Tao Yuanming was born in the Eastern Jin Dynasty around 365, when he mourned Emperor Xingning, and was born in a ruined official family. After Tao Yuanming lost his father at the age of 9, his family declined and he lived alone with his mother and sister. Most orphans and widows live in their grandfather Meng Jia's house. Grandfather's family has a lot of books, which provides him with the conditions to read ancient books and understand history. In the Jin Dynasty, the literati took Zhuang and Lao as their ancestors and copied the Six Classics. He not only studied Lao Zi and Zhuangzi like ordinary literati, but also studied the Six Classics of Confucianism and "different books" such as literature, history and mythology. Influenced by the ideological trend of the times and the family environment, he accepted two different thoughts of Confucianism and Taoism, and cultivated two different interests: "aiming high" and "loving the mountains".
In the seventh year of Taiyuan (382), when Tao Yuanming 18 years old, he defected to his father's best friend Xie Xuan. Xie Xuan held an important position in Yanzhou Secretariat at that time. He warmly entertained Tao Yuanming, and asked him to learn martial arts from his son Xie Huan, ready to officially use Tao Yuanming later. Unexpectedly, Tao Yuanming received a letter from home soon, saying that his mother was in poor health and asked him to come back early. Shortly after Tao Yuanming returned to China, Xie Xuan died of depression because of the suspicion and attack of the autocratic royal family on Wang Sima Daozi and others at that time. Faced with this sudden huge blow, Tao Yuanming was at a loss, so he drank wine every day to drown his sorrows. Slowly, Tao Yuanming became addicted to alcohol, and he always got as drunk as a fiddler every time he drank. He sat under the house tree when he was drunk, or recited poems or screamed loudly, which became a hobby all year round. Tao Yuanming likes drinking. He directly wrote more than 20 poems about drinking, but he was not addicted to drinking, but "drinking without disorder". Later generations describe people's extreme love and infatuation with something, and the word "Tao (Yuanming) is drunk" also proves that his good wine stops at drunkenness. The story he left about wine can also witness his discretion between drunkenness and sobriety.
Tao Yuanming loves not only wine, but also chrysanthemums. Tao Yuanming's ex-wife Chen is gentle and virtuous. She married Tao Yuanming for six years and had four children. She is weak because of overwork during labor and weekdays. In a famine year, her fragrance died and her soul returned to heaven. Chen's early death was a heavy blow to Tao Yuanming, so Tao Yuanming pinned all his love for his wife on chrysanthemum. He blended chrysanthemum with wine to make chrysanthemum wine, which not only satisfied his appetite but also satisfied his spiritual sublimation.
Because the situation at home is getting worse every day, his aching body and mind have been caressed and comforted since his second wife Zhai entered the door. He couldn't bear to let Zhai also repeat Chen's mistakes and suffer poverty with himself. After repeated persuasion by his good friend Pang Zun, Andy lived in Jingzhou for four years (400 years) and became a vassal under Huan Xuan. But Tao Yuanming discovered Huan Xuan's ambition to usurp power, so he resigned and went home on the grounds of his mother's funeral.
Later, Huan Xuan rose up against Jin and was defeated by Liu Yuhe. After that, he kidnapped Emperor Jin 'an to Jiangling, and Tao Yuanming defected to Liu Yuhe. But soon, he found that Emperor Wu of Song had cut off his dissidents and cronyism, which made him disappointed, so he planned to resign and live in seclusion. Tao Yuanming's uncle, Tao Kui, disagreed with Tao Yuanming's seclusion and said to him, "It's good for you to go back to the countryside, but have you ever thought about how to maintain your future life, because you are old, not good at managing money, with young children and poor family." In my opinion, you might as well take a quiet road. "What's hidden in the middle? It refers to being a local official. Tao Yuanming thought twice and accepted the appointment as Pengze County Magistrate. After more than 80 days as a county magistrate, due to Du You's attack, Tao Yuanming sighed, "How can you bow to the children in the village with five buckets of rice?" "So he left the officialdom and really embarked on the road of returning to his hometown for seclusion.
After living in seclusion, Tao Yuanming learned that Emperor Wu of Song usurped power and proclaimed himself emperor, which completely failed his dream of reviving the Eastern Jin Dynasty, so he changed his name to Tao Qian and refused any official contacts. Tao Yuanming's wife, Zhai, shares his interests. She leads a quiet and contented life. "Her husband plows the fields in front and her wife hoes the fields in the back." . At the beginning of returning to the field, life was ok. "There are more than ten acres of square houses, eight or nine straw houses, Liu Yin Houyan, Li Tao Luo tang qian." Tao Yuanming loves chrysanthemums, and chrysanthemums are planted everywhere in his home. "Picking chrysanthemums under the east fence, leisurely seeing Nanshan" ("Drinking") has been well-known so far. For four years, Yixi lived in underground Beijing (now at the foot of Xijing Mountain in Xing Zi County) and moved to Lili (now Tao Lili Village in Xing Zi Hot Springs), making life even more difficult. If there is a bumper harvest, you can also "enjoy drinking spring wine and picking vegetables from our garden" to prevent "hunger in summer and sleeping at night" in disaster years. In his later years, his life became poorer and poorer. Some friends offered to send money to help him, and sometimes he couldn't help asking for a loan. His old friend was appointed as the magistrate of Shi 'an County in the first year of Jingping (423). After Xunyang, I went to his house to drink every day. When I left, I left 20 thousand yuan, sent them to the hotel and drank them one by one. However, it is principled for him to ask for a loan or accept charity. He was so poor that he changed his mind and didn't want to be "well-fed". Once, Tan Daoji, the newly appointed Jiangzhou secretariat, gave him a generous gift and advised him: "Sages are alive, and if there is no way in the world, they will be hidden, and if there is a way, they will reach." This child (you) was born in the civilized world. Why do you suffer from it? "He said," I don't dare to look at sages when I'm lurking, but I don't have that big ambition. "He refused because he didn't get paid for his work.
In the fourth year of Yuanjia (427), in mid-September, Tao Yuanming wrote three elegies for himself when he was still conscious. In the last two sentences of the third poem, he said, "What if I die?" It shows that he is so natural about death. Soon, Tao Yuanming completed 63 spring and autumn life journeys. Su Dongpo once commented on Tao Yuanming: "If you want to be an official, you will be an official, not disrespectful; If you want to be hidden, you will be hidden instead of looking for it. When you are hungry, you will buckle the door and beg for food; When you are full, welcome guests with chicken and millet. Ancient and modern sages are precious. " People value truth and poetry value truth, which is the main reason why Tao poetry has enduring charm.
Tao Yuanming was buried in Tao Jia Cemetery at the foot of Nanshan Mountain, at the foot of Mianyang Mountain at the junction of Jiujiang County and Xing Zi County in Jiangxi Province today. Today, Tao Yuanming's tomb is well preserved. The tombstone consists of three stone tablets, one big and two small. In the middle of the regular script, the tomb of Mr. Tao Gongjing, the champion of Zheng in A Jin, is engraved with an epitaph on the left and a poem "Qu Ci" on the right, which was written by the descendants of Tao in the first year of Qing Qianlong ~