Chapter 19 Cai Yong/All-round Artist of the Han Dynasty

Cai Yong (132-192), a famous writer, calligrapher and musician in the late Eastern Han Dynasty.The word Bo Jie.Chen Liuyu (now Qixian County, Henan Province) was born.He is erudite and talented, and is good at rhetoric, mathematics, astronomy, calligraphy, painting, music, and is especially good at playing the piano. During the time of Emperor Huan of the Han Dynasty, the eunuch Shi Changshi heard that Cai Yong was good at playing the qin, so he summoned him to Beijing.When Cai Yong came to Yanshi, he said he was ill and returned home. He lived and played antiques, and did not associate with the world.

During the reign of Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty, Cai Yong was worshiped as a doctor, and later promoted to Yilang. He was exiled for impeaching the eunuch, and wandered in Jiangsu and Zhejiang for twelve years after being pardoned.After Dong Zhuo gained power, he deliberately won over Cai Yong, who was well-known in Jinghua, promoted him to three ranks in a day, three times a week in three days, paid homage to Zhonglang General, and even named him Gaoyanghou.After Dong Zhuo was executed, Cai Yong was implicated and arrested.At that time, he was writing "History of Han Dynasty", so he asked for a tattoo to cut his feet to complete the writing of "History of Han Dynasty". The scholar-bureaucrats also felt sorry for him and pleaded with Situ Wangyun for him, but he was eventually killed in prison.

Cai Yong's poems and fus are all well written, and his calligraphy is even more outstanding.During the reign of Emperor Ling, he proofread the text of Dongguan, and found that the text of the Six Classics had been altered by some ignorant and ignorant Confucians, making many mistakes, so he wrote a letter requesting that the text of the Six Classics be corrected.He wrote the Six Classics himself, engraved on the stele, and stood in Taixue.There is an endless stream of people who come to watch the proofreading every day. This is the famous "Xiping Stone Classic". Cai Yong has profound attainments in music, especially good at playing the piano.He once wrote "Qin Fu", and the repertoire mentioned in the Fu is an excellent proof that Qin music comes from the folk.It is said that "Qin Cao", one of the earliest monographs on piano studies, was also written by him.The book contains solutions and lyrics of more than 50 pieces of qin music, which is a very precious material for the study of qin music.

Cai Yong is also good at composing music. The famous "Cai's Five Lanes" among the qin songs, including "Youchun", "Lushui", "Melancholy", "Zoom" and "Autumn Thoughts", were all composed by him.It is said that he is also the author of the extant Qin melodies such as "Autumn Moon Shining on the Maoting Pavilion" and "Thinking of Friends in the Mountains". Cai Yong has a lot of research on Qin, and has a set of incisive and unique insights on the selection, production and tuning of Qin. "Book of the Later Han·Cai Yong Biography" also records such a story:

During those days when he lived in seclusion in Wudi, Cai Yong often played the qin, using the sound of the qin to express his grief and indignation at being persecuted for his unfulfilling aspirations and lamenting his despair at the bleak future. One day, Cai Yong was sitting in the room playing the piano and sighing. The fire next door was cooking, and the firewood was stuffed into the stove, which made a "crackling" sound.Suddenly, Cai Yong heard a crisp cracking sound coming from the next door, and couldn't help being startled. He raised his head and listened carefully, then yelled "No!", jumped up and ran towards the stove.When he came to the fire, Cai Yong didn't care about the scorching fire, he stretched out his hand and pulled out the piece of paulownia wood that was already burning, and shouted: "Don't burn it, don't burn it, this is a rare piece of wood. What a good material for the qin!" He was pleasantly surprised to find that the paulownia wood was still intact, but the tail had been charred.Cai Yong used this piece of paulownia wood to make a Qin.When this piano is played, the tone is wonderful and unrivaled.This piano has been handed down and has become a rare treasure in the world, because its tail is burnt, so people call it "Jiaowei Qin".Jiaoweiqin was still in the inner mansion when it came to Southern Qi, and Emperor Ming of Qi once played it for Wang Zhongxiong.

There is another story very similar to the legend of Jiao Weiqin: Once, Cai Yong passed Gaoqian's house in Kuaiji (now Shaoxing, Zhejiang Province) and saw the bamboo rafters of the house. He said that the sixteenth bamboo in the east room was a good flute material, so the owner took the bamboo rafters and gave it to him. .Cai Yong used it to make a flute, and the sound was really beautiful and unique. This flute was called "Keting flute". Cai Yong has a very high appreciation for music.When he was in Chenliu (now Kaifeng, Henan), one day his neighbor invited him to dinner.When he went, there were guests playing the piano behind the screen.Cai Yong didn't go in, but listened quietly by the door for a while, and said, "Hey, I'm obviously invited as a guest, but why is there murderous intent in the sound of the piano?" So he didn't go to the banquet and went home.The master didn't know why, so he chased him and asked him, and Cai Yong told him the truth.The player who played the qin heard about it and said, "When I was playing just now, I saw a praying mantis creeping towards a singing cicada. I raised my two big claws and waved them back and forth, as if I was about to pounce on the cicada. Affected by it, my zither sounded a bit murderous, and I never thought that Mr. Cai would be able to hear it.” It can be seen that Cai Yong's music appreciation is very high.