Qinghai has a dark snowy mountain with long clouds [3], and the lonely city overlooks Yumenguan [4]. The yellow sand penetrated the golden armor [5] and won every battle until it broke the Loulan [6].
The desert is dusty and the red flag is half rolled out of Yuanmen [7]. The former army fought in Taohe River at night [8], and it has been reported that Tuguhun was captured alive [9].
Zhonghua Book Company 1960 Printing the Whole Tang Poetry
To annotate ...
[1] Joining the army: an old topic in Yuefu, mostly used to describe military life. Wang Changling's Join the Army consists of seven songs, the fourth and the fifth respectively. [2] Wang Changling (698-757), a famous poet in the prosperous Tang Dynasty, was born in Chang 'an, Jing Zhao (now Xi, Shaanxi). He was born in a poor family. In the 15th year of Kaiyuan (727), he was a scholar and served as Jiangning Cheng and Long Biaowei. There are more than 170 poems, and he is good at frontier fortress, farewell, boudoir affection and palace resentment, especially at various styles of seven-character quatrains, which are praised as "seven-character masters" by later generations. The thick clouds on Qinghai Lake make the snow-capped mountains look dull. Qinghai: Qinghai Lake, in present-day Xining City, Qinghai Province. [4] Yumenguan: In today's western Dunhuang County, Gansu Province, it is an important pass of the frontier fortress in the Han Dynasty. [5] Wear the golden armor: wear through the real armor. [6] Loulan: the name of the western regions of the Han nationality, located in the southeast of Shanshan County, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. When Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty sent envoys to Dawan, Loulan blocked the road and attacked the envoys of the Han Dynasty. When Emperor Zhao of the Han Dynasty, General Huo Guang sent Fu Jiezi to break it and behead its king. See Xie Zi Zhuan of Han Fu. "Loulan" here refers to the enemy. [7] Yuanmen: refers to the camp. The ancient emperors visited the hunting ground and stopped in a hidden place, surrounded by cars. The two cars stood opposite each other at the entrance and exit, which was called Yuanmen. Later, the local senior government offices were fenced on both sides, also known as Yuanmen. Taotao River: a tributary of the Yellow River, located in the southwest of Gansu Province. [9] Tuguhun (Yu Yu) Xiongnu: A minority in the northwest of ancient China, a branch of Xianbei nationality, once established Tuguhun country. This refers to the leader of the enemy.
point out
These are two quatrains on frontier fortress themes. The first one is about the determination and belief of border guards to make meritorious deeds by killing the enemy. The first two sentences are written from the frontier fortress scene, which outlines an extremely vast frontier fortress landscape. The last two sentences focus on an ordinary soldier, showing that he risked his life in an extremely difficult frontier fortress, but he still has no regrets and issued a heroic oath. The second is about the victory of a war, but it does not describe the scene of the war positively. But to avoid reality and write about the grand scene when the big troops set off. Then, the word "newspaper" leads to the victory of the vanguard troops, just like lifting weights easily, leaving readers with unlimited imagination.
From these two poems, we can see the high achievement of Wang Changling's seven-character quatrains and the heroic and prosperous atmosphere shown in them.