Ye Xiexiè (1627～1703) was a poetry critic in the early Qing Dynasty. The word is Zhou, and the name is Jiqi. A native of Jiaxing (now part of Zhejiang). In his later years, he settled in Hengshan, Wujiang, Jiangsu, and was known as Mr. Hengshan in the world. Ye Shaoyuan and Shen Yixiu are the youngest sons. In the ninth year of Kangxi's reign, he became a Jinshi, and in the fourteenth year of Kangxi's reign, he was appointed magistrate of Baoying County, Jiangsu Province. During his tenure, he participated in the suppression of the San Francisco Rebellion and the management of the canals in the territory that were broken by the Yellow River. Soon after, he was dismissed from his post because he was upright and refused to attach himself to official duties. After that, he traveled to famous places in the country, stayed in Buddhist temples, chanted sutras and wrote essays. His main works are the monograph on poetry "Yuan Shi", in addition to "Jiangnan Xingye Bian" which talks about the science of stars and earth, and the collection of poems and essays "Jiqi Collection".
Biography
Ye Xie’s family background
Ye Xie was born in Nanjing, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, on September 29, 1627, the first year of Chongzhen in the Ming Dynasty, and his ancestral home is now Wujiang. Yejiadai Village, Beishen Town, Shibei City. The history of the Ye family can be traced back to the Song Dynasty. Its sixth ancestor Ye Mengde (1077-1148, no. Shilin) ??was a famous scholar and poet in the Southern and Northern Song Dynasties. He lived in Wucheng (now Huzhou, Zhejiang). He is knowledgeable and proficient in anecdotes, and has written many works, including "Shilin Poetry" and other works handed down to the world. Since then, the Ye family branch has spread and scattered all over the country. It is relatively concentrated in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai. During the Song and Yuan Dynasties, celebrities emerged in large numbers, and they are known as "the Ye family in Wuzhong, the most famous family in the world". In the early Ming Dynasty, Ye Fusi, the 16th generation of the Ye family, moved from Tongli to Fenhu and became the founder of Fenhu. The place where he lived was later called Yejiadai (now the hometown of Wumengtang). The Ye family who settled in Fenhu paid great attention to the cultural education of their children. Starting from the 20th generation Ye Shen, there were many middle-ranking scholars and middle-ranking scholars. Ye Shen was a middle-ranking scholar in the Chenghua period of the Ming Dynasty, and was promoted to Shangbaosi Shaoqing. He is known as Shang Baogong. Later, the 22nd Ye Kecheng and the 23rd Ye Chongdi (Ye Xie's grandfather) were both Jinshi. Ye Kecheng participated in and directed the anti-Japanese struggle. The famous Battle of Shengdun in Wujiang history was attributed to Ye Kecheng. Participate in planning and directing.
Ye Xie’s father, Ye Shaoyuan, was an important writer in the literary world of the late Ming Dynasty, and his mother, Shen Yixiu, was the most outstanding female poet in the late Ming Dynasty. After Ye Shaoyuan was dissatisfied with the darkness of the officialdom, she resigned and went into seclusion, and she and Shen Yixiu lived together in Ye Xie. They lived in Wumengtang in their hometown, and the couple and their children were intoxicated in the atmosphere of literature and art. They sang to each other and left a thick ten-volume "Wumengtang Collection" handed down to the world. Their literary achievements are as follows: It is a glorious page in the history of the Ye family, and people at the time praised it as "the leaves of Wu Fen are all in contact with each other." Ye Xie was born into such a family that values ??integrity and has deep family roots, which laid a good foundation for his subsequent life. Ye Xie is the 25th generation of the Ye family. According to the genealogy, Ye Xie's original name is Shiguan and his courtesy name is Zhou. He is the sixth son of Ye Shaoyuan.
Ye Xie is a talented young man
Ye Xie’s five brothers and four sisters are all rich in literary talent. In their poor life, they indulge in poems and songs. Express your love for life. In particular, the third sister Ye Xiaoluan often taught Ye Xie how to read poems and ancient Chinese prose step by step, cultivating his interest and love for literature. Xiaoluan was still teaching Ye Xie how to read "Chu Ci" a few days before his death. The happiness of family life reached its climax in the first few years after his father Ye Shaoyuan retired to seclusion. The intelligent Ye Xie was personally taught by Ye Shaoyuan to read "Chu Ci" when he was four years old. When he was five years old, he and his brothers moved to Xie Zhai (the place where the Ye family studied) to study. They were taught by Ye Shaoyuan himself. Ye Shaoyuan often pointed to the plaque of "Qingbai Hall" in his home and said to the young Ye Xie and others: "My family has been living well for five generations since the capital admonished the Duke, and the only thing that has affected me is these two words, so I dare not forget it every time I look at it. Although I am poor, I am not worried about it. I am poor and live a comfortable life, and I can be content with myself. If you people If I can arouse the ambition to continue, I will do it!" These father's instructions, Ye Xie "cryed with determination", engraved them in his heart, and will never forget them throughout his life.
However, misfortunes visited this poor family one after another. After the brothers and sisters (the second brother Shiyan, the eldest sister Wanwan, and the third sister Xiaoluan) died one after another, the mother Shen Yixiu became ill from overwork and finally died. He could not afford to be ill. At that time, when Ye Xie was only eight years old, he suffered one of the three major sorrows in life, "the loss of his mother as a teenager", which made the young Ye Xie experience more of the joys and sorrows of the world. After his mother passed away, Ye Xie followed his father in reading poetry and composition. The changes in his family prompted him to mature mentally precociously, and his poetry creation also advanced by leaps and bounds. When his third brother died young, Ye Xie, who was only fourteen years old, wrote "Crying Brother Poems 8" "First" is included in "Linghu Collection·Appendices" ("Linghu Collection" is a collection of Shi Huan's works).
Influenced by his father Ye Shaoyuan, Ye Xie has studied Buddhism since he was a child and is proficient in Buddhist principles, especially the Surangama Sutra and the Surangama Sutra. Ye Shaoyuan also often brought Ye Xie to the Buddhist temple to receive edification. Among them, when he was 10 years old, Ye Xie went with his father to visit Master Xueqiao in Jingshan, Zhejiang. He was so impressed that when he visited Mount Lu in his later years, he saw the portrait of Master Xueqiao in the temple on the mountain and wrote a poem: "I have never been a saint." Apart from Zen Buddhism, the great masters only recommend this one (Xue Qiao). When I went to Lushan, I didn’t recognize him. It turned out that the two generations had the same family tradition." It can be seen that Buddhism had a profound influence on Ye Xie, including his poetry creation. When he was fifteen or sixteen years old, Ye Xie's understanding and interpretation of Buddhism could not even be refuted by many senior monks.
In February of 1645, the first year of Hongguang in the Southern Ming Dynasty, the imperial court sent people to select ladies among the people. The scandal spread to Zhejiang and gradually approached Jiashan.
Ye Xie's father-in-law's family, the Wang family in Jiashan, urgently sent someone to notify Ye Xie to hurry to Jiashan to get married. Since Ye Shaoyuan was not at home (he was in Hangzhou at the time), Ye Xie was led by his eldest brother Shiquan and rushed to Jiashan. Because he arrived a little late, the turmoil also broke out. It has passed and no wedding took place. It happened that at that time, Jiaxing Prefecture opened the imperial examination (examination of talents), and Ye Xie took the exam in Jiaxing. The results were released in March, and Ye Xie ranked first in high school. His essays for the examination were highly praised. Academic envoy Li Yujian (Jie Zhi) commented: "The rhetoric is strong, the arguments are arrogant, the wise mind is enlightened, the sound of thunder is heard, and the spring dawn of all nations is not the Hinayana." Home is in sight.” Pavilion scholar Qian Sai'an praised Jie Jie: "Using the vast ocean of Nanhua to explain the meaning of Surangama."
Ye Xie went into exile for three years
During the Jiashen Incident in 1644, Chongzhen hanged himself in Meishan, and the Ming Dynasty was destroyed. Subsequently, Qing soldiers entered the pass in large numbers, and wherever their cavalry went, they "left their hair but not their heads, and their heads but not their hair" in an attempt to threaten the people's submission by force. At the time when the "people's society was established", literati and bachelors with national integrity either raised an uprising flag to resist the Qing Dynasty, or cut their hair and became monks, heading towards the empty mountains and desolate temples. On the twenty-seventh day of the eighth lunar month in 1645, Ye Xie got up early in the morning and accompanied his father to Yuantong Nunnery at home. He wept goodbye to his family, took a small boat, and braved the pouring rain to sail to the vast distance. Lake, began to live in an unstable exile life, no one would have thought that after leaving, he would never come back, and his hometown would become an unattainable dream.
The autumn wind rustles, the reed leaves fly and the flowers fly, and the miserable autumn rain carries the directionless road away from others. Wherever the ship passed, the land that had been devastated by war was desolate, with dilapidated walls and ruins everywhere, and the roads were full of people fleeing, supporting the elderly and the young. It wasn't until September 12th that Ye Xie found out that there was a place called Anlu in Huatongwu, Gaoting Mountain outside Hangzhou, which was relatively safe. Ye Xie immediately set off there. After making good contact, he took his father and others to Anlu and rested temporarily. . The life in exile made Ye Xie truly feel the warmth and warmth of human nature. They lived in Gaoting Mountain for more than two months. During this period, they could not let their family know about their exile, let alone what changes would happen to their family. The nunnery owner who was staying there offered to take a trip to Fenhu Lake. The nunnery owner, who thought there was some money to be made, did not expect that the Ye family was actually quite poor. When they returned to the mountains, they immediately issued an eviction order without ceremony. In contrast to the owner of the nunnery, the surrounding people usually took good care of the Ye family and his son. When they heard the news that they were being driven away, they borrowed a boat to send Ye Xie and his son away. Thanks to their help, they were able to escape the Qing soldiers' interrogation and return to the nunnery. Hire a boat and go.
By the fourth lunar month of the next year (1646), Ye Xie and his son entered Taihu Lake and took refuge in temples and nunneries around Taihu Lake. Along the way, Ye Xie and others mostly stayed in temples and nunneries, which gave Ye Xie the opportunity to observe Buddhist etiquette and discuss Buddhism with monks, such as the ceremony to welcome the Tathagata Buddha statue in Ci'an, the ceremony to preach and receive precepts at Sheng'en Temple, etc. It gave Ye Xie an intuitive and perceptual understanding of Buddhism and Buddhist affairs, and also gave Ye Xie some mental adjustment and comfort in his exile life, temporarily forgetting the pain of exile, and at the same time had a profound impact on Ye Xie's academic and creative works. The relatively peaceful life in Taihu Lake was fleeting. News that the Qing soldiers were frantically hunting down and massacring Jiangnan anti-Qing martyrs spread to Taihu Lake. Ye Shaoyuan was also on the hunted list. Soon, Yang Tingshu and others were arrested and killed. Ye Xie and his son I had to leave Taihu Lake. Ye Xie hired a boat to accompany his father to Zhejiang by water. There were many difficulties along the way. When passing Pingwang, the Qing soldiers set up many checkpoints. Ye Xie and his father dressed up as farmers, abandoned the boat ashore, took a detour, and met the boat at Yinghu Lake. We met, reboarded the ship, first arrived in Jiashan, and then rushed to Pinghu, Zhejiang Province. It was already the summer of 1647. The Feng family in Pinghu is Ye Shaoyuan's grandmother's house. Ye Xie stayed with his elderly and sick father in Pinghu until his father died of illness.
Ye Xie lived in seclusion in Hengshan
After attending to his father's funeral in Pinghu, Ye Xie left Pinghu, came to Taihu alone, and lived in seclusion in Hengshan. Hengshan is a place about fifteen miles southwest of Suzhou City (measured in ancient times, according to "Mudu Zhi"). It is named because it is horizontal on all sides. Hengshan is also known as Juhu Mountain and Qizishan. According to "Hengshan Chronicle", Hengshan is more than 40 miles wide, and the mountains outside Suzhou such as Chamo, Wushan, Baohua, Zishi, and Minshan are all within the scope of Hengshan. Hengshan is its general name, and there is the saying of Hengshan Mountains , facing Shihu Lake in the south, Fan Chengda, a poet of the Song Dynasty, lived in seclusion on Shihu Lake, so it is known as Fanshi Lake. During his three years of exile, Ye Xie once lived in the mountains and monasteries around Taihu Lake, and he had a considerable understanding of the geographical environment of Hengshan. Hengshan is covered with lush trees, vast territory, sparsely populated and inaccessible. It is a suitable place for seclusion. Some celebrities in history have lived here in seclusion, such as Zhu Huan, Lu Yun, Gu Yewang, etc. At that time, there was a hermit named Tao who was said to be living here in seclusion in the mountains. This person never interacted with others. After Ye Xie lived in seclusion in Hengshan, the two never met. Ye Xie went to visit that person several times. Therefore, choosing to live in seclusion in Hengshan can avoid the disturbances of the world. Especially in the early Qing Dynasty, Ye Xie, who wanted to restore his Ming Dynasty, naturally regarded Hengshan as an ideal place to live in seclusion. When the ancients chose a place to live in seclusion, they often had the idea of ????both loyalty and filial piety. Many people settled in cottages in front of the graves of their ancestors, and at the same time guarded the graves of their ancestors and performed a little filial piety for their descendants. Ye Xie chose Hengshan because of such considerations.
Before moving to Fenhu Lake, the ancestral graves of the Ye family were buried in Xishan, Wu County. After the move to Fenhu Lake, the ancestral graves of the Ye family were buried in Dazhuwei, Beishen. Ye Shaoyuan, a Buddhist monk, felt that Feng Shui was not good, so he chose the ideal tomb in various ways.
In 1641, Ye Shaoyuan entered Taihu Lake and fell in love with a piece of land at Baifuziwei in Yuhu Mountain. He bought it and prepared to bury his ancestors' graves. After that, Ye Shaoyuan visited Yuhu Mountain many times to plan the cemetery. By 1643 In the twelfth month of the lunar calendar, Ye Xie followed his father and others to Baifuziwei in Juhushan, where they buried the graves of his grandparents and moved them into the graves of other ancestors. Before becoming a monk and going into exile, Ye Xie visited the graves of his ancestors before leaving Taihu for Zhejiang. Living in seclusion in Hengshan, you can not only guard the tombs of your ancestors to fulfill your filial piety, but also avoid being pursued by the Qing court, and have a quiet environment to study. This is killing three birds with one stone, and Hengshan has naturally become Ye Xie's first choice for seclusion. . Moreover, at that time, Ye Xie's eldest brother Shiquan, fourth brother Shidong, and seventh brother Shijue were all taking refuge and seeking medical treatment in Dengwei, Zhijie and other places near Hengshan, and they also needed Ye Xie's care. Due to various factors, , Ye Xie lived in seclusion in Hengshan. Ye Xie, who lives in seclusion in Hengshan, has lived in Hengshan for more than 20 years. Except for traveling and sitting in restaurants, he almost stays behind closed doors and devotes all his attention to reading, reading ancient and modern classics, and understanding academic and Buddhist principles.
Ye Xie went to cook rice
Ye Xie’s wedding was held at his father-in-law’s house in Jiashan on March 18, 1646, when he was in exile. During those days of displacement, in order to take care of his sick father and brother, Ye Xie had to bid farewell to his newlywed wife in tears after staying at his father-in-law's house for less than twenty days. After settling in Hengshan, Ye Xie took his wife and children to Hengshan and lived a normal family life. They supported themselves by cultivating a small piece of land next to their residence, planting rice, fruits and vegetables, and planting flowers and grass to adjust to their poor life. . In order to make a living, Ye Xie sometimes had to leave Hengshan. In the old days, literati made a living mainly by being teachers in private schools, which was called sitting in the public school. The same is true for Ye Xie. Ye Xie has a reputation for talent and has a certain influence in Jiangsu and Zhejiang. Many people invite Ye Xie to sit in the restaurant. Ye Xie has worked for many years in Suzhou, Haiyan, Shimen and other places in Zhejiang. Mr. Sitting.
During the years when Ye Xie was working as a scholar, besides teaching children to read, Ye Xie also had the opportunity to interact with some local young scribes. Many of these people later became prominent figures in the literary circles of the early Qing Dynasty. Famous figures or local officials. They responded with the sound of their articles, and the communication between literati often included wine. It is called poetry and wine, and Ye Xie's interactions with these young literati often involved poetry and literary drinking parties. Ye Xie's eloquent arguments, incisive and unique insights, and his writings of thousands of words His quick thinking was unanimously praised by everyone, and he seemed to have the demeanor of a spiritual leader. The friendship established in this kind of interaction lasted until the twilight years of his life. Decades later, the famous scholar Lao Zhibian (Jinshi in the third year of Kangxi) recalled his initial interaction with Ye Xie and said: "Yu Fu was engaged in goblet, and he followed Yu. …At the end of the reign of emperors, the habits of young people have not been completely eradicated.” The high-spiritedness of Ye Xie and others at the time can be seen from this. Lao Zhibian also said, "His discussions and reading of his ancient prose and his vast knowledge and talents came out casually, and I believed that he would be famous for his articles." Ye Xie's interactions with literati while sitting in the library, as well as his hurried travels from north to south, broadened his horizons of thinking. The sparks of ideological collisions when interacting with literary friends provided a large number of themes for Ye Xie's poetry creation.
However, Ye Xie himself was very dissatisfied with the life of sitting in a restaurant during this period. This was not a choice of his own, but a last resort for the sake of livelihood. Ye Xie put his poems of this period into The literary creations were collected into "Ben Yu Ji" and "Cui Fan Ji" respectively, which express this idea. Carp is the ancient name for crucian carp. Running carp is a fish that runs around in search of food. The meaning of cooking is similar, which illustrates the meaning of having no choice but to do it even though it is difficult. Therefore, most of the works in these two manuscripts were deleted and not selected by Ye Xie in his later years when compiling the "Collected Poems and Essays of Ji Qi". The remaining works are also scattered in other people's poems and essays in memory and memory of Ye Xie. .
Ye Xie became an official in the imperial examination
In the early years of the Qing Dynasty, in order to consolidate and strengthen their rule over the Central Plains, especially in the Jiangnan region where the anti-Qing movement was vigorous, the Qing rulers brutally suppressed The anti-Qing movement included cultural control and caused tragedies such as the "Ming History Case". On the one hand, it also used soft methods to win over intellectuals from Jiangnan. In the imperial examinations, a large number of intellectuals from Jiangnan were hired, especially in Suzhou. The imperial examinations in the early Qing Dynasty In the examination, many number one scholars (and of course a large number of Jinshi) were produced, and the number of number one scholars and Jinshi exceeded that of other places in the country. With the gradual stabilization of the Qing Dynasty's regime, it has become impossible to restore Ming Dynasty. Against this background, the ambitious Ye Xie rethinks his life choices and decides to take the path of becoming an official through the imperial examination and do a great career in life.
As early as his youth, in order to take the imperial examination, Ye Xie had learned to write poems and essays. After his youth, changes in the social situation and life circumstances made Ye Xie more creative when writing poems and essays. He likes works such as "Six Dynasties Parallel Poems", which is a collection of gorgeous words in poems, and he also learns to write long and short sentences (i.e., lyrics) that are good at expressing emotions. These writings are Ye Xie's specific work. In his later years, Ye Xie cut off all such works without leaving a single one. To take the imperial examination, you mainly write articles such as policy papers. In order to prepare for the imperial examination, Ye Xie read a large number of classics such as Classics and History, and wrote some of his thoughts during the reading process into policy-style articles. One was to practice exam-taking skills, and the other was to record his thoughts and gains from reading. Some of the best policy articles were later included in "Ji Qi Collected Works".
The policies and essays included in the anthology, on the one hand, inherit the theory of "writing to convey the truth", on the other hand, they can express their thoughts directly, argue about right and wrong without arguing about workmanship. The articles are vigorous in argumentation, eloquent in language, very powerful, novel in conception, and bold in argumentation. , clear levels, in-depth step by step, and highly emotional. The most outstanding feature is that it can not follow the predecessors and put forward its own new viewpoints without being pretentious in reversing the case, such as "Zhuge Kongming Theory", "Li Secret Theory" etc. Starting from specific facts and using practice to test the merits and demerits, in the advanced discussion, it is believed that Zhuge Liang is not the "wisdom" and "righteousness" that have always been discussed, and Li Mize is the well-deserved "minister of the country". This theory stands out from the crowd and is extraordinary. After careful preparation, Ye Xie had a smooth journey in the imperial examination. In the fifth year of Kangxi (1666), he passed the provincial examination and won the Jinshi in the ninth year of Kangxi.