When he died, he knew everything was empty, but he was sad to see Kyushu. Julian Waghann Beiding Central Plains Day, and the family sacrifice never forgets to tell Naiweng!
Translated into modern Chinese:
I knew that when I died, everything in the world had nothing to do with me; But the only thing that makes me sad is that I didn't see the reunification of the motherland with my own eyes.
Therefore, when the day comes when the army of the Great Song Dynasty regained the lost land in the Central Plains, you will hold a family sacrifice. Don't forget to tell your Lao Tzu this good news!
This poem is Lu You's masterpiece. On his deathbed, he was still obsessed with the territory and people of the Central Plains occupied by Jurchen nobles, eagerly looking forward to the reunification of the motherland, so he specially wrote this poem as a will to earnestly warn his son. From here, we can understand how persistent, deep, warm and sincere the patriotic passion of the poet is! It is no wonder that since the Southern Song Dynasty, anyone who has read this poem has been moved by it, especially when foreign enemies invaded or the motherland split, which caused countless people to sing.
Lu You lived in an era when ethnic conflicts were extremely acute in Chinese history. At the beginning of the 12th century, the Jurchen nationality in the northeast of China established the Jin State. In the second year after Lu You was born, the State of Jin occupied Bianjing (now Kaifeng City, Henan Province), the capital of the Northern Song Dynasty. In the third year, Emperor Hui and Emperor Qin were taken into exile, and the country perished in the Northern Song Dynasty. When Zhao Gou, the younger brother of Qin Zong, fled to the south and established political power in Lin 'an (now Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province), he not only failed to make an effort to regain lost ground, but appointed the notorious traitor Qin Gui as prime minister, intending to kneel down and make peace with the Jin people. In the 12th year of Shaoxing (1142), Zhao Gou was so shameless that he claimed to be a courtier to Emperor Xu Jin, and promised to offer 252, silver and 25, silk horses every year, marking Huai River with the Jin people. From then on, the great rivers and mountains in the north became the territory of the Jin people, and the broad masses of the people in the north were enslaved by the Jin people, while the small court in the Southern Song Dynasty was only a corner of peace, surviving under the threat of the enemy. Later, the "Longxing Peace Negotiation" signed by Zhao Tuo and Jin in Song Xiaozong and the "Kai Xi Peace Negotiation" signed by Ning Zongzhao and Jin were still humiliating and making peace. This situation is, of course, intolerable to the vast majority of Han people who have always opposed ethnic oppression. Therefore, in this historical era, I don't know how many outstanding sons and daughters of the Chinese nation stepped forward and launched an indomitable struggle, and Lu You was their outstanding representative on the literary front.
Lu You lived through the last years of the Northern Song Dynasty and the first half of the Southern Song Dynasty. As a result of fleeing from the enemy's invasion in his childhood and being inspired by the patriotic remarks of his family and relatives, Lu You had a profound feeling about the serious national disaster at that time, so as early as his adolescence, he planted the seeds of patriotic revenge in his heart. Since then, no matter being an official in the imperial court and local government, joining the army in the front lines of Sichuan and Shaanxi, and living in Shaoxing's hometown in his later years, this seed has taken root, sprouted, dried up and blossomed. Although it has been constantly devastated by wind and rain, it has also grown and grown, and finally bears rich fruits. There is a passage in the Poems of Oubei written by Zhao Yi, a poet of Qing Dynasty, which is very general. He said:
When Fang Weng was in his teens, he had already learned the preface of being correct first, so he was as cold as ice. As far as the righteousness of the Spring and Autumn Annals is concerned, there is nothing more than an over-doer, so it will remain unchanged for life. After entering Shu, under the curtain of Xuanfu's envoy Wang Yan, he passed through Nanzheng and looked at Shu and Du. He was full of ambition and was really eager to swallow his hands and clouds, and his poems were restored in five or six times out of ten. After leaving Shu, it is still three or four out of ten. After the seventies, ... had no ambition to regain fame. However, as its "Feeling the Past of the Central Plains" says, "Begging for the East China Sea to Wash Husha", and "Old Horse Travel" says, "The drought locust in the Central Plains has declined, and Julian Waghann's northern expedition sent a letter. When it heard that the drums were full of enthusiasm, it was still possible to win the country and Yan Zhao", so it was still unforgettable. There is a saying in the dying days that "Julian Waghann will set the Central Plains Day in the north, and the family sacrifices will be told without forgetting", so the ambition of letting the birds fly can be seen.
Of course, the so-called "five-six out of ten" and "three-four out of ten" here are only rough statistics, and they are only seen quantitatively and superficially; However, it can also be seen that Lu You's "Su Zhi" is consistent, from childhood to old age. In particular, this poem "Showing Children" is a patriotic spark that broke out at the end of his life, and it can also be regarded as a summary of his patriotic thoughts and poems all his life.
Literati of all ages, who have read the poem "Show Your Son", are all moved by it. As early as the Southern Song Dynasty, Liu Kezhuang had a quatrain saying:
It's better to see the death of Lu before you die, and to let loose your life is easy to make you angry. When Xiao Lu was ashamed, he recommended Julian Waghann to Luoyang!
This was after the Jin Dynasty was destroyed by the Mongols in 1234, when the Southern Song Dynasty government dispatched troops from Huaixi to Kaifeng and divided troops from Kaifeng to recapture Luoyang. When Liu was excited, he thought that Lu You's descendants would follow his will and tell Nai Weng the good news. However, the good times did not last long. The small court of the Southern Song Dynasty, which was dominated by singing and dancing lakes and mountains and treacherous officials, could not resist even the fallen nomads, not to mention the Mongolian army that was "the enemy of Fang Zhang". Thanks to the patriotic soldiers and civilians, this shaky regime lasted for more than forty years. At this time, Lin Jingxi, a adherent of the Southern Song Dynasty, wrote a poem "After Reading Lu Fangweng's Poems", the meaning of which was extremely painful. At the end of the poem, four sentences said:
The castle peak is full of sadness, and the situation of fighting is all over the sky. When I came to the sun, I saw Kyushu Tong. How can I tell you about the family sacrifice?
That is to say, when Lu You died, it was a pity that he didn't see "Kyushu Tong". Now his grandchildren have seen this situation, but it was not the Song Dynasty that unified China, but the emerging Yuan Empire. How can you tell his old man when he was at home? Of the two poems mentioned above, the first one is filled with the passion of "yet crazily I pack my books and poems", and the second one expresses the grief of "the voice of national subjugation mourns the thought". Both joy and sadness are caused by the poem "Show the Son". Their patriotic enthusiasm is closely related to Lu You.
As far as I can see, there are no fewer than 3 other critics of Lu's poems (please refer to the Collection of Lu You's Research Materials compiled by Comrade Kong Fanli and me), or it has the meaning of "crossing the river three times", or it is the same as Du Fu's loyalty to the king who never forgets a meal, and some sigh and cry after reading it, and some write poems. It serves to show that this poem is sincere and touching!
However, most of the above-mentioned people were influenced by this poem, but they didn't have time to make a detailed analysis of its contents. What is worthy of reference and recommendation to readers is the article Patriotic Poetry by contemporary Mr. Zhu Ziqing. In this article, he divided patriotic poems in Chinese classical poetry into three items: one is loyalty to the past, that is, loyalty to a surname; Secondly, sing songs about the soldiers who bravely killed the enemy; Secondly, it is the same hatred for aliens. And pointed out that the third item is based on nationality and has a broader scope. He thinks that Lu You "has been an official, but his patriotic enthusiasm is not only for the Zhao family name. He joined the army in the northwest and strengthened his enemy. For the sake of the nation and the country, he always has the ambition to restore the Central Plains. " Therefore, among the patriotic poems of past dynasties, he especially praised this poem "Showing the Son" and made a concrete analysis of it:
The poem "Showing the Son" is a dying work, and nothing else is said but "setting the Central Plains in the north", which is his specialty. This kind of poem is only for talking to his son, and it's not superficial. There's no need to put on airs. He can say something else. But that's all he said. He thought it was the most intimate thing. The poem says that "everything is empty" and everything can be put aside; "But I'm sad that I can't see Kyushu." Only this one can't be put aside. Although he "died" and "didn't see Kyushu", he believed that "Julian Waghann" would eventually have a "Northern Central Plains Day", so he told his son "Don't forget to tell him about the family sacrifice"! Teach your son to "never forget" and you are seeing your own obsession. This is the idealization of his patriotic enthusiasm; This ideal is the embryonic form of the belief that the country is supreme. ..... In the past, perhaps only he was worthy of being called a patriotic poet. (See Selected Works of Zhu Ziqing, Enlightened Bookstore Edition, 1952)
Zhu Ziqing himself is also an affectionate patriot, and both new and old poems are well written, so his analysis of Lu You and his poems is profound. He saw Lu You's "patriotic and ardent idealization" from the poem "Show Your Son", in other words, the progress of Lu You's patriotic thought and the height it reached. On this point, we can further explain and add a little: First, Lu You's love for the motherland is closely related to his thoughts and feelings of loving the people, including his deep nostalgia for the "adherents" of the Central Plains who "endured death and hoped to recover" and his sympathy and compassion for the people of the Southern Song Dynasty who "lost their gold coins to Hu Qiang". Secondly, his attachment to the great rivers and mountains in the north, which are inseparable from the motherland, such as "Yellow River in three Wan Li" and "Taihua in five thousand meters", and "Palace Que in two Beijing" and so on. Moreover, his love for the national language and the whole national culture is for fear that it will be destroyed and assimilated under the long-term rule of foreign countries, so that "children in the East are talking nonsense" and even the whole second generation is "sheep and fur are left behind", which has changed the living habits of the Han people and forgotten the traditions of their ancestors (for relevant examples, see the fourth chapter in the second part of My Biography of Lu You). These are the main reasons why he is "sad but not with Kyushu" and eager to "set up the Central Plains in the North", which is also the fundamental content of his patriotic thought. Lenin said: "Patriotism is the deepest feeling for one's own country that has been consolidated for thousands of years." These include love for hometown, motherland, people and fine traditions. These are the thoughts and feelings expressed in Lu You's poems. Therefore, Zhu Wen claimed: "Perhaps he is the only poet in the past who deserves to be called a patriotic poet". Although this evaluation seems to be too emphasized and is suspected of obliterating others, in order to point out the characteristics, we should admit that it is very pertinent and fair.
Poem of Showing Children is a precious cultural heritage of the Chinese nation. Now, although seven or eight hundred years have passed since Lu You wrote his poem "Showing Children", the patriotic enthusiasm expressed in the poem is still tear-jerking and thought-provoking. "When a bird is dying, its song is also sad; People are dying, and their words are good. " In this poem, the plaintive sound of "But I can't see Kyushu together" is still a powerful call for the reunification of the motherland and the recognition of the return!