Whenever the sun and the moon disappear in the sea and the situation changes, the geographical features, birds, animals and plants of that (distant) city are completely different from those of the Central Plains, and the customs and habits (etc.) are very different. Mr. Yuan Jun does not take notes, but writes them down one by one.
Mr. Wang sometimes writes poems, mainly to express his feelings of living in a foreign land and missing his hometown.
The title of this book is "Little Ryukyu Man Zhi". Little Ryukyu is the mountain name of Fengshan area.
When he was a teenager, Mr. Yunyuan was famous all over the world for writing poems, and all the people who talked about poems in the world admired him. Mr. Wang studied in imperial academy in his early years and returned to his hometown because he was not appreciated.
When I was nearly fifty years old, I began to engage in education and moral education for students. This experience can really be called inaccessible. Two years later, Mr. Wang was transferred to Fengshan.
Fengshan is in a remote area, desolate and remote (simple), not suitable for living (literally, you can't stay for one night); And the humanistic atmosphere is very weak (extremely uncultured, wild land).
Does God want Mr. Wang to play the role of an education officer overseas, so that the barren seashore and hinterland can feel the greatness of the national education power?
Or is it God's will that the strange landscapes and experiences of overseas wild places can be recorded by Mr. Wang's unparalleled extraordinary talents, and these materials can be used as books written by historians?
So isn't this book "Little Ryukyu Man Zhi" a magnificent masterpiece of this era?
Xu Jiatai is the son-in-law of Mr. Wang. Learning from Mr. Wang has been personally taught by Mr. Wang. Among all the students, learning from Mr. Wang's poems has the deepest experience. Now, Jiatai (I) read this chronicle and lamented that Mr. Wang had such wonderful talents, but he could not be appreciated and displayed by the court. He could not sing praises for the prosperous times and could only write these words describing the wonders of overseas with respect. But even so, these words are gorgeous and powerful enough to be passed down from generation to generation. When future readers read these words, they should think that they are no different from the poems left by Han Yu in Chaozhou, the eight poems written by Liu Zongyuan in Yongzhou and even the poems written by Su Shi in Huizhou.
In this case, is Mr. Wang's ambition just to watch the victory by boat and collect and sort out some overseas stories for readers to read and listen to?
When I wrote this article, it was the leap month of Xu Bingnian, and my son-in-law Xu Jiatai made a postscript to his father-in-law's book.
I hope I can help you.
—————————————————————————— From you.