Chapter 52 Chapter 52 Looking at Employment Through Tang Poetry

In recent years, the employment of college students has become one of the most concerned focuses of the whole society. Then, in the Tang Dynasty more than a thousand years ago, how did intellectuals view employment and how did they find a job?We might as well find out through Tang poetry. Yang Jiong, one of the "Four Heroes of the Early Tang Dynasty", once wrote in "Journey to the Army": The beacon fire shines on Xijing, and I feel uneasy.Yazhang resigned from Fengque, and iron cavalry circled Dragon City.The snow is dark and the flag painting is withered, and the wind is mixed with the sound of drums.I would rather be a centurion than a scholar.The poem expresses the author's longing for life in the military camp, and the enthusiasm and ambition of serving the country in the army are permeated between the lines, ready to come out.But writing poetry belongs to writing poetry. Yang Jiong has never been a soldier. He passed the examination at the age of nine and won the honorary title of "Child Prodigy". Becoming a school secretary and working in the National Library, this should be a job that many college students are very envious of!

Chen Ziang, who was a little later than Yang Jiong, sighed deeply when he boarded the Golden Terrace in Youzhou: I don’t see the ancients before, and I don’t see the comers in the future.It's hard to find a bosom friend if you don't have a talent.In fact, he had this kind of experience as early as when he first arrived in Chang'an. In order to attract people's attention and realize his desire to be employed in the government department, he bought a Guqin in the downtown area and invited everyone to come to a famous Listening to the piano in the restaurant.The next day, Chen Ziang announced in public that his poems were more valuable than the Guqin, and then he threw the piano to the ground and distributed the poems to the people present. As a result, Chen Ziang became well-known in Beijing overnight, and soon passed the imperial examination and became an official. civil servants.

Among the poets of the Tang Dynasty, like Yang Jiong and Chen Ziang, there were not a few poets who took the imperial examinations to become official careers, such as Wang Wei, Han Yu, Bai Juyi, Liu Zongyuan, Liu Yuxi, Du Mu and so on.Although their titles on the gold list are due to their own real talents and learning, the recommendation of VIPs (important people) also contributed. I recommend Bai Juyi. Although Li Bai and Du Fu are both great poets, they are not the darlings of the imperial examination.Li Bai was a rebel against traditional education. He didn't bother to take the scientific examination, but wanted to enter the central government with his poem name.After being recommended by dignitaries, he finally realized his dream and became a close minister of Tang Xuanzong. But when he found out that he was just a high-level clown for the emperor's entertainment, he "laughed up to the sky and went out." Get a flat boat".When Du Fu took the scientific examination, the traitor Li Linfu was in power.In order to maintain vested interests and crack down on new talents, Li Linfu did a great job, not admitting any of them for several consecutive years, and lied to Tang Xuanzong that all talents in the world had been absorbed into government agencies.Comrade Du Fu was so depressed that he had to think of other ways out.In order to get a job, he presented three gifts to the emperor one after another, and finally moved Tang Xuanzong, and awarded Du Fu a nine-rank sesame official.

Among the poets of the Tang Dynasty, there was a category of people who did not need employment at all, because they entered monasteries and became monks since they were young, such as Han Shan in the early Tang Dynasty, Wang Fanzhi in the prosperous Tang Dynasty, Jiaoran and Wuben in the middle Tang Dynasty, Qi Ji and Guanxiu in the late Tang Dynasty Wait.Wuben is the later Jia Dao. When he was riding a donkey on Chang'an Road to deliberate "the bird sleeps in the tree by the pond, the monk knocks on the door under the moon", he happened to bump into the car of Han Yu, a great writer and official. The two did not know each other. , became an irreversible friend.Han Yu helped Jia Dao return to the vulgar, but employment became a problem. Because of repeated attempts, Jia Dao had to make a living by writing and writing for others (his calligraphy is good) and being a tutor. Fortunately, he was sixty years old. At that time, he finally became the director of Jiupin. Fortunately, the Tang Dynasty did not have a strict retirement system, otherwise Jia Dao would be in bad luck!

The first love of Yuan Zhen, a famous poet in the Mid-Tang Dynasty, happened in a monastery, which was Pujiu Temple in Puzhou, Shanxi. His first love girlfriend was the prototype of Zhong Yingying.But handsome Yuan Da is a person who always gives up. For the sake of fame and fortune, he abandoned "Yingying" and married Wei Huicong, the daughter of Wei Xiaqing, the leader of the capital. Li He, a "poetry ghost" who was more than a hundred years later than Yang Jiong, also expressed similar emotions to his predecessors: "Why don't men wear Wu hooks and collect the fifty states of Guanshan? Please go to Lingyan Pavilion temporarily. Scholar with thousands of households?” Of course, Li He, who is weak, did not realize his lofty ambition of joining the army and regaining lost ground, and his employment path was far more bumpy than that of Yang Jiong.Li He is a descendant of Li Liang, King Zheng of the Tang clan. Although his family is in decline, he has great ambitions and studies hard.However, when he went to Beijing for the examination, he failed to enter the examination room because his competitors slandered him, saying that his father's name was Jin Su, and he should avoid his father's taboo and was not allowed to be a Jinshi.Li He was slandered and defeated, depressed and depressed. Although he later became Feng Lilang (also a ninth-rank official), he died young at the age of 27.

Luo Yin, a poet in the late Tang Dynasty, was famous for his poems when he was young, and he often pleaded for the people with his poems satirizing reality, and compiled his own essays as "Slander Book", so his reputation became even more famous.But "Success is Xiao He, and failure is Xiao He." Luo Yin was also hated and hated by those in power because of the "Slander Book", so that after ten rounds of Jinshi examinations, all of them were "Sun Shan who got rid of his name, and Luo Yin was more in Sun Shan." Outside the mountain".So his friend presented a poem saying: "Although the "Slander Book" is better than one Hugh."Later, when the world was in chaos, Luo Yin's fellow villager, Qian Liu, who rose from the peasant uprising, proclaimed himself king of Wuyue, and Luo Yin was able to get a job in the government department and became the order of Qiantang.

Famous poets all study first and then get a job, but there is another typical poet in the Tang Dynasty who first got a job and then studied. He is Hu Lingneng, the author of the poem "Fishing for Children" that children are very familiar with.Hu Lingneng, nicknamed "Hu Dingjiao", was a handicraftsman in Putian (located in present-day Fujian Province) who made a living repairing iron and wood ware. However, he was known for his love of poetry and a little talent. What a joy to live like this!