In ancient China, once a literati was insignificant. The prominence of civil officials is not in the official but not in the literature, and their side as literati is also insignificant in the officialdom. But things are very strange, when the Eguan Bo belt has long been scattered into mud, a bamboo pen occasionally scribbled poems, can engrave mountains and rivers, carve people's hearts, never flood.

I once had a fate, on the river boat at dusk to look up at the White Emperor City, against the thick autumn frost to climb the Yellow Crane Tower, but also in a winter night to touch the Hanshan Temple. All around me, there are so many people, almost all of them, that few poems that don't need to be quoted echo in their hearts. People come to find scenery, but also to find poetry. These poems they can recite when they are children. The children's imagination is sincere and realistic. Therefore, these cities, these buildings, and these temples have long been built by themselves in mind. When they are older, when they have just realized that they have enough foot strength, they also bear a heavy debt on themselves, and they eagerly look forward to a visit to the poetic field. For childhood, for history, for many unspeakable reasons. Sometimes, this kind of anxiety is like the search for a lost homeland, a visit to a separated loved one.

The magic of the literati can turn a remote corner of the vast world into a hometown in everyone's heart. What kind of spell is hidden in their faded green shirts?

Today, I went to find Yangguan for Wang Wei's "Weicheng Song". Before leaving, I inquired about the old man in the county seat where I stayed, and the answer was: "The road is far away, and there is nothing to see, but there are some literati who have worked hard to find it." The old man looked up at the sky and said, "This snow does not stop falling, so don't suffer from this." I bowed to him and turned to get into the snow.

As soon as you get out of the small county town, there is a desert. There was nothing but a vast expanse of snow white, not even a single wrinkle to be found. When you are traveling elsewhere, you always have to find a target for yourself in each section, keep an eye on a tree, rush over, and then stare at a stone and rush through. Here, even if you open your eyes, you can't see a target, not even a dead leaf, a black spot. So, I had to raise my head and look at the sky. I had never seen such a complete sky, and it was not swallowed at all, and the edges were all stretched out, and the earth was tightly covered. There is such a land, and the genius is called heaven. When there is such a heaven, the earth is called the earth. Walking alone in such a world, the dwarf also became a giant. Walking alone in such a world, the giant also became a dwarf.

The sky was clear, the wind had stopped, and the sun was shining. I didn't expect the snow in the desert to melt so quickly, and in just a moment, there were already spots of sand on the ground, but there were no wet marks. A few wisps of smoke gradually drifted out of the sky, but they did not move, but they deepened, and after a long period of doubt, they realized that it was a ridge that had just melted snow.

The unevenness of the ground has become a frightening display, and there can only be one understanding: it is all a grave mound of distant years.

It is already far away from the county seat, and it is unlikely to become a burial place for people in the city. These mounds have been eroded by wind and snow, collapsed with age, and are devastated and depressed, and it is clear that no one has ever been sacrificed to sweep them. Why are there so many of them, and so densely arranged? There can only be one understanding: this is an ancient battlefield.

I wandered through the graveyard with no end in sight, and Eliot's "The Waste Land" came to mind. This is the wasteland of Chinese history: the horse's hooves like rain, the cry of thunder, and the blood of infusion. The white hair of the loving mother in the Central Plains, the distant view of the spring boudoir in the south of the Yangtze River, and the night cry of the childish child in Huxiang. Farewell under the shade of the willows in his hometown, the general's round angry eyes, hunting the military flag in the wind. With a burst of smoke and dust, another cloud of smoke and dust, they all drifted away. I believe that when the deceased died, they were facing the enemy in the north of Shuo; I believe that they are also eager to come back at the last minute and give a look at familiar land. So they fell down in a twist and turned into a pile of sand.

There are already shadows of trees in the distance. Hurrying there, there was water under the trees, and the sand had a high and low slope. When I climbed a slope, I suddenly looked up and saw a barren mound on the peak not far away, and I was intuitively convinced that this was Yangguan.

There were more and more trees, and houses began to appear. That's right, where the important pass is, the land of soldiers and horses, can't do without this. Turn a few turns, go straight up a sandy slope again, climb to the bottom of the mound, look around, there is a monument nearby, engraved with the words "Yangguan Ancient Site".

It is a commanding height overlooking the four fields. The northwest wind swept thousands of miles, rushing straight in, staggering a few steps before standing still. His feet stood still, but he clearly heard the sound of his teeth fighting, and his nose must have immediately turned red. I took a breath of hot air into the palm of my hand, covered my ears and jumped a few times before I settled down and opened my eyes. The snow here hasn't melted, and certainly won't. The so-called ancient site, there is no trace, only the nearby beacon tower is still there, this is the mound just seen below. Most of the mound has collapsed, and you can see layers of mud and sand, layers of reeds, and reeds fluttering out, shaking in the cold wind after a thousand years. Right now, the mountains in the northwest are covered with snow, cascading up to the sky. Anyone who stands here will feel like they are standing on a reef by the sea, and those mountains are full of ice and waves.

Wang Wei is really gentle to the extreme. For such a Yangguan, the bottom of his pen still does not show a fierce and horrified look, but only writes elegantly: "Persuade the gentleman to have a glass of wine, and there is no one to go out of Yangguan in the west." He glanced at the green willow outside the window of the Weicheng guest house, looked at his friend's packed bags, and raised the wine jug with a smile. Let's have another drink, outside of Yangguan, you can't find an old friend who can talk like this. This glass of wine, friends must have drunk it all without refusal.

This is the style of the Tang people. Most of them will not shed tears and lamentations, and insist on dissuading. They have a far-sighted vision, and their life path spreads wide. Farewells are frequent, and steps are liberal. This kind of demeanor, in Li Bai, Gao Shi, and Cen Shen, is more and more heroic. Among the ancient statues in the north and south, the Tang statues can be recognized at a glance, the body is so fit, the eyes are so calm, and the spirit is so confident. When you look at the Mona Lisa's smile in Europe, you can immediately feel this kind of serene confidence that belongs only to artists who have truly woken up from a medieval nightmare and are sure of what lies ahead. The smile in the portrait of Tang will only be more calm and serene. In Europe, these artists have been making a lot of noise for a while, stubbornly trying to put a smile into the soul of history. Anyone can calculate how many years after their events took place in the Tang Dynasty. However, the Tang Dynasty did not extend its self-confidence as an artist for a long time. The wind and snow in Yangguan are becoming more and more miserable.

Wang Wei's poetry and painting are all unique, and the boundary between poetry and painting, which has been repeatedly discussed by Western philosophers such as Lessing, can be entered and exited by his feet. However, the palace in Chang'an only opened a narrow side door for the artists, allowing them to bend in as cowardly attendants to create a little entertainment. Here, there is no need for art to make too much of a situation, and there is no need to have too deep sustenance for beauty.

As a result, the style of painting in Kyushu was overshadowed. Yangguan, it is no longer difficult to enjoy warm and mellow verses. There are still literati in Yangguan in the west, but most of them have become officials and ministers.

Even if it is a mound and a stone city, it can't stand the blowing of so many sighs, and Yangguan collapses, collapsing in the spiritual territory of a nation. It will eventually become a ruin, a wasteland. Behind him, the sand grave is like a tide, and in front of him, the cold peak is like a wave. No one can imagine that here, more than 1,000 years ago, the magnificence of life and the grandeur of artistic feelings were verified.

There should be a few sounds of Hu Ji and Qiang flute here, the timbre is extremely beautiful, harmonious with nature, and it is breathtaking. Unfortunately, they all became the mourning voices of the soldiers. Since no nation can bear to hear about it, they will disappear into the wind.

Let's go back, it's not too early. I'm afraid it's going to snow.