Chapter 20 4. Being an official is not available and being an official is not cherished

Behind the pretense of aloofness is the emphasis on fame and integrity. In fact, it is because there is no hope for official career promotion and welfare benefits that such a song "The Pastoral General will not return", showing the high moral integrity that does not bow down for five buckets of rice.In fact, this is not the case. Being an official is the ultimate goal of literati. The official propaganda of the Song Dynasty is that "the book has its own golden house", etc. The ultimate goal of literati is still fame and fortune. Tao Yuanming's great-grandfather was Tao Kan, a famous general in the Eastern Jin Dynasty. He was a great Sima, the governor of the eight prefectures, and he was named the Duke of Changsha.Da Sima is equivalent to the prime minister in peacetime, and is similar to the marshal of the world's soldiers and horses in wartime, and is a first-rank member of the court.Tao Yuanming's ancestors were very prominent, but not as good as one generation after another.His grandfather Tao Mao was the prefect of Wuchang, and his father Tao Yi was the prefect of Ancheng.In Tao Yuanming's generation, his family was in decline. Although the emaciated camel was bigger than the horse, the camel was dead after all, and the horse was still galloping healthily.It can be seen from the poems that Tao Yuanming once set up the ambition of "giving great relief to the common people" and restoring the glory of his ancestors when he was young. With the continuous setbacks in his official career, his ambition gradually faded away, and he also had the idea of ​​​​retiring.

Tao Yuanming first served as Jiangzhou's ceremonial wine, and resigned on the grounds that he was "unbearable as an official". To translate it well, it means political darkness, and to put it ugly, he thinks the official is too small.After the recovery, he successively joined the army of Zhenjun and Jianwei.Sacrificing wine and joining the army are not high-ranking officials. They are similar to participating in political and military affairs, and have no real power.It was not until Tao Yuanming was forty-one years old that he became a low-level official like Pengze County Magistrate.At that time, the supervisor of Shangfeng came to inspect the work, and the officials reminded the magistrate Tao how to entertain him. He wrote the famous "Returning to Come" and compared officialdom to "dust net", himself to "jarling bird" and "pond fish", and retiring to the countryside as "out of a cage".

Through his official career experience, it is not difficult to imagine that he only became a small official at the county magistrate level when he was over half a hundred years old. Facing the infinite glory of his great-grandfather, he must not be reconciled, but he is powerless in the face of reality, so there is nothing he can do to live in seclusion. Choose!Reading the poem "Xing Tian dances relatives, fierce ambition is always there...just set up in the past, good days can wait", unknowingly reveals Tao Yuanming's love and hatred for officialdom.He wanted to be a high-ranking official to achieve a career, but he was unwilling to entertain his superiors. He could not adapt to the officialdom and could only be eliminated. After reading the full text of "Return to Come", there will be a sour feeling, just like a child who has been wronged outside trying not to let tears flow, pretending to go home happily.If Tao Yuanming was able to survive in officialdom, why did he express his resignation to his fate at the end, "Love's destiny will be ridiculed again"?Pierce the so-called false mask of open-minded personality, revealing a pretentious face and ambivalence of wanting to do something but not being able to get along, and not wanting to do it but thinking about it.

Tao Yuanming was not well-known during his lifetime, Liu Xie did not mention him at all in his works, and Zhong Rong's "Poetry" only listed his pastoral poems as "medium grade". Xie Lingyun was the one who really created the pastoral school of poetry. Chinese history has entered a period of great division and turmoil in the Northern and Southern Dynasties. Either the wall will be destroyed, or the two countries will fight each other.Twenty-two-year-old Xie Lingyun went out to serve as an official, and joined the army as a reporter under Liu Yi, the governor of Yuzhou. He was not a big cadre, but there had to be a process.Unfortunately, Liu Yi, the governor of Yuzhou, rebelled and sent troops to attack Liu Yu, Emperor Wu of the Southern Song Dynasty. He was defeated and committed suicide.The warlords in the Eastern Jin Dynasty killed each other, Xie Lingyun was not affected, but returned to Beijing to serve as Secretary Cheng.After ten years of dawdling, 32-year-old Xie Lingyun was appointed as the Minister of Zhongshu.The Zhongshu Province is the highest administrative body in the empire, and the chief is the Zhongshu Ling, which is equivalent to the prime minister.Xie Lingyun's assistant minister of Zhongshu is equivalent to the deputy prime minister of political affairs in the Northern Song Dynasty.Only four years later, Liu Yu became independent on behalf of the Eastern Jin Dynasty and established the Southern Song Dynasty.

The reign of Yuanjia during the reign of Emperor Wendi Liu Yilong of the Southern Song Dynasty can be regarded as a golden age.In the relatively peaceful era, Xie Lingyun swept the Xuanyan poems in Wei and Jin Dynasties and created the pastoral poetry school.Xie Lingyun's family background is incomparable to that of Tao Yuanming. He is the grandson of Xie Xuan, the coach of the Battle of Feishui, and a wealthy family in the Eastern Jin Dynasty.Liu Yuxi's poem "Wuyi Lane" says: "In the old days, the swallows in front of Wang Xietang flew into the homes of ordinary people." They are talking about two prominent families in China, the Wang family of Langya and the Xie family of Chenjun.With the background of a family, Xie Lingyun plays an important role in the literary world.Under the political system of "the upper class has no poor families, and the lower class has no powerful families", it is not difficult for Xie Lingyun to be an official, but the difficulty is how big an official can be.

After the establishment of the Southern Song Dynasty, Xie Lingyun's triumphant official career was suddenly hit, and he was demoted from Duke to Marquis, and he was appointed as the prince's left guard.In a new round of political turmoil, the survival of the fittest, Xie Lingyun participated in the struggle for the transfer of imperial power in the Southern Song Dynasty, stood on the wrong team, and was expelled from the imperial court to serve in a local office.Xie Lingyun felt that it was not interesting, so he resigned.Six years later, Emperor Wen Liu Yilong executed Xu Xianzhi and others. In order to win over the aristocratic family, the famous Xie Lingyun returned to the capital to serve as secretary and supervisor.To put it bluntly, this position is an imperial literati, which plays the role of decorating the appearance. With you, you are fifty-eight, and without you, you are still forty.Born in a family of Xie Lingyun, he is particularly keen on politics, but he doesn't know how to be an official, and he ignores the political sharpness that is close at hand, especially playing with the stinky temper of a literati at every turn.Xie Lingyun was deeply depressed when he was not taken seriously in the capital. He often said that he was sick and went for a stroll in the capital with groups of poets and literary friends.In the end, he simply gave the emperor some color and resigned.

Xie Lingyun originally thought that making a fuss would attract the emperor's attention, just like a child's naughtiness is just to attract the attention of adults.Xie Lingyun has the common faults of literati, such as arrogance of talent, wild and uninhibited and so on.The craziest sentence is: "There is only one stone in the world. Cao Zijian has eight buckets alone, and I have one bucket. I have shared one bucket since ancient times and the present." Driven by various common problems of literati, Xie Lingyun gradually offended the emperor.When he was so emotional, Emperor Liu Yilong let out a sigh of relief. The annoying thing finally went away, and he was dismissed and returned home with an edict.

After the second blow from the officialdom, Xie Lingyun should have realized something. However, when he was idle at home, he traveled freely, calling friends and inviting others all day long, and when he went out, he followed as many as two hundred people.The prefect of Kuaiji couldn't understand these self-proclaimed noble literati and officials, framed him for "removing lakes and reclaiming land", and sued him severely.Xie Lingyun went up to defend.Emperor Wen Liu Yilong didn't pursue him because of his love for his talent. Instead, he was promoted to an official in Linchuan and served as the internal history of Linchuan.During his term of office, Xie Lingyun still did not do anything, the poet's character became wild, and the scenic spot became his office.Shangfeng wanted to punish him, but Xie Lingyun was not convinced, and he raised his troops to resist arrest, and he was in big trouble.After being arrested, Xie Lingyun wrote a poem to slander the imperial court, comparing the Southern Song Dynasty to the violent Qin Dynasty, and comparing himself with Zhang Liang and Lu Zhonglian, implying that he wanted to avenge his motherland. Undoubtedly, this dangerous speech aggravated his crime and was Sentenced to exile in Guangzhou.As soon as he arrived in Guangzhou, someone accused him of treason, and Emperor Wen issued an edict to execute the law on the spot, and a generation of literary giants died just like that.

Xie Lingyun has been throwing temper tantrums, aiming to attract Shangfeng's attention, and then pay attention to him, hoping to get a position of real power.But every time he gets angry, he pushes himself into danger. He will only play to death, but will not save his life. This is too dangerous.Regardless of their family background or their talents, in the eyes of the emperor's leaders, they are just like a painting. They are carefully inspected when they are interested, and thrown aside when they are not interested.The ruling class sees this group of literati very clearly, because of the common faults of literati, it is okay for them to write poetry, but not for them to do things.Tao Yuanming wanted to be an official, but Xie Lingyun didn't cherish being an official, so his fate was more tragic than Tao Yuanming's.