Zhongnan Mountain, also known as Taiyi Mountain, is located fifty miles south of Chang'an City in the Tang Dynasty and is one of the main peaks of the Qinling Mountains. It is currently a national AAAA tourist area, a national forest park, and a national nature reserve.
We have always been under the impression that Zhongnan Mountain is a place where masters live in seclusion, so why do many people like to live in seclusion here? I think there are three things that make it the best mountain, two of which are mountains and one are people.
First, this is a good mountain. Wang Wei, the "poetry Buddha", once lived in seclusion there and left behind many poems, one of which is "Zhongnan Mountain":
Taiyi is close to the capital of heaven, with mountains and seas. The white clouds look back and merge, and the green mist comes in to see nothing. The peaks in the field change, and the clouds and sunshine are different. If you want to stay somewhere, ask the woodcutter across the water.
In the poet's writing, Zhongnan Mountain is high and close to the sky, far and close to the sea, with white clouds, green mist, thousands of rocks and ravines, and ever-changing. It is indeed a good mountain. Living in seclusion there, it naturally has a fairy-like air, which enhances the sense of mystery and is in line with the taste of seclusion.
The second point is that it is close to Chang'an. Zhongnan Mountain is "50 miles south of Chang'an" is a very important message, similar to Tiger Hill in Suzhou. From our modern point of view, this mountain can almost be regarded as a "mountain behind the city" and will become a place for daily leisure hiking. Of course, in ancient times, transportation was underdeveloped, and it was time-consuming and laborious to rely on carriages and horses alone, but from then on From the perspective of the radiation range of Chang'an's "metropolitan area", Zhongnan Mountain is the closest to Chang'an City among many "good mountains". From this perspective, it is also very close and convenient. People who live in seclusion in the mountains need to be hidden sometimes and need to respond. It's also very fast when summoned out of the mountain. In addition, information transmission was underdeveloped in ancient times, so living closer to the imperial city made it easier for the hermit's name to be transmitted to the deep palace.
The third point is that the hermit wants to be an official. Who would need a good mountain close to the imperial city to live in seclusion? Obviously, he wanted to increase the "added value" by living in seclusion, thereby winning the favor of the imperial court. This is the meaning reflected in the idiom "Zhongnan shortcut". The protagonist of this allusion is called Lu Zangyong. According to the "New Book of Tang·Biography of Lu Zangyong", Lu Zangyong wanted to become an official in the court, so he lived in seclusion in Zhongnan Mountain, thereby gaining great fame. The purpose of being an official. In other words, most, if not all, of the hermits in Zhongnan Mountain do not really want to live in seclusion, but "use their seclusion to gain fame."