? During the Northern and Southern Dynasties (385-433), he was the first outstanding landscape poet in the history of Chinese literature. The famous lines he left behind, such as "The wilderness and the sandy shore are pure, the sky is high and the moon is bright in autumn," are vivid and natural, showing the immortal literary achievements of this pioneer. But what left an equally profound memory for future generations was his arrogance and extremeness, as well as his life. > Standing in the wrong team > Emperor Xiaowu of the Eastern Jin Dynasty was born in Kuaiji County (now Shaoxing, Zhejiang) in the 10th year of Taiyuan (385). The Xie family he belonged to was the first-class noble family in the Eastern Jin and Southern Dynasties. In the history of the Eastern Jin Dynasty for more than a hundred years, the Xie family, together with the four major families of Langye Wang, Qiaoguohuan, and Yingchuan Yu, assisted the royal Sima family and controlled the political power in the south of the Yangtze River. Xie Lingyun's great-uncle Xie An and grandfather Xie Xuan defeated the invading northern army in the Battle of Feishui, thus maintaining the confrontation between the north and the south. > Born into such a prominent family, Xie Lingyun naturally has an aura that is different from ordinary people. He was well-read and his writing style was unparalleled in the Jiangnan area. After his grandfather and father passed away, Xie Lingyun's uncle and the patriarch of the Xie family, Xie Hun, took special care of him. At the age of 18, Xie Lingyun inherited the family title and was named Kang Le Gong. > This talented kid from an aristocratic family was a popular trendsetter at the time: he liked to ride on expensive horses and wear gorgeous clothes to show off. Moreover, he was very concerned about the style of his clothes and often made improvements after thinking about them. A group of noble children imitated crazily. > The age when Xie Lingyun was born happened to be the last years of the Eastern Jin Dynasty when the country was in decline. Foreign enemies were strong and domestic generals were restless and wanted to conquer the world. In the chaos, Liu Yu, who was a junior officer, became more and more powerful, but the Xie family, represented by Xie Hun, sided with Liu Yu's enemy, Beifu Army general Liu Yi. > In September of the eighth year of Yixi (412), Emperor An of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, Xie Hun was killed by Liu Yu. The next month, Liu Yi was defeated and committed suicide. Subsequently, Xie Lingyun's career life was full of bad luck. First, there was a change in the family, and Xie Lingyun was "good at killing his disciples." It is said that this so-called "disciple" is Xie Lingyun's slave Guixing. Xie Lingyun's beloved concubine and Guixing somehow got together, and the arrogant Xie Lingyun killed Guixing in anger. Originally, in that era when family was supreme, killing a domestic slave was nothing, but Liu Yucun, who was born in a poor family, wanted to undermine the prestige of a famous family, so he directly used this as an excuse to remove Xie Lingyun. > Then, Liu Yu promoted a group of upstarts. As a former hostile force, the Xie family would certainly not be reused, and Xie Lingyun's title was downgraded from Kang Le Gong to Kang Le Hou. Logically speaking, Xie Lingyun should be cautious at this time, but the actual situation is just the opposite. He is a person with high self-esteem and extreme personality. He thinks that he is not taken seriously, and his psychology is inevitably seriously unbalanced. He often complains. > Because he was politically unsuccessful, Xie Lingyun simply traveled around. When he was pushed to Yongjia (now Wenzhou, Zhejiang) as the prefect, he "traveled as much as he wanted, visiting all the counties." The beautiful Yongjia landscape inspired Xie Lingyun's great enthusiasm for creation, and he wrote many famous works such as "Climbing the Pond and Climbing the Tower" and "Climbing the Lone Island in the River". But even though life was so free and unrestrained, Xie Lingyun still felt that there were too many constraints. In the autumn of the next year, he simply returned to his hometown of Shining County, Kuaiji County and lived a life of seclusion. > Create a poetry genre > Since the Eastern Han Dynasty, Wei and Jin Dynasties, the trend of seclusion has become more and more popular in society. At the same time, landscapes have also become an important aesthetic object for people. In such a trend of the times, Xie Lingyun has a special liking for landscapes and reclusive life. Of course, this is also related to the influence of the Xie family's "reclusive tradition". Xie Lingyun's great-uncle Xie An once "slept high on the east mountain" and lived in seclusion for 10 years. It was not until the world lamented, "What will happen to the common people if Xie An refuses to come out!" that he became an official at the age of 40. After Xie An retired from politics in his later years, he went back to his secluded life. Xie Lingyun praised it in the second part of "Poetry on the Patriarch's Virtues": "The wise man thanked the fate of the world, and the distant plans stopped due to events. Gao bowed seven states away, and brushed his clothes Wuhuli. "> Xie Lingyun's father and ancestors were both buried in Shining County, Kuaiji. There were fields, houses and gardens in their hometown. After Xie Lingyun returned, he further expanded the land and built new buildings such as the Shibi Jingshe. He worked with local hermits Wang Hongzhi, Kong Chunzhi and others to "indulge in entertainment and have the ambition to die." > What makes Xie Lingyun most happy is that once the poems and essays he composed in seclusion reached the capital city of Jiankang (now Nanjing, Jiangsu Province), they had the influence of Luoyang Zhigui. Literati, regardless of high or low, copied them and admired them from far and near, making them famous in the capital. Xie Lingyun's main achievement is landscape poetry. Starting from him, landscape poetry truly became a genre in the history of Chinese literature. > It is worth mentioning that the achievements of Xie Lingyun’s landscape poetry are inseparable from the influence of Buddhism. Since the late Han Dynasty, Buddhism has spread widely, temples and pagodas have been built, and scriptures have been translated. During the turbulent years when the north and the south were divided, Buddhism quickly occupied the ideological space of the Chinese people. The broad imagination and profound speculative nature of Buddhist scriptures suddenly attracted a group of famous scholars and literati at that time, and Xie Lingyun was one of them. He wrote the Commentary on the Diamond Sutra, and together with the monk Zhu Daosheng, revised the 40-volume Mahaparinirvana Sutra translated by the Northern Liang monk Tan Wujue. He also maintained close relationships with celebrities in Buddhism such as Zen Master Huiyuan of Lushan. In addition, Xie Lingyun was probably the earliest scholar in China to learn Sanskrit. He wrote a special research work on Sanskrit, "Fourteen Syllables".
> After Emperor Wen Liu Yilong came to the throne, he admired Xie Lingyun's talent and recruited him as secretary supervisor. However, Xie Lingyun's situation did not fundamentally change. Emperor Wen still treated him "in a polite way, just talking about rewards every time he served a banquet." People who were far less famous than Xie Lingyun were promoted and reused. Xie Lingyun was even more unfair and simply refused to go to court because of his illness. His character flaws were already revealed when he "killed his disciples without permission" in his early years. At this time, he was even more unscrupulous. He often went out privately and did not return for more than ten days without reporting or asking for leave. However, Emperor Wen was still very tolerant of Xie Lingyun, allowing him to go to court and grant him leave to return to his hometown. However, Xie Lingyun, who returned to Kuaiji, remained the same as before, enjoying himself excessively and working day and night. He was finally dismissed completely by Fu Long, the censor Zhongcheng. > Thought he was a bandit > After being dismissed from office, Xie Lingyun lived an increasingly indulgent life, often leading hundreds of his slave disciples on mountain climbing excursions. He even invented a special kind of shoes for mountaineering. The soles were equipped with two wooden teeth that could be disassembled according to road conditions. Later generations called them "Xie Gong clogs". > If it’s just traveling together and making some small inventions, that’s it. But Xie Lingyun is not an ordinary tourist. He likes to show off everywhere. Wherever he goes, he always digs mountains and lakes and builds large-scale construction projects, which has a huge social impact. No, it is even more disturbing to the local police. On one occasion, he led hundreds of followers to clear a road from Nanshan in Shining County to Linhai. Wang Xiu, the prefect of Linhai, was shocked when he heard the report. He thought it was a bandit attack and was ready to prepare. Later, he breathed a sigh of relief when he found out that Xie Lingyun was leading his team to play. > Compared with those powerful people, Xie Lingyun is a politically "vulnerable group", but when he treats a group of real "vulnerable groups" such as ordinary people, he has little sympathy and even infringes on the interests of the people. There is Huihei Lake to the east of Kuaiji City. It is rich in water and grass, fish and shrimp, and the people depend on it for their livelihood. However, Xie Lingyun requested that the lake water be released and turned into his own private land. Emperor Wen ordered the prefectures and counties to fulfill their duties, but Taishou Meng of Kuaiji took into account the interests of the people and refused to do so. Since Xie Lingyun could not return to Heihu Lake, he asked for Guobi (pronounced the same as "Pihuang") Lake in Shining County, but Taishou Meng also did not give it to him. Xie Lingyun then spoke ill of Prefect Meng to everyone he met. > Considering the conflict between him and Prefect Meng, Emperor Wen transferred Xie Lingyun to Jiangxi. But Xie Lingyun, who had changed places, had no intention of repenting at all, and his behavior was exactly the same as before. After various misdeeds were reported and exposed, Linchuan Situ Liu Yikang sent people to take Xie Lingyun into custody. Faced with the tense situation, Xie Lingyun took the initiative and not only resisted arrest with arms, but also sent troops to defect. He wrote a poem: "Han died with his son Feng Fen, and Qin Emperor Lu Lian was humiliated. He was from Jianghai, a gentleman with loyalty." In this poem, Xie Lingyun compared himself with Zhang Liang and Lu Zhonglian who resisted the violent Qin, It has a strong "rebellious" character. This was originally a serious crime of beheading, but after Xie Lingyun was captured, he was spared death at the insistence of Emperor Wen and was sent to Guangzhou. >In the winter of the tenth year of Yuanjia (433), another old case involving Xie Lingyun was revealed. This time, Emperor Wen no longer tolerated Xie Lingyun and ordered him to be executed in Guangzhou. > Born into a noble family, Xie Lingyun has wealth and glory at his fingertips. Is he lucky or unlucky for him personally? It's hard to tell clearly, it depends on how he grasps it. But Xie Lingyun is a dissatisfied person! Economic affluence was not enough for him, nor was a leisurely life. A certain political status and star-like literary influence were still not enough. Coupled with his arrogant and extreme character, it eventually resulted in... He had studied Buddhism, liked to travel around mountains and rivers, and was good at depicting landscapes, but these did not seem to have much nourishment for Xie Lingyun's soul. The people in power, represented by Emperor Wen, had been very tolerant of him, but he didn't appreciate it at all and remained the same, eventually embarking on a path of no return.