Chapter 14 Chapter Thirteen

Even for a genius like Su Dongpo, his life begins at forty.Now Su Dongpo entered the Xuzhou period, that is, the "Yellow Tower" period.Su Dongpo suddenly found himself.For the first time, he became a man of action, busy with work, construction, public activities, and has accomplished a lot in his life since then.He was unable to do great things as a general judge in Hangzhou. Although he served as a prefect in Mizhou, Mizhou was remote and poor, so he had no chance to show his talents.Later, he was forced to retire for a short period of time and entered into a period of political darkness. Then there appeared the perfect, round, mature, lively and loyal Su Dongpo. He was humorous and sophisticated. He was a friend and fighter of the people and a great soul. However, Dongpo was arrested. Before he was exiled, the achievements of the prefect of Xuzhou had proved that he was a man of action and a capable person in handling affairs.

At the end of the ninth year of Xining (1076), Dongpo was ordered to leave Mizhou and was sent to Hezhong Prefecture in the southwest of Shanxi. In January of the following year, he went to Beijing from Jinan, where his younger brother's family lived.If Ziyou is not around, there will be major changes in political affairs.At this time, Wang Anshi, Huiqing, Zeng Bu, and Deng Wan had collapsed one after another. Wang Anshi came back and collapsed again. No one knew what would happen next. Ziyou is a quiet and decisive person.Su Dongpo had repeatedly mentioned the reform of the tax system and conscription, and advised the emperor not to levy income tax; Ziyou had always been silent, but now he felt that the time had come to advocate comprehensive political reform.Wang Anshi was already on his way out of Beijing in October, Ziyou didn't wait for his brother, and went directly to Beijing with an important memorial for comprehensive reform.The family stayed in Jinan, and Su Dongpo's three nephews greeted his uncle on the snow outside the door.In the evening, the two reunited and had a delicious meal.Jinan is a big city, and unlike Mizhou, Su Dongpo lived there for about a month.On February 10, the tenth year of Xining (1077), the relatives of the two brothers arrived at the bank of the Yellow River near the capital.Ziyou went out of Beijing to pick them up thirty miles north of the river, and the two brothers swam in the snow for a few days.Ziyou brought news that Su Dongpo's new post in Hezhong Mansion had been cancelled, and he had been reassigned as Xuzhou prefect.

When they arrived in the capital, they encountered a very puzzling thing.When Su Dongpo arrived at Chenqiao Gate, the gatekeeper told him that he was not allowed to enter Beijing.His brother recorded that there was never a reasonable explanation for this matter.I think this is not the emperor's will, but the political situation is unstable, and some officials don't want him to see the emperor; maybe the emperor himself doesn't know there is such an edict.The two brothers had no choice but to turn around and go to the home of Fan Zhen, a good friend in Dongwai City. At this time, Su Dongpo's eldest son Su Mai was eighteen years old and it was time to get married.Those who study Su Xue have never been able to find out the identity of the woman.I guess he married Bum Jin's granddaughter.In the correspondence between Su Dongpo and Fan Zhen and his son, they repeatedly mentioned that they were relatives by marriage.The marital relationship between the Su family and the Fan family remains to be explained.Fan Zhen was also from Sichuan, and Su Dongpo lived in Fan's house at that time.In the following two years, Su Dongpo also chose good husbands for Ziyou's two daughters.One is Wang Shi, the younger brother of Wang Hui (Zigao), the protagonist of the "Fairy Wife" legend, and the other is the son of Wen Tong, a famous bamboo painter.

After his son got married, Su Dongpo took his family and went east to work in Xuzhou, which is now on the border of Jiangsu Province.Ziyou also took his family to Shangqiu (Southern Capital) to serve as a judge; he handed over his family to Zhang Fangping, and accompanied his elder brother to Chuzhou, where he stayed for three months before returning to his family. Xuzhou is not only a big city, but also a strategic location, controlling the mountainous area in southeastern Shandong.past few dynasties.There are often battles near Xuzhou, and now the Jinpu Railway and the Longhai Railway meet here.Twenty years later, the famous robber's den of "Water Margin" was nearby.The city is adjacent to the river, surrounded by two high mountains in the south, and the deep rapids bypass the urban area below the mountain.This area produces Huagang fine stone, iron and coal, which were fully exploited in Su Dongpo's time.As a result, the sword here is also famous.He likes the natural scenery here and all kinds of exquisite fish and crabs, saying that it is a good place to "stay".

On August 21, just three months after he took office, floods occurred in Xuzhou.Wang Anshi once wanted to dredge the Yellow River; but spent 500,000 yuan to no avail, and the chief engineer committed suicide in fear of crime.Fifty miles north of Xuzhou, the Yellow River flooded eastward, and the floods spread for hundreds of miles.When the flood reached Xuzhou, it was blocked by high mountains in the south, and the water level continued to rise, reaching 28.9 feet in September.Su Dongpo sacrificed his life to save the city.He didn't go home for several weeks, and lived in a small shed on the top of the city wall every day, supervising the work of repairing the outer wall.Rich families left the city one after another.Su Dongpo stood at the city gate and begged them not to leave for fear of causing panic and riots. "With me here, you'd better stay." After speaking, he forced them to go back.Here we do not talk about Su Dongpo's architectural and engineering talents, but only show that he personally participated in all engineering plans.Seeing that the flood was about to exceed the southeast outer wall, he thickened the base of the wall and raised the height of the city wall. The fortifications that block the water are ninety-eight four feet long, ten feet high, and two feet wide.He needed thousands of workers. He waded through the mud and went straight to the barracks to find the commander.This is the forbidden army, directly under the command of the emperor.He asked them to cooperate.The pawn commander immediately agreed: "The prefect will personally supervise the work, and we should also do our part." At this time, the northern fortifications were completed, and the flood was ready to be diverted into the old course of the Yellow River. The Yellow River has been diverted many times in history.The city was besieged by floods for forty-five days. On October 15th, the Yellow River returned to its original head and entered the sea near Haizhou eastward. The flood began to recede.

The city was preserved, and the people were ecstatic and grateful.Su Dongpo was dissatisfied with the temporary embankment.Just send the table to the imperial court, list the numbers, and ask the above to allocate funds to build stone walls to resist future natural disasters.After waiting for no response, he had no choice but to revise the memorial, requesting that instead of building stone walls, he would rebuild wooden fortifications.The emperor issued an official document, praising his great achievements. In February of the following year, Dongpo received more than 30,000 yuan in funding, 1,800 tans of rice, and 7,200 employees to build a wooden dam in the southeast of the city. .Su Dongpo was good at architecture, so he built a ten-foot-high tower on this outer city wall, called "Yellow Tower".Later, the collection of poems he wrote in Xuzhou was called the "Huanglou" collection, and the Chaorantai he built in Mizhou became the synonym for his collection of Mizhou works.

The naming of "Yellow Tower" is related to the ancient Chinese cosmology.According to this theory, everything in the world is made of metal, wood, water, fire, and earth.Each element represents a principle, such as perseverance, growth, flow, heat, gravity, etc. These principles are universal and can be used not only in the material world, but also in life functions, human character and behavior, such as marriage. Got it.All life is composed of five elements intertwined, mutually restraining and complementary, and each element has a representative color.Strange to say, yellow represents soil, black represents water, and loess is absorbent and is said to be able to overcome water.Therefore, "Yellow Building" has become a symbol of resistance to water.

On the ninth day of Chongjiu in the first year of Yuanfeng (1078), Huanglou held a grand opening ceremony.Su Dongpo was very happy.The people were not swallowed by the flood, and it took more than half a year to build dams and towers; the Yellow Tower belongs to the people of the city and is a clear symbol of the future against floods.People from all over the city came to see the opening ceremony.On the east gate stands the Yellow Tower, which is ten feet high, and below it is a five-foot-high flagpole.The building is built in the form of a wide tower, and everyone goes upstairs to enjoy the scenery of the four fields.It was a dense fog that morning, and they looked out of the window and heard the oars of the ships below, as if they were in a ship of the sea.Soon the sky opened up.The fishing village in the distance and the five or six temples under the rock peak can be clearly seen.The elderly were called cold, and Su Dongpo asked them to drink a cup of warm wine to drive away the cold.At the front end of the south, you can see the raised platform. It used to be a stage for horses and horses, but now a Buddhist temple has been built.The long new embankment started from the temple and extended northward along the east wall. They heard the furious tide of Lu Hong and Baibu Hong in the distance, which mingled with the sound of ducks and geese below. At the end, there was a big banquet with the accompaniment of the band.

Su Dongpo wrote an article to commemorate this occasion and asked people to carve it on stone.The experience of this stele is quite extraordinary.Later he was exiled, and all his inscriptions were ordered to be demolished, and the Xuzhou prefect at that time just threw it into a nearby ditch.Ten years later, everyone forgot about this prohibition, and the royal family began to collect his manuscripts. Another eunuch asked people to dig the stele out of the ditch, and made thousands of rubbings in a starry night.After the matter was completed, he suddenly said to his colleagues: "Hey, I forgot! The ban on the Su stele has not been lifted, and the stele is still here. Call someone to destroy it." After the stele was demolished, the value of the rubbings naturally continued to rise.The prefect Miao Zhongxian made a lot of money.

Su Tungpo is very popular now, not only because of his success in fighting the flood, but also because he cared about the health and interests of the prisoners, something few prefects did at the time.He visited the prisoners himself, and for the first time sent prison doctors to care for the sick.Su Dongpo pointed out that although the law prohibits local officials from whipping prisoners to death, there is no clear regulation on prisoners dying of illness or neglect of care.Prisoners are people too.He won the gratitude of the prisoner's relatives and friends. Some small things can be easily done if someone is willing to do them. Unfortunately, only Su Dongpo cares about them. For example, he saw many soldiers flee from the camp and become robbers.He corrected this rule and only spent a few hundred dollars a year.He strictly prohibited gambling and drinking in the army. In a letter to the emperor, he pointed out that the local army was "proficient in skills and other places, and was the best among the counties. His majesty sent envoys to see it according to the reading."

Su Dongpo's poetry name has continued to rise, and now he is recognized as the number one scholar in the country.After Ouyang Xiu died, this title fell on him.Scholars all recognize him as a "teacher".He had already met two of the four Sumen scholars. He met Zhang Lei in Huaiyang and Chao Buzhi near Hangzhou.The other two—Qin Guan and Huang Tingjian—would become the great poets of the Song Dynasty, and now they also want to worship under him.Li Changchun, who was short and capable, came to see Su Dongpo, kept mentioning Qin Guan, and showed him Qin Guan's poems.Through Li Chang's introduction, Qin Guan came to visit him that summer.This is the legendary romantic poet who married the younger sister of the Su family.He doesn't have a name yet, but he is young, romantic and carefree, so he naturally has many girlfriends.After his death, there were famous prostitutes who died for him.This is a new voice in the poetry world, like a lark in spring.Qin Guan wrote a poem to Dongpo and said: "I don't want thousands of households, but I only want to know Su Xuzhou." He compared Dongpo to "the unicorn in the sky", and said: "If you don't let common things hinder innocence, how many people can you go south of the Big Dipper? people?" Huang Tingjian later became the ancestor of the poets of the Jiangxi School of Poetry; unlike Qin Guan, he was learned and quiet.He didn't come to see Dongpo, but only wrote two modest poems to recommend himself, comparing Dongpo to a lone pine on the top of a cliff, and himself to a grass at the bottom of a valley, eager to grow to the same height.Su Dongpo had read Huang Tingjian's poems before, and said that he had content, depth, and superb poetry, "I thought he was not a person of this world."He wrote back to Huang Tingjian and said: "Nowadays, those who insult books and practice courtesy are very respectful. If you see someone you are afraid of, why? Shi Fang asked for friendship with his feet, but he was afraid that it would not be available." Among the four scholars of Sumen, Huang Tingjian was the elder, and people at that time compared Su and Huang.But Huang Tingjian always regarded himself as Su Dongpo's disciple.Huang Tingjian was also introduced by Su Dongpo's close friend, because he was Li Chang's nephew and Sun Jue's son-in-law. In September, another close friend named in Su Tungpo's case came to visit him.Wang Gong is another type.As the grandson of the prime minister, he often brings a cart of high-quality wine brewed by himself when he goes out, and he disdains the wine bought in the store.He also brought three concubines—Yingying, Panpan, and Qingqing—to Xuzhou.Su Dongpo joked about his concubines, and in the prequel of "Baibuhong Poetry", he described Wang Gong taking the beautiful Liwo beauty down to the beach, while he himself stood on the roof of the building in feather clothes to watch them, like a fairy or Li Bai reincarnated. At this time, an important person came into Su Dongpo's life. He was the great poet monk Shen Liao, who was probably introduced by Qin Guan.Strange to say, Su Dongpo lived in Hangzhou for three years, while Shen Liao lived nearby at that time, but did not know him.Shen Liao himself is also a great poet, with a superb personality, and he is unwilling to seek fame.He only looked at Su Dongpo from afar, admiring him silently.Since then, Shen Liao has become his lifelong close friend. During the Mid-Autumn Festival of that year, we could see Dongpo nearby.On August 12, he had a grandson. On Mid-Autumn Festival night, he felt very lonely and uncomfortable.Six days later he received a poem from his brother describing his night: