In Feng Menglong's "Warning Words", there is an article "Wang Anshi's Three Difficulties for Su Xueshi", which tells several stories about Wang Anshi teaching Su Dongpo a lesson. One of them is like this:
Yes One day, Su Dongpo went to visit Prime Minister Wang Anshi. As a result, Wang Anshi went out, and Su Dongpo saw a manuscript of a chrysanthemum poem on Wang Anshi's desk:
The west wind passed through the garden last night, blowing down the yellow flowers and covering the ground with gold.
Su Dongpo was proud of his knowledge. He thought there was something wrong with Wang Anshi's two poems because the "yellow flower" was the chrysanthemum. Chrysanthemums are the most cold-resistant and durable and cannot be blown down by the autumn wind. "I would rather die holding the fragrance on the branches than blow it away in the north wind?" Zheng Sixiao, a later poet of the Song Dynasty, said the same thing, which shows how deeply rooted the "common sense" that the autumn wind cannot blow the chrysanthemums off is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.
Wang Anshi was Su Dongpo’s predecessor and leader. Su Dongpo’s nature was to rely on his talents and be arrogant, so Su Dongpo unceremoniously added two sentences: "Autumn flowers do not fall as much as spring flowers. Let the poet recite them carefully."
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Su Dongpo was so immodest that Wang Anshi demoted him to deputy envoy of Huangzhou regiment training. Su Dongpo lived in Huangzhou for nearly a year. One day after a strong wind, Su Dongpo found that the chrysanthemums were falling one after another and the ground was golden. He finally realized that his knowledge was indeed inferior to Wang Anshi's.
Because of a trivial matter, Wang Anshi made things difficult for him to retaliate against Su Dongpo. It seemed that Prime Minister Wang had no difficulty in retaliating. In fact, the story is a story after all, and it is completely fabricated, but it is true that Wang Anshi attacked Su Dongpo. The real reason is not fighting spirit or talent, but the difference in political views between the two people. The conflict between the reformers and the conservatives is absolutely inevitable.
In terms of pure talent, Wang Anshi couldn't beat Su Dongpo. Wang Anshi's calligraphy was not very good. When he was prime minister, his signatures on official documents were usually very sloppy. Later, a confidant reminded him that the word "stone" you signed looked like the word "anti", which was not good for being reported. Wang Anshi was so frightened that he broke into a cold sweat over such a trivial matter.
Su Dongpo's poetry is outstanding, and his calligraphy is equally amazing. The more he looks at it, the more shocking it becomes -
When Su Shi talked about his calligraphy, he said: "The method of writing calligraphy requires shallow knowledge and narrow learning. If the three are not enough, I can't do it perfectly." When talking about his calligraphy art creation process, he said: "I can't create the original meaning of calligraphy, and I have to guess what I want." He focuses on writing "meaning." ", expressing my love for the dot paintings written by "Xin Shou".
Su Shi's calligraphy uses more sideways strokes, and the structure is flat and slightly fat. This is also closely related to the posture in which he holds the pen. Su Shi wrote as a "lying pen", that is, the brush lies on its side between the tiger's mouth, similar to the current posture of holding a pen, so his characters are slanted to the right and flat. His representative works include "Dark Clouds in the Sky", "Dongting Spring Ode", "Zhongshan Pine Mash Ode", "Cold Food Poems", "Drunkard Pavilion" and so on. Su Shi's calligraphy was highly praised by later generations. The person who has the most say is Huang Tingjian. He said in "Valley Collection" that "those who are good at calligraphy in this dynasty should naturally recommend (Su) as the first."