one
Among Suzhou gardens, Canglang Pavilion is not the best. The Humble Administrator's Garden and the Lion Grove are both more famous than it. But I have been to Suzhou three times and visited Canglang Pavilion three times. While wandering around, I always felt a little lonely as I looked at the green water, hills, mountains, and ancient trees and bamboos. It's not that I don't like the garden here. When I first arrived in Suzhou, the strongest impression I had was that this city is the most suitable place for literati to live. Garden restaurants and water alley houses are filled with the harmony of Eastern culture. Then why did I feel lonely?
I first learned about Canglang Pavilion through a poem called "Canglang Pavilion":
There is a secluded mountain in the middle of the city.
Gaoxuan's face is curved by the water, and bamboos are cultivated to soothe his sad face.
The traces are far away from the jackals, and the mind is as leisurely as the fish and birds.
I am so old that I have no time to work in the government.
The author of the poem is Su Shunqing, a literati in the early Northern Song Dynasty. The poem is as famous as Mei Yaochen, and is known as "Su Mei" in the world. This Canglang Pavilion is the private garden built by Su Shunqing with money. Among the residences of ancient poets in China that excel in gardens, one is Du Fu's Thatched Cottage in Chengdu; the other is Canglang Pavilion in Suzhou. The current scale of Du Fu's Thatched Cottage is far from that of Du Fu's humble residence. It is the result of continuous efforts by future generations to commemorate the poet. Once the Canglang Pavilion was built, it had a garden pattern, which can be confirmed from Su Shunqing's poems.
In today's world, poets are the poorest group, almost literary beggars. Life was easier for the ancient poets. Because they don't regard writing poetry as a career. Most of them are officials and have fixed salaries. Therefore, among the ancient poets, although there were poor people like Du Fu and Du Xunhe, most of them lived an aristocratic life of admiring flowers and singing about the moon. However, there are only a handful of people who can build private gardens.
So, under what circumstances was Su Shunqing able to build this Canglang Pavilion?
two
Su Shunqing, courtesy name Zimei, was born in Zhongjiang County, Sichuan. After his great-grandfather Su Xie followed Meng Shu to surrender to the Song Dynasty, he was granted the title of Prime Minister of Guanglu Temple. He learned about the military affairs of Kaifeng Prefecture and moved his family to Kaifeng. His grandfather Su Yijian and his father Su Qi were both officials with Jinshi background. They are all famous literati and have published collections of essays. Kaifeng was the capital of the Song Dynasty. Su Qi served as the county magistrate of Kaifeng, a position equivalent to today's mayor of Beijing. Su Shunqing grew up in such a family of officials and did not know what hunger and cold meant. He has been immersed in classics and browsed bookstores since he was a child. He is a relatively typical noble child.
Su Shunqing's era was in the rising period of the Song Dynasty. Except for the Khitan invasion, which caused frequent wars in the north, the country was basically stable. However, the struggle between the revolutionary and conservative factions in the imperial court continued for a moment. Su Shunqing entered the officialdom at the age of twenty-two due to his father's influence and became a minor official of Taimiao Zhailang. At that time, because the Yuqing Palace was destroyed by fire and the emperor wanted to restore it, Su Shunqing presented a "Huo Shu" to the current Emperor Renzong to oppose the restoration. There is this paragraph in it:
There are tens of thousands of towers, all of which can be seen in a few moments. It is true that it is not as slow as the imperial preparations. This is the deep precept of heaven. Your Majesty should surrender, eat less, stay away from bed, rebuke your sins, issue edicts of mourning, stop what you have done for no reason, and rescue the people who have neglected their duties. In the office of Fubi, those who are not beneficial to the country should be put away. Those who are on the left or right and those who are stealing authority should be put away. , Carefully consider the mistakes of government and punishment, humbly accept the humble words, and respond to God's will through disasters.
At the age of twenty-two, from today's perspective, he was still a young boy, but he didn't know the heights of the world and dared to teach the emperor a lesson. This kind of behavior of "loving to be the teacher of the emperor" shows on the one hand that Su Shunqing was naive and ignorant, blindly held up his talents and arrogant things, only wanted to be in the limelight, and did not know the dangers of human relationships; on the other hand, it showed that the scholarly atmosphere at that time was relatively healthy, and the relationship between the emperor and his ministers was relatively healthy. The relationship between them is also relatively loose. Otherwise, it is absolutely impossible for such a high-standard "poisonous weed" to come out of the cage. Even if it is released from the cage, its tragic end is predictable. Su Shunqing did not suffer any blow from this "Huo Shu". Five years later, he successfully passed the Jinshi examination. It shows that Renzong's politics at that time were quite clear.
Later, Su Shunqing also gave the emperor the "Qi Na Cambodian Book" and "Yiqiao Shu". The writing style is more wild and the tone of criticism is more severe. Especially in the latter one, he even named some of the emperor's close ministers and reprimanded them for being useless and flattering. The emperor hung out with artists all day long, singing, dancing and having fun. His ambition was wild and he was not involved in political affairs. Such criticism, let alone the emperor and his ministers, would probably be difficult for ordinary people to accept.
When he wrote "Yi Guo Shu", Su Shunqing was already thirty-one years old. He returned to Kaifeng just after the period of mourning. If I wrote "Huo Shu" nine years ago, it was because I was young and ignorant of worldly affairs. So now it shows that his character is paranoid, which can also be said to be cute. Hate evil as much as hatred, and have the courage to do things. This kind of character is helpful for the development of art, but it is a discord for officialdom. Being proficient in human feelings is writing, and to put it bluntly, being proficient in human feelings is being cunning. Although it doesn’t sound nice to say, it is very practical. In China, how many of the people who have managed to get into high-ranking official positions are not old tricksters?
However, what is interesting is that three months after this poisonous weed was published, Su Shunqing also appointed a magistrate of Changyuan County as usual. In the past ten years, he has been on three posts, criticizing current affairs, and has a strong smell of gunpowder. But it did not affect his career. This may give him the illusion that "rebellion can lead to promotion" and that justice can defeat evil. This encouraged the development of his wild character, leading to the ultimate tragedy.
Su Shunqing got married at the age of twenty-three and married Zheng. Zheng died of illness five years later. Immediately after his father's death, he resigned from office to observe filial piety. After two years, Ding You returned to the official position. Prime Minister Du Yan admired his talent and knew that he had lost his wife, so he married his daughter to him. As a result, Su Shunqing became the prime minister's son-in-law, and his worth was a hundred times greater. Du Yan and Fan Zhongyan were political friends and both were reformists in the court. Fan Zhongyan came to govern the cabinet in 1043, the third year of the Qingli period, and served as deputy privy envoy. The privy envoy was Du Yan. Reformists have successively taken power in North Korea and China. The next year, on the recommendation of Fan Zhongyan, 37-year-old Su Shunqing was promoted to the position of manager of Jixian School and became the supervisor of the Academy of Music. As a result, Su Shunqing entered the ranks of "senior officials". He was in his prime at that time and could have used this new stage to display his political ambitions. Unexpectedly, due to his misbehavior, he was caught by the conservatives who were always looking for opportunities to counterattack, which led to a thrilling disaster.
At that time, it was a custom in the capital that all yamen had a spring and autumn festival, and the officials of the yamen would gather together for a meal. The money for the food and wine was shared among the officials present at the meeting. Some also cleaned up some of the rags in their yamen and sold them in exchange for some scraps of money to buy a meal and drink. When Su Shunqing first became a Beijing official, he naturally refused to give up the opportunity to have fun with his colleagues. He also asked people to sell some unsealed waste paper from his company. There was not enough money, so everyone attending the banquet contributed some money to help. First, a group of actors were invited to sing and dance to help with the drinking. When he was happy after drinking, Su Shunqing ordered the actors to be removed and the officials in his department to go away, leaving only a group of friends. At this time, Su Shunqing summoned female prostitutes from both armies to have sex with evil spirits. The night ended happily.
Invitations to drink and hang out were commonplace in the officialdom of the Song Dynasty. Unexpectedly, Su Shunqing was in the political whirlpool. His father-in-law was the prime minister of the dynasty, and Fan Zhongyan and Fu Bi were his deputies. The three of them were in charge of the government affairs together, and they were all reformists. Some conservative officials whose interests have been violated have been waiting for an opportunity to counterattack. Su Shunqing was originally a celebrity in the capital, and the dozen or so friends he invited to drink were all celebrities at that time. So the opposition quickly learned about it. So Wang Gongchen and Liu Yuanyu, the imperial censors, came to the emperor to play the music. Emperor Renzong must have remembered Su Shunqing who was published in "Yi Guo Shu", and he must not have a favorable impression of him. So he ordered Su Shunqing to be arrested, raped and sentenced to death, and spent two months in prison. The case was concluded and Su Shunqing was sentenced to have committed theft as the prison supervisor. He was sentenced to a first-class penalty of death and dismissed from office for the sake of the people.
The supervisor stole by himself, which means that Su Shunqing used the money from the government's scrap paper sales to entertain his colleagues to drink. For such a small thing, he almost lost his head, which shows how severe the punishment is. Today, it is a common thing for various units to sell old newspapers for toothpaste. No one would think that this is embezzlement of public property. However, Su Shunqing of the Song Dynasty, who had reached the ministerial level as an official, was dismissed from his post as a civilian because of such a trivial matter. I am afraid this cannot be explained simply by "if you want to inflict a crime, why bother?" On the one hand, it illustrates the dangers of political struggle, seizes some mistakes, and gets rid of political opponents. Not only does it gain a good reputation for punishing corruption, but it also achieves the goal of eliminating dissidents, so why not do it? On the other hand, it also shows the strict management of officials in the Song Dynasty. If there are no rules in the law, selling waste paper will never be a crime of "prisoner stealing". As for the widespread implementation of this law, that is another matter.
In the autumn of the fourth year of Qingli (1044), the biggest incident that occurred in Kaifeng, the capital of the Song Dynasty, was the case of Su Shunqing. This drink not only reversed his destiny, he left the officialdom and was unable to recover. The reform group suffered a severe setback, and the reform force that was ready to go almost collapsed in an instant. According to historical records, "more than ten people who attended the meeting sat down and dismissed him, and all the celebrities were gone." These celebrities are all important figures in the reformist group. In the first month of the second year, the three leading figures of the reform faction were all demoted from the capital. Du Yan knew Gongzhou, Fan Zhongyan knew Fenzhou, and Fu Bi knew Yunzhou. The instigators of this incident, Wang Gongchen and Liu Yuanyu, celebrated each other and said, "I will catch them all in one fell swoop!"
History has left an irreparable legacy.
three
The spring breeze can't help but catch up with the shocking waves.
I am heartbroken when I go to Guodian, and my hair becomes gray in the passing years.
Get out of the net and enter the smoke with a smile.
It is common to be poor and prosperous, but drinking songs are unforgettable.
This poem "After Leaving Beijing" was written by Su Shunqing when he left Kaifeng and went south to Wuzhong in the spring of the fifth year of Qingli. It expresses his painful mood and somewhat reluctant self-comfort after the disaster. Two months of prison life made him calm down. He only wrote one poem in prison, and his always high-spirited mood took a turn for the worse and became decadent.
The poem goes like this:
I complain about my wild nature and don't know how difficult the world is.
I raise my head and laugh at the flying birds, thinking about my old mountain.
When I first came to the secret network, who looked like me again?
I send you a message of peace and tranquility, and I think about you today and back in the day.
"Mr. Tian Gao, Mr. Lantian in Prison"
Most people who succeed as young people have no experience of rough life. Once you encounter a disaster, you will suddenly be at a loss due to lack of experience and mental endurance. From being arrogant and arrogant to losing all hope, from caring about the country to being passionate about the countryside, this change should be reasonable.
Leaving the stern capital city and sailing in the south of the Yangtze River where grass grows and orioles fly is very helpful in healing the wounds of the soul. Along the way, we went down to Huaiting, up to Shouyang, crossed Sishui, and stayed in Danyang. Facing the delicate red and tender green, the falling misty rain, Su Shunqing felt much better. During the trip of more than a month, he wrote more than a dozen poems. For him who has a more rigorous attitude towards creation, this amount is quite impressive. The poem is permeated with the sense of relief of breaking free from the trap and returning to freedom. A friend in need is a friend indeed. On this trip south, his younger brother Zilu accompanied him all the time. When he arrived in Suzhou, Zilu wanted to return to Kaifeng, so he wrote a poem "Send Zilu off":
A boat flew five or two in front of the wind, and moved south. Now it is going to Bie Ciwei.
Life is so difficult as it has always been, and my way is rare in the world.
Fortunately, there are mountains and rivers to talk about to help you think, don't forget to go back when you follow the fish and birds.
Your kindness must be repaid by the camp, and you can learn from the three springs.
The poem was written to my younger brother, but the emotional connection lies with my mother. If a loyal minister cannot do anything wrong, then a filial son must never act inappropriately. He reminded himself not to covet the fish and birds of Jiangnan and forget his righteousness as the Son of Man. He also wanted to go back and serve his white-haired mother who lived in the capital.
But poetry is poetry. Su Shunqing moved south this time. Until his death, he never returned to the capital city that haunted him in dreams and made him depressed.
Four
Historical records: Su Shunqing came to Wuzhong in April (the fifth year of Qingli) and first lived in Huicheyuan. The midsummer was steaming and he couldn't vent his anger, so he bought an abandoned land next to the county school for 40,000 yuan. During the Wuyue period, Qian's relatives lived in Zhongwu Festival. It is also the old hall of Sun Chengyou, the envoy of Dudu. The velvet is the garden.
This garden is Canglang Pavilion.
Sun's old museum has gone through hundreds of years of ups and downs and has long been abandoned. Su Shunqing spent 40,000 yuan to buy it, and then purchased flowers, wood, bricks, and stones to build a private garden. From then on, he lived in seclusion here, reading and annotating "Yi", reciting poems and meeting friends, and lived a relatively stable life for several years.
Before the tragedy, Su Shunqing visited Suzhou and lamented, "I have no chance to live in the endless beautiful scenery, so I can only travel in Suzhou at dusk." Now he can finally live here. The same year we purchased the land, we built the garden and moved in. It only took half a year. From this point of view, the earliest Canglang Pavilion was never as grand as it is today. When the pavilion was built, Su Shunqing was in dire straits and it was impossible for anyone to help him build the pavilion. Having been an official for four generations, Su Shunqing's family should still be well-off, but after all, he was not a wealthy man. So it is impossible to carry out large-scale construction. Judging from his self-written "Canglang Pavilion", he only built a pavilion. As for the bamboos, water, hills, and forests, they are discarded items from Sun's old mansion and can only be slightly repaired.
When he first arrived in Suzhou, Su Shunqing's mood was not stable. He even wanted to leave Wuzhong and return north, as evidenced by his poem "Autumn Huai":
Time slowly makes people grow old, and the scenery becomes autumn again.
Our home is under the Phoenix City, so there is no need to stay together.
This was written when he climbed to the Chang Gate of Suzhou City in the autumn of that year and was inscribed on the wall of the city gate. Next to the poem, he wrote another line of small characters: "The country retains people? The country retains people?" The country retains people, but the country of Zhao and Song Dynasty does not. In the same year, Teng Zijing, who was also reviled, rebuilt the Yueyang Tower in Baling by Dongting Lake. Fan Zhongyan, who was demoted to Fenzhou, wrote "Reconstruction of Yueyang Tower" for him. The coup in the capital in the eighth year of Qingli period left two famous places of interest in Chinese history and a beautiful article that has been praised throughout the ages. This is really in line with the old saying: The country is unlucky but the poet is lucky. However, the poet was still unfortunate. At the age of thirty-seven, Su Shunqing had to live the life of an idle scholar. For a poet who takes the world as his own mission, this must be such a torture. Although his father-in-law, Du Yan, was also relegated to his post, he was after all a veteran officialdom who remained calm despite all the hardships. The outgoing prime minister sent poems from Yanzhou in the far north to comfort his son-in-law who was sinking in decadence and could not extricate himself. Su Shunqing replied to his father-in-law: "It is easy to be ruined but to move away, and it is difficult to understand it. It is a common sentiment. I am afraid of autumn nights when I am sad, and I am tired of life after being sick for a long time." He was still talking about his sorrow and illness. From this point of view, he can only be a susceptible poet. He lacks the calmness and patience of a politician.
Fortunately, Suzhou is a place most suitable for literati to live. Fortunately, Canglang Pavilion was built in time, and Su Shunqing's injured heart was temporarily comforted. In the Su Collection, there are about six poems with the title Canglang Pavilion. The first one is "Canglang Huai Guanzhi":
Walking alone in Canglang, there is no trace, chatting on the dangerous platform and looking around.
The autumn colors are dim in the forest, and the sunlight shines through the green bamboo.
Swallows fall before the wind among drunkards, while tung trees wither behind the frost in the poetry society.
You come again for a while and then go straight away. Who will accompany you again when you are drunk and chanting?
Due to Su Shunqing's talent and special status, he became the center of communication when he was in the capital. Every day, he met friends, celebrities came and went, drank, sang, poemed and danced. Compared with Kaifeng, although Suzhou is also the hometown of wealth and wealth as Wu Nong said, it is much more indifferent after all. And, more importantly, he is no longer in the center of social life, and he has lost his sense of superiority in official circles. Therefore, when his old friend came to visit him, he was very excited. After Guan Zhi left, he composed this sad poem. Thirty-eight-year-old Su Shunqing has already called himself a "failing old man" psychologically.
In addition to correspondence, he also maintained contact with a group of old friends such as Ouyang Xiu, Fan Zhongyan, Teng Zijing, Mei Yaochen, etc. In Suzhou, most of his new friends were scribes or monks in Wuzhong, and they sang poems and songs together. , study calligraphy, taste the music of the piano, or explore the mysteries of Buddhism and Taoism. In addition to poetry, Su Shunqing is also good at calligraphy and playing the piano. As a scholar, he seems to have all the skills he needs. Although people in the officialdom were afraid of associating with him, ordinary literati still admired his reputation and were happy to associate with him. He lingered in poetry and wine with this group of local celebrities. Gradually, I forgot about the old events in Kaifeng.
At this time, his good friend in Kaifeng, Han Wei, who was still in officialdom, wrote a letter accusing him of "living in the capital for a long time, but leaving the capital to isolate himself from relatives and friends." He replied with a letter to defend himself. This letter is included in both his collected works and the "Biography of Su Shunqing" in the history of the Song Dynasty. There are some discrepancies between the two, but they are generally similar: living in Wuzhong was a last resort. As for his current life, he said in his letter: "...the eyes and ears are clear, there are no organs to treat others, the mind is at ease and the body is relaxed; I sleep after three business days, get up on high ground, and list the pictures under the bright window of the quiet courtyard. Shi Qinzun, he enjoys himself; he stays away from the official residence for more than a month, and when he feels like it, he takes a boat out to Panchang, chanting and whistling and looking at the ancient mountains and rivers; the wild brew of Zhu tea is enough to relieve worries; the water shield, perch, rice and crab are enough to taste; There are also many eminent monks who live in seclusion, their Buddhist temples are excellent, their homes have gardens, rare flowers and rare stones, winding ponds and high platforms, where fish and birds hang around, and they don't realize the sunset."
This is a complete idler. Because "the traces are far away from the wolves" and "there are no institutions", Su Shunqing gradually became accustomed to this kind of scholar's life that had nothing to do with officialdom. From the article, it can be roughly inferred that after moving into Canglang Pavilion, Su Shunqing never stopped the expansion work. "Precious flowers, rare stones, Quchi and high platform" were all added later.
After living in Canglang Pavilion for more than three years, in the spring of the eighth year of Qingli (1056), due to Han Wei's petition, Su Shunqing was reinstated as the governor of Huzhou. But he did not take office. In December of that year, he died of illness in Canglang Pavilion at the age of forty-one.
five
Su Shunqing was successful in his youth and found himself in the whirlpool of power in his middle age. He was a famous poet in Renzong's dynasty, but he made no political achievements. Although he was keen on reform, he spared no effort in criticizing current affairs. But he got into trouble because of his carelessness. In ancient China, those who became officials from poets, such as Han Yu, Liu Zongyuan, Bai Juyi, Ouyang Xiu, Su Dongpo, etc., left their names behind, not because of their political achievements but because of their poems. Of course, there are exceptions, such as Gao Shi, Yan Shu, Wang Anshi, and Fan Zhongyan who had outstanding political reputations during their lifetimes. Talking freely harms the country. Unfortunately, chatting is a common problem among Chinese literati. If you bring the literati's habits into the officialdom, you will definitely not do well as an official.
Today, to objectively evaluate Su Shunqing, his greatest achievement in history is the construction of the Canglang Pavilion. After his death, Canglang Pavilion changed its owner many times. In the early years of Shaoxing in the Song Dynasty, Canglang Pavilion was acquired by Han Shizhong, a famous anti-Jin general, and was renamed "Han Garden" and underwent a large-scale expansion. In the Yuan Dynasty, it was abandoned as a residence for monks. During the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty, Song Nao served as the governor of Wuzhong and searched for the remains of the Su family, but they were completely destroyed. So he once again advocated reconstruction. Since then, it has been repeatedly destroyed and repaired. The current Canglang Pavilion was built by Zhang Shusheng, the governor of Suzhou in the twelfth year of Tongzhi in the Qing Dynasty (1873).
Wandering in the Canglang Pavilion, I lamented Su Shunqing's misfortune. At the same time, he was glad that he finally found the treasure of Canglang Pavilion to rest his solitary memory in his later years. "Canglang Pavilion" written by Su Shunqing is still engraved in the stele hall inside the gate of Canglang Pavilion. Stopping under it, I savored the following paragraph:
... When the body is in a suitable shape, the spirit will not be bothered. Watching and listening without evil will make the way clear. Returning to the place of honor and disgrace, the sun and money grind against each other. It is not despicable to be separated from this true interest!
It can be seen from this that Su Shunqing found his place in life in Canglang Pavilion. He is not suitable for officialdom, and he cannot adapt to the kind of intrigue and intrigue for power. It's a pity that he woke up too late.
