Chapter 19 Chapter Eighteen

Su Dongpo's fate for the next year and eight months showed that being an official has no freedom of personal action, and scholars who can earn a living elsewhere should really not participate in political affairs.From now on, he has been wandering here and there, changing his plans, against his own intentions, and his situation is closely related to the Queen Mother.The emperor wanted him to be in charge of the History Museum, but the people around strongly opposed it.Finally, he personally issued an edict to move Su Dongpo's exile place from Huangzhou to Ruzhou (Linru), which is closer to the capital and is a good place to live.The news reached him in March of the seventh year of Yuanfeng (1084).

He evaded this order, in his own words, "almost like a child procrastinating and avoiding school".A person's participation in politics is nothing more than fame and fortune, power, or loyalty to the country.We know that Su Dongpo was not a man who got rich by being an official, and as for power, he didn't like ruling others either.Strange to say, some people have both fame and wealth, but love to be officials and dominate others.Power tastes good at first, but with a few exceptions, the president of the United States, who is running for a second term, either doesn't know where his happiness lies or can't help it.He's only president because the Democrats want him to be.The enthusiasm for serving the country simply does not make sense, because there are not many people in the opposition who want to do their best for the country?

As for fame, Su Dongpo knew that the high position of prime minister could not add luster to his immortal literary and poetic names.What can he expect from politics, and what can he achieve?On March 3, he was free to hang out with his friends.Everyone played in the Shang's Garden on the back mountain of Dinghuiyuan. After drinking, Su Dongpo took a nap on the top of a small pagoda.After sleeping, I walked out of the east gate and saw a big wooden basin in the store, so I bought it and planned to pour melons.Then follow the creek to Hejiapu.The He family is building a wing room and asks him to have a drink in the bamboo forest.A friend made a kind of pasta, which Dongpo named "Weijisu". Everyone drank wine, and Shen Liao only drank jujube soup.Su Dongpo suddenly wanted to go home.He saw orange trees in He's garden, so he asked for some saplings and planted them in the west of Xuetang.

Two days later, the news of his transfer came.Nominally, he is still "exile" and can live freely in a beautiful and rich city.He hesitated for several days, wondering whether he should apply to stay in Huangzhou.Later, realizing that the new order was the emperor's kindness, he was determined to obey the order and abandon Dongpo's farm. His years of hard work were wiped out, and he might have to start another farm elsewhere.Although he was transferred in such an embarrassing situation, the enemy was still very disturbed.Someone told a story at that time: Su Dongpo expressed his gratitude to the emperor.His Majesty looked around and said to the courtiers: "Su Shi is really a genius."

The enemy wanted to find fault with Su Dongpo's thank you form."I think he's still whining with this letter," said one. "How can you see that?" the emperor asked in surprise. "Hey, he said that his brother had passed the special exam, and he also used words like 'unsettled, sleepwalking in the prison' and other words. It means that they passed the exam by reasoning, but now they are punished for criticizing the government. He wants to blame others Mile." "I know Su Shi," said the emperor calmly, "he has no ill intentions in his heart."

The villain politician just shut up. He spent weeks preparing to move.He decided to go to Gao'an to see Ziyou first, and asked his conscientious eldest son Su Mai to take the whole family to Jiujiang to wait for him. Then several senior officials bid farewell to him, and many friends asked him to write inscriptions, and he complied one by one, and wrote a lot.At this time, Li Qi, a singing girl, also received a poem, which made her famous in the future.In his farewell dinner to friends and neighbors he wrote: A large group of gentry and poor came to see him off.We all know the names of nineteen neighbors and friends who want to be sent by boat for a certain distance.The roadside was full of acquaintances and strangers, including farmers, poor parents with children, and those whose children were saved by him showed gratitude.Nineteen people sent him to Cihu, and everyone walked around for a few days before Su Dongpo left.

Finally, three friends sent him to Jiujiang.One is my good friend Chen Zhen.One is monk Shenliao, who is five years younger than him. They met in Xuzhou, and he lived with him in Huangzhou for about a year.In ancient China, Taoist priests and monks loved traveling the most. Not only did they have time and freedom of movement, but they also had a network of inns—that is, temples—where they could live.Now Shen Liao decided to go to the top of the famous Mount Lu in Jiujiang. The third friend is Qiao Tong, a century-old Taoist priest. He is about 130 years old now. According to legend, he was later resurrected from the grave.When Su Dongpo arrived in Jiujiang, he walked an extra 100 miles overland to hand over the old Taoist priest to a friend in Xingguo.Qiao Tong loves birds and animals, and often takes his pets with him when he goes out.According to Ziyou, he was later kicked to death by a donkey.A few years later, a monk told Ziyou that he met a monk in a certain place, who called himself Qiao Tong, and knew Su Dongpo in Huangzhou.Ziyou asked about his appearance, and it was exactly the same as the old Taoist priest.One of the people who listened to the story was the son of the prefect of Xingguo.He went home and told his father.In order to confirm Qiao Tong's claim of resurrection, the prefect asked someone to open the tomb, and found only a bamboo stick and two shin bones, and the body was missing.

Su Dongpo accompanied Shen Liao to the famous Lushan Mountain for a few days. Hundreds of monks were very excited and said "Su Zizhan is here".Although he wrote only three poems about Mount Lu, one of them became the best work describing the characteristics of the mountain. He went to see his younger brother, and his three nephews traveled more than 800 miles to pick him up.The two brothers have not seen each other for four years, and Ziyou has gained a little weight.He doesn't look very healthy, because he is too tired to practice yoga at night.The office of the wine supervisor is located in a small dilapidated house facing the river.According to Ziyou, "in the old days, three officials worked together, and when the rest came, the two of them should leave, and the matter should be delegated to one. The book sits in the city to sell salt and sell wine, tax dolphin fish, and compete with the city people to find a ruler. Self-efficacy. At night, you will be exhausted and sleepy, and you will not know the end of the night. At the end of the night, you will return to the camp."

Su Dongpo stayed there for six or seven days, and then took a boat to Jiujiang to pick up his family.Take them down the Yangtze River and arrive in Nanjing (Jinling) in September.Chaoyun's son was only ten months old, and unfortunately died of illness. The parents were very sad, especially for the little mother.Su Dongpo said in a poem mourning the death of a child that the little mother lay stiff all day long, "My tears can still be wiped away, but the mother's crying can't be heard."Chaoyun never had another child. When he arrived in Nanjing, Su Dongpo went to see Wang Anshi, who was now a tired and sick old man.They talked about poetry and Buddhism together.Both sides are great poets and Buddhist disciples, and they have a lot to say.Legend has it that once two people competed in poems with the same rhyme and title, Su Dongpo won.Wang Anshi gave up halfway.During the conversation, Su Dongpo could not help but blame Wang Anshi for causing war and persecuting scholars.

"I have something to tell you." Su Dongpo said. Wang Anshi's expression changed, "You want to talk about the past?" "I want to talk about state affairs." Wang Anshi calmed down, "Please." Su Dongpo said, "Great soldiers and prisons were the reason for the demise of the Han and Tang Dynasties. The first emperor wanted to reform. Now the Northwest is using troops year after year. There are several large prisons in the southeast, but you didn't say anything to stop them?" An Shi held up two fingers and said, "Both incidents were caused by Huiqing, what dare I say outside?"

Dongpo said, "'Speak in the court, but not outside' is a common courtesy for the emperor. The emperor treats you very politely, how can you treat the emperor normally?" "Yes, yes." Wang Anshi lost his temper.After a while, he said: "Exit at Anshikou, and enter at Zizhan'er." It means that the conversation cannot be spread outside. He was betrayed by Huiqing, so he was very careful. As the conversation continued, Wang Anshi said off topic: "People must 'do one thing unrighteously, kill one innocent person, and win the world's mercy'." Dongpo said: "Nowadays, gentlemen will not hesitate to kill people if they strive to reduce half a year's 'grinding'." Wang Anshi smiled and said nothing. According to the records of many contemporary people, Wang Anshi often rode a donkey to the countryside alone during this period, "mumbling to himself, like a madman".Sometimes when he thought of his friend who had betrayed him, he would suddenly pick up his pen and write a letter with an angry face, and put down the pen after a while, as if he felt ashamed, so the letter was never finished.He continued to keep his diary, which was confiscated by the government years after his death, saying it contained important political material.Wang Anshi was frustrated in his later years and wrote many words accusing the emperor.Fortunately, the power was in the hands of his own party members at this time, but many people had read the seventy huge volumes of diaries.A few years ago, when Wang Anshi heard that Sima Guang was in power, he asked his nephew to burn the diary, but his nephew secretly hid it and burned other things to make up for it, so the rare manuscripts have been preserved to this day. Wang Anshi also began to see phantoms.Once in a supersensory state, he saw his deceased only son suffering in hell.He knew that his son was misbehaving.Now he is put in shackles and chains.The guard at home also said that he had dreamed the same scene, and Wang Anshi panicked.In order to save his son from the torment of hell, he sold his property in Shangyuan County and donated it to the temple.Wang Anshi once submitted a form to report the process of donating, and the imperial court specially named the temple, and the form is still there today.The day before his death, he was riding alone in the countryside when he suddenly saw a peasant woman approaching him, knelt down on the ground, and filed a complaint.Then there was no one to be seen.He thought the paper of pleadings had been put in his pocket, but it disappeared when he got home.He died of fright the next day. When Su Dongpo arrived in the affluent Jiangsu Basin, he immediately fell in love with the beauty and atmosphere of the area.From Nanjing to Jingjiang, he was busy planning to buy a farm in the lake area.His opinion is: since the emperor was willing to transfer him from Huangzhou to other places, he must also be willing to let him live in other places.Everywhere he went, he looked for a place to retire in his later years.Friends have offered their opinions.The monk friend Foyin asked him to live in Yangzhou, where he had a farm of his own.Fan Zhen hopes that he will come to Xuxia to be his neighbor.He fell in love with a beautiful pine forest in Suanshan, Dantu District.Yizhen—north of the Yangtze River, near Nanjing—the prefect advised him to come and live with him. Although he didn't want to live in Yizhen, he was willing to find a place there to temporarily settle down with his family.So the family lives in Yizhen Academy.Dongpo casually wandered around, looking for a country home. Finally, his close friend Teng Yuanfa persuaded him to live in Yixing on the left bank of Taihu Lake in Changzhou District.Teng Yuanfa is currently serving as the prefect of Huzhou on the south bank.The two of them worked out a plan in private. Su Dongpo would buy land in Yixing, and then apply for a residence in the land, saying that the farm was his only means of earning a living.A relative of the Teng family found a farm in the mountains twenty miles outside Yixing.The scale is quite large, and it can produce 800 tons of rice every year, so the Su family can have enough food and clothing.Dongpo only had a few hundred coins left, and his father left a house in the capital. He asked Fan Zhen to sell it for him for about 800 coins. In September, he went to see the cottage alone: ​​"When I came to Yangxian (Yixing), the boat entered Jingxi, and the meaning was suddenly felt, just like the desire of a lifetime. The death will return to the old, and it is almost the front. My nature is good at planting, and I am skilled. Self-grafted fruit trees are especially good for oranges. Yangxian is in the Dongting, and oranges are easy to grow. You can buy three hundred oranges for a small garden. In the seventh year of Yuanfeng (1084), it was in the boat on October 2." Now that Su Dongpo has completed a transaction, others may think that he is stupid or kind. This is entirely a matter of opinion.He wrote to Teng Yuanfa, saying that he was looking for a house by Jingxi, and he found it.He went out with his friend Shao Minzhan, found a good old house, and bought it for 500 yuan.The cash was almost completely spent, but Su Dongpo was very happy and planned to come back and move into a new house with his family.One day he and Shao Minzhan went for a walk in the village on a moonlit night, and when they passed a house, they heard a woman crying.Su Dongpo and Shao Minzhan knocked on the door and went in.An old lady was crying in the corner.The two asked her what was going on, and the old lady said: "I have a house that has been passed down from my ancestors for more than a hundred years. I was a rebellious son and sold it to someone else. Today I have to move out of the old house that I have kept together all my life-this is what I cry about." "Where is your house?" Su Dongpo was very moved. Unexpectedly, he found that the old lady was talking about the house he bought for five hundred yuan.He took out the deed of sale and burned it in front of the old lady.The next day, she called her son and asked him to let the old mother move to the old house, but did not force him to refund the money.Whether her son used the money to pay off the debt, or whether there were other reasons why he couldn't pay the money, we don't know.So Su Dongpo returned to the city empty-handed, the house was not bought, and the money was short of another five hundred.But for a moment he had a kind heart, and he couldn't resist it, and he couldn't care less about his family.This is a good thing.A good thing - that's all. Returning from Changzhou, he submitted a form to the emperor in October, requesting to live in the district.But before he got the approval, he had to go to the designated settlement. Ruzhou was about 500 miles to the west of the capital.He took a large family to the capital, and walked slowly, hoping that the petition would be approved, and he would not have to spend travel expenses back and forth.There was no news from the imperial court, so he had to reluctantly go to the capital.According to his psalms, the whole family can't even eat enough.When he came to the Huaihe River in Sizhou, at least three of his poems to his friends mentioned hunger.There is a song that compares itself to a hungry mouse, gnawing on things all night.The prefect sent things to the boat, and the children shouted loudly.The family seemed to be unable to move anymore, so he decided to go to the table again, and stayed at Zhang Fangping's home in the southern capital, waiting for the emperor's reply. The second petition was written in Sizhou in February, and part of the content is as follows: Two interesting—or unfortunate—accidents occurred during the trip.He once crossed the river in Sizhou to play in Nanshan, and wrote a poem afterwards. There is a long bridge on the river, and Sizhou is located at a strategic point. No one is allowed to cross the bridge after dark.Those who violated the law were punished with the heaviest punishment.But the prefect of Sizhou did not hesitate to violate the rules and accompanied Su Dongpo to cross the bridge at night.Su Dongpo once wrote a poem as a record: