Bai Juyi and Yuan Zhen's friendship began with an exam. Bai Juyi was admitted to the Jinshi at the age of 29 and became the "youngest of the seventeen", and Yuan Zhi was even better, he passed the Ming Jing at the age of 23, and even passed the exam eight years ago.
Although there is a saying that "thirty old Ming Jing, fifty young Jinshi", Yuan Zhi was admitted to the Ming Jing at the age of 15, which is a young achievement. In the Tang Dynasty, you can't be an official just by taking the Ming Jing or Jinshi, and you also need to pass the official examination before you can officially enter the office, which is just like the current public interview is the key to success or failure.
Yuan and Bai continued to prepare for the exam in Chang'an, and finally obtained an official position at the same time in the eighteenth year of Zhenyuan (802), and were awarded the secretary of the provincial school, and no longer had to endure the life of "Jingpiao".
They were close friends in life and confidants in literature and politics. They chanted poems and sang together, hunted together, drank together in the Qinlou Chu Pavilion, indulged in the Chang'an wine shop, sang and continued to sing and harmonize for 30 years, supported each other in the ups and downs of the Huan Sea, attacked the powerful and powerful together, and launched the New Yuefu Movement together, opening a friendship that has been recited through the ages.
The two brothers, Yuan Bai, love each other like a golden stone, and love each other like brothers. When Bai's mother died, although Yuan did not have enough financial resources, he still generously donated money to help Bai with the funeral, and funded more than 200,000 yuan before and after.
Bai was grateful and wrote a poem: "Three mails of food and clothing, a surplus of 200,000 yuan." Is it greedy for food and clothing, and the gentleman's heart is restricted. Reading the food in my mouth, the body is warm. In the spring of the tenth year of Yuan He, they were in Chang'an together, traveling with other friends, walking twenty miles, and the two kept chanting poems, and the others couldn't interject.
In the third year of Changqing, both of them were relegated to the outside world, and they reunited after a long absence in Hangzhou, so they bed together for three days and talked about their lives. After that, they separated the two places, and often expressed their thoughts for each other through poems stored in bamboo tubes.
They both had difficult childhoods, so they were more understanding and concerned about each other's hardships. Yuan lost his father at a young age, his mother Zheng took on the burden of the family alone, and Yuan had to endure the discrimination of his half-brother, and was even forced to move out of the old house.
Because his family was poor and couldn't afford to hire a teacher, Zheng personally taught Yuan, which was very hard. After Zheng's death, Bai Shouyuan was entrusted to write an epitaph, not blindly touting the beauty of the old lady, but like treating his own mother, he used real and touching words to tell her about the difficulties of running a family, from which we can see the deep friendship between Yuan and Bai.
Yuan was admitted to the Ming Jing at the age of fifteen, which was not only his extraordinary talent, but also the hardships of his youth that inspired his enterprising spirit. He wrote in the poem: "Recalling the fifteenth year of learning to build a building, I deliberately cover the poverty of the world."
That's what he thinks, and that's what he does. Bai Juyi was born in a bureaucratic family in a middle-of-the-road family, wandered around to earn a living when he was a teenager, and grew up with difficulty in the war.
Before he was admitted to the Jinshi examination, he once described his life in a poem like this: "In difficult years, the world is empty, and the brothers are bound to the west and the east. After the countryside was deserted, the flesh and blood were displaced from the road.
The hanging shadow is divided into thousands of miles of geese, and the roots of the words are scattered as nine autumn pengs. Looking at the bright moon together, we should cry, and the hometown heart is the same in five places overnight. "Bai's talent is not innate, but has been acquired through years of hard work.
He said in his letter to Yuan that in order to be admitted to the Jinshi, he practiced writing during the day and learned calligraphy at night.
Bai Juyi and Yuan Zhi are both juniors, and they both firmly support Yongzhen's innovation, sympathize with the two kings and eight Simas who dare to risk their lives, and cry out for it. They co-authored 75 policy essays, compiled as "Tselin", these articles show their political ideas of benevolence and love for the people, all of which have profound practical significance, and they are definitely 100,000+ explosive articles today.
They wrote directly about the injustices in the world, denounced the dictatorship of eunuchs and the division of feudal towns, proposed to punish corruption, seek merit and ability, and sympathize with the people.
In the aftermath of Yongzhen's reforms, the critique of reality became the common background of their early political careers, and also influenced their poetry creation, so there was the famous New Yuefu Movement.
They believe that writers should be worried about the world, always care about current affairs, and pay attention to society, and that the literary world should not only have ups and downs, but no people's livelihood and suffering. In the famous long essay "Nine Books with Yuan" written to Yuan Zhen, Bai Juyi summarized the New Yuefu Movement and shouted the slogan that shook the past and the present: articles are written for the time, and songs and poems are written for things.
Bai Juyi's friend Yuan Zhi was also a realist poet, and he also wrote some cynical poems when he was an official in Beijing, such as "Tianjia Ci", "Weaver Women's Ci", "Xiliang Ling" and so on.
Although the two of them have different creative styles, they both deeply influenced each other. Mr. Chen Yinke once commented: "Bai Juyi is still simple and clear, and if Yuan Zhen poems, there are several meanings in one question, and the threads are complicated. ”
However, in the struggle against the powerful, Yuan Zhi was more direct and decisive than Bai Juyi. In the fourth year of Yuanhe (809), Yuan Zhi served as the supervisor of the imperial history, and he was ordered to send an envoy to Jiannan Dongchuan, rehabilitated some unjust, false and wrongful cases, and pointed the finger at the then Jiannan Jiedu envoy Yan Li.
Yan Li's family was meritorious in protecting the emperor and was deeply trusted by the emperor, but he was greedy and cruel during his tenure and was deeply hated by the people. After Yuan Zhen arrived in Jiannan, he personally visited the oppressed people and avenged them.
These victims who have been severely oppressed for many years have complained to Yuan Zhen, he was very sympathetic after hearing it, and decided to write to **local** to loot the people's houses, slaves and maids and money and grain without authorization, and ask them to return the confiscated to their owners, and those who were sold are also redeemed and returned, and the additional money, rice, grass, etc. are strictly forbidden, and show them to the township, so that the people know.
However, these powerful and powerful people have a deep hatred for Yuan Zhen and his friend Bai Juyi, and have been looking for an opportunity to rectify them. In the second year, Yuan Zhi returned to Beijing through the Fushui Station in Huayin County (now Huayin City, Shaanxi), and was beaten by the eunuchs.
There is only one main hall in the water station, and Yuan Zhen arrived first and rested in the hall. It happened that a group of eunuchs led by Qiu Shiliang also came to the post station, and when they saw that Yuan Zhi did not let go of the main hall, nor did they come out to greet them, they were furious, and a group of people drove Yuan Zhi out.
Yuan Zhen's two fists are invincible to four hands, and he can't beat him if he wants to, so he runs away with his socks on. The eunuch did not relent, took out a horsewhip and slapped Yuan Zhi directly in the face. This is the "Suikii Incident".
After the incident, the eunuchs and wicked people sued first, and many ministers defended Yuan Zhen. However, Tang Xianzong reversed black and white, believed that Yuan Zhen was guilty, and demoted him to Jiangling.
When Bai Juyi learned of this, he hurriedly went up to persuade him to intercede for his good brother, saying that when Yuan Zhi was supervising the imperial history, all the people who were ** were the towns of the world, and these people all resented Yuan Zhi and demoted him to the place, isn't it a sheep into the tiger's mouth?
But Tang Xianzong** can listen to it, Bai Juyi, don't talk nonsense. On the day Yuan Zhen was demoted, Bai Juyi saw each other off in Chang'an Street, and the two said goodbye on the horse, which was their first parting and a major setback on the ideal road.
The depreciation of Gangneung made Yuan Zhi begin to lose confidence in the justice he pursued, and he almost lived a difficult and degrading life for more than ten years. He believes that his trip to Beijing this time is a negative move, saying: "Although I have lost my hometown, I have not lost my hometown."
Miserable comfort, how to be shocked by the humiliation. (Si Gui Le).
Bai Juyi and Yuan Zhi had similar fates, both were officials, and were later demoted for political reasons. In the tenth year of Yuanhe (815), the prime minister Wu Yuanheng was assassinated in the city of Chang'an, and the assassin fled.
When Wu Yuanheng was the prime minister, he was stepping up his deployment to crusade against the rebellious feudal town, and the reason for his assassination was self-evident. The dignified Tang Zai was assassinated in the street, which made the angry Qingbai Ju angry, and he showed his true character as an official, and soon after the incident, he wrote a book to discuss the arrest and killing of the assassin.
Bai Juyi's official position at this time is the crown prince Zuo Zanshan, which is a bit overstepping his duties, but he is not yet punished. However, the eunuchs and ministers who were usually dissatisfied with Bai Juyi finally seized the opportunity, and they took the opportunity to seize the situation that Bai Juyi had just returned to the court after the expiration of his filial piety not long ago, not only accusing him of overstepping his duties, but also framing him for the crime of unfilial piety, claiming that Bai Mu died because he fell into a well while watching flowers, but Bai Juyi also wrote two poems, "Enjoying Flowers" and "New Well", which really hurt the fame.
Under the ideological imprisonment of feudal etiquette, unfilial piety is a big sin. Not to mention that Bai Juyi is still a subordinate official of the East Palace, and he has the responsibility of teaching the prince, so he will become a big sinner. Bai Juyi's unfilial accusation was wronged, and his opponents had already prepared a set of combination punches.
Prime Minister Wei Guan wrote above, please demote Bai Juyi to a remote place as a thorn history, and Wang Ya, a scholar in the middle school, did not forget to fall into the well, saying that Bai Juyi is not suitable to be a local governor. In the end, the imperial court made a decision and demoted Bai Juyi to Jiangzhou Sima.
Bai Juyi was demoted to Jiangzhou, not because of these absurd reasons, but because his political enemies and his grievances for so many years finally found a flashpoint, and every satirical poem of Bai Juyi, every time he wrote straight, pierced their hearts like a knife.
Bai Juyi also knew that he was just "famous for the article, and finally offended for the article". If you come out to mix, sooner or later you will have to pay it back. Many scholars say that the depreciation of Jiangzhou was a watershed in Bai Juyi's life, dividing his political career into two halves.
From then on, the righteous and outspoken fighter gradually disappeared, and was replaced by a leisurely old cadre, who began to pursue the learning of the Buddha and the elderly, away from the sinister officialdom.
The lonely and lonely pipa girl in "Pipa Xing" may be the incarnation of Bai Juyi himself, a tragic image of being insulted and damaged. Who cries the most in the seat?
Jiangzhou Sima Qing shirt wet.
In "Pipa Xing", Bai Juyi was demoted to Jiangzhou, and his friend Yuan Zhi was seriously ill and wrote the sentimental "Wen Le Tian Awarded Jiangzhou Sima". Five years later, the two met unexpectedly in Yiling, Yuan Zhi was depressed, Bai Juyi persuaded him to ask for Buddhism, and the singing and harmony of the two seemed to be a rehearsal of their future lives.
Later, Yuan Zhi re-entered the court as an official with the help of eunuchs, but was despised by the scholars, and finally was demoted from the court four months later due to his involvement in party disputes, and he could not control his own destiny.
Although he had a good reputation in the local government, when he re-entered the court, the ministers rejected him on the grounds of poor conduct, and eventually he could not return to the temple.
Bai Juyi encouraged Yuan Zhen to persevere, but he didn't know that this would be the last time they would meet. They are no longer young and frivolous aspiring young people, they want to change the society since the Tang Dynasty, but they have been ruthlessly belittled and suppressed.
Bai Juyi left the center and chose to work in Luoyang, living a leisurely life with beautiful prostitutes. He no longer writes allegorical poems, but derides himself as a "middle hidden" and enjoys a carefree life.
Although he chose to compromise, he was at least spared the pain of hunger and cold.
Jun buried the mud under the spring, and I sent the world full of snow. Perhaps, what Bai Juyi misses is not only Yuan Zhen, but also the years when they fought against reality together. However, the era could not accept their satirical poetry, nor could it tolerate their opposition.
This is undoubtedly a tragedy for an era that cannot accommodate Yuan and Bai.