Luoyang is a very important city in ancient history, and there are countless stories related to it. There is also a widely circulated idiom, that is, "Luoyang paper is expensive". Judging from the literal meaning, it just means that paper in Luoyang is very expensive, but in fact the meaning of this idiom is far from that. There is an interesting story behind it.
This story takes place during the Western Jin Dynasty, and the protagonist is the famous Western Jin writer Zuo Si. Zuo Si came from a Confucian family, but he was considered a poor family at the time. He was influenced by Confucianism since he was a child. However, he was a stupid kid when he was a child. He studied calligraphy and drums and harp from the Zhong and Hu families, but his learning was average. Zuo Si's father saw this and once said to a friend: "Si's understanding is not as good as when I was young." ?
This conversation had a great impact on Zuo Si. If Zuo Si was confused about studying before, but after he heard this sentence, he seemed to have enlightened and began to study hard. , and covered a wide range of topics, and soon became famous.
However, one of the characteristics of Zuo Si is that he is ugly and slow to speak. He didn't know it at first. He heard that when Pan Yue went out to play, women gathered around him. So Zuo Si also imitated Pan Yue when traveling, but all the women he met spat at him. This incident had a great impact on him. After that, he no longer liked socializing, and he liked to stay at home and read books when he had nothing to do.
It took him one year to write "Qidu Fu". Just as he was preparing to write "Sandu Fu", his sister Zuo Fen was called into the palace by Sima Yan and became a concubine. . Zuo Fen and Zuo Si are indeed brothers and sisters. She is humble and unfavored, but she is respected for her talents and virtues. ?
What Sima Yan liked was her talent, not her as a person. There were too few talented women at that time, and Zuo Fen was second only to her brother Zuo Si in talent, so she was valued by Sima Yan. , but it’s nothing more than a tool.
After Zuo Fen entered the palace, the Zuo family followed him to Luoyang, so Zuo Si started writing "Sandu Fu" in Luoyang. "Sandu Fu" is divided into "Weidu Fu", "Shudu Fu" and "Wudu Fu". It is definitely a big project, and it took Zuo Si ten years to create this "Sandu Fu".
In the past ten years, Zuo Si met with writers to learn about the situation in various places; he asked himself to be a secretary to increase his knowledge. In specific creations, he placed paper and pens at the door of his home, in his yard and even in the toilet. Whenever inspiration appeared in his mind, he quickly recorded it. It was with this kind of perseverance that he finally completed "Sandu Fu" 》.
However, no one paid much attention to the period when "San Du Fu" was just completed. Firstly, although Zuo Si was talented and famous, no one thought he could write well; secondly, drinking wine Xiang Ye is also afraid that the alley is deep. There is no publicity and no famous person has written a preface, so it is difficult to attract people to read it.
In order to prevent the work he had worked so hard to complete from being buried, he took "Sandu Fu" to visit Huangfu Mi, who was famous in both medicine and literature. Huangfu Mi was born in a wealthy family and wrote prolifically throughout his life. He had compiled many works such as "Century of Emperors", "Biography of Gao Shi", "Biography of Yi Shi", and "Biography of Women". He had a high status at that time.
Huangfu Mi read "Sandu Fu", praised it repeatedly, and wrote a preface for it. With Huangfu Mi's praise, "Sandu Fu" was recognized to a certain extent. Later, Zhang Zai wrote annotations for "Wei Du Fu", and Liu Kui wrote annotations and prefaces for the other two fus. In the preface , Liu Kui highly praised this "Sandu Fu", which said: "Those who are not experts cannot practice its purpose, and those who are not naturalists cannot unify their differences." ?
After that, more and more articles were written for "Sandu Fu", and more and more people began to pay attention to "Sandu Fu". Sikong at that time couldn't help but praise "Sandu Fu" Fu". There are so many people who value "Sandu Fu", which is the best publicity, so wealthy families compete to write it down, and Luoyang is very expensive for it. ?
This is the origin of the idiom "Luoyang Zhigui". There are many aristocratic families in Luoyang. Regardless of their attitude toward literature, whether they like it or not, they will all be interested in famous works in the literary world. Therefore, the children of the aristocratic families have copied "Sandu Fu" to study, recite, learn and retain it. .
We know that paper was invented not long ago, and there was far less paper on the market for people to buy and use. In terms of paper production, only wealthy families could afford paper. Ordinary people simply cannot afford paper. With the widespread spread of "Sandu Fu", even the wealthy were faced with the problem of not being able to buy paper.
As a result of the shortage of paper, the price of paper in Luoyang has increased. Because of a work, the price of paper in the entire city of Luoyang has increased, which is enough to show the value and wide spread of this work, and the idiom "Luoyang paper is expensive" is also used to metaphor the value and wide spread of the work.
Zuo Si was not only very accomplished in Fu, but also in poetry. His poem "Ode to History" is very famous. However, Zuo Si's second half of his life was not very good. He was under Emperor Hui of Jin Dynasty. During that period, he had a good relationship with Jia Nanfeng's nephew Jia Mi and became one of the members of the "Twenty-Four Friends of Lu Gong". However, after Jia Mi was killed, Zuo Si lived in seclusion, focusing all his attention on the classics and unwilling to serve as an official.
After Zhang Fang entered Luoyang, Zuo Si had to move his family to Jizhou. However, this did not save his life and he was killed a few years later.