Fan Chengda was a famous poet in the Southern Song Dynasty. In his later years, he lived in seclusion in his hometown of Shihu, Suzhou, so he called himself a Shihu layman. He wrote many poems in his life, and his poetry styles were diverse, with freshness and elegance as the main features. The Shihu Lay Poems Collection he left behind contains many of his famous poems. There are two sentences in his poem "Send charcoal in heavy snow and mustard concealment": "It is not necessary to send charcoal in the snow, but to talk about the scenery requires poetry." The idiom "Send charcoal in the snow" is simplified from Fan Chengda's poem . There is a story recorded in "History of Song Dynasty: Taizong Ji": One winter, there was a very heavy snowfall, the weather became very cold, and people hid in their houses to avoid the cold. Song Taizong was resting in the palace, warming himself by the fire and tasting various delicacies. When he saw the heavy snow falling outside the window, he suddenly thought of those poor poor people. They didn't have enough to eat, didn't have enough clothes to wear, and were starving and freezing in the heavy snow. So Song Taizong immediately sent his officials, bringing a lot of grain and charcoal, out of the palace, to where the people lived, and delivered the grain and charcoal to the poor and lonely old people. In this way, they would have rice for cooking and charcoal for fire to keep warm.
This idiom comes from Fan Chengda's "Sending Charcoal and Mustard Hidden in the Heavy Snow": "It is not necessary to send charcoal in the snow, but to talk about the scenery and make poetry."
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