1. When will the chrysanthemums fall
During the reign of Emperor Shenzong of the Song Dynasty, there was a man who could recite poems and compose poems, and was good at making jokes and guessing riddles. If it wasn't Zhong Ni who was born again, it would be Yan Zi who was reincarnated.
This person is the well-known Su Dongpo. He is talented and intelligent, has a memory that can be recited, and a well-written speech. He is as elegant as Li Taibai and as agile as Cao Zijian. He became famous in one fell swoop and was admitted as a Hanlin bachelor. Su Dongpo relied on his intelligence and often ridiculed Prime Minister Wang Anshi.
One day, Wang Anshi was writing a poem "Yong Chrysanthemum" in his study. Just after writing a few sentences, I suddenly heard from my family that Su Dongpo, who had just returned from abroad, came to visit me. Wang Anshi heard this and knew that Su Dongpo was arrogant and hard to change. He deliberately left the last two sentences to give instructions to his family and hid in the inner tent.
Su Dongpo came to the study, and his family told him to wait here. The family went to pour water for Su Dongpo. Su Dongpo felt bored in the study, so he glanced around the room and saw a piece of wet ink on the desk, as well as an unfinished poem "Yong Chrysanthemum". These two poems: The west wind passed through the garden last night, blowing down the yellow flowers and covering the ground with gold.
Su Dongpo looked at it and said to himself, what he wrote is nonsense. The flower of the four seasons, the yellow flower is the chrysanthemum. It blooms in late autumn and is of fire nature. It dares to fight the autumn frost and is the most durable. How can you say that the yellow flowers fall and the ground is covered with gold? What a mistake. Inspired by the poetry, I couldn't control it. I raised my pen and continued: Autumn flowers fall no better than spring flowers. Let the poet recite it carefully.
Su Dongpo also finished writing and regretted. The last time he was let go was: right and wrong just for talking more, and all troubles were due to clever lips. I want to throw this manuscript away, but I am afraid that the prime minister will come to find me. At this moment, Wang Anshi came out from behind the screen. They exchanged greetings and sat down with each other.
Wang Anshi saw that the manuscript had been continued by someone, and called his family to ask if it was Su Dongpo who had continued it. Wang Anshi thought that he didn't know the heights of the sky and had no scruples in relying on his talents. Tomorrow morning, Wang Anshi told the emperor to send Su Dongpo to Huangzhou as deputy envoy for regiment training.
Su Dongpo knew that he had offended Prime Minister Wang Anshi again and was released, but he had no choice but to do so. Before leaving, Wang Anshi said to Su Dongpo: "When I was young, I was exposed to the cold window lamp for a long time, and I contracted chronic diseases. Now I have found a folk remedy, and I must take it with water from the Wu Gorge in the Zhongxia Gorge. When I return after my term, I must give me some water from the Three Gorges. The water from the Zhongxia Gorge is used to brew medicine. "
When Su Dongpo arrived in Huangzhou, he only went to climb mountains and play in the water, drank wine and wrote poems, and had nothing to do with military and civilian affairs. Time flies quickly, and it’s almost a year and it’s late autumn again. One day after the strong wind passed, Su Dongpo went to the backyard to watch the Rudbeckia he cultivated. Su Dongpo took his friend Chen Jichang to watch it together.
When they came to the backyard and took a look, Su Dongpo was so stunned that he didn't say anything for a long time. They saw golden chrysanthemums scattered all over the ground. Su Dongpo suddenly realized why Wang Anshi let him go to Huangzhou because he didn't know how to pretend to understand and continued the poem indiscriminately.
2. Wrong mention of Zhongxia Water
It is a foregone conclusion that Su Shi will be demoted to Huangzhou, and he is about to hit the road. Despite their different political opinions, King Anshi of Jinggong still held a banquet to say goodbye. During the dinner, Wang Anshi asked Su Shi to help with something. He said, because I worked hard on studying when I was a child, my eyes were exhausted and I had an eye disease since I was a child.
A few days ago, the imperial doctor gave me a prescription. I need to take the water from Qutang Gorge, the middle gorge of the Three Gorges. This time you are going to Huangzhou to take up your post, and you will have to go in and out of the Three Gorges on your way back and forth. Please bring me a jar of water from Qutang Gorge when you return. Su Shi thought it was a trivial matter and readily agreed.
After Su Shi came to Huangzhou, Governor Ma came to visit him that day. The two of them were still admiring flowers in the pavilion of the Juyuan Garden. The next day, Su Shi went to pay homage to Taishou Ma, expressed his concerns, and mentioned to Taishou Ma that he had offended his teacher Wang Anshi by reading chrysanthemum poems last year.
After hearing this, Taishou Ma said: "Then why don't you go and apologize to the old master?" Su Shi said awkwardly: "I want to go, but I don't have an errand to go to Beijing! I can't go for no reason. Right?" Ma Taishou said with a smile: "I happen to have a congratulatory form here for the Double Ninth Festival to be sent to the capital. You can go there and ask Su Shi to write the congratulatory form.
Dongpo was overjoyed. After thanking him, he remembered that Duke Jing asked him to take water from the Wu Gorge in the middle gorge of the Yangtze River to treat eye diseases. He thought: "This must be done well and make up for the past mistakes."
< p> Before leaving for Beijing, he had to go through the Three Gorges. Su Shi set out on the road with the matter of "carrying water" in mind, thinking that he must not forget it. At this time, it is the autumn rain season, the water is very strong, and the boats are going down the river, and there are thousands of scenes.Faced with this scene, Su Shi wanted to compose a poem "Ode to the Three Gorges", but the idea failed while drinking. He fell asleep unknowingly, and the plan to fetch water came to nothing.
As soon as he woke up, the boat arrived at Xiling Gorge. He immediately thought of fetching water and wanted to return to Wu Gorge to fetch water. However, the boatmen thought it was impossible to carry such a large amount of water upstream. of. The boat stopped. Su Shi wanted to fetch water from here, could he? I went to the shore and asked the people. They replied that the water in the Three Gorges was the same and tasted good there. After returning, Su Shi ordered the boatman to fetch a jar of water and bring it back to the capital.
Back in the capital, Su Shi first came to the Prime Minister's Mansion to meet Wang Anshi, preparing to apologize for the chrysanthemum poem first, and then talk about fetching water. The apology went smoothly, but the water was in trouble again. Su Dongpo asked people to lift up the closed water from the lower gorge. Wang Anshi was very happy to see the water and ordered people to boil water and make tea first. After a while, the family served tea.
It took a long time for Wang Anshi to see the brown color change. He asked Su Dongpo, where does this water come from? Su Dongpo hurriedly said it was Zhongxia water. Wang Anshi smiled and said bluntly: "You are bullying me again! This is the water of the lower gorge, why should it be called the middle gorge?" Dongpo was shocked and asked how to distinguish it. Wang Anshi asked him to find the book "Shui Jing Zhu" on the bookshelf and told him to look at a certain page.
Su Shi searched according to Wang Anshi's words and saw the saying that "the flavor of the upper gorge is strong, the flavor of the lower gorge is light, and the taste of the middle gorge is neither strong nor light". Wang Anshi elaborated: "The water properties of the Three Gorges are derived from the "Supplementary Notes to the Water Classic". The water properties of the upper gorge are too rapid, the lower gorge is too slow, and the middle gorge is slow and moderate. The medical officer of Taiyuan Hospital is a world-famous doctor, and he knows the old man's syndrome Living in Zhongwan, it is advisable to use the water from Zhongxia as a diversion.
This water will make Yangxian tea. The tea from Upper Gorge will be strong, while the flavor from Lower Gorge will be light. The color of the tea from Middle Gorge will start to change after a while. , so we know it is the water of the Xiaxia Gorge." Su Dongpo's face turned ashen and he had to admit that it was the water of the Xiaxia Gorge. Dongpo admired his teacher Wang Anshi very much.
From this incident, we can see that Wang Anshi has read tens of thousands of volumes, and tens of thousands of classics are vividly in his mind. He is a genius in the world. And what about Su Shi? This is exactly what Confucius taught: to know something is to know it, and to know something is to know it, and to know it is to know it.
3. Who can correct the strange couplet
Back in the capital, Su Shi first came to the Prime Minister's Mansion to meet Wang Anshi. Wang Anshi asked again what he saw in Huangzhou? Su Dongpo was so ashamed that he felt ashamed. Wang Anshi said: "I'm a little overconfident. I want to take the Dongpo test. You can take a book from my bookshelf and open it as you like. You read the previous sentence and I will take the next one. If I can't pick up the , even if I have no talent.”
Su Dongpo was humble and thought, if you don’t believe that you have thousands of books in your study, they are just decorations. I picked up a book that had been gathering dust for a long time. I thought, hum, this is a book you haven’t seen for a long time, and you may have forgotten it. He recited a sentence casually: "Is Mr. Ruyi happy?"
Wang Anshi said: "I have already eaten it." Su Dongpo was stunned: "Exactly." Wang Anshi took the book and said: "How do you say this sentence? ?" Su Dongpo thought to himself, people laughed at Wu Zetian for calling Xue Aocao Lord Ruyi. But "I've already eaten it" couldn't stand up to the criticism, so I kept silent.
Wang Anshi said: "This is not a secret, why don't you know it?" Su Dongpo blushed with shame.
Wang Anshi said: "This is a short story. There is a fox cave behind Wugang Mountain in Changsha County, which is several feet deep. There are two heads of a nine-tailed fox inside. It can change over time and often becomes A beautiful woman lured a man into a cave to have fun, but she was not happy with it, so she divided it and ate it. Later, Liu Xi went to the mountain to collect medicine and was caught by two monsters.
At night, two foxes were sleeping on the mat. Happy, called Ruyijun. One day, the big fox went out to hunt for food, and the little fox was in its cave, asking for clouds and rain, but it didn't get its wish. The little fox was so angry that it ate Liu Xi in its belly and asked about Ruyijun. Are you happy? The little fox replied that it had eaten it. The two foxes fought and howled all over the mountain. The woodcutter listened and recorded the details in the book of the late Han Dynasty. "
Wang Anshi ordered the boy to take it. He came up with a pen and paper and said to Su Dongpo: "I'm trying something else, and I'm making things difficult for you! Come up with a pairing! This year, August will be full, and spring will begin on the first and twelfth lunar month. The pairing will be: 'One year old, two springs, double eight months,' There are two springs and autumns in the world.
”
Although Su Dongpo was a genius, he couldn’t answer this kind of weird question after thinking about it for a long time, so he had to hand in a blank paper and was ridiculed by Wang Anshi. However, Wang Anshi himself did not show it at that time. In his second line, Su Dongpo suffered "hardship", just like a mute eating Coptis chinensis, unable to express his suffering.
Hundreds of years later, it was not until the middle of the Qing Dynasty that the couplet expert Liang Zhangju gave an astonishing explanation. Satisfactory second line: Sixty-sixty-year-olds return to Zhoutian again, and they meet again in the world.
Wang Anshi also said: "Outside Jinchang Gate in Suzhou, as for the Tiger Hill area, it is called Shantang. It is about seven miles away and is called Bantang. Runzhou was known as Iron Weng City in ancient times. It is located near the river and has Jinshan Mountain, Yinshan Mountain and Yushan Mountain, which are called Three Mountains.
Leaving Suzhou, the pair said: "Seven miles of mountain pond, and three and a half miles to half pond." ’ The counterpart of Runzhou is: ‘To the west of Tieweng City, there is the land of three treasures: gold, jade and silver mountains. '" This couplet is strange. Dongpo had been thinking about it for a long time, but he couldn't answer any of it, so he had to apologize.
This is exactly what "sees endless things in the world". If you can't read it all, it is the book of the world. "Those who cannot participate fully are the principles of the world"!
4.
Su Dongpo stayed in Huzhou for three years. When the three years were over, he returned to the capital. He thought of what he had suffered because of offending Wang Anshi. This time, he had to visit Grand Master Wang first and then go to see the emperor. When Su Dongpo arrived at the Prime Minister's Mansion, Wang Anshi was sleeping, and he was led to Wang Anshi's east study by the steward Xu Lun. Have tea.
After Xu Lun left, Su Dongpo saw that the bookcases on the walls were closed and locked, and there were only pens and inkstones on the desk, and there was nothing left. He opened the inkstone box and saw a green inkstone, which was very interesting. The remaining ink in the inkstone was still dry, so I was about to cover it up when I suddenly saw a corner of paper exposed under the inkstone box. I took it out and saw that it was a poem "Yong Chrysanthemum" written by Prime Minister Wang.
Su Dongpo smiled secretly: After three days of separation, we looked at each other with different eyes. When I was an official in Beijing, the old master wrote thousands of words without thinking. Three years later, this poem was different. The sentence has no final rhyme, and it seems that his talent has been exhausted. Su Dongpo picked it up and read it again:
The west wind passed through the garden last night, blowing down the yellow flowers and covering the ground with gold.
Su Dongpo laughed at these two sentences. Poetry is chaotic. He believes that the winds have their own names throughout the year: spring is gentle wind, summer is xunfeng, autumn is golden wind, and winter is new wind. The first line of this poem says that the west wind, the west belongs to gold, and the golden wind moves in autumn. The golden wind blows, and the flowers are falling. The yellow flower mentioned in the second sentence is the chrysanthemum.
This flower blooms in late autumn. Its nature is fire. It dares to fight the autumn frost and is the most durable. Isn't it wrong to say that "the yellow flowers blow down and the ground is covered with gold"? Su Dongpo couldn't do it himself, he picked up his pen and licked his ink, and continued two lines of poem according to the rhyme:
Autumn flowers are no better than spring flowers, so I chanted them carefully with the poet.
After writing, Su Dongpo felt guilty and thought: If the old master came to the study and saw this poem, he would read it in front of his face. It didn't look good. I wanted to put it in my sleeve and take it away, but after thinking about it, I felt uneasy, so I folded the poem and put it under the inkstone box and walked out of the study.
Go to the front of the gate and say to the gatekeeper: "Old Master, please come out and report that Su has been waiting here for a long time. Since I first arrived in Beijing, I haven't tidied up my writings. I'll go to court tomorrow morning and pay my respects to you again. "After that, he rode away.
Not long after, Wang Anshi walked into the east study, saw the poem manuscript, asked why, and recognized Su Dongpo's handwriting. He said nothing but hesitated in his heart: "Su Dongpo this People, despite repeated setbacks, still remain frivolous. Qu Yuan's "Li Sao" contains the poem "The Falling Flowers of Autumn Chrysanthemums at Evening Dinner".
He does not admit that he has little knowledge and talent, but instead laughs at me! Tomorrow morning, I will report to the emperor and demote him to the people. Then he thought: "Wait a minute, he didn't know that the chrysanthemums in Huangzhou were falling, so he's not to blame!" Then he asked Xu Lun to take a look at the register of missing officials in Huguang. It was found that only Huangzhou Prefecture lacked a deputy regimental envoy.
In the morning of the next morning, Prime Minister Wang secretly reported to the emperor, but Su Dongpo was unable to do so, so he was demoted to Huangzhou. The emperor approved the report, and all the officials obeyed, but Su Dongpo was dissatisfied, thinking that Wang Anshi was avenging himself for changing the poem. There was no choice but to thank him and obey his orders.
The next day, Su Dongpo said goodbye to Beijing and rushed to Huangzhou at night.
Su Dongpo was a friend of Chen Jichang, a Sichuan traveler. Water, drinking and writing poems, military affairs and people's affairs, nothing to do with autumn. Time flies, and one year is approaching. On the first day of the ninth year, the weather was fine, and Su Dongpo suddenly remembered: "Dean Dinghui once gave me several kinds of chrysanthemums to plant in the back garden.
Why don't you go and enjoy it today?"
It happened that Chen Jichang came to visit. Dongpo was so happy that he took him to the back garden to see the chrysanthemums. When he walked under the chrysanthemum stand, he saw that the ground was covered with gold, and there were no flowers on the branches. Flower. Su Dongpo was stunned and speechless for a while. Chen Jichang asked: "Why is Zizhan so surprised when he sees the chrysanthemum petals falling?" Su Dongpo said, "Ji Changpo didn't know. Normally, these flowers are just dry and rotten, but they don't fall off." .
Last year I was at the residence of Prime Minister Wang and saw in his poem "Ying Chrysanthemums" that he wrote: "'The west wind passed through the garden last night, blowing down the yellow flowers and covering the ground with gold.' The younger brother only said that the old master wrote it wrong. Specially added two sentences: "'Autumn flowers fall no better than spring flowers, so tell the poet to chant carefully'."
But I didn’t know that the chrysanthemums in Huangzhou had fallen! The old prime minister demoted me to Huangzhou because he wanted me to see the chrysanthemums!” Chen Jichang smiled and said, “Yes!” Su Dongpo sighed: “Back then, my younger brother was He was demoted because he just thought it was Prime Minister Wang avenging his personal revenge. Who knew he was good, but I was wrong. From now on, I will be modest and prudent and will not laugh at others easily. Alas, it is true that nothing has happened without wisdom!"
Later, Su Dongpo made a special trip to Beijing to apologize to Wang Anshi for his mistake in haphazardly changing the chrysanthemum poem.
5.
Wang Anshi and Su Dongpo, who were both "Eight Great Masters of the Tang and Song Dynasties", had different political views. Wang Anshi advocated reform, but Su Dongpo did not agree, so the relationship between the two was not good during the reign of Emperor Shenzong of the Song Dynasty. During that time, Wang Anshi served as prime minister, and Su Dongpo was in a low-level position. He was depressed and even exiled to Hainan Island.
It is said that Wang Anshi once made things difficult for Su Dongpo. He wrote a couplet to ask for it. Su Dongpo wrote the second couplet. The first couplet of this couplet is: "One year, two springs and two months in August, there are two spring and autumn months in the world.
It turns out that that year was a leap month, and there were both first and twelfth months in the lunar calendar. The solar term of Beginning of Spring is indeed the two seasons of Spring and Autumn. In addition, the fourth character and the twelfth character of the couplet are both the character "spring", so the second couplet is required to have the same characteristics, which greatly increases the complexity. Difficulty.
Although Su Dongpo was a genius, he couldn't answer this strange question after thinking about it for a long time, so he had to hand in the blank paper and was ridiculed by Wang Anshi. However, Wang Anshi himself did not show off at that time. His second couplet came out. Su Dongpo was like a mute eating Coptis chinensis and unable to express his suffering.
Hundreds of years later, it was not until the middle of the Qing Dynasty that couplet expert Liang Zhangju gave an order. A satisfying second line: Sixty-year-olds will be around again, and they will meet again in the world.