely refused the emperor's summons.
Wei Ye's poems also have magical features, according to the Song Dynasty Wang Peizhi's "Discussion on The Water And Swallows", during the period of DaZhongxiang fu (1008-1016), Liu Wei (chēng), a judicial officer in Shaanxi, was deposed for some reason, because he was usually particularly incorruptible and had no savings, and when he returned, he could not even make up enough to wrap up, so he had to sell his horse and replace it with a thin donkey to finally return home.
Liu Wei was a good friend of Wei Ye, and in addition to sympathy, he wrote a poem "Send Liu Fa Cao Dong Gui" to Liu Wei, which read:
Shangguan is mostly sighing and has to pack more than enough for the line.
Who is like Gantang Liu Fa tuan, when he comes, he rides a horse and rides a donkey.
Later, when this poem was read in the hands of Song Zhenzong, Song Zhenzong sighed in front of the prime minister: "It is really fortunate that there are people among the petty officials who are so incorruptible to this extent!" Subsequently, Liu Wei was immediately promoted to the capital as an official. Within a few years, Liu Wei was promoted from a small staff member to the official of Zhengliu Pin Lang, and was promoted several levels in a row, step by step. One of his own poems, on the contrary, made his friend enter the emperor's vision again, which I am afraid that even Wei Ye did not expect when he wrote the poem.
According to Sima Guang's "Wen Gong Poetry", at that time, Song Zhenzong mobilized the whole people and carried out a sacrifice activity with the theme of "Eastern FengXi Ancestral Ceremony", and the person responsible for organizing this activity was Wang Dan, the prime minister. As soon as the event ended, Wang Dan received a poem from Wei Ye;
The Holy Pilgrim is born every year, and the Duke is in the twelfth autumn of the Book of China.
The West and the East are all sealed, so they can accompany the Akamatsu Tour.
Wei Ye used this poem to persuade Wang Dan to retreat in the rapids. After Wang Dan read his friend's poem, he felt very reasonable, so he held this poem in his hand and asked Song Zhenzong to return to his hometown, and finally achieved a good ending in a high position.
In the same situation, the chancellor Kou Zhun was demoted to the rank of Yongxing Army for official struggles, and after four years of demotion, Song Zhenzong summoned him to Beijing to be revived. Wei Ye also wasted no time in sending a poem, which included the sentence: "It is good to go to heaven to resign wealth, but come to the flat earth to be a god", suggesting that he should not covet power.
Kou Zhun was very unhappy to read this poem, and instead of having any intention of retiring, he made a high-profile comeback, and as a result, he was relegated to Daozhou (道州, in modern Daoxian County, Hunan) two years later, with a difficult career and a bumpy life. Later, when Kou Zhun finally woke up, he wrote Wei Ye's poem in front of the window and recited it day and night to self-deprecating.
References for this article: "The Face of the Empire - The Faces of the Northern Song Dynasty Officialdom"