Better be a tea drinker than a mediocre official.

Huang Tingjian, a child prodigy, can pick up a book at random and recite it all after turning it over several times. At the age of five, Mr. Fourth Uncle taught the Five Classics. After half a year's efforts, Huang Tingjian not only learned by heart, but also understood most of the contents. He also asked the teacher: People say that there are six Confucian classics. Why does the teacher only teach us to read the Five Classics?

Because the teacher hates the Spring and Autumn Annals in the Six Classics and says it is not worth reading. At that time, Feng Tingjian immediately retorted: Since Chunqiu is regarded as a classic by the world, how can you not read it? As a result, Huang Tingjian memorized all the difficult spring and autumn dates after reading them for ten days.

At the age of eight, Huang Tingjian and his fellow villagers went to Beijing for scientific research. Huang Tingjian wrote a poem as a farewell. The poem says: before sending you back to the jade emperor, if you ask old Huang Tingjian? I have been in this world for eight years. While blessing the villagers, Huang Tingjian compared himself to a fallen fairy, and his words were full of pride.

When he was seventeen or eighteen, Huang Tingjian came to visit Qing Yu, a senior celebrity at that time. Huang Tingjian claimed to be a "traveler in the breeze" when sending famous cards, but after reading his poems, Qing Yu not only didn't blame Huang Tingjian, but praised him in public, saying that he would make extraordinary achievements like a swift horse.

In his early twenties, Huang Tingjian went to Hongzhou to take the imperial examination and stood out from thousands of candidates. His poems were highly praised by the revision group. The examiner thinks that a genius like Huang Tingjian is not only superior to his peers in reasoning ability, but also different in literary talent, and is bound to be famous all over the world for his articles.

Huang Tingjian is also very strict with himself. Every year when people reach middle age, Huang Tingjian will repeatedly check and examine his poems in the past six months. He often burns two thirds of his poems. He called his poems "broom tail collection" to show his humility. Many years later, he felt that his writing level had improved a little, and it was possible to pass it on from generation to generation, so he renamed this collection "Brush Tail Collection".

Huang Tingjian, who has different customs, has been exiled continuously, but he is still weak and doesn't care about demotion. In those days when he was demoted, Huang Tingjian still studied day and night and kept giving lectures. Although he has been demoted in officialdom for many years, his temperament of being keen on beating and cursing remains unchanged. The only thing that changed his indifferent expression was Su Shi's death.

The relationship between Huang Tingjian and Su Shi is excellent. Su Shi is not only his teacher, but also his best friend. Su Shi once laughed about Huang Tingjian. When Huang Tingjian first saw himself holding a ceremony to accept disciples, he respectfully called himself Mr.. A few years later, Huang Tingjian became famous and called himself Lao Su. In recent years, Huang Tingjian often patted himself on the shoulder and called him "Zi Zhan" (Su Shi's word)

Huang Tingjian lived in poverty in his later years because he paid attention to personality independence and did not compromise with the common people. Later, Huang Tingjian died after being exiled to Yizhou for several years.

Huang Tingjian was just a foreign minister when he was a big official, and he didn't even do the job of knowing the state. He has made little achievement except editing history books. However, thousands of years later, people may not know Fu Bi, the prime minister of the Northern Song Dynasty, but most people know Huang Tingjian, because his poems are as famous as Su Shi, and he is also called "Su Huang". He also founded Jiangxi Poetry School, one of the largest poetry schools in the history of China, and his calligraphy is one of the four major schools in Song Sijia.

Therefore, even if Huang Tingjian is ridiculed as a "tea drinker", what is there to regret?