Some of the "Book of Songs" are poems about working people, such as "Cutting Down the Sandalwood" that we have learned in our Chinese textbooks:
When cutting down the sandalwood, place it on the stem of the river. Come, the river water is clear and rippled. If you don’t farm or plough, how about three hundred grains of grain? If you don’t hunt or hunt, how can there be a county in Hu Zhan’erting? That gentleman is not a vegetarian!
The Kankan cuts are radiating, and they are placed on the side of the river. The river water is clear and pure. If there is no harvest and no harvest, 30 billion will be taken away? If you don’t hunt, how can Hu Zhanerting have the characteristics of a county? That gentleman is not a vegetarian!
The road is cut by wind and waves, and it is placed in the middle of the river. The water of the river is clear and flowing. If you don’t farm or plough, how about three hundred grains of grain? If there is no hunting, there are county quails in Hu Zhan'erting? That gentleman is not a good person!
There is also a famous song, "The Charcoal Seller"
Bai Juyi
The Charcoal Seller cut down firewood to burn charcoal in the southern mountains.
The face is dusty and smoky, and the temples are gray and the fingers are black.
Where do you get money from selling charcoal? The clothes on your body and the food in your mouth.
My poor clothes are in plain clothes, and I am worried that the weather will be cold.
At night there is a foot of snow outside the city, and at dawn I drive a charcoal cart through the ice tracks.
The cows are trapped and the people are hungry. The sun is high and they rest in the mud outside the south gate of the city.
Who is Pian Pian riding here? The messenger in yellow is in white.
I hold the document in my hand and pronounce the edict, return to the carriage and scold the oxen to lead them north.
A cart of charcoal weighs more than a thousand kilograms, and the palace envoy will regret it.
Half a piece of red gauze and one foot of damask are tied directly to the cow's head and filled with charcoal.
There are also Du Fu's "Three Officials" and "Three Farewells", namely: "Xin'an Officials", "Tongguan Officials", "Shihao Officials", "Newlywed Farewell", "Elderly Farewell" and "No Home Farewell". Abbreviation. These six poems were planned and arranged by Du Fu in March of the second year of Qianyuan (759). In March of that year, the Tang Dynasty's 600,000-strong army was defeated in Yecheng, and the country's situation was very critical. In order to quickly replenish their troops, the rulers implemented an unrestricted, unsystematic, and inhumane Rav policy. Du Fu witnessed these phenomena with his own eyes and wrote these six poems with conflicting and painful feelings. This war is different from the brutal militarism during the Tianbao period. It is an effort to save the nation and survive. Therefore, while Du Fu profoundly exposed the darkness of military service and cursed "Heaven and Earth will eventually be merciless", he had to support this kind of military service; he not only sympathized with the people's suffering, but also had to comfort and encourage those "middle men" who had not yet matured with tears. Get on the front lines. Under the unbearable cruel oppression, wives persuaded their husbands and mothers sent their children to the battlefield one after another. Some old women even gave their lives. While exposing the cruelty and cruelty of the ruling class, Du Fu praised the vast number of people with infinite sympathy and gratitude, and with vivid and vivid writing. "Three Officials" and "Three Farewells" have different expression techniques. The so-called "Three Officials" include question and answer narration, while the "Three Farewells" are purely entrusted to the travelers. In "Three Officials", Du Fu himself appears because it includes questions and answers; in "Three Farewells", because the whole story is a monologue by the characters, Du Fu does not appear. From the perspective of literary origin, "Three Officials" and "Three Farewells" inherit the "Book of Songs" and the style of Han Yuefu, and later inspire the new Yuefu of Bai Juyi and others. They are the pinnacle of Du Fu's realism creation.