Chapter 28 Chapter 27 Overseas

Hainan Island was China's territory at that time, but most of the residents were Li people, and only a few Han people lived on the north coast.Su Tungpo was exiled there, far from the confines of the Chinese civilized world.Of the hundreds of victims of the New Deal, only he was demoted to the district.In order to prevent Minister Yuanyou from returning, the government ordered the expulsion and punishment of all people related to the previous dynasty for two years.Not long after Su Dongpo went into exile, Sima Guang's descendants were deprived of all their official titles, and a large number of high-ranking officials—including Ziyou and Fan Chunren—were demoted to the west and southwest.Even the ninety-one-year-old veteran Wen Yanbo was not spared, and was stripped of several official titles.The biggest blow to Su Dongpo was the new order that the relatives of criminal officials were not allowed to be officials nearby.Su Mai was working near Nanxiong, so of course he lost his job.

Now that house is Su Dongpo's only property.The government owed him a total of 200 guan in local currency, 150 guan according to the value of the capital currency, which was the salary he should have received in the past three years.Su Dongpo did not receive the money, so he wrote to his friend, the prefect of Guangzhou, asking him to use his power to ask the tax collectors to pay.Wang Gu once set up a hospital to help the poor according to Su Dongpo's suggestion, but was soon dismissed for "rescuing the hungry people in vain". Whether Su Dongpo received the money or not is not recorded in history.

According to Western calculations, he is now sixty years old.No one knows how long he will be in exile, and it seems impossible for him to return to China alive.His two sons accompanied him to Guangzhou. Su Mai bid farewell to him on the river bank, while Su Guo left his wife and children in Huizhou to accompany him to Hainan Island.To reach his destination, Su Dongpo had to go up the Xijiang River, walk hundreds of miles to what is now Wuzhou in Guangxi, and then travel south to Leizhou Peninsula to cross the sea.When he arrived in Wuzhou, he heard that his younger brother had just passed through there and was going to the new office in Leizhou Peninsula.It is said that the reason why their brothers were demoted to these two districts was that the place names had the same endings as the names of the Su brothers (Ziyou to Leizhou, Zizhan to Danzhou). Zhang Dun thought it was very interesting.Ziyou also brought his wife and third son and daughter-in-law with him. They have been living with him in Gao'an for several years.

When they arrived in Tengzhou near Wuzhou, Su Dongpo met his younger brother.Now they meet under such circumstances.That's where the barrens are, and the two brothers go to a small shop for lunch.Ziyou is used to good food and can't eat the rough cakes in the store.Dongpo ate it up in a few mouthfuls, and said to his younger brother with a smile, "Do you want to taste these delicacies slowly?" They got up and walked out of the shop, and slowly took their families to the destination, delaying as long as possible, Su Dongpo knew As soon as they arrived in Leizhou, he had to go to sea immediately.

The prefect of Leizhou admired the Su brothers very much.He entertained them warmly, and sent them some wine and meat—only to be impeached and removed from office the following year.After the death of the Su family brothers, the son's residence in Leizhou became the ancestral hall of the Su family brothers. Dongpo had to leave, and Ziyou accompanied him to the beach.On the eve of parting, the brothers and their sons spent the night on the boat.Su Dongpo's hemorrhoids recurred and the pain was severe. Ziyou advised him to quit drinking.They once chanted poems to each other, and Su Dongpo tested Ziyou's youngest son's poetry writing skills.This parting is very sad, and they may not see each other for a lifetime, and they did not sleep all night.Parting farewell, Su Dongpo once wrote to Wang Gu: "A certain old man has thrown himself into the desert, and has no hope of returning to life. He married his eldest son yesterday, and the funeral has been dealt with. Now in Hainan, the first one is used as a coffin, and the second one is used as a tomb. It is still preserved. Shushu and his sons were buried overseas when they died, and they didn't fit in the coffin when they were born, and they didn't help the coffin when they died, this is also the style of Dongpo's family."

He prayed to the saint that day.There is a local temple dedicated to two generals who conquered the South.Passengers crossing the sea have always asked the auspicious days for sailing in the temple, and the prophecy was often fulfilled, so Su Dongpo also followed the general custom to pray. In the early morning of June 11th in the third year of Shaosheng (1097), the two brothers waved goodbye, and Su Dongpo set off with his youngest son, and the prefect of Leizhou specially sent several soldiers to serve him along the way.The voyage was short, and the weather was good that day. Su Dongpo could see the ridgelines of the hills on the island vaguely revealed on the horizon, and he was very disturbed.The ocean is not so lovely to him as it is to the Western poets.In fact he was "dazzled".But they arrived safely.After landing, Su Dongpo headed for the destination of Danzhou on the northwest bank, and arrived on July 2.

As soon as he got there, Zhang Zhong, a good county magistrate, came to see them.Not only did he admire Su Dongpo, but he was also good at playing chess. Zhang Zhong and Su Guo became good friends.They often played against each other all day long, with Su Dongpo watching the match.Zhang Zhong kindly let Su Dongpo live in the official house next to the Zhang family.But the place was small and dilapidated, and the house leaked when the autumn rains came, so Su Dongpo had to move the bed around at night.This is an official building, Zhang Zhong used public funds to repair it, but later got him into trouble.

From the perspective of the Han people, this small island is simply unbearable.The climate is humid, hot in summer, dense fog in winter, and everything is moldy during autumn rains.Su Dongpo once saw a large pile of dead termites on a bedpost.An unhealthy climate makes it impossible to think about longevity.He once wrote: In the towns outside the coast, most of the islanders are Li people, and their relationship with Han immigrants is not friendly.The aborigines lived in the Shidai Mountains, and later the Japanese army used the aborigines to engage in jungle warfare for many years before attacking Pearl Harbor.The natives are illiterate, simple and honest in nature, and are often deceived by the cunning civilized Han people.They are too lazy to farm and live by hunting.Here, like some areas in Sichuan and Fujian, women work and men take care of the children at home.Li women chop firewood in the jungle and transport it to the city to sell.Metal utensils such as knives and axes, grains, cloth, salt, and pickles were all shipped from China, and they exchanged them with horn shells and agarwood, a precious incense commonly used in China.Even rice is imported from the mainland, because the natives have always eaten taro and white water.In winter, the rice transport boat did not come, so Su Dongpo had no choice but to eat like this.

Residents are very superstitious, there are only witch doctors, not doctors.The only way for the islanders to cure their diseases is to pray to the gods in temples and sacrifice cattle.As a result, many cattle are transported from the mainland every year for sacrifice.Su Dongpo was a Buddhist and wanted to change this custom, but of course the custom cannot be changed easily.He wrote: The Han Chinese have never been able to conquer the natives of the jungle.As soon as the army came, the natives retreated into the jungle, and the Han stopped advancing, because no one wanted to live in the mountains.Occasionally the natives raided towns when the two sides were at odds.Sometimes they are deceived by Han businessmen and cannot go to the Chinese court to seek justice. The only way is to catch him and hold him for ransom to make up for the loss.Later, Su Guo wrote a 2,000-word long article discussing this situation, thinking that only fair trade and fair law enforcement can deter and appease the natives.Su Guo believed that the aborigines were honest and good people, and they were forced to enforce the law themselves only because the Chinese courts could not give them justice.

This time it was a real relegation, and the old man's body couldn't bear it.Dongpo said that there is nothing on the island: "There is no food here, no medicine for illness, no room to live in, no friends to go out, no charcoal in winter, no cold spring in summer, but it is not easy to list them all, and there is no probability of them all. But luckily, Nothing wrong with it." But his unyielding soul and outlook on life did not allow him to lose the joy of life: "There is still this body given to the creator, and there is nothing wrong with letting it run. People who know it, don't worry about heat." He wrote to a friend Say.

Zhang Dun and Su Dongpo's other enemies had nothing to do with him and were very angry.On September 12th, the first year of Yuanfu (1098), he wrote a diary about his predicament: Su Dongpo may be stubborn, or he may have really mastered himself.At least he never lost his sense of humor.Shen Liao sent a young monk with a letter and gifts to Hainan Island to see him, and said he would visit him in person.Su Dongpo wrote back and said: "I went to the demolition office for half a year, and I can't go into details about everything. It's roughly like Lingyin Tianzhu monk, after he was discharged from the hospital, he folded enough brown rice in a small village yard to eat, and he would spend his whole life. The rest of the miasma patients, why don’t they get sick in the north? They all die of the disease, so why bother with miasma. But if there is no medicine, there are many dead people in the hands of the national doctors in the capital. Shen Liao smiled when he heard this. Don’t worry about me anymore. Those who know each other In this way." His thoughts on life on the island are perhaps best expressed in a note he wrote in his last year of demotion: Su Dongpo once said to his younger brother: "I can accompany the Jade Emperor, and I can accompany the beggars of Beitian Courtyard. In my eyes, there is no one in the world who is not a good person." Now he associates with unknown poor scholars, farmers and women.He doesn't have to be wary when talking with these simple and simple people, he is free and comfortable, and he can express himself best.He feels uncomfortable without guests at home for a day, and he goes out to visit neighbors when others don't come.As in the Huangzhou period, he mixed with high officials, civilians, scholars, and farmers.The chat was always him speaking; he was naturally talkative.But he also wants others to speak up.He wandered around with his big Hainanese dog "Wuzui".He sat under the betel nut tree with the villagers and wanted to have a chat.What could the ignorant poor peasant say to him?The farmer was in awe of the great scholar, "We don't know what to talk about." Su Dongpo said, "Let's talk about ghosts, let's listen to some ghost stories." The other party would say that they hadn't heard any good ghost stories. , He said: "It doesn't matter, just talk about what you have heard." Later, Su Guo told his friends that if his father didn't see any guests for a day, it seemed that something was wrong. Even in such a remote place, he still can't live in peace.In the first year of Yuanfu (1098), the persecution of Yuanyou scholars reached its peak.A few days before New Year's Eve in the fourth year of Shaosheng (1097), two Yuanyou ministers died within a week, and the cause of death was suspicious.In the Spring Festival, the children of two deceased ministers were arrested and imprisoned, and the Queen Mother's private secretary was executed.The imperial court fully mobilized the relegated ministers.That summer Ziyou, Qin Guan and Zheng Xia were also ordered to emigrate. We remember that Zheng Xia was the little court official who overthrew Wang Anshi's position. In March, Wu Gufu, a strange Taoist priest, reappeared in Hainan Island and stayed with Su Dongpo for several months.He brought a message that the imperial court sent Dong Bilai to report everything about the exiled ministers, and even sue them if necessary.Danzhou belonged to Guangxi Province at that time. At first, the imperial court sent Lu Shengqing, the brother of the treacherous minister Lu Huiqing, who was the sworn enemy of Minister Yuanyou, there.In this way, the Su family brothers would be extremely miserable if they did not die. Zeng Bu and others warned the emperor that sending Shengqing would only encourage private revenge, and he could not report it fairly.That means the government is deliberately going to extremes.As a result of their interference, Shengqing was sent to Guangdong and Dong Bi to Guangxi.Of course Dong Bi found out what was wrong; he said that Ziyou had forcibly occupied the house, and the prefect of Leizhou generously entertained the criminals and took care of them.The prefect was dismissed, and Ziyou was transferred to an area east of Huizhou, where Su Dongpo had been demoted. Dong Bixiang's plague came to Hainan from Leizhou Peninsula.But his assistant Peng Ziming said to him: "Don't forget that you have children yourself." Dong Bi stopped moving forward and only sent an official across the sea to check on Su Dongpo's recent situation.The official found that he was living in the official house, Zhang Zhong treated him well, and kept in touch with each other, so Zhang Zhong was dismissed. Su Dongpo was expelled from his old residence, so he had to build a shabby room immediately with the spare money.The new residence is located in the betel nut grove in the south of the city.People in the area, especially the sons of several poor scholars, came to help him build a house.It was a five "room" hut, though probably only three rooms.He named his new residence "Conglang Nunnery".There is a jungle behind the house, and at night Su Dongpo can hear the sound of the natives hunting deer while lying on the bed.Native deer.Sometimes the hunter would knock at the door early in the morning and bring him some venison.In May, he wrote to a friend, saying: "When I first came to the official house to count the rafters, I was almost forced to evict. I couldn't help but buy land and build thatch, only to avoid the exposed places. But I was empty. In the midst of distress, there is nothing left. .It’s not worth mentioning, just talking about it for a laugh.” He rarely hates others, but of course he doesn't like Dong Bi.He had to make a joke about the high official who kicked him out. "Must" and "bie" have the same pronunciation. He wrote a fable, and at the end he mentioned Mr. Turtle.Once Dongpo was drunk, and the story began. The Dragon King ordered the fish-headed ghost to drag him into the sea.Wearing a priest's robe, straw sandals, and a yellow hat, he soon found himself walking in the water.Suddenly there was a loud thunder, the ocean turned, and in an instant he had come to the Dragon King's crystal palace.As usual, the Dragon Palace is studded with pearls, corals, agates and various precious stones.The Dragon King appeared dressed up, accompanied by two maids, and Su Dongpo asked the Dragon King what he wanted.Soon the queen came out of the curtain, gave him a ten-foot piece of precious silk, and asked him to write a poem.Writing poems was easy for Su Dongpo.He drew a picture of the underwater world, and there were strange lights shooting out of the Crystal Palace, and everyone gathered around to watch the poem he wrote.Shrimp soldiers and crab generals praised it one after another.Mr. Turtle is also there.He went up to the Dragon King and said that one word in Su Dongpo's poem used the name of the Dragon King.After hearing what he said, the Dragon King couldn't help being very angry with Su Dongpo, "Yu retreated and sighed, and he was destroyed everywhere by (turtle) relatives." Su Tungpo wrote three or four fables, but it was not until the thirteenth century that Chinese literati wrote fictional works. Su Tungpo's stories, like the fables written by other writers in Tang and Song Dynasties, are nothing more than obvious dogma plus a Just a thin layer of creativity. During the two and a half years after the hut was completed, Su Dongpo lived a carefree but very poor life.He had two wonderful friends, one was He Deshun, a Taoist from Guangzhou who relayed his letters, and the other was a young scholar who wandered around and gave him food, medicine, rice, pickles, and books.The hot and humid summer on the tropical island, Su Dongpo often sat under the betel nut tree for several days, waiting for the arrival of autumn.Autumn is rainy, and the large ships from Guangzhou and Fujian no longer sail south due to the weather. There is a shortage of food, and even rice cannot be bought on the island.Su Dongpo was really helpless.In the winter of the first year of Yuanfu (1098), he wrote to his friends, saying that their father and son were "relatively like two ascetics".With no supplies coming through the winter, they risk starvation.He resumed the vegetable soup recipe, and started to cook cocklebur to eat. He once wrote an article about eating sunshine to satisfy his hunger, but he didn't know whether it was serious or joking.Taoist priests determined to leave the world usually starve to death, and for a while they did not eat grains at all.Su Dongpo mentioned a story in his notes "The Law of Bigu", a man fell into a deep pit in Luoyang, and there were frogs and snakes in the pit. He found that these animals turned their heads to the morning sun seeping through the hole in the early morning, swallowing the sunlight desperately.He is hungry and curious.I imitated the actions of frogs and snakes, and found that my hunger was over.He was rescued later, and it is said that he never knew what it was like to be hungry. "This method is very easy to know and easy to practice. However, there is no one in the world who can know, and those who know can't do it. There is nothing in the world that is empty and quiet. , If you want to practice this method with me, I will teach it in a book. Diary on April 19." In fact Su Tungpo never had to go hungry.His good friends and neighbors would not allow him to starve.He seemed to be living a carefree life, and one day he was walking across the field singing with a large watermelon on his head.An old peasant woman in her seventies said to him: "Neihan's wealth in the past is like a dream of love." From then on, Su Dongpo called her "Mother of Love".Sometimes he sat at a friend's house and was caught in the rain, so he borrowed a hat, coir raincoat and wooden shoes and walked home on the dirt road.The dogs barked and the neighbors screamed.Whenever he had a chance, he would revisit the habit of wandering around on moonlit nights, wherever he went.Sometimes he and Su went to the southwest cape six miles away, where there was a big rock that looked like a monk facing the sea.Many ships were wrecked there, and the locals believe that the stone has magical powers.Lychees and oranges grow at the bottom of the cliff.Anyone can pick fruit to eat, but if anyone is greedy and wants to pick more to take home, there will be a storm immediately. Su Dongpo had always been very kind to the monks, but he didn't like the monks near Danzhou. They all married wives or had sex with women.He once wrote a scathing article satirizing them.The title is "Remembering the Rebirth of a Virgin", it is said that there is a real person: In the past few years, Su Guo has been by his father's side.According to Su Dongpo, Su Guo was his father's good companion in all aspects.Not only did he do all the chores, but he also acted as his secretary.Under the tutelage of his famous father, Su Guo soon became a poet and painter.Among Su Dongpo's three sons, only Su Guo became an important writer, and his literary works have been handed down to this day.He has received all the training that Su Dongpo experienced in his youth.He once copied the entire "Book of Tang" to improve his memory, and later began to copy the "Book of Han".Su Dongpo has an amazing memory, and he still remembers every word of these two books. He lay on the bench and listened to his son's reciting, and occasionally pointed out similar details in the lives of some ancient people, or made criticisms. They didn't have good paper and pens, but Su Guo learned how to paint bamboo, stone and winter scenery with simple tools.About twenty years later, Su Guo visited Beijing and stayed in a temple.The soldiers in the palace suddenly came carrying a small sedan chair and asked him to see Huizong.Su Guo was puzzled, but he couldn't disobey orders.As soon as he entered the sedan chair, curtains were drawn all around him, and he could not see the direction of travel.The sedan chair had no roof, and someone held up a big umbrella for him.He seemed to have traveled a long way, about four or five miles before arriving at a place.He came out and found himself standing in a covered gallery, and was led into a splendid hall.He went in and saw the emperor sitting there, dressed in yellow and wearing a hat inlaid with green jade.The emperor was surrounded by court ladies, all dressed gorgeously.Su Guo only felt that there were a lot of people, but he didn't dare to look up.In June, it was still freezing cold in the house.There are a lot of ice cubes inside, and the room is full of incense.He knew he was in a certain palace.After saluting, the emperor said to him, "I heard that you are the son of Su Shi, and you are good at painting stones. This is a new palace, and I want you to paint on the walls. So I sent someone to find you." Su Guo took a deep breath , Huizong himself is also a great painter, and many works have survived to this day.Su Guo bowed twice and began to paint on the wall. The emperor got up and looked at him. After the work was finished, the emperor repeatedly expressed his appreciation, asked the maids to toast him, and gave him many precious gifts.Su Guo took his leave and went to the corridor to get into the sedan chair, the curtain was lowered again along the way.When I got home, it was like a strange dream. There was no good ink on the island, so Su Dongpo tried to make ink.Su Guo later said that his father almost burned the house down.This story involves a famous ink maker in Hangzhou. His products are two or three times more expensive than others, because he claims to have learned the secret recipe from Su Dongpo himself in Hainan Island.Some scholars asked Su Guo what his father had a good recipe for making ink. Su Guo smiled and said: "My father has no secret recipe. We have nothing to do in Hainan Island, so he just tried it out. One day Pan Heng (a famous ink maker) ) came, and my father and he burned turpentine ink in a small room. The room caught fire in the middle of the night and almost burned the house down. The next day we found a few taels of ink from the remains. But we had no glue, and my father managed to use cowhide plaster Mixed with ink. It is difficult to solidify, so only a dozen finger-sized black inks were made. My father laughed a lot. Soon Pan Heng left." At that time, people found that Pan Heng's ink was really good.Apparently he learned the secret recipe of making ink from others, and he just sold it under the prestige of Su Dongpo. Su Dongpo has nothing to do when he has nothing to do. He is used to collecting herbs in the countryside and distinguishing various herbs.There is a kind of medicine that was mentioned in ancient books, but it has a different name, and no one has found it.He wrote a lot of notes on medicinal herbs, and I would like to talk in particular about the cure of rheumatism with nettles. Nettles contain urticillin and lutein, which, like poison ivy, swell and hurt the skin when touched.According to him, applying nettles to the swollen joints caused by rheumatism will stop the aches and pains all over the body.He also strongly believes in cocklebur.Cocklebur is found everywhere and is harmless to humans, no matter how long or how long you eat it (contains fat, a small amount of gum, vitamin C1 and ear candy).He wrote down the method of grinding cocklebur powder, and burned the leaf ash with a warm fire for 24 hours.Eating white powder is said to beautify the skin, "full of skin like jade".Some notes talk about mandarin greens, reeds, and bitter shepherds, delicacies that Su Dongpo called "the remnants of Ge Tian's family" were of high value and delicious taste. In addition to these tasks, with the assistance of his son, he also collected various miscellaneous notes and compiled them into "Zhi Lin Ji".Back then, the two brothers annotated the Five Classics separately, and Su Dongpo was in charge of two.During his exile in Huangzhou, he completed "Yi Zhuan" and "The Analects of Confucius".Now in Hainan Island, he has completed "Book Biography".The most outstanding achievement is the one hundred and twenty-four "Hetao Poems".He started "reconciling" these poems in Yingzhou, but after arriving in Huizhou, he was forced to live in the countryside, and he found that his life was almost exactly the same as that of Tao Qian, whom he admired very much.By the time he left Huizhou, he had completed 109 poems, and the last 15 poems dedicated to "harmony" with Tao Qian had all been completed in Hainan Island.He asked Ziyou to write a preface, and said in a letter: "However, when I am in Yuanming, I only like his poems. As a human being, I really feel it." Many people who admire Su Dongpo will also say the same.