"The world laughs at me for being too crazy, but the world cannot see through my laughter. There are no tombs of the heroes of the Five Tombs, and there are no flowers and no wine to cultivate the fields."
These four lines of poetry are excerpted from "Peach Blossom Poems" by Tang Bohu, a talented man from the Ming Dynasty. Reading it, you will feel a little bit of the pride of being carefree and playing life.
However, Tang Bohu was very depressed and ended up selling paintings for a living. Was he really so free and easy in his heart? Compared with Fan Jin and other people who spent their lives drunk in the academic field and devoted themselves to officialdom, Tang Bohu was certainly a hermit. However, compared to his predecessor, the famous "Sage of Wisdom" Dongfang Shuo, he could only be regarded as a "little hermit".
Dongfang Shuo, who is hiding in court
Dongfang Shuo, courtesy name Manqian, was born in Qidi. When Emperor Wu came to the throne, he ordered various places to recommend talented people. Dongfang Shuo also came to Chang'an, hoping to enter an official career.
Emperor Wu's method of selecting virtuous people was a countermeasure, which was to let the virtuous people write letters and comment on their affairs. Emperor Wu used this to consider their talents, and then based on their talents, he considered what official positions to grant. Dongfang Shuo's "Policy Book" is very interesting, and it is very long. There was no paper during Emperor Wu's time, so people wrote letters on bamboo slips. Of course, there was no writing brush at the beginning, so the only way to leave marks on the bamboo slips was with a knife. Some people say that the reason why Laozi's Tao Te Ching is so simple is because of the difficulty and trouble of knife carving. Although writing brushes became available later, people also tried to be as concise and concise as possible when writing books. However, Dongfang Shuo relies on horses to write a thousand words. He actually used 3,000 bamboo slips to write this "strategy book". The pile was as high as one person and required two people from the bus department to lift it.
Emperor Wu was busy with everything, and of course he did not have the time to read such a long article in one breath, so whenever he stopped, he would mark the place where he stopped so that he could continue reading it next time. After two months of "stop and go", Emperor Wu finally finished reading it. It can be seen that Dongfang Shuo's strategy book is very interesting and can arouse Emperor Wu's interest and let him read it. The general meaning of this policy document is as follows:
I, Dongfang Shuo, lost my parents when I was young. My brother and sister-in-law raised me. When I was thirteen years old, I began to study hard and studied for three years. I thought I had enough for a lifetime. I learned fencing at the age of fifteen, "Poetry" and "Books" at the age of sixteen, and the art of war by Sun and Wu at the age of nineteen. I was dissatisfied with talking about war on paper and went to the camps to practice and learn in person. A total of more than 400,000 words have been read. I am twenty-two years old this year, nine feet tall, my eyes are as bright as pearls, my teeth are as neat and white as shells, my bravery is on par with Zilu and Meng Cui, my agility is better than Qingji, my integrity is like Uncle Bao, and my integrity is like Wei Sheng. . A person as outstanding as me would not embarrass the emperor if he was in the imperial court! The minister Dongfang Shuo risked his life to make a speech.
This self-recommendation letter full of confidence will definitely make Emperor Wu laugh heartily when reading it. Emperor Wu would think, is this guy really as good as he claims? So Dongfang Shuo was appointed Lang Guan, so that he could always accompany Emperor Wu. He wrote three thousand densely packed bamboo slips, but only became a Langguan. This naturally made it difficult for Dongfang Shuo to be satisfied. However, Dongfang Shuo was not depressed because he had earned the opportunity for promotion.
Legend has it that there were many dwarfs around Emperor Wu, and Dongfang Shuo used his brains on them. He lied to the dwarfs, saying that the emperor wanted to kill them all. The dwarfs were dumbfounded, stopped the imperial driver collectively, and cried to Emperor Wu. Emperor Wu was shocked, and after going around for a long time, it turned out that it was a lie from Dongfang Shuo, so Emperor Wu called Dongfang Shuo and asked him why he did this.
Dongfang Shuo pretended to be pitiful and said that the dwarfs were less than three feet tall. I, my servant, was more than nine feet tall, but our salaries and wages were the same. The dwarfs could naturally eat well, but a big man like me would inevitably go hungry. .
Emperor Wu was originally prepared to get angry, but after hearing what he said, his anger turned into joy, so he appointed him to wait for the imperial edict of Jinmamen, and soon promoted him to minister. Compared with those courtiers who were always blowing their beards and staring, the young Emperor Wu must have preferred Dongfang Shuo, a humorous and interesting guy, so every time he talked with him, there was never a time when he was not happy.
Dongfang Shuo loved to eat meat, and Emperor Wu often gave him meals together. After the meal, Dongfang Shuo rolled up the meat left on the table in his arms. His clothes were stained with grease, but he seemed not to notice at all. Emperor Wu rewarded him with silk and satin. Regardless of his image, he carried it on his shoulders for fear that he would not have enough.
However, Dongfang Shuo was not a miser. He spent all these silk rewards on women. Every year, he would choose a young and beautiful woman in Chang'an City to marry back to his family, and then drive away the "old man" and abandon her. It seems that Dongfang Shuo is a cynical hedonist? This is not the case.
Emperor Wu loved hunting, so he had the idea of expanding Shanglin Garden. He recruited King Wuqiu Shou, a disciple of Dong Zhongshu, and put him in charge of the expansion. Emperor Wu's idea was that the "New Shanglin" must point directly at the feet of Zhongnan. If you look at the map, you can know how vast and spectacular this future hunting ground is. However, with the expansion comes large-scale land enclosures and relocation of immigrants, which is undoubtedly a disaster for the people who have lived here for generations and rely on mountains and water to feed themselves.
At this time, Dongfang Shuo stood up and objected.
Emperor Wu didn't expect that the opponent was not Ji An, Gu Kun's teacher, but this guy who told jokes all day long. He was very amused, so he rewarded him with a hundred catties of gold and promoted him to Taizhong doctor. But Emperor Wu turned around and said to King Wu Qiu Shou: "Start the construction now!"
The sensible Dongfang Shuo did not stand up to the wind and remonstrate, but this is enough to show that Dongfang Shuo is different from Guo Sheren. At least he does not position himself as a plaything, so he has his own position and political opinions.
The eldest princess, the aunt of Emperor Wu, was infatuated with her "godson" Dong Yan in her later years. The two had a fierce fight, and everyone in the world knew about this scandal. Emperor Wu saw Dong Yan's beauty and was very fond of him. Once Emperor Wu invited his aunt and Dong Yan to have dinner in the Xuan room. Just when they were about to enter the announcement room, Dongfang Shuo, a tall man with a halberd, stopped them and said: "Dong Yan can be killed. There are three reasons for this: one is that he is a minister but he flirts with the princess; the other is that he corrupts the marriage system. It pollutes social customs; the third is to instigate and induce His Majesty to have fun and alienate himself from political affairs. The Prosecution Chamber is the main palace where the late king handled political affairs, how can it be used to entertain such villains? If Dong Yan is not eliminated, it will be difficult to eliminate the great harm to the world!"
Emperor Wu saw that Dongfang Shuo was stern and inviolable, and no longer had the usual playful expression. In addition, he was indeed in the wrong, so he was speechless for a while, and finally the banquet was abandoned. Dongfang Shuo's admonishment was successful, and Emperor Wu rewarded him with thirty kilograms of gold. After that, Dong Yan gradually fell out of favor and died of illness before he was thirty.
It seems that cynicism is just a mask Dongfang Shuo puts on for himself. In fact, he is full of passion and is a man who cares about the world. However, his unconventional behavior made it difficult to understand the inner man. The courtiers around Emperor Wu regarded him as a "madman". Emperor Wu, who had suffered losses from him, understood him somewhat, so he said: "If Dongfang Shuo wasn't It’s so ridiculous, how can you compare to him and have a similar official position to him?”
One day when Dongfang Shuo came to court, the officials all said, "In the eyes of the world, Mr. Dongfang Shuo is a madman!"
Dongfang Shuo smiled and passed by, how could he be the same as them? However, whenever he drank happily at the banquet, he would roll to the ground and sing loudly: "Lu Shen lives in the secular world and escapes from the world. The whole body can escape from the world in the palace, why bother in the mountains and under the wormwood."
There is sadness in the free and easy singing. This is probably the depression of people who are "lost from the crowd" and are not understood.
When Dongfang Shuo was dying, he once said to Emperor Wu: "The "Poetry" says, 'camping with blue flies, stopping in Tibet. Gentlemen in Kaiti, unfaithful and slanderous.' Stop slanderous words." As the saying goes, "When a bird is about to die, its words are sad; when a man is about to die, its words are also kind."
Later, a large-scale search for witchcraft was carried out, and Emperor Wu appointed Jiang Chong, Su Wen and other villains, which finally caused disaster. Emperor Wu sighed with emotion when he thought of Dongfang Shuo's last words and his foresight, and sighed: "Looking back on Dongfang Shuo now, is he really just good at talking?"
I'm afraid this question doesn't need to be answered.
