"There was no rain and drought in March, and the wheat seedlings died without showing up. In September, first frost is cold in autumn and the ears are green and withered. " No rain in March does not mean that there is no rain for a whole month in March of the lunar calendar, but there is no rain and snow for three consecutive months from the winter of 808 to the following spring. According to historical records, it didn't rain properly until March this year. To this end, Bai Juyi also wrote a song "Yu He" to express his happy mood at that time. In the days when people depend on the weather, the winter wheat planted in Ling Du, a suburb of Chang 'an, is not moistened by a drop of rain from sowing to turning green. As a result, most of them dried up and died before they reached their ears. Since there is no harvest in summer, we can only count on autumn grain. However, farmers never expected that the early arrival of frost in late autumn and early September would make the poor wish of "Du Lingcuo" come to nothing again, and all the autumn crops in the field would freeze to death before they were mature. There is almost no grain harvest in the two seasons, which is Bai Juyi's explanation of "the dilemma of farmers" and "the dilemma of natural disasters" in the preface.
"The chief knows that he will not apply for a break, and he is eager to take the exam." Chief executive generally refers to superior officials, here refers to the local officials in Ling Du. Exam refers to the ancient assessment of officials' political achievements as the standard of rise and fall. It turned out that the local official knew that his "farmer" had suffered a natural disaster, but did not report the disaster to the top. On the contrary, he stepped up taxes and imposed them. He wants to create a record of "no tax reduction in disaster years" to please the upper class, leave a competent impression on the court and lay the foundation for his future promotion.
"Canon mulberry land official rent. What will happen to food and clothing next year? " These two poems say that "Ling Du Search" met such a "chief executive" who ignored the people's life and death in the famine year, and told him to ignore it every day, so he had to reluctantly pawn one of the few mulberry trees in his family, but it was still not enough to pay the "official rent", so he had to sell the land on which he lived to pay taxes and pay grain. However, mulberry trees have been admired, and "Thin Field" has been sold. At that time, there was no capital for "men plowing and women weaving", and there was no way to make a living in the following year. This man-made disaster from the "chief executive" has made the "peasant dilemma" worse.
Bai Juyi saw that the "man-made disaster" Du Lingcuo faced was more ruthless and cruel than the "natural disaster", and his mood could no longer be calm. Originally, from the beginning of the poem, he appeared as the third person, but when he wrote here, he was indignant and turned to appear as the first person, complaining that he "stripped my silk and took the millet from my mouth." It means: "if you buy mulberry trees and sell thin fields, you can't weave and farm." How can we live without food and clothes? " This transformation from the third person to the first person is actually the true expression of the author's inner feelings. He has completely forgotten his prominent position as a doctor in the DPRK and consciously stood on the side of the helpless "Du Lingcuo", which is commendable for a feudal scholar. There is such a poem in the famous Shang Mo Sang by Han Yuefu: "Look at my Qin Shilou at the southeast corner of sunrise. Qin has a good daughter who calls herself Luo Fu. " That's the tone of the first person who stands in the same position as the hero in the poem. However, this is not surprising, because this poem is originally a Yuefu folk song. It expresses the working people's sincere pride and love for the outstanding women in this class, but Bai Juyi is not a member of the poor masses, but a veritable scholar-bureaucrat. Therefore, the natural transposition of this emotional role is for the vast majority of members of the bureaucratic class in feudal society. It's unimaginable, and Bai Juyi's warm-hearted and chivalrous attitude is a direct inheritance of Du Fu's spirit of "sacrificing oneself for others", and it is also an important subjective factor for him to inherit Du Fu's fine tradition of realistic poetry and launch the New Yuefu Movement.
"If you abuse people and hurt things, you are a jackal. Why do you have to scratch your teeth and eat human flesh? " This is Bai Juyi's face-to-face harsh condemnation of corrupt officials in the ruling class who only care about personal promotion and ignore the lives of the people. In desperation, he compared them to "jackals" who eat human flesh, and adopted a very strong rhetorical sentence, and his anger jumped out of the paper. As a well-fed government official, it was really rare at that time to empathize with the "farmers' dilemma" and express grievances for the people so directly and fiercely.
In the first half of the poem, the author's heart is very painful. In the second half of the poem, the tragic fate of the "farmer" seems to have changed for the better. "I don't know who plays the emperor, but the emperor is compassionate and knows the disadvantages of others." Put a German sound on white linen paper, and Gyeonggi will put this year's tax. "White linen paper, the ancient imperial edict is made of white paper. During 674-676 (the first year of Tang Gaozong), because white paper was easily eaten by insects, it was all changed to linen paper. Put on a German accent and announce the imperial edict of grace, which is the imperial edict of tax reduction and exemption mentioned below. Gyeonggi was called the area around the capital in ancient times. Ling Du is located in the suburb of Chang 'an, the capital of China. Bai Juyi only said "I don't know who" in his poem. In fact, this "who" who cares about people's livelihood and treats others like children is Bai Juyi's "self" according to historical records. It was he who wrote to Xian Zong, telling the severity of the disaster, which made the emperor, who had lived in Jiuchong for a long time, feel pity and exempted the taxes in the disaster-stricken areas in Beijing with a stroke of a pen. When readers see this, they will also breathe a sigh of relief for the fate of "Ling Du". But what the author never expected was that all this was just a cover-up. No matter whether the emperor's tax exemption is true or not, officials will never follow the rules, because in this way, their political achievements will be affected and their official careers will no longer be prosperous. So they have a "trick up their sleeve", that is, procrastination, and Bai Juyi can't do anything about it.
"Yesterday, Li Xufang came to the door and was in the countryside with a ruler." Xu Li is a township junior official; The "list" here means posting. The emperor's tax exemption edict has just been proudly announced to every household by the class of "Xu Li", but all this is useless, because "ten taxes and nine taxes have been paid, and my king forgives it." Before most people "sell land" and pay the rent, it is meaningless to post the "death of the ruler" that has become "a dead letter" in the countryside. "Xu Li" didn't have that much courage, and dared to bully her superiors and delude her subordinates to this extent. In fact, the imperial court colluded with each other and colluded with each other. Bai Juyi knows this well, and it is the helpless poor who suffer. They suffered from natural disasters and black officials, which is precisely "tyranny is fiercer than tigers."
This poem embodies the author's feelings towards people like children, and exposes the darkness and corruption of feudal society. In the poem "Light Fat", the author once hit the nail on the head and accused "it's a drought in the south of the Yangtze River, and people in Quzhou eat people!" In this song "Ling Du Wrong", he even wrote: "If you mistreat others and hurt others, you are a wolf. Why do you have to grab your teeth and eat human flesh! " When Bai Juyi wrote the above complaint with indignation, he did not realize that he had actually touched the cruel and barbaric social essence of cannibalism in feudal society. In fact, whenever the famine is serious, the emperor issued a letter to rent-free and tax-free, and local officials stepped up exploitation and extortion, but it was just a double-reed play. Fan Chengda, a poet in the Song Dynasty, once wrote a poem "After Rent Collection", saying: "Yellow paper was urged by white paper, and all the money for selling clothes was paid." It's the same thing. Imperial edicts in Song Dynasty were written in yellow paper, and official documents of local officials were written in white paper. In feudal society, Bai Juyi, the flag bearer of the New Yuefu Movement in the Tang Dynasty, was able to criticize this man-eating double-reed drama with white exemption and white urging.