Su Shi
Su Shi (1037-1101), also named Zizhan and Hezhong, also known as "Dongpo Jushi", was a native of Meishan, Meizhou (now Meizhou, Sichuan). He was a famous writer, calligrapher and painter in the Song Dynasty (Northern Song Dynasty). He, his father Su Xun, and his younger brother Su Zhe are both famous for their literature, and they are known as the "Three Sus" in the world; they are as famous as the "Three Cao Fathers and Sons" (Cao Cao, Cao Pi, and Cao Zhi) in the late Han Dynasty. Su Shi, Han Yu and Liu Zongyuan of the Tang Dynasty and Ouyang Xiu, Su Xun, Su Che, Wang Anshi and Zeng Gong of the Song Dynasty are collectively known as the "Eight Great Masters of the Tang and Song Dynasties". Together with Huang Tingjian, Mi Fu and Cai Xiang, they are known as the calligraphers who best represent the achievements of calligraphy in the Song Dynasty, and are collectively known as the "Four Calligraphers of the Song Dynasty".
His father Su Xun is the "Su Laoquan" mentioned in the "Three Character Classic" who "begins to get angry at the age of twenty-seven". Although Su Xun got angry late, he worked very hard. In his later years, Su Shi recalled studying with his father when he was young, and felt that he was deeply influenced by his father. Of course, without Su Xun's diligent study, it would have been impossible for Su Shi to receive a good tutor at a young age, let alone "study the classics and history, and write thousands of words a day" when he was still young, and it would be even less possible for him to have a literary career in the future. Everyone.
In the first year of Jiayou (1056), Su Shi, who was twenty-one years old, left Sichuan for the first time in Beijing to take part in the imperial examination. In the following year, he took the examination of the Ministry of Rites and won the appreciation of the examiner Ouyang Xiu with his article "On the Perfection of Honesty and Honesty in Punishments and Rewards", and was awarded a high school Jinshi.
In the sixth year of Jiayou's reign, Su Shi took the high school examination, which is commonly known as the "three-year Beijing inspection". He entered the third class and was awarded the title of judge of Dali and the judge of Fengxiang Prefecture. Later, when his father died of illness in Bianjing, Ding You returned home to support the funeral. In the second year of Xining (1069), he returned to the court after completing his service and was still granted his post.
Su Shi has not been in the capital for several years, and great changes have taken place in the court. After Shenzong ascended the throne, he appointed Wang Anshi to support the reform. Many of Su Shi's mentors, including Ouyang Xiu, his mentor who admired him at the beginning, were forced to leave Beijing due to disagreements with the new king Anshi on the implementation of the new law. The old rain in the government and the field has withered, and what Su Shi sees in his eyes is no longer the "peaceful world" he saw when he was twenty.
Su Shi saw the harm caused by the new law to ordinary people on his way back to Beijing, so he disagreed with Prime Minister Wang Anshi's approach. He believed that the new law was not convenient for the people, so he wrote a letter to oppose it. One result of this is that, like his mentors and friends who were forced to leave Beijing, they were not tolerated by the court. So Su Shi asked to be released to the outside world and was transferred to Hangzhou Tongpan.
Su Shi stayed in Hangzhou for three years. After his term was completed, he was transferred to Mizhou, Xuzhou, Huzhou and other places as magistrate.
This lasted for about ten years, and Su Shi encountered the first disaster in his life. At that time, some people deliberately distorted his poems and made a big fuss about it. In the second year of Yuanfeng (1079), less than three months after Su Shi arrived in Huzhou, he was arrested and imprisoned for writing poems that satirized the new law and "slandered the emperor and prime minister in writing". This is known as the "Wutai Poetry Case" in history.
Su Shi spent 103 days in jail and was almost on the verge of being beheaded. Fortunately, the Northern Song Dynasty made a national policy not to kill ministers during the reign of Taizu Zhao Kuangyin, so Su Shi escaped.
After being released from prison, Su Shi was demoted to deputy envoy of Huangzhou Tuanlian (equivalent to the deputy captain of the modern civil self-defense forces). This position was quite humble. At this time, Su Shi had become discouraged after going to prison. In his spare time, he led his family to reclaim wasteland and farm to help make ends meet. It was at this time that he gave himself the nickname "Dongpo Lay Scholar".
In the seventh year of Yuanfeng, Emperor Shenzong of the Song Dynasty, Su Shi left Huangzhou and went to Ruzhou to take office. Due to the long journey and exhaustion from the journey, Su Shi's infant died unfortunately. The road to Ruzhou was far away, and the travel expenses had been exhausted. Coupled with the pain of losing his son, Su Shi wrote to the court, requesting not to go to Ruzhou for the time being, but to live in Changzhou first, which was later approved. When he was about to return south to Changzhou, Shenzong died.
Zhezong ascended the throne, Empress Dowager Gao took over the government, the New Party collapsed, and Sima Guang was re-elected as prime minister. Su Shi was summoned back to the court that year as a doctor in the Ministry of Rites. In the first half of the morning, he was promoted to Jusheren. Three months later, he was promoted to Shusheren, and soon he was promoted to Hanlin bachelor.
As the saying goes: "It's not easy to be a Beijing official." When Su Shi saw that the emerging forces were desperately suppressing the figures in Wang Anshi's group and abolishing the new laws, he believed that they were just the same as the so-called "royal party" and once again proposed to the emperor Advice.
Su Shi could neither be tolerated by the new party nor forgiven by the old party, so he once again asked for external transfer. As a bachelor of Longtuge, he once again went to Hangzhou to serve as the governor after an absence of sixteen years. Su Shi built a major water conservancy project in Hangzhou, dredging the West Lake and using the excavated mud to build a dam next to the West Lake, which is also the famous "Su Causeway".
Su Shi lived very comfortably in Hangzhou, comparing himself to Bai Juyi in the Tang Dynasty. But in the sixth year of Yuanyou, he was recalled to the court. But soon he was exiled to Yingzhou due to political differences. In the eighth year of Yuanyou (1093), the new party came to power again. On the charge of "ridiculing the previous dynasty", he was demoted to Huizhou resettlement, and then demoted to Danzhou (now Dan County, Hainan Province) Biejia and Changhuajun resettlement. When Huizong came to the throne, he transferred Lianzhou resettlement, Shuzhou Tuanlian deputy envoy, and Yongzhou resettlement. In the third year of Yuanfu (1101), a general amnesty was granted, and he was reinstated as Chaofeng Lang. On his way back to the north, he died in Changzhou, and his posthumous title was Wenzhong. He died at the age of sixty-six.