"Jingwei" Gu Yanwu
If everything is unfair, why should you suffer for yourself?
The general is an inch taller and holds a tree in his mouth until the end of time.
I wish to bring peace to the East China Sea and keep my body and mind unchanged.
There is no end to the sea, and there is no end to my heart.
Woohoo! Don't you see, there are many birds in the trees in the west mountain, and the magpies come and swallows build their own nests!
[Notes]
1. Jingwei: a bird recorded in ancient mythology. According to legend, she was the daughter of Emperor Yan. She drowned in the East China Sea, so after her death she transformed into a bird named Jingwei. She often went to the Western Mountains to carry wood and stones to fill up the East China Sea.
2. Gu Yanwu: a thinker, writer and patriot in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties.
[Commentary]
From the 27th century onwards, Gu Yanwu began to compile two masterpieces, "Book of Benefits and Diseases of the Prefectures and Countries of the World" and "Zhi of Zhaoyu". This poem was written by Gu Yanwu when he was 36 years old, based on the story about the Jingwei bird in "The Classic of Mountains and Seas". According to legend, the Jingwei bird was the daughter of Emperor Yan who was devoured by the sea. Her soul turned into a jingwei bird, which worked tirelessly to collect stones and branches from the mountains, held them in its mouth, and threw them into the East China Sea. Gu Yanwu likened himself to a Jingwei bird, and was determined to use the Jingwei bird's spirit to fill the sea and realize his great cause of resisting the Qing Dynasty, restoring the Ming Dynasty and writing his masterpiece. Jingwei's poem expresses his determination to stick to his integrity and not surrender to the Qing Dynasty. After thirty years, the masterpiece was finally completed. In order to explore the way to run the country and benefit the people, Gu Yanwu traveled across mountains and rivers, investigated and researched, wrote a large number of notes, and worked diligently until "the end of his life."
[Introduction to the author]
Gu Yanwu (1613--1682) was a thinker and scholar during the Ming and Qing Dynasties. His first name was Jiang, whose courtesy name was Ningren. He once served as a servant of Jiang Shan. A native of Kunshan, Jiangsu. Scholars call him Mr. Tinglin. In the late Ming Dynasty, he participated in the "Fushe" struggle against eunuchs and powerful people. When the Qing troops went south, his stepmother Wang died for his country, and he also participated in the people's uprising against the Qing in Kunshan and Jiading. After the failure, he visited Ming Tomb ten times and traveled throughout North China. He visited customs and collected historical materials, especially studying border defense and northwest geography. Reclaiming wasteland and cultivating land, correcting common deeds, and never forgetting recovery. In his later years, Bu lived in Huayin and died in Quwo. He is knowledgeable and knowledgeable, and has studied national systems, anecdotes about counties and cities, astronomical phenomena, rivers, canals, soldiers and peasants, as well as hundreds of classics and history, and phonological exegesis. In his later years, he focused on textual research and established the style of simple learning in the Qing Dynasty, which influenced both the Wu School and the Wan School of textual research in later years.