The Swordsman
Qi Ji
draws his sword and surrounds the crippled master,
goes out after the song.
The west wind is full of snow,
Where can I repay kindness?
It is common to die bravely,
Slight hatred is not enough,
It is easy to turn over the water,
The soul will be separated in small pieces.
Biography
When he was a child, his family was poor and his parents died young. He left his hometown at the age of 7 and went to Dawei Mountain in Ningxiang to herd cattle for Dongqing Temple. Qi Ji was an intelligent young man. When he was herding cattle, he often drew bamboo sticks on the backs of cattle and composed poems. The monks of Shunqing Temple were very surprised and persuaded him to become a monk. After Qi Ji became a monk, he first lived in Dongqing Temple, where he learned the Dharma from Zen Master Deshan, solved his doubts and suddenly gained enlightenment, and studied the secrets intensively, which made him famous. Even many Zen forests in Yaoshan, Lushan and Huguo Temple invited him to give lectures. Even the famous Shishuang Dharma Assembly at that time also asked him to manage monk affairs. After that, he went to Nanyue Buddhism to practice Buddhism. He was the abbot of Shangfeng Temple and Fuyan Temple successively, and practiced in seclusion at Jigongyan under Magu Bridge. He called himself "Hengyue Samana", broke his mango shoes, and wandered freely in the mountains and forests. In the first year of Longde in Houliang Dynasty (921), Qi Ji went to Jiannan at the invitation of the monks of the Sichuan temple. He turned back due to the war. When passing by Jiangling in Hubei Province, he was persuaded by Gao Jixing, the governor of Jingnan Province, to stay and became the monk of Longxing temple. He later passed away in Jiangling at the age of 80. .
Social status
Although Qi Ji converted to Buddhism, he loved chanting. His poetry was elegant and peaceful. He was a famous poet monk in the late Tang Dynasty and was praised by poets and poetry critics of the past dynasties. Wu Lu's "Dengzhu Rong Peak" was rated by Wang Euzhi as "this is the most outstanding work in Nanyue". As famous as Guan Xiu, Jiao Ran, Shang Yan, etc., his number of handed down works ranks first among the four monks. He also became poetry friends from other countries and regions with celebrities such as Zheng Gu, Cao Song, Shen Bin, Liao Ning, Xu Zhongya, etc., and they often sang in harmony with each other. He tried to pay homage to Zheng Gu with the poem "Early Plum Blossoms", but Gu changed his poem "Several branches bloomed last night" to "One branch bloomed last night", and worshiped Gu as the "Yi Zi Master".
People at that time were famous for his high productivity and many excellent poems, and because he had a carbuncle on his neck, they jokingly called him "this poem bag"