Zheng Xie (1693-1765) Banqiao, he had three mothers: birth mother, stepmother and nursing mother.
When Zheng Banqiao was three or four years old, his birth mother, Lady Wang, died of illness. Soon after, his father Zheng Zhiben married his successor Hao Shi. When Itabashi was fourteen years old, Lady Hao died again. In the sixty-first year of the Kangxi Dynasty (1722), when Itabashi was thirty years old, his father also died. Itabashi composed seven poems in poverty and embarrassment, called "Seven Songs", to mourn his relatives. The second song is nostalgic for the birth mother:
"I was born three years old, my mother was not there, and it was difficult to cut the swaddling in loneliness.
Climbing into bed and holding the mother to bed, I don't know if the mother is still calling.
The child used to cry incessantly, and the mother helped the sick to cry with it.
Gentle oh fu'er sleep, the lamp faint mother cough cold window.
The second song of the whimper is half of the night, and the crow's perch is unstable. ”
A three-year-old toddler, not knowing that her dear mother has left forever, still holding her and calling for milk, this scene, how not to make people cry!
Zheng Banqiao (1693–1766)
Zheng Banqiao's stepmother, Lady Hao, is also very virtuous, and she nurtures Banqiao as if she were her own. It is precisely because of the hard work of his stepmother that the teenager Zheng Banqiao "no longer worries about hunger and cold". Recalling that he was less and more troublesome, he also "conflicted" with his stepmother because of "less food", and he was ashamed and annoyed, causing the author to weep because of "sadness", and this third poem remembering his stepmother also moved the reader:
"The unprovoked sobs are dry, and I think of my stepmother's sad heart."
Ten years of hard work in maintaining the family has made me no longer worried about hunger and cold.
When there is a lack of one and a half liters of rice, there is less conflict with the children's angry rice;
The face was dirty and dirty, and the mother took the clothes and washed them.
Woo hoo three songs like wandering, the north wind hunting and blowing my clothes! ”
Zheng Banqiao's nursing mother, Fei Shi, was originally a close-fitting ring of his grandmother, Mrs. Cai. In the year of Itabashi's birth mother's death, there was another catastrophe, and Fei shi served hard without complaint. She lives in the outer chamber with her husband and son, and she "feeds herself outside and serves inside." That is, every day after eating a simple meal outside with her husband and son, she came in to serve Mrs. Cai and Xiao Banqiao. Every morning, she would carry the small Banqiao to the market, buy a piece of cake with a penny, come back and put it in it, and then take care of other affairs herself. Sometimes I accidentally got some fish, meat, melon and fruit, and Fei Shi let Xiao Banqiao eat enough first, and then his family tasted a little. For a while, under the pressure of her husband, Fei shi had to temporarily leave the Zheng family, and xiao Banqiao cried bitterly and could not even eat. Later, Fei's son became an official and repeatedly took the old woman to the pension to enjoy Qingfu, but in order to take care of Mrs. Cai and raise Xiao banqiao, Fei resolutely refused to agree. It was not until the first year of Qianlong (1737), when the forty-four-year-old Zheng Banqiao passed the jinshi examination, that Fei Shi said happily: "I raised my young master to become famous, and my son became an eight-pin official, and there is nothing to hate!" The following year, Fei died "without illness" at the age of 76. The grief-stricken Zheng Banqiao made a "nursing mother poem" to mourn:
"The grace of life is not the only nursing mother."
Long hate for riches and late, so let the shame for a long time.
Huangquan Road is wide, and the white-haired people are old and ugly.
It is better to eat than to have bread in hand. ”
Whoever says anything will be rewarded with three Chunhui. At that time, Zheng Banqiao, who had just been named on the gold list, had not yet shaken off the situation of poverty and destitution, and what is more, even if he could obtain the high-ranking official Houlu of "Eating Lu Ten Million Bells", could he repay the favor of nurturing "cake in hand" in those years!
When Zheng Banqiao was embarrassed, he once worked as a private school teacher and taught a few Montessori children to make a living. Later, recalling those days, he wrote a "Church Poem" to laugh at himself:
"The church was originally obscene, and the door of the people spent the spring and autumn.
Half hungry and half full idler, unchained and unshackled.
The younger father and brother of the class were lazy, and the disciples of the gongduo formed a grudge.
And now I am fortunate to be a green mountain guest, but I am half ashamed of that year. ”
Although the Manchu Qing Dynasty did not have the "nine Confucians and ten beggars" of the Yuan Dynasty, if you were only a teacher of teaching before you became an official, then among the three religions and nine streams, you were often placed in the "inferior" stream. In some Qing people's notes on the history of the wilderness, even mr. teachers and prostitutes are classified as the same category. This kind of career as a "child king" is tantamount to exile for zheng Banqiao, a young man with great ambitions. He felt bitterly that sending people under the fence, such as being imprisoned, the ostensible "idler" was not similar to the "free prisoner"? The unspeakable bitterness is even more: there is less homework assigned, and the fathers and brothers think that you are lazy; there are more homework assigned, and they provoke resentment among the children. "And now I am fortunate to be a Qingshan guest" (Republic of China Ge Xuancun,"Qing Dynasty Celebrity Anecdotes and Literature and Art Category"), the first work "And now fortunate to be in the clouds", the meaning is very different: the latter is expressed as a satisfied person after becoming an official, and the former is glad that he has gained his freedom. People with temperaments like Zheng Banqiao seem to be more likely to present themselves as "Qingshan guests". After Zheng Banqiao became a jinshi, he served as a county official in Fan County and Wei County in Shandong Province, and had a good political reputation. Later, because he helped the peasants fight lawsuits and handle relief, he offended the gentry and was dismissed. Because he not only opened a warehouse to relieve the disaster, but also donated his own salary, saving countless poor people, on the day he went to the official, the people covered the way and stayed, and the family portrait was worshipped.
Zheng Banqiao has achieved achievements in poetry, painting and calligraphy, and is known as the "three absolutes". He is a native of Xinghua, Jiangsu Province, who lived in Yangzhou in his later years and made a living selling paintings, especially good at painting orchids, ink bamboo, and strange stones. Whether it is painting or calligraphy, he clearly marked the price:
"Large six two, medium four two, small two two, book strip couplet one or two, fan bucket square five dollars." Whoever gives gifts and food is better than silver. What the public sends, it may not be the brother's favor. Silver is given to the center of joy, and calligraphy and painting are good. Gifts are entangled, and credit is particularly dependent. Old and tired, can not accompany the gentlemen to do useless language also. ”
The so-called "Dou Fang" is a calligraphy and painting work that is one or two feet square. Below this passage, there is also a seven-sentence poem:
"Painting bamboo is more than buying bamboo, and paper is six feet high and costs three thousand."
Renqu said that the old theory was handed over, only when the autumn wind passed in the ear. ”
The meaning is clear: the cost of my painting bamboo is not small, and the six-foot-tall drawing paper costs three thousand yuan of copper, which is much more expensive than buying real bamboo. Don't talk to me endlessly about friendship, friendship, I won't write without taking out the cash!
This so-called "pen list", that is, the notice of selling paintings, was written in the twenty-fourth year of Qianlong (1759), when Mr. Banqiao was already sixty-seven years old. It seems that Zheng Banqiao, a generation of celebrities known for his "rare confusion", not only has the "three absolutes" of poetry and painting, but also is a first-class humor master!