During the Qing Dynasty, the Qianlong Emperor wrote a "Treatise on Wen Tianxiang", saying that Wen Tianxiang had "the spirit of never returning, and the ambition of ever changing", which was a model for loyal subjects throughout the ages. The Qianlong Emperor had great respect for Wen Tianxiang, but for Wen Tianxiang's younger brother Wen Bi, Qianlong did not spare the slightest affection, and Qianlong commented on Yun:
The son did not know that his brother had been appointed, and it was difficult for him to see his brother.
Qianlong meant that Wen Bi betrayed the Southern Song Dynasty and surrendered to the Yuan Dynasty, and he was under the Nine Springs, and he was afraid that he would not have the face to see his brother Wen Tianxiang.
Wen Tianxiang is a national hero and the backbone of the Chinese nation, and there is no doubt about this. But for many years, as Wen Tianxiang's family, his younger brother Wen Bi has been carrying the insult of "Han traitor", which is in stark contrast to Wen Tianxiang. What did Wen Tianxiang think of his brother's treason and defection to the enemy? In this article, I will share the story of Wen Bi with you.
Wen Tianxiang was a native of Luling, Jiangxi, during the Southern Song Dynasty, Wen Tianxiang's father Wen Yi was a Confucian student, he was knowledgeable, but he had to fail many times, so he had to run a school at home and became a well-known private school.
Wen Yi has an elderly mother and six children, of whom three sons and three daughters, three sons are called Wen Yunsun, Wen Bi, wen Zhang, and three daughters are wen Yi sun, Wen Shu sun, wen shun sun. According to the Outer Chronicle of Yaoshan Tang:
Wen Tianxiang, whose real name was Yunsun, was later honored with the character Tianxiang.
That is to say, Wen Yi's eldest son Wen Yunsun, that is, the later Wen Tianxiang.
The Wen family was loyal and filial to the family, Wen Tianxiang and the two younger brothers received their father's strict education from an early age, and they also had a slight success in their studies, and the three brothers successively passed the examination for Xiucai, but at that time, Wen Zhang's age was not very old, and the neighbors all believed that Wen Tianxiang and Wen Bi brothers would inevitably be able to shine on the Lintel of the Wen clan in the future.
In the fourth year of The Song Dynasty (1256 AD), the 20-year-old Wen Tianxianghe took his 19-year-old brother Wen Bi into Beijing to take the exam, and the two of them entered the same rank, and Wen Tianxiang also won the first place (membership). Before the temple examination, the news came that his father was critically ill. Because the third brother Wen Zhang was not yet an adult at that time, the two brothers discussed that Wen Tianxiang stayed in Beijing to participate in the palace examination, and Wen Bi quickly returned to Jiangxi and stayed at home to take care of his father. There are two main reasons for this consideration:
First, because Wen Tianxiang would be the first to try after all, it would be a pity if he gave up the temple test.
Second, Wen Bi is young after all, and there will still be opportunities in the future.
The two brothers, one loyal and one filial, bid farewell in the capital. A few years later, they did not expect that this loyalty and filial piety would become the foreshadowing of their lives.
Soon after, Wen Tianxiang impressed Song Lizong with his amazing talent in the temple examination, and Song Lizong approved him as a champion!
When the news of the examination reached his hometown, his family was not happy, because his father Wen Yi died of illness, and Wen Tianxiang had to resign from the government and return home to observe the system.
In history, although Wen Tianxiang served as the prime minister of the Song Dynasty, his career was not smooth, because Wen Tianxiang had a straight personality and advocated the War of Resistance, and he successively offended the eunuch Dong Songchen and the traitor Jia Xiangdao.
Compared with Wen Tianxiang, his younger brother Wen Bi has a much "calm" personality. In the third year of Emperor Jingding of Song (1262 AD), Wen Tianxiang was in Zhirui Prefecture, and his younger brother Wen Bi was appointed as Xinchang Zhi County, after learning the news, Wen Tianxiang was very happy, on the day of sending off his brother, Wen Tianxiang specially wrote a poem "Farewell Brother goes to Xinchang", shiyun:
Heaven divides the desires, and knows the inside and outside. The establishment of a government must be standardized, and self-cultivation is the legal process.
Although Wen Tianxiang was only one year older than his younger brother, his poem was obviously teaching his younger brother the truth of being an official and a man.
In 1273 AD, the six-year-long Battle of Xiangyang ended in the defeat of the Southern Song Dynasty, and countless benevolent men and women died heroically in this war, although the yuan dynasty's army suffered heavy losses, but after taking Xiangyang, they went down the Yangtze River, which was simply a disaster for the Southern Song Dynasty. Two years later, the Yuan army approached Lin'an, and the empress dowager Xie Daoqing and the young Emperor Gong of Song were overwhelmed and issued an urgent edict to the people of the world, calling on the song dynasty subjects to come to Qinwang to escort them, but in the crisis, few responders.
Wen Tianxiang was in zhigan at that time, and after he received the edict, he immediately sold his property and recruited soldiers to go to Lin'an, when the Mongol soldiers were all elite soldiers, and Wen Tianxiang's contingent of thousands of temporary components to go to Lin'an was tantamount to hitting a stone with an egg, but Wen Tianxiang knew that it could not be done. Not only that, he also wrote to Emperor Gong of Song, asking his younger brother Wen Bi to be his assistant.
Ancients Cloud: Fighting brothers, fighting father and son soldiers. In the era when the eldest brother was the father, Wen Tianxiang carried not only the promotion of the elder brother, but also the responsibility of the family and the country.
Wen Tianxiang and Wen Bi recruited about 10,000 soldiers and horses to escort Lin'an, and the army had not yet entered the territory of Lin'an Province, and Wen Tianxiang's third brother Wen Zhang sent a message saying that his grandmother had died. Wen Tianxiang and his brother discussed and asked Wen Bi to go home to replace his dead father and bury his grandmother, and the two brothers parted ways again. Soon after, Wen Tianxiang fought hard in the southeast and finally met Emperor Zhao Xian of Song. At that time, the great Song dynasty ministers fled on their own, and the prime minister Chen Yizhong also fled to the south after the defeat of the army, and the empress dowager Xie Daoqing looked up and saw that there were only 6 ministers left in the hall. As a result, Wen Tianxiang was promoted several ranks in a row and promoted to the position of Right Minister and Privy Counsellor.
Wen Tianxiang showed Song Ting a piece of his heart, and Song Ting learned that he also had a younger brother who was worried about the system, so he quickly seized the affection and used Wen Bi to serve as the governor of Huizhou, so that the two brothers could fight for the country at the same time.
At that time, although Wen Tianxiang organized a war of resistance in Lin'an, the Yuan army was strong, and the empress dowager sent Wen Tianxiang to negotiate in the Yuan army, and the commander of the Yuan army, Bo Yan, saw that Wen Tianxiang was unwilling to bow his head and ordered Wen Tianxiang to be detained. After this, the empress dowager was left with nowhere to go, and surrendered to the Yuan Dynasty with the Song Gong Emperor Zhao Xian.
In the same year, Wen Bi received an appointment notice from the imperial court, and considering that the Yuan army might go south at any time, Wen Bi buried his grandmother and came to Huizhou with his mother, brother, sister, sister, sister and nephew to take office. Later, Wen Tianxiang escaped from the Yuan army camp with twelve people, continued to lead the army to resist the Yuan, and after several turns, came to Huizhou, the Wen family was reunited again, and Wen Tianxiang and Wen Bi also met again.
Where is the country broken? As the Yuan army continued to march south, and the two young emperors of the Song Dynasty followed Lu Xiufu and others all the way south, Wen Tianxiang and his family were also displaced in the war.
In 1278 AD, it was a sad year, the Southern Song Dynasty 100,000 troops were driven by the Mongols to the southernmost tip of the motherland, facing the Fangs of the Mongols, they fought and retreated in a tragic atmosphere. In December of that year, Wen Tianxiang was captured during Haifeng's fight against the Yuan Dynasty, and his family was either captured or scattered. Wen Tianxiang attempted suicide and was controlled by the Mongols.
The following spring, the most tragic scene in the history of the Song Dynasty appeared, there was no China after the Cliff Mountain, the Battle of The Cliff Mountain, when Lu Xiufu jumped into the sea with the young Emperor of the Late Song Dynasty on his back, the last bone blood of the Song Dynasty perished, the Song Dynasty raised soldiers for three hundred years, and the skeleton soldiers were also buried at the bottom of the Cliff Mountain.
The Southern Song Dynasty was completely dead, Wen Tianxiang was captured, all the way north, wrote "Crossing zero Ding Yang", and in Huizhou City, Wen Bi had no object of allegiance, what should he do at this time?
When the Mongols returned from the cliff mountain and approached the city of Huizhou. For the Mongols, Huizhou Zhizhou Wenbi only had a few hundred soldiers and horses in his hands, and Wen bi could make no more than two choices: First, surrender the city and save the people in the city. Second, he stubbornly resisted, and finally waited for the Mongol army to enter the city, slaughtered the people, and chopped up Wen Bi by the way.
In fact, no matter which choice Wen Bi made, the mongols entering the city were unstoppable. Under the balance, in order to protect the people in the city, but also to protect his family, Wen Bi put up a white flag, opened the city gate, and surrendered to the Yuan Dynasty.
In this way, Wen Tianxiang's younger brother defected to the enemy and committed treason and became a so-called "traitor."
After the surrender, Wen Bi did not accept the conscription of the imperial court, he did not want to re-enter the "dynasty" as an official, Wen Bi took his mother and brother and went into seclusion. But things were not so simple, Kublai Khan repeatedly ordered Wen Bi to come to most of the capital to see, the Mongols were too tough, Wen Bi did not dare to disobey, so he packed his bags, entrusted his family to the third brother, and then went north to Dadu alone.
In May of the following year, Wen Bi came to Dadu and was appointed by the Yuan Dynasty as the governor of Linjiang Road. At this time, his brother Wen Tianxiang was still in the Yuan Dynasty prison.
When Wen Tianxiang learned that his brother had come to the Yuan Dynasty to become an official, his mood was very complicated, and he wrote a poem "Wen Ji Wanzhi", in which the jaw and neck joints were written like this:
The brothers were imprisoned and ridden on horses, and they were different from their fathers and mothers; the poor flesh and bones were gathered and scattered, and the human world was less than fifty years old.
In Wen Tianxiang's poem, he lamented that the path chosen by his brother was different, but strangely, Wen Tianxiang's attitude was very ambiguous, and there seemed to be no obvious intention of blame.
Wen Bi has been in Dadu for more than a year, and in his capacity, it is actually entirely possible to go to prison to visit Wen Tianxiang, and may feel that he is ashamed of his great festival, and Wen Bi has never visited Wen Tianxiang. In the historical records, Kublai Khan had many of Wen Tianxiang's former colleagues, including the surrendered Song Gong Emperor Zhao Xian, persuade Wen Tianxiang to surrender, but did not let Wen Bi persuade his brother. There may be a more poignant story in this.
Before Wen Tianxiang died, he left a letter for his third brother, and the sentence in the letter read:
I die with loyalty, I die with filial piety, and I hide from ji.
In Wen Tianxiang's eyes, as the eldest son, he died loyally; as the second brother, Wen Bi chose to enter the Yuan Dynasty, but the reason was "filial piety"; and the third brother chose "Cain".
This sentence may be difficult to understand, but Wen Tianxiang also wrote a letter to his nephew, which can explain Wen Tianxiang's meaning. The letter "Approval of male ascension" reads:
"I prepared for the throne, and righteousness had to be martyred; Ru Sheng's father and Uncle Ru's aunt were all enshrined in the whole sect." But be loyal but filial, and do their own thing. ”
Wen Tianxiang means that as the prime minister of the Southern Song Dynasty, he was deeply favored by the country, and martyrdom was the best choice. The younger brother is the pillar of the family, although he is also an official of the Song Dynasty, but the status and influence is not high, under the premise that the Song Dynasty has perished, Wen Bi can save the lives of the entire clan and sacrifice the ancestors of the Wen clan, which is a kind of "filial piety". The two brothers "are loyal but filial, and each does his own thing."
Obviously, Wen Tianxiang expressed understanding and even appreciation for his brother's choice.
Wen Tianxiang is the spiritual backbone of the Chinese nation, and after the propaganda of the Ming and Qing dynasties, Wen Tianxiang's moral height has far surpassed that of other prime ministers in the Song Dynasty. However, the higher Wen Tianxiang was advertised, the more serious his brother's "crime" of treason was set off.
I have written about many profound historical figures, such as Zhao Mengfu, who surrendered to the Yuan Dynasty but achieved self-achievement in art. For example, Fang Xiaoru, who would rather die than yield, although controversial, but maintained his own "Taoist system". Like Tan Sitong, he would rather let his companions go first and die with his own body. Behind these controversial figures, there are actually endless bitter tears.
When we read bloody books, we can always read such a scene: a fierce warrior is about to die, and before dying, he asks his companions to leave quickly. Then say, "I am easy for it, and Ru is difficult for it!" ”
This means that choosing "death" is tragic but easy, and those who stay "alive" are the most difficult.
For Wen Bi, when his father was critically ill, he stayed behind to take care of his father and let his brother Wen Tianxiang go to the exam with peace of mind. What did he give up and what did he choose?
For Wen Bi, when the country was in danger, he went home to handle the funeral for his grandmother and let his brother Wen Tianxiang go to Qin Wang to save the car. What did he give up and what did he choose?
For Wen Bi, when the imperial court perished, he saved his people and the people, opened the door and surrendered, what did he give up, and what did he choose?
At the critical moment of history, this is the case, some people are responsible for death, some people are responsible for life, but life is more difficult than death.
Wen Bi may be able to choose to promise the country like his brother, but looking at the lives of the entire clan behind him, has he ever considered that he wants to leave the blood of the Wen family and pass it on forever?
After Wen Tianxiang's death, Wen Bi successively served as the general manager of Linjiang Road in the Yuan Dynasty, the secretary of Guangdong Xuanwei envoys, etc. In order to rescue the remnants of the Southern Song Dynasty and restore the economy, Wen Bi did his best and wandered among the refugees many times, he endured the insults of the people, but never gave up doing things for the people. Is he ashamed of the people of the world?
Wen Bi tried to buy back the ancestral house, build a family temple, and sacrifice his ancestors, he set up an ancestral hall for his brother Wen Tianxiang, sorted out and published Wen Tianxiang's works, and let them be passed on to future generations. Wen Bi tried everything to retrieve Wen Tianxiang's daughter as a slave and protect her for the rest of her life. Wen Bi honored his mother, and after her death, he buried her in his hometown. He also took the homeless second sister Wen Shusun to his home and sent someone to take the eldest sister Wen Yisun's family of four from the grassland back to his hometown. For the Wen clan, is Wen Bi ashamed?
He may not be as great as his brother, but he is not a villain either.
From the outsider's point of view, Wen Bi is ashamed of the big festival, but in his heart, perhaps he has achieved a clear conscience. Death is easy, life is difficult, posterity in Wen Bi's face, saw him surrender to the enemy and treason, but few people on his back, saw what he carried.