He Chengtian's poem "Battle in the South of the City" is one of the fifteen chapters of "Songs of Advocating Cyborgs" that he wrote privately at the end of Jin Yixi (the reign of Emperor Sima Dezong of Jin'an). Naoge, that is, "short flute and cypress song", is originally military music. He Chengtian's "Songs for Advocating Cymbals" "Although it has the old name of Han opera, it probably does not have a new meaning, so its meaning is inconsistent with the ancient poetry" (Guo Maoqian's "Yuefu Poetry Collection"). The author describes the war with an attitude of praise and praise, aiming to "build prestige and virtue, persuade soldiers and ridicule the enemy." The theme, style and expression form of his poems are completely different from the ancient Yuefu poems of the Han Dynasty.
This poem mainly describes the battle, using a neat pattern of three, three and seven sentences. Each three sentences has a layer of meaning. The whole poem has twenty-four sentences and can be divided into four paragraphs.
The first three sentences are the first paragraph. The first sentence "Battle to the south of the city" is adapted from ancient Yuefu idioms. The author begins the war and depicts the scene of the war. "The enemy is fierce" The following six sentences are the second paragraph, written from the enemy and ourselves respectively. The first three sentences state that the enemy has strong soldiers and horses and a fierce offensive; the last three sentences state that our own morale is high and our fighting spirit is high. "Basing on Dashun" means obeying the will of heaven and the people. "Response to the three spirits" refers to the response of the three spirits of the sun, moon and stars. As Chen Lin said, "The heavenly talisman assists the movement, and the battle is strong and the sun shakes." ("Jiwu Fu") In ancient times, it was called the "Ming King's Campaign", and he must obey the destiny to attack the unjust. Before the war, "tell the emperor and God, the sun, the moon and the stars; pray to the earth, the gods of the four seas, and the mountains, rivers, and tombs; it was created by the ancestors" ("Sima Fa"), and then order the generals to launch an army. The author emphasizes here that his own side is the "righteous" army, and the soldiers are aroused by righteous indignation and rush to fight against the enemy. The nine sentences from "Long Sword Strike" to "Long Horn Floating Cry" form the third paragraph, describing battlefield confrontations. The last six sentences are the fourth paragraph, which is about wiping out the "enemies" and wiping out all the "traitors". The emperor benefited from the victory, and the people sang songs and returned to the court to celebrate the victory.
Ancient poetry has a long history of describing wars. As early as the "Book of Songs", there are famous poems such as "Changwu" ("Daya"), "June", "Caiqi" ??("Xiaoya"), and Qu Yuan's "Nine Songs: National Sorrow" is also one A masterpiece about war. The elegant poems in the Book of Songs narrate war events, mostly praising the merits of the Zhou Dynasty and promoting their majesty. Generally speaking, poems do not directly describe the battlefield scene, but focus on expressing the power and momentum of one's own army. For example, "Daya·Changwu" writes about King Zhou Xuan's campaign against Xu Yi. Chapter 5 describes the military affairs and says, "The king's tān tān is as magnificent as flying as a Han, like a river as a Han, and as green as a mountain. Like the flow of a river." A series of metaphors are used to express the overwhelming force of Zhou's army when they attack, and their indomitable momentum, which makes them look majestic and majestic. There is a section in "Nine Songs of National Sorrow" that describes the confrontation between the two armies. The carriages and trains were in the wrong direction, and the soldiers were fighting hand-to-hand. It was written in a tragic and generous way. However, the poet intended to mourn the souls of the Chu soldiers who were defeated and died in the war, rather than to show off their military power, so the narration of battles in the poem was only used as a foil to express grief. This poem by He Chengtian has different characteristics from war poems such as "Shi" and "Sao". The author gives a positive description of the battle in the poem, including a bird's-eye view of the grand scene and a detailed description of the battle; he uses realistic and metaphorical expressions, exaggeration, and sound and color rendering. Some places in the poem are written more concisely and summarized, while other places focus on exaggerated description. For example, the second paragraph describes the confrontation situation between the two sides. The sentence "The horizontal array is as thick as the clouds in the field" expresses the enemy's powerful formation with "hundred schools standing in front of each other and thousands of troops arrayed", covering the plains and covering the wilderness, like black clouds covering the city. The description of the enemy's strength not only shows the danger and cruelty of the war situation, but also reflects the fact that our own side is ready to fight and is not afraid of danger. The author does not give a corresponding description of his own army's size and formation, but uses the sentence "the soldiers are moved by righteousness and forget their lives" to effectively express that the soldiers share the same hatred of the enemy and "the teacher is strong when he is upright." This avoids monotony and repetition, and highlights the reasons why the Jin army defeated the enemy. The writing style is concise and has strong summary and expressive power.
The two armies clash head-on and engage in battle. This is the most vivid and brilliant part of the poem that uses the most pen and ink. The author is good at capturing the "sound" and "color" that best reflect the characteristics of combat, and depicts them with thick ink and color. For example, the first paragraph describes a major war scene. It first shows the background of rolling yellow dust, flying sand and gravel, and the dark sky and earth. This gray and gloomy tone is used to set off the fiery red flags like silver snakes dancing wildly and lightning flashes; like thunder thousands of miles away. , the rumbling war drums that shook the world were particularly shocking. In the second paragraph, "flying dysprosium dazzles" and red fire and flying smoke, the light and color reflect each other; the sound of swords and bows and the "horns floating and screaming" are intertwined, and the various lights, colors and sounds are intertwined, making people dazzled, thrilling, and vividly reproduce a scene. The tense and fierce scene of a large-scale melee exaggerated a strong atmosphere of war. The author also focuses on describing the battle dynamically. The second paragraph describes the fighting and fighting of soldiers coming and going; snow blades are flying, arrows are like rain, iron cavalry is rushing, and Hua Qi is whirling rapidly. These scenes of battles filled with gunpowder and iron horses remind people of Cao Pi's poems: "Thousands of cavalry follow the wind, ten thousand cavalry are riding the dragon, golden drums vibrate up and down, and relatives and friends are scattered all over the place." ("Three Poems Composed by Li Yang" 》Part 3) This paragraph uses six short sentences: "The long sword strikes, the sound is weak"; "The tiger rides and leaps, the flower spins"; "The heroic beheads, the high flag slaps", each sentence uses a verb At the end, reading gives people a sense of continuity, turbulence and in full swing.
The whole poem narrates battles, with bold and vigorous pen and ink, alternating long and short sentence patterns, neat rows and columns, and is quite powerful. However, it seems that the poem is too rich in poetry and lacks the charm of poetry.