Coloring portrait of Yuan Ming (Qing-Ye Yanlan painting)
<h1 class="ql-align-justify" > what kind of life can be called happy? </h1>
I think it is Bai Juyi's open-mindedness of "following the rich and being happy with the poor, not smiling is a fool"; it is the arrogance of Li Bai's mouth that "life must be full of joy, do not make the golden bottle empty to the moon"; it is Dongpo's "bamboo sticks and shoes are light and better than horses, who are afraid, a smoke and rain can be a life". It is a kind of freedom, it is a kind of indifference, it is a timely pleasure, and it is not a waste of this life.
Looking at the literati of ancient times, there are obviously not many people who can really reach the realm of "happiness", although Taibai is full of pride, but half of his life is burdened by a heart of entering the world; Dongpo and Lotte are very reluctant, and they only get the true meaning of life after middle age; if you really want to talk in detail, the happy people in life are the first two, one is the Northern Song Dynasty Yanshu, the rich and noble Prime Minister Youyou I, who can be called a winner in life; and the other is Yuan Ming, who has the courage to withdraw from his career, and also has the temperament to find himself, without restraint, and a life of happiness and freedom.
Speaking of Yuan Ming, some people are not very familiar with it, in the middle of the Qing Dynasty, there were two big red people in the literary world, and called "Southern Yuan Northern Ji", "Northern Ji", that is, the Northern Ji Xiaolan, "Southern Yuan", then it is said that Yuan Ming.
Yuan Ming, also known as Zicai, lived with the garden because of the middle-aged purchase, and the owner of the garden in the late stage, a representative poet, writer and gourmet of the Qing Dynasty.
This Yuan Ming is not simple, nine years old can write poetry, twenty-three years old into the Shi, less than ten years of resolute resignation and return to his hometown, almost all the time is put on his hobbies, just look at this, it seems to be no different from the late Ming Dynasty Zhang Dai, he wrote poetry, good flowers and birds gardening, also love fun sound, love food, and have made achievements in every hobby.
In this life, Yuan Ming relied on his own ability to live the life he wanted, and when he was dying, he left a sentence: In all eternity, there will be those who know me!
Now, more than two hundred years later, as Mr. Zhen said, there are already many people who know him, but to live like him, I am afraid that they still need a little courage and true temperament.
<h1 class="ql-align-justify" > born poor and rarely talented</h1>
In 1716, Yuan Ming was born in a down-and-out family in Hangzhou, which was also counted as a family of scholars, and by the time his grandfather had already become a staff member, when Yuan Ming was born, the family was very poor, fortunately, his father was a scholar, and there were many books, and Yuan Ming also had the habit of reading when he was young.
Thanks to his father's teachings, Yuan Ming showed amazing talent from an early age, and the "Draft History of the Qing Dynasty" records that he was "young and different" and the "Afterword of the Crane March" called him "young and brilliant", so talented that he can be called a prodigy.
When Yuan Ming was five years old, his widow Lady Shen taught him the scriptures and history, studied the Book of Shang and various history books, and Yuan Ming knew a little about the han, Wei, Tang, and Song dynasties and characters, and rough literature and history. At the age of seven, he officially joined Mr. Shi Yuzhan of Hangzhou to read the "Analects" and "University", and laid the foundation of ancient Literature.
Due to the poor family and few books, Yuan Ming did not begin to learn poetry until he was nine years old, reading the "Selected Ancient Poems" and imitating it, without a teacher, at the age of ten, he was able to give poetry, and in the memoir "Suiyuan Poetry Supplement" written in his later years, he still lamented at that time: children's language is finally the true language.
Yuan Ming has a special passion for writing poetry, and has a talent, reading is even more indignant, in his teens he was extraordinary, academic progress, he wrote in "Sigh to the Book":
Every time you pass through the bookstore, your feet stand first. There is no money to buy books, and I still buy them in my dreams. Most of the excerpts that have been taken so far are from childhood.
And Yuan Ming's first appearance was at the age of fourteen, when he attacked feudal etiquette and religion in binggu's training "Guo Ju Theory", and his courage was extraordinary, and when he was employed by Mr. Yang Shengwu of Hangzhou at the age of nineteen, Yuan Ming submitted "Guo Ju Theory" and "Gao Di Theory" for advice, and Yang Shengwu commented highly on him:
Wen Ru Xiangyu used soldiers, and all that passed was destroyed. Ru Wei weak crown, heroic Nair!
When Yuan Ming was twenty-one years old, he went to Guilin Guangxi to visit his uncle in the middle of the Jin Dynasty, Jin saw that Yuan Ming was good-looking, and wanted to test his talent, but he ordered him to write "Copper Drum Endowment", Yuan Ming's pen was immediate, the words were magnificent, and the talent was overflowing, Jin Hao praised his talent, wrote a recommendation letter to recommend Yuan Ming to Qianlong, and praised him as "the country should be born of talent, and it will be a tool for Dacheng". In the same year, Yuan Ming should take the exam of erudition and hongzi, and more than 200 people took the exam Yuan Ming failed to be elected, but because he was the least young at the time, he was known as a "wizard" and became famous as a Beijing master.
<h1 class="ql-align-justify" > young people enter the army and have a good political performance</h1>
Talented and famous, the imperial examination is naturally not a word, twenty-three-year-old Yuan Ming stood out in the imperial examination, in one fell swoop high school soldiers, selected as a Hanlin Academy Shu Jishi, you know, in the strict examination, in the early twenties can be admitted to the jinshi, has been the leader among the people, infinite scenery, at that time Yuan Mei can be described as a teenager, the future is bright.
The cultural exchanges between the Manchu and Han dynasties in the Qing Dynasty had a profound impact, and the imperial court stipulated that the ShuJishi of the Hanlin Academy must learn Chinese and Manchu, and pass both subjects in order to stay in Beijing as an official.
However, Yuan Ming had not learned Manchu since he was a child, and while ridiculing Manchu as a "tadpole character", he only made poetry articles. Three years later, Yuan Ming did not pass the Manchu exam and was sent to Jiangnan to do Zhi County.
Although the official was small, he also had real power, and Yuan Ming at that time also had a lofty ambition, he was determined to "go to Jun Yao Shunshang", during his period as an official, he acted impartially, had considerable political achievements, and worked hard to practice the ambition of "going here to repair the "Biography of the Officials".
During Yuan Ming's reign, he was not only a good hand at breaking prisons, but also a good official who loved the people.
In seven years, he traveled to Lishui, Jiangning and other places, diligent in government affairs, and his official reputation was excellent.
When he changed his post, the locals also gave him a "dress of ten thousand people" embroidered with the names of the people of the whole city, which showed that he was a good official and political achievement, and the people's expectations were extremely high.
However, after all, the official field is an official field, and it is inevitable to fall in love with each other, coupled with the fact that the Official field of the Qing Dynasty paid special attention to red tape, Yuan Ming was very uncomfortable with this, and later, he expressed his heart in the "Supplement to the Poetry of Suiyuan":
The master of the shi would rather be the grass and wood of the power gate than the eagle dog of the power gate, and he also, the grass and trees are only for his enjoyment, can be spared from disasters, and is harmless to people; for his eagle dogs, it is harmful to people, and he is inevitable.
"Suiyuan Lake Building Please Karma Map" part
<h1 class="ql-align-justify" > withdraw from the official field and rebuild the garden</h1>
Most of the literati of ancient times had the concept of "learning and excelling", and they were also an ambition for officials, and Yuan Ming, who was in his thirties, gradually rose for the fame of officials, and it was when he was promoted and paid and his career was smooth, and the bright future was close at hand, but it was at this time that he resigned on the grounds of "Ding Worried Servant Mother".
What a legitimate reason, the emperor naturally could not refuse.
But is this really the reason for Yuan Ming's resignation? In fact, it is not the case, a thousand years ago, Zhang Jiying sighed: "Life is too expensive to be suitable, how can you be bound for thousands of miles to be a knight!" Then resigned. A thousand years later, Yuan Ming sighed: "Life must not be chesty, even if you are a hundred years old, you will die." He also resigned.
It boils down to one sentence: Forgive me for loving freedom all my life.
Of course, this is just a joke, but the complicated officialdom did give birth to Yuan Ming's yearning for freedom, and in the article "Answering Tao's Observation and Asking The Book of Begging", he either talked about his inner thoughts about resigning from the government, summed up slightly, or had three points:
First, the official field is unpleasant to pat people, and I Yuan Ming do not engage in that set:
However, Tai Ginseng Ear, Greeting Ear, and Slave Ear for High Officials.
Second, I was busy with official affairs and didn't have time to study:
Every time you pass by the bookstore, you are thirsty and see the fountain, and your body has not gone to the heart. Not reading for a day is like doing something negative.
Third, nine to five, day after day, the life of seeing the head at a glance is really boring:
The taste of the day before the food, the day before the thing. Day after day, day after dynasty.
Panoramic views with the garden
But in fact, I think there is another reason, according to historical records, a year before Yuan Ming resigned, he used three hundred and two silver to buy an abandoned manor on the outskirts of Jinling City, which was originally Cao Xueqin's grandfather Cao Yin Garden, the predecessor of the Grand View Garden in "Dream of the Red Chamber", Yuan Ming just bought it, and then spent a lot of money to renovate and change its name to Sui garden, which is recorded in the "Suiyuan Poetry":
Xueqin wrote a part of "Dream of the Red Chamber", which remembers the prosperity of the wind and moon, and there are so-called grand gardeners, that is, Yu Zhi Suiyuanye.
Perhaps, with the repair of the garden, Yuan Ming's spiritual belonging was also slowly completed, just like Wang Xizhi's Lanting and Wang Wei's Yuanchuan Beiye.
Whatever the reason, it turns out that Yuan Ming's timely withdrawal from the official arena is incomparably correct, and this boldness is also admirable.
In addition, Yuan Ming can be said to have spent all his thoughts on Suiyuan and spent all his savings, and as soon as he resigned from the government, he launched a comprehensive transformation:
I opened the pond and swamp on a flat land, raised the platform, and built three changes in one building, and the cost was not calculated. Building a house is not too small, opening a pool is not too much, the house is small and does not cover the mountain, and the pool may not be too much. Strange rocks, purchased at heavy prices, green bamboo poles, planted by hand. The utensils are sandalwood pear Wenzi, carved lacquer gun gold; playthings are Jin Ti Tang stele, Shang Yi Xia Ding...
It can also be seen from this that Yuan Mei also has some insight into horticulture.
<h1 class="ql-align-justify" > wanderer and food blogger</h1>
The family is generally poor, and because the reconstruction of suiyuan has exhausted its savings, it is reasonable to say that Yuan Ming's life in suiyuan should not be so satisfactory.
However, on the contrary, the remodeled Suiyuan Garden was built into a "farmhouse" by Yuan Ming, integrating catering, entertainment and culture, and its business acumen can be seen.
Before and after, ten years later, suiyuan finally completed the transformation, he demolished the four surrounding walls, and hung a couplet at the gate of the garden: release cranes to find mountain bird guests, let people come to see the flowers at four o'clock.
This marketing can be said to be extremely successful, soon, after the elaborate transformation of the garden has become a famous attraction in Nanjing, every good day, tourists are endless, but also become a place where literati and inkers gather near and far, Yuan Ming as the owner of the garden, and because of the previous name, its reputation is also getting louder and louder.
What's more, because he is good at food, and he loves to collect recipes, he has a lot of insight into food, usually communicates with celebrity chefs, like today's "food blogger", after the completion of the garden, Wang Xiaoyu, a famous famous chef in Nanjing, voluntarily entered the park and became Yuan Ming's chef.
In this way, the "Suiyuan Restaurant" is also open for business.
Soon, the garden shocked the south of the jiangnan, from the dignitaries and dignitaries, the rioters, down to the middle class, the commoners of the city, all of whom were proud of their "having entered the garden to taste vegetables".
And Yuan Ming, according to the collection of recipes and experience with the chef, wrote a "Suiyuan Menu", simply put, is a recipe, collecting hundreds of dishes, from mountain treasures to seafood, from small dishes to porridge rice, the words are huge and detailed.
For example, how to boil tea eggs:
A hundred eggs, boiled with salt or two, coarse tea leaves, two sticks of incense for the degree ...
Not only about the practice of the dish, but also about the true scriptures of cooking, such as how to serve:
Salt should be first, light should be later; thick should be first, thin should be later; those without soup should be first, those with soup should be later...
For example, how to side dishes:
The clear one matches the clear, the thick one matches the thick, the soft one matches the soft, the rigid one matches the rigid, and the square has the magic of harmony...
From ancient times to the present, there are many good eaters among the literati, the Northern Song Dynasty has an eastern slope, and in modern times there are thousands, which may be like Yuan Ming, but there is no two.
<h1 class="ql-align-justify" > book collector and book collector</h1>
The life of Suiyuan is fulfilling Yuan Ming's long-cherished wish, and he lives a life like a landscape painting every day:
Every morning, I get up in the morning, suck the nectar in the flowers, incense in my lungs, cool my heart and spleen, and I claim that there is a fluttering fairy between my chest and diaphragm...
And he also has a hobby, which also shines in this garden.
Yuan Ming loved books, his family was poor when he was young, and he often borrowed books to read, so he left a famous sentence for thousands of years: books cannot be read without borrowing.
In the garden, he built a number of libraries to collect the world's best books and hide them. With a total of 400,000 volumes, suiyuan may be one of the best private bibliophiles in history.
There are mountains all over the garden, and there are books all over the mountains. The library has become a beautiful scenery in the garden, and the literati and scholars compete to taste and read, and the books are put down every day, how comfortable:
Cold nights of reading and forgetting to sleep, the incense burner smokeless.
The beauty snatched the lamp with anger and asked Lang to know how many days it was.
- "Cold Night"
Collecting books is a major hobby of Yuan Ming, and what is even more admirable is that as a book collector, Yuan Ming has the luxury of scattering books.
Bibliophiles since ancient times have cherished books, but Yuan Ming is very different, he scattered the books in his old age, and wrote a special article "Scattered Secretaries":
The books in Yu's collection, those who pass on the money are slightly thin, are all dedicated to the big house, or falsely close to the guests, scattered 67 out of 10...
Yuan Mei said that there are two reasons for this move: first, scattered books can better protect books; second, scattered books are for better reading.
The wise man did not hide books, and the Confucian general Zhou Yu of the Three Kingdoms understood this principle well, "after reading one volume and burning one volume, but keeping it in mind" The study at home was empty. Yuan Mei loves books, naturally will not let the collection of books destroy a torch, the best way is to "scatter", both to urge themselves, but also to benefit others.
<h1 class="ql-align-justify" > wander the world, sexual spiritual poetry</h1>
Yuan Ming's middle age was mostly spent in Suiyuan, but in his recent years, he began to travel to the end of the world.
After the age of sixty, his cousin persuaded him, and he replied with a poem:
Read more books and take a few more steps around the mountains. If you are not widely seen and knowledgeable, you always feel that time is wasted.
It was also in the course of his travels that Yuan Ming's poetic style gradually matured, leading the literary circle at that time.
In the Literary Circles of the Qing Dynasty, it became a common practice to study Han poetry, some people to learn Tang poetry, some people to zong tang, some people to zong song, and various factions quarreled and quarreled endlessly.
Yuan Mingzi is one of the clear streams, he opposes blind imitation, opposes poetry flowing into form, and is keen to express personal true emotions through poetry, so the "sexual spiritual school" came into being.
Yuan Mei also has an opinion on the interpretation of sexual spirits:
Poets, human dispositions also, there is no poetry outside of temperament. All the people who pass on the poems are sexual spirits, and they are not stacked.
Yuan Ming's poems were also widely circulated and were supported by countless literati:
Daylight is not everywhere, and youth comes from nowhere. Moss flowers are as small as rice, and peonies are also learned. —— "Moss" is deeper and more agitated, and gradually becomes silent. The blowing lights are brighter, and the moon shines a day of snow. - "The Fifteenth Night of December"
Yuan Ming, whose poems were frequent, quickly rose to become the first of the "Three Greats of Qianlong", and published anthologies such as "Suiyuan Poetry" and "Zi Bu Shu", which everyone rushed to read:
From the secretary of state of the imperial court to the market seller, everyone knows its name.
<h1 class="ql-align-justify" > a lifetime of leisure and happiness</h1>
Yuan Mei, who is over seventy years old, still has no stop, visiting Tiantai Mountain three times at the age of 79, Wuyue at the age of 80, and Wujiang at the age of 81. He seems to have found the true meaning of life in the rivers and mountains:
The moon is the impermanent lord, and the idler is the master.
Yuan Ming also regarded himself as an idle person in the world.
Until the age of 82, Yuan Ming's abdominal disease did not heal and he died.
Throughout Yuan Ming's life, he couldn't help but be envious.
He was a good writer and a writer; he traveled the world and saw the beauty of the world; he was passionate about food and tasted the appetite; and his greatest success was probably to live his life in the way he liked.
Perhaps, in addition to poets, writers, and gourmets, Yuan Ming is also a living family.
After he withdrew from the official field, he quickly found his own life belonging, he was a mountain and forest scattered man, a foodie, a leisurely scholar, a spiritual poet, and a prodigal son who wandered the world.
Yuan Mei once wrote a couplet, or a portrayal of his life:
Not to be a high-ranking official, not to be blessed only to be lazy, it is difficult to become a fairy Buddha, love to read poetry and love flowers.
Looking back, why did he resign from the government, and why he built suiyuan with heavy money, in fact, the reason was so simple, everything Yuan Ming did was just because he liked it.