The tragic fate of the two poets in the Tang Dynasty, however, ended in very different ways. Is it really personality that determines fate?

During the reign of Tang Shunzong, Shunzong appointed a group of innovative literati and carried out a series of good governance in order to crack down on the eunuch's autocratic power and the separatist regime of the buffer region. His main characters are "two kings", that is, Wang and Wang Lai; "Eight Sima", namely Wei Zhiyi, Han Tai, Chen Jian, Liu Zongyuan, Liu Yuxi, Han Ye, Ling Zhun and Cheng Yi, unfortunately, this innovation only lasted 100 days, and it was staged by eunuch ministers headed by Ju Wenzhen. They imprisoned Tang Shunzong and established Prince Chunli (namely Tang Xianzong), which ended in failure.

The title of Tang Xianzong is Yongzheng, and this innovation is called Yongzheng Innovation. After the failure, Wei Zhiyi and other eight people were demoted to Sima, so it was also called the "Two Kings and Eight Horses Sima Incident".

There are two well-known names in Eight Sima: Liu Zongyuan and Liu Yuxi. They are not only loyal ministers of the imperial court, but also famous writers and poets. They are only one year apart. They are friends and colleagues, and have the same experience-after being demoted to Sima Zhou, they have been demoted several times in a row. But Liu Yuxi lived to Wu Zongchao, living in his 70s and Liu Zongyuan in his 40s.

We say that character determines fate. This sentence is more suitable for Liu and Liu. If you don't believe me, we'll look for the answer from their poems.

Liu Zongyuan's lonely heart

The tradition of China's classical poetry is to express his ambition and feelings. If a poet wants to write a good poem, he will definitely express his inner desires and feelings in the poem. Therefore, to understand a poet and read a poem, we must know something about his life, and then we can know what his feelings and feelings are reflected in his poems.

Yuan Haowen, a poet in the Yuan Dynasty, once wrote a commentary on Thirty Poems, the twentieth of which was written like this:

Xie Kefeng reflects ancient and modern times. Who originated as deep as Liuzhou?

Zhu Xian's lingering sound is still there, but it is the lonely heart of that year.

Xie is Xie Lingyun, and Longcheng refers to Liu Zongyuan. In his later years, he made a history of Liuzhou, which was called "Liu Liuzhou". What is elegance? It is the image of appearance. Xie Lingyun and Liu Zongyuan are both pastoral poets, so graceful and restrained certainly refers to the beautiful images of mountains and rivers.

Yuan Haowen means that Xie Lingyun's poems are brilliant in ancient and modern times, and only Liu Zongyuan can match them. Liu Zongyuan's "demeanor" comes from imitating Xie Lingyun, and Xie Lingyun's "demeanor" comes from the beautiful scenery of mountains and rivers.

The last two sentences say, "With a wave of the Zhu Xian, the reverberation is around the beam", and the string is coated with cinnabar. How beautiful. With a flick of the piano, you can play a beautiful melody, just like Xie and Liu's poems. But now we go to read "A Wave of Zhu Xian" and "Aftersound" by Xie and Liu, and what we feel is their loneliness.

In ancient China, those gifted scholars all had a lonely heart. They hope to realize their ideals through their own knowledge, but they never seem to have. For example, Li Bai said, "Since God has given talents, let them be used!" But didn't he return the money?

Shoulder family honor

Liu Zongyuan's family background was once prominent, and it began to decline from his great-grandfather generation. His father, Jin Ryu, also spent his whole life in exile. Liu Zongyuan, the only son of the Liu family, was given the important task of reviving the family style from an early age. Liu Zongyuan did take this road. After his death, Han Yu wrote in "Epitaph of Liu Zihou" that "people say that Liu has a son", which means that the Liu family finally has an excellent offspring. To what extent is it prominent? Han Yu said that he "has a great reputation and is eager to make friends with him for a while." His reputation is so great that people are willing to make friends with him. "All important people are trying to get out of my school", and all officials and nobles are trying to make him their protege, just as teachers are trying to grab students with excellent grades now.

It stands to reason that such a person will certainly rise to the top. But Liu Zongyuan followed his father since childhood and embarked on the road of being demoted. He saw too many people's sufferings, so he could not be a flattering official, but a court official who dared to innovate. As a result, he participated in Yongzhen Innovation and was demoted to Yongzhou Sima.

What kind of official is Sima? In the Tang Dynasty, Sima was a subordinate of the secretariat. To put it bluntly, Sima is a handyman. If your superiors ask you to do something, you will do it. You want to express your political views and talk about your thoughts. Sorry, no way! At this time, his wife died again, leaving no daughter, no brothers and friends, and his body was still suffering from illness.

It is from this period that we say that Liu Zongyuan is an idyllic poet. In order to seek relief from this series of torture, he tried to express his feelings for mountains and rivers to comfort himself. This is the choice of many poets in the face of adversity, but Liu Zongyuan can't get rid of it completely. As mentioned above, he shoulders the heavy responsibility of reviving his family style, and he can't fully express his feelings for mountains and rivers. He must always think about being an official and the glory of his family.

Sadness and loneliness

Xiju

I have been troubled by official hats and robes for a long time, so I am glad to be an exile in this barbaric south.

I am now a neighbor of growers and harvesters, and I am a guest of the mountain forest.

I plow in the morning, turn over the grass with dew, and tie a fishing boat at night to break the quiet stream.

I walked back and forth, hardly meeting anyone, singing long poems and staring at the blue sky.

This song "Xiju" is about Yuxi-this is a stream in front of his residence in Yongzhou, named after Liu Zongyuan-philosophically speaking, it has some stupid meanings, but it has been demoted to this point because of the failure of innovation. Isn't this "stupidity" a kind of self-mockery?

Look at what he said. "Mao Tuan" refers to the clothes worn by officials. He said that I used to be dragged down by the "card issuing group" every day, and I had no freedom at all. Fortunately, I am now relegated to this wild place in the south. You know, it's ironic. He wanted to be an official, to be innovative and to honor his ancestors, but he failed, so he was demoted. He didn't do what he wanted to do, so he comforted himself with this sarcastic remark.

Later, I said that I was a free man now. He is Sima, and he is not qualified to express any opinions. He is full of ideals, brilliant, and nowhere to display. He is not an idle man. To what extent is he idle? I plant flowers and plants every day when I have nothing to do, and I have become friends with farmers around me. I exchange experiences in planting crops and vegetable fields every day, and occasionally I want to travel like a "mountain man"-a hermit, and I won't meet other people. How free!

You see, on the surface, he wrote pastoral poems, but in fact, the first two sentences were ironic and comforting himself; The middle four sentences seem carefree, but in fact they are all complaints about being an idle person; The last two sentences seem to echo "I am very happy to be an exile in this desolate southern country", saying how lucky I am to live in such a beautiful place, so free, but my heart is full of loneliness and sadness.

Only by knowing Liu Zongyuan can we not be deceived by his superficial freedom and beauty. His articles, poems and letters are full of such superficial beauty and inner sadness. He wrote "Eight Chapters of Yongzhou", and you are good at mountains and waters. In fact, they all express their anger through the beauty of mountains and rivers. He also wrote a poem "Walking Alone in Yuxi North Pool after Rain", ending with "I am at a loss, and I am the guest and the host occasionally". He knew in his heart that he would only become the master of the landscape by accident, and he never really sent his feelings to the landscape; In a letter to Li Han friend Lin Jianshu, he even bluntly said: "Speaking of the secluded tree, it is a good stone. I once had a smile, but I am no longer happy." Sometimes when I see a particularly beautiful scenery, I will be happy for a while, and then I will lose my smile.

Cover your heart with the beauty of the scenery. Only when you meet someone who really understands him can you understand his loneliness. Only in correspondence with friends can you tell your own experience. He really means "I have been troubled by official hats and uniforms for so long", but it is not "I am very happy to be an exile in this barbaric south". Changing it to "pity" is what he really thinks.

This is Liu Zongyuan's lonely heart.

Liu Yuxi's visit

Compared with Liu Zongyuan's beautiful appearance and inner loneliness, Liu Yuxi is much more open-minded.

The so-called demotion of officials means that they will only be demoted to remote places when the imperial court loses power and influence, and most of those local officials look after other people's dishes. Where Anhui, Zhou and Liu Yuxi were demoted, the magistrate of a county was such a villain. Didn't you demote Liu Yuxi? No matter how old you used to be, you are now the target of bullying. I want to disgust you.

He arranged a small house for Liu Yuxi and lived by the river. Who knows that Liu Yuxi is still very happy and failed for the first time; The magistrate of a county was unhappy and moved Liu Yuxi to a farther place, where the house was smaller and more broken. This time, he lived by the river. Who knows that Liu Yuxi is still very happy and failed to get sick for the second time; The magistrate of a county directly moved Liu Yuxi to the "slum" in the city this time, and gave him a hut that could only put one table and one bed. This time, you can always be angry with rachel, right?

Indeed, Liu Yuxi was angry, but he still smiled on the surface. He just began to write "Humble Room Inscription", which was engraved on the stone tablet and stood in front of the door:

"Zhuge Lu in Nanyang, Ziyun Pavilion in Xishu, Confucius: What's the matter?"

There is no record of the later reaction of the magistrate of a county in history, but it is estimated that there is no more damaging method. Liu Yuxi's counterattack is really popular.

Liu Yuxi's personality can also be seen from the book "Humble Room Ming". He is more optimistic and open-minded than Liu Zongyuan. He said, "I am humble, but virtuous and fragrant." He said, "Autumn has been sad and lonely since ancient times, and I said autumn is not as good as spring." He said that "the peaches in Du Xuan were all planted after Liu Lang left", but in a blink of an eye he wrote "Where did the Taoist people go?"

Why is Liu Yuxi so open-minded?

Liu Yuxi has seen through history. He said: "In the old society, Wang Xietang died before and flew into the homes of ordinary people." These two sentences are from Wuyi Lane. They say that history has been turbulent, and now even the nobles like Xie Wang have declined. He also said that "the old country is surrounded by mountains, and the tide hits the empty city." This poem comes from "Stone Town", which is another name of Nanjing. Sun Quan of the Three Kingdoms established its capital here, and Nanjing has since stepped onto the historical stage, known as the ancient capital of the Six Dynasties. But now, the old country is surrounded by mountains, and the tide hits the empty city, leaving only loneliness.

Nobles and ancient capitals have to go through ups and downs, not to mention individuals.

Later, Liu Zongyuan died, and Liu Yuxi wrote a set of four-line poems "Wounded Yuxi" for him, with three * * *, which were orderly before the poem:

Liu Bei said, "My old friend Liu Zihou has descended to Yongzhou, where there are lush vegetation, swamps, terraces and a foolish stream. Before he was three years old, a monk visited Lingling and told Yu, "Yuxi has no time to come back!" "When you hear a monk's words, you can't overcome your grief, so you can send your hatred as seven words."

Liu Zongyuan, an old friend who exiled Yongzhou, made a scenic spot here. He built a house, planted vegetables and built a balcony, and named it "Yuxi". It was not until three years after Liu Zongyuan's death that a monk said to me, "Yuxi is not what it used to be." Hearing the monk say this, a surge of sadness came to my mind, so I wrote this group of seven-character poems to express my condolences.

The stream comes from Changchun, and the thatched cottage has no owner to swallow back.

Only the grass in the atrium can be seen through the curtain, and the pomegranate is still in full bloom.

This is the first song, which tells that the spring water in Yuxi is still flowing leisurely. Although the owner of the thatched cottage is gone, the swallows who once built their nests here come back on time every year. Look at this yard. It is full of weeds and a pomegranate tree. The flowers are still in full bloom.

You see, rachel is still the same. He likes to compare the unchangeable with the impermanence of the world. The princes and nobles in Wuyi Lane will change, but what remains unchanged is that the sunset at the entrance of Wuyi Lane is oblique, and the swallows and the sun will not change. Stone Town describes that the ancient capital of the Six Dynasties will decline, but the old moon east of Huaishui remains unchanged, while Huaishui and the moon remain unchanged. How about this song "Wounded Yuxi"? The owner of the thatched cottage will change, because he has passed away, and the thatched cottage will also change, from Liu Zongyuan's meticulous care to overgrown weeds. What remains the same? Pomegranates bloom in spring, swallows leave in winter and come in spring. Spring comes on time every year, and streams are gurgling.

Sometimes I think Liu Yuxi looks like Su Dongpo. Su Shi spent his whole life in relegation. At the worst time, he almost confessed his life experience in Wutai poetry case. But Su Shi has seen through life, and he can release his repression at will. Every time he was demoted farther and farther, he was finally demoted to a rough shipwreck. What did he say? He said, "I don't hate dying in the south, so I will travel wonderfully all my life." Crossing the sea on the evening of June 20th.

Are Liu Yuxi and Su Dongpo alike? What setbacks can knock them down?

Liu Zongyuan and Liu Yuxi

When we look at Liu Zongyuan and Liu Yuxi, they have so much in common: they are officials in the same dynasty, share the same ideal, are relegated at the same time, have the same literary talent and poetic talent, and even have the same age-only 1 year, but their personalities are too different.

Liu Zongyuan was demoted and was injured at once. He could only pretend to have a good impression on the landscape, but he was always overwhelmed by the burden on his shoulders. No matter how beautiful the mountains and water are, it is only a "temporary smile" for him. It is better to deceive yourself than to show your love for the scenery.

Liu Yuxi was demoted, more like a heartless person. When the emperor demoted me, I was demoted as an official. If the local officials want to disgust me, I will write an article to swear and not spit bones; If you want me to go back to the imperial court, I will not refuse, but I will come back happily. At this point, you can't help me!

Both Liu Zongyuan's and Liu Yuxi's poems reflect their experiences after being relegated, as well as their personalities and hearts. Therefore, "character determines fate." When external encounters collide with inner feelings, what kind of feelings will be produced and what kind of ending will be obtained. Liu Yuxi is optimistic, so he can be recalled to Chang 'an after being demoted for ten years, demoted and re-appointed, even for many years. Liu Zongyuan was miserable and lonely, so he was relegated. He struggled in the mountains and rivers for half his life and died of depression at a young age.