A few days ago, a news item that "the bookstore of Korean literary titan Choi Ji-won caught fire" made headlines. Many netizens are puzzled, but they do not know that this Cui Zhiyuan once had a deep relationship with China.
Founded in the 1960s, The Choi Chi-Yuen Bookstore was reduced to ashes by the fire
Cui Zhiyuan's origin and intersection with ancient China originated from the Tang Dynasty examination. At that time, due to the irreplaceable advanced nature and development of china's economic, cultural, and social development, foreigners who came to China to study flocked to it, and reached an unprecedented scale in the Tang Dynasty. In order to revitalize the country and attract talents around the world, in the first year of Changqing, Tang Muzong issued an edict to set up an examination system for foreign students studying in China - "Bingong Jinshi". Due to the different geographical origins and cultural backgrounds of the candidates, the "Bingong Jinshi" is different from the local "Guozi Jinshi" in terms of examination difficulty, admission method and admission ratio, that is, specially set up separate subjects, and the number of places is very small.
According to historical records, the country that sent students to China the most frequently and in large numbers in ancient times was Japan, followed by Silla. The most famous and influential Silla envoy was Choi Ji-won.
Cui Zhiyuan, the word Lone cloud. The Silla King Gyeongjin of the Korean Peninsula, whose ancestral home is in Gyeongju, Gyeongsangbuk-do Province, South Korea. In the ninth year of The Xiantong Dynasty of China's Tang Dynasty (868 AD), 12-year-old Cui Zhiyuan took a merchant ship to China to study according to his father's instructions, and studied in the capital Chang'an. After six years of diligent study, he entered the rank of Jinshi in the first year (874) of emperor Qianfu of Tang And became a "Bingong Jinshi". Two years later, the imperial court appointed The Lieutenant of Lishui County in Xuanzhou (present-day Gaochun District, Nanjing), the same year he was 20 years old. In 881, he went to Yangzhou and served as the governor of the shogunate of Huainan Jiedu, which at that time, with the smooth flow of the Sui-Tang Canal and the active foreign trade, had become the most prosperous economic capital and important foreign trade port in the southeast of the Tang Dynasty, with strong political, economic and military power. Especially after the Anshi Rebellion, the source of taxation in the north was almost cut off, and the three economic pillars of the southeast tax, salt and iron, and water transportation relied on by the imperial court were inseparable from Yangzhou.
Yangzhou also became the birthplace of Cui Zhiyuan, during his tenure as inspector of the Huainan shogunate, he encountered the Huangchao Uprising, which is known to be the longest-lasting, largest and most far-reaching peasant uprising in the late Tang Dynasty. The Yellow Nest Rebellion turned to nearly half of the Tang Dynasty, which directly led to the great decline of the national strength at the end of the Tang Dynasty. At that time, Gao Biao, who was the envoy of Huainan Jiedushi, sent an army to fight at the behest of the imperial court, and Cui Zhiyuan wrote the book of the Yellow Nest of the Thieves, which was recited in the world, and was awarded the title of "Gift of Fish Bags". It is said that Huang Chao read the sentence "Not only the people of the world are thinking of death, but also the ghosts in the earth have discussed the yin and curse", and stood up from his chair in surprise, and the words were so sharp that huang Chao was timid. For a time, Cui Zhiyuan's fame moved the world.
In 884, Cui Zhiyuan's younger brother Choi Qiyuan came to Tang from Silla to the sea and welcomed Cui Zhiyuan back to China. Cui Zhiyuan, who left his hometown at a young age, did not return to his homeland until 16 years later, and the ignorant teenager of that year was already the year of establishment. The attachment to datang and the responsibility for the homeland tore at the heart of this wanderer. "Thousands of miles began to be counted, and the first to calculate was the future journey." The vast sea, from then on, cui Zhiyuan's longing for his second hometown.
Cui Zhiyuan returned to his hometown with the title of Tang Sanpin official, the most accomplished of Silla's previous international students, and was highly valued by the Silla monarch at that time, King XianKang, and was appointed as a waiter and supervisor of the Hanlin Bachelor's Guard Department. Later, due to the frequent changes of the Silla throne and the turmoil in the political arena, he was no longer enthusiastic about his career, so he devoted himself to spreading sinology, hoping to save the country with the advanced concept of Han culture, revitalize the dynasty, and smoke the people. His lifelong works, "Zhongshan Covered Collection" and "Guiyuan Pen Cultivation Collection", were highly respected by the people, and thus established Choi Ji-won's status as the originator of Korean Chinese literature. In particular, the "Guiyuan Pen Cultivation Collection" is not only the earliest Chinese classic on the ancient Korean Peninsula, but also a precious literary collection in the treasure house of Chinese Tang Dynasty literature, becoming the only collection of Chinese Poetry in the Three Kingdoms Period of Korea, and is praised by Korean scholars as "the oldest collection of Chinese poetry" ("Korean Book Solution"), representing the highest level of Han poetry creation of Korean literati in the Tang Dynasty. As a result, Choi Ji-won was revered by later generations in Korea as the "Master of Han Poetics", "the Ancestor of Oriental Articles", and "the Ancestor of Eastern Literature".
Yangzhou Cui Zhiyuan Memorial Hall
In order to commemorate the positive role and far-reaching significance of Cui Jerry's cultural exchanges between the two countries, Yangzhou City put forward the initiative of building the Choi Jhi Won Memorial Hall, on October 9, 2005, the Choi Jhi Won Memorial Hall project was approved by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and started construction, and was completed in October 2007, and the Cultural Exchange Group of China and South Korea held the "Opening Ceremony of The Cui Jhi Yuan Memorial Hall and the Unveiling Ceremony of the Statue of Choi Jerry".