In ancient times, there was a child named Fang Zhongyong, who was born in a peasant family. His family has been farmers for generations, and there is no educated person. He is five years old and has never seen paper, ink, pen and inkstone. But one day, Fang Zhongyong suddenly cried and asked his family for paper, ink, pen and inkstone, saying that he wanted to write poetry. His father was very surprised and immediately borrowed pen, ink, paper and inkstone from his neighbor. Fang Zhongyong picked up the pen and wrote four lines of poetry, and also gave the poem a title.
When several scholars from the same town learned about this, they all came to Fang Zhongyong’s house to see it, and they all agreed that he wrote very well. This incident spread quickly, so people called him a "child prodigy". Because Fang Zhongyong's poetic style and conception are very good, and he can compose poems immediately as long as the topic is specified.
Therefore, many people wanted to see and experience, so they invited him and his father to their homes, where they served wine and banquets, designated topics, and asked Fang Zhongyong to compose poems on the spot. Fang Zhongyong's father felt that this was very honorable, so he was very willing to accept the invitation. He often took Fang Zhongyong to visit dignitaries and attend various banquets to show off his son's talents. However, he never allowed Fang Zhongyong to become a disciple and spent more time reading and studying.
In this way, the days passed day by day, and Fang Zhongyong grew up day by day, but his talent was still at the level of five years old, without any progress. When he was twenty years old, there was no difference between him and other children of the same age. The "child prodigy" was gone.
Extended information:
The story comes from "Shang Zhongyong", which is a prose written by Wang Anshi, a writer of the Northern Song Dynasty. This article tells the story of a child prodigy named "Fang Zhongyong" from Jinxi, Jiangxi, who became an ordinary person because his father did not allow him to study and was used by his father as a money-making tool.
The article takes Zhongyong as an example to warn people that they must never rely solely on talent without learning new knowledge, but must pay attention to acquired education and learning, emphasizing the importance of acquired education and learning to talent. This article is concise and profound, and its reasoning is rigorous.
Creative background:
In the third year of Tiansheng's reign, Fang Zhongyong was a self-taught poet and started writing poems, which shocked the countryside. In the second year of Ming Dynasty, Wang Anshi, who was the same age as Fang Zhongyong, followed his father back to Jinxi to visit relatives and met Fang Zhongyong at his uncle's house. He asked Fang Zhongyong to write some poems, but he was a little disappointed because the "prodigy writer" was not as smart as the legend said.
In the first year of Kangding, Wang Anshi visited relatives in Jinxi again. At this time, Fang Zhongyong had returned to being a farmer. In the third year of Qingli, Wang Anshi returned to Linchuan from Yangzhou. He remembered what happened to Fang Zhongyong and wrote the article "Injury to Zhongyong".
Baidu Encyclopedia——Fang Zhongyong
Baidu Encyclopedia——Shang Zhongyong