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Why do people always think that Du Fu is poor? Ding Qizhen
After my short article about the architectural situation of Du Fu’s hometown was published on my blog, many netizens disagreed with my view that the architecture of Du Fu’s hometown should have been relatively lavish. Various doubts were raised. This shows that in our country, the concept that "Du Fu is very poor" is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.
So, how did this concept form and be consolidated?
First, please read the various doubts from netizens.
Some netizens did not comment, but quoted Du Fu's own poems to express dissent. For example, there are poems such as "Panxiang City is far from being delicious, and the bottle wine shop is poor and only has old fermented grains." It means, you see, Du Fu's own poems show that he was very poor. This is because they have not read the chronological collection of Du Fu's poems and do not know that they were poems written at different times and under different circumstances. These poems were written by Du Fu when he was in Chengdu after the Anshi Rebellion broke out. He gave up his official career and crossed the Qinling Mountains with his family to wander in the southwest. During times of war, it is normal for people to have difficulties when they are in a foreign land and their relatives and friends are unable to support them for a while. Besides, these poems also contain elements of exaggeration. One is the need for literary creation, and the other is to get assistance from "well-paid old friends". In fact, during the Chengdu period, generally speaking, the life of Du Fu's family was relatively comfortable. Verses such as "The old wife took the old wife on a small boat in the daytime and watched the young child bathing in the clear river", "The old wife drew paper to make a chess game, and the young child struck the needle to make a fishing hook" can prove it. Those poems that record requests for bamboo seedlings from local officials and friends (one hundred peach saplings, ten acres of alder trees, and an unknown number of bamboo, pine, plum, and yellow plum trees) reveal this information: the area of ??land used by Du Fu's family , which is quite considerable.
Some netizens raised the following questions: "How could Du Fu have a mansion when he was so miserable in his later years?", "But in the end he was so poor that he had no money for medical treatment...", "Why did Du Fu die of poverty?" These questions are similar to It's the same as the poem quoted above, but the time sequence is reversed. Du Fu did encounter difficulties in his later years, especially in the last moments of his wandering in Jingxiang. However, this cannot be used to prove that the early residences and family houses were also poor and crude. During the war, it is not surprising that one cannot return home and encounter difficulties in a foreign land thousands of miles away. In his early years, the singer Li Guinian, who had a mansion that was better than that of a prince, didn't live in the south of the Yangtze River in his later years, and his situation was miserable? Furthermore, even in his later years, Du Fu's economic situation was much better than that of ordinary people. In two years in Kuizhou (now Fengjie, Chongqing), there were 40 acres of homestead land, 100 hectares of public land under management, and several servants! It's good to stay at home for a thousand days, but it's hard to go out for a while. When people encounter some temporary difficulties on their journeys, even the supreme emperor of the Ninth Five-Year Plan is unavoidable.
A netizen is very cute and said: "I remember our teacher said that Li Bai lived a rich life, but Du Fu was the opposite, so he was able to write, 'I have thousands of mansions, a great shelter, and all the poor people in the world are happy, and my house is alone. "It's enough to be broken and freeze to death." Unfortunately, this netizen, who obviously has the virtue of respecting teachers, betrayed his teacher. The teacher obviously didn't know much about Li Bai's life. Li Bai married four times in his life, got married once and was dumped once; Li Bai was ridiculed in Wenshang for not knowing how to manage a family and finance; Li Bai briefly held the title of Imperial Consecration and was soon expelled from the palace; because of Li Lin, the king of Congyong After the uprising, Li Bai was convicted of treason and thrown into prison, and almost lost his life. Li Bai, who was homeless and had no choice but to go to his uncle Li Yangbing, who was the magistrate of Dangtu County, and died there... In any case, Li Bai could not live a lifetime. Rich. If Du Fu could write the poem "Ande..." just because he himself was poor all his life, then Du Fu's ideological level is not very high. Du Fu sympathizes with the people, has the attitude of a sage (his ideal is to "serve the kings Yao and Shun, and then make customs pure") and has a bodhisattva heart.
This lovely netizen also used the power of logic, "...according to this analysis, Feng Gong is the great-grandson of Feng Guozhang, and he should be a dandy." He was talking about my inference that Du Fu's great-grandfather, grandfather, and father were all court officials, and that the Du family house would not be too bad. It is a pity that he forgot the fact that the Feng family encountered the Great Revolution and dynasty changes, but the Du Fu family did not have this problem when they built the Gongxian house. And there is clear evidence that the ancestral home of the Du family did not change owners midway. It was still under Du Fu's name until his later years. If there had not been a major change of dynasty, and both his grandfather and father would have continued to be officials, Feng Gong would not have had to rely on cross talk to support his family!
One netizen was very patient and put forward four objections in one breath. "First of all, it was the Tang Dynasty that the wine and meat smelled stinky in the Zhumen, and there were people who were frozen to death on the road. Secondly... we cannot rule out the fact that they could not survive in Chang'an. The ancients who valued returning to their roots would not move easily. Thirdly, there are many people who are not rich for more than three generations. After the "Anshi Rebellion", not many families were in ruins or even bankrupt. Finally, it is a bit unbelievable that a person who relies on relatives and friends to buy a luxury house has become a toll park, and bloggers have visited it. , it’s time to say that Du Fu is so rich that he can rival the country.” Unfortunately, the first two are general remarks and lack necessary arguments, and the third and fourth articles make the mistake of reversing the time. First, although the Du Fu family does not belong to a rich family that is rich in alcohol and meat, the Du family will definitely not freeze to death on the roadside. His family is a privileged class that is "free from rent and tax, and is not subject to conquest" and is a well-off family. The second point is that it is pure conjecture to say that Du Yiyi cannot survive in Chang'an.
How big a problem would a retired official who owns land in the suburbs of Chang'an have in returning to live in his hometown? Du Fu ended his wanderings at the age of thirty-five and returned west to Xianyang. In a state of complete unemployment, he drifted for ten years without starving to death. Article 3: Even if Du Fu's family fell into decline, it would not hinder the prosperity of his ancestral home. The Anshi Rebellion happened later. Besides, there is no evidence that the Du Fu family has declined to the point of selling off their ancestral home. The fourth one, relying on relatives and friends for support, was something that happened after Du Fu reached middle age. Before the age of thirty-five, Du Fu had been living the life of a young master, roaming around Wuyue for four or five years, and his debauchery in Qi and Zhao for another five or six years. "The debauchery between Qi and Zhao is quite pure and wild." Calling eagles and chasing beasts, smiling proudly in the world. Finally, I want to tell this netizen that I have not only been to Du Fu Thatched Cottage in Chengdu, but I have been there countless times. But I don't think that Du Fu is as rich as the country, because I know that the former residence of Du Fu there is not big and not luxurious. This netizen did not read my article carefully and mistakenly confused the gardens and temples that were later expanded with Du Fu's former residence.
It can be seen from the above that the main reasons why people think Du Fu is poor are: they have not read Du Fu's poetry collection for many years, and they regard Du Fu's poor poems when he and his family were wandering after the Anshi Rebellion as his life situation. When I was in school, I didn’t meet a qualified Chinese teacher who really studied Du Fu’s literary history; I didn’t learn basic logic, and my logical reasoning ability was seriously lacking; I had no awareness of the history of the times; and so on.