( 1)
Living in this halfway house far from downtown, there is silence, but loneliness comes, sometimes fierce, especially in the middle of the night. I had to walk around the room alone, pull down the curtains, separate the cliff standing outside the window from the rolling tide, and occasionally glance at the milky telephone beside the bed. It rang unexpectedly and rushed over. It's from China Times in Taipei. An unknown female reporter said that my book "Cultural Journey" sold well in Taiwan Province Province, so she wanted to do an overseas telephone interview. Asked me a lot of questions, including my background, experience and hobbies.
The last question is: "Who is your favorite writer in the cultural history of China?" I replied: Su Dongpo. She asked again, "Which of his works do you like best?" I replied: An article about Huangzhou Chibi. Without pause, the reporter said, "You mean Nian Nujiao's Nostalgia for the Red Cliff and Fu before and after the Red Cliff?" I was right. I was happy for Su Dongpo at once. His works are the master password of China literati, just a little bit, even halfway up the mountain, blocked by the strait, unknown.
When I put the phone down, I immediately thought of Huangzhou Chibi. I just went there last summer, and I was still very impressed. I remember that before I went there, my friends from Wuhan dissuaded me because the famous Battle of Red Cliffs was not there to play. Su Dongpo misses the past and is in the wrong place. Now let's pay our respects seriously. To put it mildly, we were wrong. To put it bluntly, we were wrong. It's so hot and the road is so far. Why bother?
I know that most historians don't believe that Battle of Red Cliffs really played there, and most say it was played in Jiayu County. However, in recent years, several young and middle-aged historians in Hubei hold the opposite view, arguing that there is nothing wrong with Su Dongpo's nostalgia for the past, and that Huangzhou Chibi was the main battlefield of the war at that time. I have always been interested in this debate. Regardless of the prospect of the debate, I still want to see Huangzhou, not from a historical perspective, but from an artistic perspective to see Su Dongpo's feelings. Even if a great artist is wrong, he will make mistakes in charm. As Oscar Wilde said, there is only beauty and ugliness in art, and there is no right or wrong.
So I went anyway.
This is Huangzhou Chibi. The steep stone slope of ochre is next to the mighty river flowing eastward. There is a dangerous road on the slope to climb and overlook, and there is a boat on the river to paddle and look up. The place is not big, but leaning down and leaning up will have momentum. With the contrast between the big and the small, there will be the variation and inversion of the visual space, so there is the value of sightseeing and meditation. The objective scenery only provides an aesthetic possibility, which is realized in different degrees by different tourists.
Su Dongpo used his spiritual strength to inject meaning into the natural scenery of Huangzhou, and it is this meaning that makes the lifeless natural form beautiful. Therefore, Su Dongpo is not only the discoverer of natural beauty in Huangzhou, but also the determinator and builder of natural beauty in Huangzhou.
However, the complexity of the matter is that natural beauty can also determine and construct people in turn. Su Dongpo fulfilled Huangzhou and Huangzhou also fulfilled Su Dongpo. This is really an interesting relationship, which complements each other. Su Dongpo's masterpiece in Huangzhou not only declares that Huangzhou has entered a new aesthetic level, but also declares that Su Dongpo has entered a new life stage. The two aspects can be promoted together, and no one can do without anyone.
Su Dongpo has been to many places, many of which are far more beautiful than Huangzhou. Why can a remote Huangzhou give him such a big surprise and shock? Why can he put such profound historical significance and life significance in Huangzhou? Why can Huangzhou become the most important life station in his life? It all depends on the reason and mentality of his coming to Huangzhou.
He came from prison. He came with a small official position. In fact, he came as an exiled criminal. He came with the dirty water poured on him by officialdom and literary and art circles. He came with luck and despair. He was detained, far away from his family, and was not qualified to choose any place outside Huangzhou, and walked towards this desolate town at that time.
He was tired and embarrassed. He went out of the capital of song dynasty, across Henan, across Huaihe River, into Hubei and Huangzhou. The unhappy Huangzhou did not prepare any shelter for him, so he had to live in a temple. He wiped his face and held his breath. There was silence all around, not even a friend. He closed his eyes and shook his head. He doesn't know that at this moment, he has completed a cultural breakthrough that will go down in history forever. Huangzhou is destined to have a magnificent dialogue with this scarred breakout.
(2)
People may sometimes think foolishly that Su Like Dongpo, a great writer who has enjoyed the people of China for a thousand years, should be the highest pride of his time. People around you will cherish him carefully and look up to him devoutly, and they are always unwilling to find trouble with him, right? On the contrary, the more cultural celebrities who are beyond their times, the less they conform to their specific times.
The mechanism of secular society in China is very strange. On the one hand, it is willing to spread and spread the reputation of a cultural celebrity, use him, squeeze him and seduce him. On the other hand, it regards him as an alien in essence, and sooner or later it will repel him, destroy him and destroy him. The spread of boos turned into derogatory boos. Both of them originated from inferiority and cunning greed, and both of them were diametrically opposed to a healthy cultural atmosphere.
Before Su Dongpo came to Huangzhou, he was caught in a lawsuit called "Wutai Poetry Prison" by literary historians. The specific content of this case is special, but it reflects the common experience of social and cultural celebrities in China and is worth talking about. Only by understanding the faces of all kinds of people in this situation can we understand what kind of encirclement Su Dongpo broke through when he came to Huangzhou.
In order not to make readers pay attention to the specific content of the case, we might as well explain the details of the case first. Even from the standpoint of the imperial court, this is completely unfounded and absurd. A group of cultural bureaucrats, large and small, insisted that Su Dongpo expressed his dissatisfaction and disrespect for the government in many poems. This method is to infer and interpret the words and images in his poems. Even Emperor Zongshen didn't believe it for a long time and almost reluctantly sentenced Su Dongpo.
Among the ancient emperors in China, Song Shenzong was absolutely not bad. In his mind, he didn't have any attempt to persecute Su Dongpo. He knew Su Dongpo's talent, and his grandmother even tried to protect Su Dongpo by offering a gift to the Queen Mother. He also respected her opinion very much. In this case, isn't Su Dongpo very safe? However, regardless of the wishes of Emperor Zongshen and Empress Dowager, Su Dongpo, who was famous in Kyushu and lived in the official residence, went to prison. This powerful and evil force is worth studying.
It's a long story. Rulers under the autocratic system often put on a gesture of attaching importance to public opinion, and sometimes even set up so-called admonishers to find faults among officials at all levels and act as the eyes, ears and mouthpiece of the court. At first glance, this is a good thing, but in fact it also has many disadvantages. What these exhorters with public opinion images say cannot be distinguished by others, and there is no investigation mechanism or arbitration mechanism. Everything depends on their personal qualities, but there is no mechanism to investigate their personal qualities, so the so-called public opinion cloud often becomes a social disaster that distorts the facts and reverses right and wrong.
This is just like a modern newspaper. If it lacks enough professional ethics and is not bound by the corresponding laws and regulations, it will praise and criticize at will, and the injured have nowhere to talk, but the uninformed mistakenly think that black and white is where public opinion lies, which will bring people much confusion! Su Dongpo had long seen the seriousness of this problem, and thought that this kind of so-called public opinion and criticism, which was not subject to any restriction, was enough to change the mentality of the court decision makers and had great political lethality, so he had to be vigilant, but Emperor Zongshen could not realize this because of his different status.
Unexpectedly, it was Su Dongpo who tasted the bitter fruit he predicted. In order to maintain his image of respecting public opinion, Zongshen can't say anything for Su Dongpo when his criticism of Su Dongpo is almost the same.
Then, why did the remarks criticizing Su Dongpo come together in unison? I think the shortest answer is what his brother Su Zhe said: "What is Dongpo's crime? The name alone is too high. " He is so excellent and so loud that he can compare the ink around him to be very shabby, and he can compare his contemporaries to be a little embarrassed, causing some people to be jealous, and then it is almost inevitable that you will blow me and destroy me. In this shameful siege, some literati with poor character acted as depth charges.
Such as Shu Shu. This person can be called an expert. When Su Dongpo was exposed, he also exposed another person, that is, the great benefactor who recommended him to be an official before. The benefactor wrote him a letter, asking him to give advice and guidance on his son-in-law's studies. This is a very normal little communication between friends. I didn't expect him to write a puzzling tip-off letter to the emperor ungrateful, saying that we are all officials and I am in the public opinion field. It is always inappropriate for him to let me help his son-in-law.
The emperor read his report and demoted the man. This is simply the story of Mr. Dong Guo and the wolf. It is such a disgusting person who echoes how people wrote articles to tell the emperor that Su Dongpo wrote a thank-you letter to the emperor after taking office in Huzhou, "mocking current affairs". The emperor read Su Dongpo's thank-you letter for a long time and found nothing wrong. Shu Shu carefully analyzed it one by one to the emperor. Su Dongpo turned against you, but it's fierce. He has turned to the point where "customs die and loyal people are angry"! "Anger" is anger against Su Dongpo, and "regret" is regret for the emperor. How many loyal people are "outraged"? ?
He said "nothing", that is, 100%, nothing was missed. This kind of quantitative statistics can't be verified at all, but it can make Emperor Zongshen who pays attention to social reputation feel embarrassed.
Another example is Li Ding. This is a senior official who was reviled for refusing to be filial after his mother's funeral, and attacked Su Dongpo the most violently. He summed up many of Su Dongpo's crimes, but after careful identification, I found that he was particularly concerned about Su Dongpo's poor background in his early years, his position in the cultural circle and his social reputation today. None of these can be classified as crimes, but he seems to express his greatest indignation irrepressibly on these points. Su Dongpo was said to have "started from the filth of the grass", "had no academic knowledge at the beginning, and gained fame for a while", "although his words were unreasonable, they were enough to encourage folk customs", and so on.
Su Dongpo's background led him to refuse to talk about it, and insisted that Su Dongpo had no education and poor writing style, which really surprised me. But if he doesn't say so, he can't assert that Su Dongpo's social reputation and secular drum power are "indistinguishable". In a word, Li Ding's attack obviously hides the deepest secret element under various superficial motives: jealousy. In any case, it is foolish to denigrate Su Dongpo's knowledge and literary talent, which did not add Su Dongpo's crime at that time, but later became a laughing stock for thousands of years. But jealousy will get out of hand, and he will only attack the part he hates the most, regardless of the credibility and rationality of even pretending.
Another example is Wang Jue. This is a domineering and hypocritical old man. With his qualifications and status, he thinks this article is the best in the world. In fact, without the words "golden jade and splendid scenery", he could not write a poem. Everyone snickered. He felt good about himself. Now, Su Dongpo, a rising star in Ran Ran, is famous in the literary world. Of course, he will try his best to deal with it. Once he said to the emperor, "Su Dongpo really has second thoughts about the emperor."
The emperor asked, "What do I think?" He quoted the word "thorn dragon" in a poem about juniper trees written by Su Dongpo as evidence. The emperor was puzzled and said, "What does it matter if a poet writes about stabbing cypress trees?" He said, "When you write about dragons, don't you just write about emperors?" The emperor was sober-minded and retorted, "Not necessarily, they are called Zhuge Liang Wolong!" This Wang Jue is so low-level, how good can the article be? Not to mention competing with Su Dongpo. A few strands of white hair can sometimes pretend to be a teacher and cover up evil, but it can't deceive history. In the end, history did not rank his name ahead of Su Dongpo because of his age.
Another example is Li Yizhi. This is another special case. In Lingbi County, Anhui Province, I heard that Su Dongpo had written a garden catalogue for a local garden before, which contained words to persuade people not to be keen on being an official. He even wrote to the emperor to expose that analyzing this idea would make people lack initiative and affect the election of officials. It seems that this Li Yizhi has a lot of mental problems besides bad intentions. You see, he even found the cut of the frame.
However, in the absence of a rational court, no matter how stupid the accusation is, it is an encouragement to Li Yizhi people scattered all over the country. Why did people with such a low level squeeze in and besiege Su Dongpo? Mr. Li, a contemporary researcher of Su Dongpo, put it well: "He is also involved. Without him, an obscure little official will gain weight if he can take part in major activities to bring down celebrities. " In a sense, his purpose has indeed been partially achieved. For example, when I wrote this article today, I even wrote the name Li Yizhi, because he participated in the siege of Su Dongpo, otherwise he had no reason to be written into the printed matter by his contemporaries.
Some of my young friends, based on their multi-faceted observation of today's secular psychology, think that people like Li Yizhi don't necessarily want to stay in history, but out of a kind of mischievous psychology that can be called "breaking through the window". At night, a group of children stood in front of a building, pointing to see whose window was open, so they picked out a stone and threw it there. There is no purpose, just want to cause a sensation among several children. I think my young friends think Li Yizhi is too modern and urbanized.
Li Yizhi's behavior is mainly due to a kind of political speculation. As soon as he heard that Su Dongpo had an accident, he made a scene. Anyway, he won't bear moral responsibility at home, and he will bear legal responsibility abroad. He is happy to throw a stone into the well, and the wind is smooth. Such people don't have the guts to attack a cultural celebrity first, such as Li Ding, Shu Chu and Wang Jue. Maybe two days ago, they were bragging about where they had the honor to meet Su Dongpo, insisting that Su Dongpo was their friend and even teacher.
Another example-I really don't want to write this name, but on second thought, there is no reason to avoid talking about it. I'd better write: Shen Kuo. This famous scientist, who occupies a prominent position in the history of ancient science and technology in China, framed Su Dongpo because of jealousy, and still uses the method of exposing the tendency of satirizing the government in Su Dongpo's poems. If he and Su Dongpo are political enemies, it doesn't matter. The problem is that they used to be good friends, and the poems he exposed were written by Su Dongpo as a souvenir when he broke up with him.
This is really not a taste. Historians have analyzed that this is probably related to the emperor's good words about Su Dongpo in front of Shen Kuo. Shen Kuo has a silent contrast in his heart, and he doesn't want Su Dongpo's cultural status to be higher than himself. Another possibility is that he knew that Wang Anshi and Su Dongpo had different political views, and he voted for Wang Anshi.
But after all, Wang Anshi is also a cultural master who pays attention to personality. He has paid attention to Shen Kuo, but he finally comes to the conclusion that he is an inaccessible villain. Of course, the inaccessible personality does not affect our affirmation of Shen Kuo's scientific achievements.
Extended data:
Su Shi, whose word is profound and whose word is harmonious, is known as Tieguan Taoist and Dongpo layman, and is known as Su Dongpo and Su Xian in the world. Han nationality, Meishan, Meizhou, originally from Luancheng, Hebei, was a writer, calligrapher and painter in the Northern Song Dynasty.
In the second year of Jiayou (1057), Su Shi was a scholar. Song Shenzong worked in Fengxiang, Hangzhou, Mizhou, Xuzhou and Huzhou. In the third year of Yuanfeng (1080), he was demoted to be the permanent assistant ambassador of Huangzhou because of Wutai poetry case. After Song Zhezong acceded to the throne, he was known in Hangzhou, Yingzhou, Yangzhou, Dingzhou and other places. In his later years, he was exiled to Huizhou and Danzhou because of the ruling of the New Party. Song Huizong was granted amnesty and returned to the north, where he died. Song Gaozong posthumously awarded a surname, posthumous title "article".
Su Shi was a literary leader in the mid-Northern Song Dynasty, and made great achievements in poetry, ci, writing, calligraphy and painting. His writing is arbitrary; His poems are broad in subject matter, fresh and healthy, good at exaggeration and metaphor, and unique in style. He is also called "Su Huang" with Huang Tingjian. His words are bold and unconstrained, and he is the representative of bold and unconstrained with Xin Qiji, and he is called "Su Xin; His prose creation is rich and unrestrained, and he is also called "Ou Su" with Ouyang Xiu, and he is one of the "Eight Masters in Tang and Song Dynasties". Su Shi is also good at books and is one of the "Song Sijia"; He is good at painting, especially at ink bamboo, strange stones and dead wood. There are seven episodes of Dongpo, Yi Zhuan of Dongpo and Yuefu of Dongpo.
References:
Su Dongpo breaks through-Baidu Encyclopedia