The poetry of the military march (translation): Dark clouds covered Qinghai Lake, and the snow-capped mountains were dim. The ancient border city and Yumen Pass are thousands of miles apart, facing each other from afar. The soldiers guarding the border have experienced hundreds of battles, their armor has been worn out, and their ambition is unquenchable. They vow not to return home until they defeat the invading enemy.
Original text: Qinghai is covered with long clouds and dark snow-capped mountains, and the isolated city looks at Yumen Pass in the distance. Yellow sand will wear golden armor in a hundred battles, and Loulan will never be returned until it is broken.
From "Four of Seven Poems on the Military March" Wang Changling, Wang Changling (698-756), courtesy name Shaobo, was born in Jinyang, Hedong (now Taiyuan, Shanxi). A famous frontier poet in the prosperous Tang Dynasty, he was known as the "Seven Masters" by later generations. He was poor and humble in his early years and was trapped in farming. As he grew older, he became a Jinshi. He first served as secretary of the Provincial School, and became a scholar and scholar. He was awarded the rank of Sishui Lieutenant. He was demoted to Lingnan due to some affairs.
Friends with Li Bai, Gao Shi, Wang Wei, Wang Zhihuan, Cen Shen, etc. At the end of Kaiyuan, he returned to Chang'an and was granted the title of Jiang Ningcheng. He was slandered and relegated to Long Biaowei. An Shi rebellion broke out and he was killed by Lu Qiu, the governor. His poems are famous for his seven unique poems, especially the frontier fortress poems he wrote when he went to the northwest frontier fortress before he ascended the throne. He is known as "Wang Jiangning, the poet's master".
Extended information:
Readers of frontier fortress poems of the Tang Dynasty are often confused by the mix of ancient and modern place names and spatial separation involved in the poems. There are those who suspect that the author is not familiar with geography and therefore do not ask for a thorough explanation, and there are also those who think that the author is not familiar with geography. This is the case with this fourth poem.
The first two sentences mention three place names. Snow Mountain is the Qilian Mountains stretching across the south of the Hexi Corridor. Qinghai and Yumenguan are thousands of miles apart from east to west, but they appear on the same picture, so there are various interpretations of these two sentences. Some people say that the first sentence is about looking forward, while the second sentence is about looking back at home. This is very strange.
With Qinghai and Snow Mountain in front and Yumen Pass behind, the hometown the lyrical protagonist looks back on should be the Western Regions west of Yumen Pass. Those soldiers were not Han soldiers, but Hu soldiers.
Another theory is that the second sentence is the reverse text of "Looking into the distance at Yumenguan in the lonely city", and the object of looking into the distance is "Qinghai Changyun Dark Snow Mountain". There are two misunderstandings here: one is to interpret "looking into the distance" For "seeing from a distance", the second is to misunderstand the general description of the northwest border area as what the lyrical protagonist sees, and the former misunderstanding arises from the latter misunderstanding.
"Qinghai is covered with long clouds and dark snow-capped mountains, and the lonely city looks into the Yumen Pass in the distance." The poet describes a magnificent and desolate frontier fortress scenery in the opening chapter, summarizing the appearance of the northwest frontier. The meaning of these two sentences is: The sky above Qinghai Lake is covered by long clouds, and the snow-capped mountains stretching to the north of the lake are vaguely visible. Over the snow-capped mountains, there is an isolated city in the desert of the Hexi Corridor. Further west, you can see Yumen Pass.
In the Tang Dynasty, there were Tubo in the west and Turks in the north. Qinghai at that time was the place where the Tang army and the Tubo fought many times, and outside Yumen Pass was the sphere of influence of the Turks, so these two cities were important to the Tang Dynasty. Border city. Looking at Qinghai and Yumen Pass reminded the soldiers of the battle scenes that had happened in these two places, and they couldn't help but feel excited.
It can be seen that these two sentences contain rich emotions, including the concern of the soldiers guarding the border for border defense, their pride in their ability to shoulder the responsibility of defending their homeland, and the harsh environment of the border and the life of the generals guarding the border. The hard loneliness and various emotions are integrated into this desolate, vast, confused and dim scene.
"The yellow sand will wear golden armor in a hundred battles, and the Loulan will never be returned until it is destroyed." The two sentences changed from a description of the environment where the scene blended into a direct lyric. "The yellow sand wears golden armor in a hundred battles" is a poem with strong summary power. The long time of guarding the border, the frequency of battles, the arduousness of the battles, the strength of the enemy troops, and the desolation of the border areas are all summarized in these seven words.
“A hundred battles” is relatively abstract. The word “yellow sand” highlights the characteristics of the northwest battlefield. “A hundred battles” comes from “wearing golden armor”, and we can even imagine the battle. It was difficult and fierce, and it can be imagined that there were a series of heroic sacrifices in the style of "white bones covering the basil" during this long period of time. However, although the golden armor was worn out, the soldiers' ambition to serve the country did not fade away, but became more determined in the tempering of the desert wind and sand.
"If Loulan is not destroyed, it will never be returned" is the heroic oath of the soldiers who have experienced hundreds of battles. The more difficult and frequent the battles are in the previous sentence, the more sonorous and powerful this sentence becomes.