"The Way of Corrupt Officials" and "The Way of Diners"
Liang Zhangju's Notes on Returning to the Field once wrote two "cross orders", with the following entries:
Corrupt Officials and the Cross Order: Hong, Lu Tong know antiques and are not afraid of big losses. In the horse fishing of Go, the children of Liyuan are diligent, neatly dressed, calm in speech, full of praise from the Lord, and the guests are often full of wine!
Hanging passengers cross orders: a good word is good; Second-class talents are not obvious; Three pounds of wine does not spit; Improper clothing in four seasons; Wuzi Go has no regrets; Six Kunqu operas are not pushed; Seven-character poems are not too late; The eight-character horse is not checked; Do not choose nine questions; Very kind.
The two "cross orders" describe two decidedly different ways of being an official, which is really vivid and incisive.
The Cross Order of Corrupt Officials describes corrupt officials from the secret of official promotion to the principle of official life, from shady organizational procedures to dirty activities, from dirty bribery methods to despicable bribery means, from the hypocrisy of public image to the control of public opinion, vividly portrays the decadent darkness of feudal society, satirizes the bad habits of officialdom at that time, depicts the faces of speculators and exposes the "privacy" of corrupt officials.
As a provincial and ministerial cadre, Liang Zhangju is a public servant with outstanding achievements and popular support. He hates corrupt officials. During his decades of official career, Liang Zhangju has been trying to be a "diner". Diner's Cross Order is his own draft of "Diner's Way" and "Official's Way" to deal with corrupt officials. "Politics is only for the convenience of people, and everything can be said to people". It's a couplet he wrote on the door of Jiangling Mansion in Hubei.
Liang Zhangju used this link to explain that promoting advantages and eliminating disadvantages will benefit the people and make them live and work in peace and contentment; Only when you are pure-hearted, honest, sincere and honest, and aboveboard, will you "have a person who can't talk to others" (Sima Guang's language). "Advise the son not to be corrupted by the official; Knowing desire and poetry are grinding together. " This is a couplet given by Liang Zhangju's book when a good friend was promoted to farewell. The first couplet is a warning poem when Su Shi congratulated Liu Fa on becoming an official, and the second couplet is a sentence sung by Su Shi and Max Zhang. You can also see Liang Zhangju's attitude towards being an official.
Liang Zhangju likes watching big plays. He copied down the couplets on both sides of the columns of the theater and wrote "Conghua Couplets". There are two pairs: "I have nothing to do at the moment, why not go to the theatre and the opera?" ? After being a man, there will be times to step down when you come to power! ""acting a play is like watching a play, and the end is more difficult than going on stage. " Liang Zhangju's comment is: "A few proverbs!" Liang Zhangju regards "being an official" as "going on stage" and "stepping down" in singing opera, which shows his indifferent attitude.
Founder of couplets
Liang Zhangju is an outstanding figure, and his works are outstanding, among which the most outstanding achievement is the creation and research of couplets. Couplets originated in the Five Dynasties, popularized in the Ming Dynasty and flourished in the Qing Dynasty. Liang Zhangju, who was furious, noticed that couplets were loved all over the world, so he imitated ancient prose and poetry and created "couplets". Starting from 1838, he has written more than 30 volumes of six series of couplets through years of efforts and his son's equal, including more than 30 volumes of Jia Lian 1000 from Song Dynasty to Qing Dynasty.
He created the style of couplets, established the principle of classification, summarized the achievements of couplets and preserved precious historical materials. He is a veritable ancestor of couplets.
Twelve volumes of Conghua are stories, including stories, temples, historical sites, aphorisms, anecdotes, couplets, phrases, miscellaneous affixes, homophones and so on. , and included more than 600 couplets. During his tenure as governor and official of Guangxi, Liang Zhangju spent two years in his spare time to complete this masterpiece. Since then, many excellent couplets have been sent by friends with similar interests from far and near, and then they began to compile Lianxu. As soon as this book came out, all provinces reprinted it.
Liang Zhangju wants to attach the couplets collected after "Continuation" to the notes of "Biography of Youxian" for explanation, and will not compile them. But with the encouragement and support of his friends, he collected information and compiled three couplets. At this time, he is 73 years old and wants to continue publishing Four Words and Five Sentences. But two years later, the couplet master passed away. His son Liang studied with his father for twenty years and went to Wenzhou as a magistrate. Later, following in his father's footsteps, he made up four stories and a clever record.
Liang Zhangju is good at creating couplets, with dozens of subtopics, gifts and elegiac couplets handed down from generation to generation. For example, the Wuquanshan couplet in Lanzhou: "The Buddha land is boundless. Look at the rows of layers, Zisai Qianfeng stands flat; The clear spring can't be turbid, the mountain laughs and rolls, and the Yellow River bends to hold the city "; Practice for Lin Zexu; "Emperor leans on the idea that investors have eyes and ears like parents"; Suzhou Canglang Pavilion's couplets: "The breeze and bright moon are priceless (Ouyang Xiu), and there is love near the water and distant mountains (Su Shunqin)". These are far-reaching and well known.
In the 16th year of Daoguang (1836), he served as the governor of Guangxi and studied politics. Liang Zhangju lived in Guilin for 6 years. He is severely opposed to bureaucracy. The strict policy of 10 joint insurance company was adopted to ensure the implementation of the anti-drug order. Corruption in selecting civil and military officials in Guangxi is very serious. We tried to get him to invigilate himself, which stopped the unhealthy trend.
He also wrote many inscriptions in the construction of scenic spots, such as Du Xiufeng's "poetic and picturesque" in Dushuyan, "One or Two" in Diecai Mountain and "The Land of Public Adults", all of which were written by him. The most valuable thing is to engrave the original Fu of Five Gentlemen by Huang Gu, a famous calligrapher in the Song Dynasty, on the tablet for tourists to enjoy and add color to the famous mountains. In the 20th year of Daoguang (1840), he built a "Visiting Su Pavilion" in tengxian. The pavilion is inlaid with stone carvings of Dongpo Yi Li Tu, and there are two sets of Liang Zhangju couplets. One pair is: "Wan Li goes to Joan and rises in the river at night to make the moon bright;" A pavilion caresses me and I pay my respects to Mr. Li. "The other pair is:" Welcome the bachelor to the south, there are 300 lychees in summer; "Laugh and send him to Jiangdong to pick some red beans in spring."
At the same time, there are many interesting couplets in Liang Zhangju's couplets, which make people laugh. For example, there is a doctor's pair in the book "Bridge Exchange Record". The article said, "There was once a doctor who boasted that he was good at sentence dialogue. Once, he went to the home of a dignitary, and the host was cutting clothes with satin. He pointed to the satin material and said,' A sky-blue satin.' The doctor said to him,' Liuwei Dihuang Pill.' The host was very happy, invited the doctor to the inner court to entertain guests, and gave him the words' the most suitable deep bamboo courtyard for summer vacation', which made him right. The doctor immediately said,' typhoid fever is wonderful, Bupleurum.' Halfway through, I suddenly smelled a fragrance of flowers floating from the breeze. The host said,' Roses bloom and smell fragrant in seven or eight miles.' The doctor said to him,' buttonwood is big, so you should eat fifty or sixty tablets a day.' "
Liang Zhangju's couplets have a great influence on later generations. For example, the traditional cross talk "Questions and Answers between the Host and the Guest" (also known as "Qiao Lian Sentences") was adapted from Liang Zhangju's "Wandering Tales" in the 1930s, and has been adapted and performed ever since.
Play "Regaining Hong Kong as the First Task"
Liang Zhangju is an official with outstanding achievements and popular support. He is a good friend of Lin Zexu and a staunch anti-British anti-smoking figure. In the 18th year of Daoguang (1838), in April, Huang Jue put forward the idea of banning smoking, and the Daoguang Emperor Yongning handed over the memorial to provincial governors for consultation. Although Liang Zhangju affirmed Huang Jue's "sincere feelings and smooth arguments", he thought that he only "managed the flow" and didn't "get to the root of the problem", so he proposed that "the source of opium is not the people who smoke it, but the land where it is sold". He analyzed that when trading opium with British opium merchants at that time, "they were not in the inland sea but in the kiln mouth", while in the kiln mouth, they often "benefited from the book service of the yamen and the local tyrants' sticks and got protection". Therefore, the key to radical cure is to "sentence the person who opens the kiln to death", "the law must start from the official, the law must start from the ordinary official, and the law must start from the big official", which is the "source of the source".
Liang Zhangju's thought of banning smoking had a certain influence on Daoguang Emperor's decisive decision to ban Haikou, and also provided a strategic basis for Lin Zexu to strictly ban smoking and rectify official management in Guangdong.
In the 19th year of Daoguang (1839), when Liang Zhangju was the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi, he seriously cooperated with Lin Zexu to ban opium. At that time, Guangdong's opium was mainly concentrated in Wuzhou and Zhou Xun (now Guiping). Local officials in Zhou Xun have made great efforts to ban smoking, with "serious investigation" and "many criminals", while Wuzhou officials are very ineffective. Liang Zhangju immediately punished Liu Xifang, the magistrate of Wuzhou. "Please take off your top hat and still order him to make amends for carrying a pipe." In the border areas of Yunnan and Guizhou where opium was first planted, "it is strictly forbidden and eradicated everywhere". Moreover, the "Regulations on the Suppression" was specially formulated, and after the Baojia system, the criminals who planted opium were arrested to prevent poppy cultivation in the future, so that "the bad guys are not without eyebrows, and the good guys are happy."
After Lin Zexu was demoted, Liang Zhangju adhered to Lin Zexu's resolute anti-British line. In February of the 21st year of Daoguang (184 1), the British army attacked Humen and advanced on Guangzhou. The situation is critical. He personally supervised the soldiers guarding Wuzhou, which borders Guangzhou, and compared the mountainous terrain of Nanning, Zhou Xun, Pingle and Yulin. "Choose its key pass, send more officers and men to station and carry out strict inspection." He also told residents that "we should train able-bodied men in groups, work together, set up dangers by the water, build cards on land and dig trenches", so that nothing happened in Guangxi. Moreover, the Li faction advocated that the idea of building tall ships at that time should follow the method of building ro-ro ships during the period of Governor Lin Zexu, "attacking the encirclement with fire."
He criticized Qishan, a capitulator in Guangdong, for "focusing on population suppression" and "opening the door to steal" and praised the people in Sanyuanli for their struggle against Britain. He pointed out: "Guangzhou provincial capital was lucky enough to be safe, but with the help of the villagers, they were familiar with the unreliability of the officers and men, were excited with indignation, tried their best to resist, shouted everywhere, and made the British army lose its soul and suddenly lifted the siege." He was the first governor at that time to post the story of Guangdong Yimin's resistance to Britain to the Qing court, and he was also the first to put forward to the court that "recovering Hong Kong is the first priority". In the same year, he was transferred to the Governor of Jiangsu Province and led the troops to Shanghai. He deployed anti-British troops in conjunction with Chen Huacheng, the prefect of Jiangnan, and organized Yong Ying in Baoshan, Shanghai, Chuansha, Taicang, Nanhui and Jiading, so that the British army did not dare to move.
On Liang Zhangju's 70th birthday, his good friend Wang Shulan wrote a long couplet to congratulate him. The couplet says: "Twenty visits to the countryside, thirty visits to the top, forty visits to the DPRK, fifty visits to health, sixty visits to politics and seventy visits to the fields. You know, after that, you will be happy, and a generation of rich people will have more leisure days; Jane is as simple as a motto, as detailed as a short essay, as rich as circumstantial evidence, as skillful as a choice of learning, as clever as couplets, as high as a collection of poems, and as many works as a lifetime. "
This couplet concisely summarizes his life writings and achievements: Lian Zan Liang's official career is smooth sailing, and "twenty or thirty" is an approximate figure, not an exact age. "raise hometown" and raise Chinese people; China scholar "ascended the emperor"; "Back to the DPRK" is an official in North Korea; "Going out" is the magistrate; "Kaifu", as governor, governor of two rivers, etc. ; "Return to the field" and return to his hometown. The first part said that Liang Zhangju's official career was smooth sailing, and since then, he can rest easy and enjoy his old age. The second couplet eulogizes Liang's profound works, such as the simplicity of the old proverb, the meticulous essays in the nunnery, the richness of the Three Kingdoms, the delicacy of circumstantial evidence in literary selections, the cleverness of couplets and the richness of poems in the nunnery. It is said that these works of his can be hidden in famous mountains and remain immortal.
Although Liang Zhangju has been an official all his life, he has devoted himself to writing. He is proficient in poetry and songs all his life, with profound knowledge, fine appreciation, rich collection of books, and a stone for the open. He is good at anecdotes, notes and sketches, and has written nearly 75 kinds of poems. Lin Zexu, his good friend, said: No one in officialdom is richer than Zhang Ju's works. People praised him as a veritable "writing equal".