One

Living in this mid-level residence away from the hustle and bustle, there is quiet, but loneliness also comes, sometimes very fiercely, especially in the middle of the night. I had to go around the room alone, pull down the curtains, separate the cliffs and the rolling tide outside the window, and occasionally glance at the milky phone next to the bed. It rang and rushed over, but it was a call from the office of Taipei's "China Times", and a female reporter I didn't know said that my book "Cultural Journey" was selling very well in Taiwan, so I was going to make a telephone interview across the ocean. They asked me a lot of questions, including my background, my experience, and my hobbies. The last question is: "Which writer do you like the most in the history of Chinese culture?" I replied: Su Dongpo. She asked, "Which of his works do you like the most?" I replied: I wrote the articles of Chibi in Huangzhou. Miss Reporter said almost without a pause: "You mean "Nian Nujiao Chibi Nostalgia" and the front and back "Chibi Fu"? "I said yes, I was immediately happy for Su Dongpo, his works are the common code of Chinese literati, just a little bit, even if it is mid-mountain at night, blocked by the strait, and ignorant life.

Putting down the phone, Huangzhou Chibi immediately appeared in my mind. I just went there last summer and was still very impressed. I remember that before going there, some friends in Wuhan came to dissuade them, on the grounds that the famous Battle of Chibi was not fought there, Su Dongpo was nostalgic for the wrong place, and now we are going to pay attention to it seriously.

I know that most historians don't believe that it was the place where the Battle of Chibi was actually fought, and most of them say that it was fought in Jiayu County. However, in recent years, several young and middle-aged historians in Hubei Province have held the opposite opinion, believing that Su Dongpo was nostalgic for the past, and that Huangzhou Chibi was the main battlefield of the war at that time. I have always been interested in this controversy, no matter what the prospect of the controversy is, I still want to see Huangzhou, not from a historical perspective to see the ruins of the ancient battlefield, but from an artistic perspective to see Su Dongpo's feelings. Even if a great artist is wrong, he will make a mistake for charm. It is as if Oscar Wilde said that in art there is only beauty and ugliness, and there is no right or wrong.

So I went anyway.

This is the red cliff of Huangzhou. The steep rocky slope of ochre red is close to the mighty river going east, there is a dangerous road on the slope that can climb and overlook, there are small boats on the river surface to paddle and look up, the place is not big, but there is momentum between a pitch and an up, there is a comparison between the great and the small, there is a variation and inversion of the visual space, so there is also the value of visiting and meditating. The objective scenery only provides an aesthetic possibility, and different tourists can realize this possibility to varying degrees. Su Dongpo used his spiritual strength to inject meaning into the natural scenery of Huangzhou, and it is this meaning that turns inanimate natural forms into beauty. Therefore, it may be said that Su Dongpo is not only the discoverer of Huangzhou's natural beauty, but also the determiner and builder of Huangzhou's natural beauty.

However, the complexity of the matter lies in the fact that natural beauty can also be defined and constructed by people in reverse. Su Dongpo has fulfilled Huangzhou, and Huangzhou has also fulfilled Su Dongpo, which is really an interesting relationship that complements each other. Su Dongpo's masterpieces written in Huangzhou not only announce that Huangzhou has entered a new aesthetic level, but also announce that Su Dongpo has entered a new stage of life.

Su Dongpo has walked through many places, many of which are far more beautiful than Huangzhou, why can a remote Huangzhou still give him such a huge surprise and shock? Why can he bet such a deep sense of history and life into Huangzhou? Why was Huangzhou the most important life station in his life? All this is determined by the reason and mentality of his coming to Huangzhou.

He came from prison, he came with a very small official position, in fact as an exiled criminal, he came with the dirty water that the officialdom and the literary world had poured on him, he came with luck and despair. He was held in custody, far from his family, and was not qualified to choose any place outside of Huangzhou to walk towards this small town, which was still very desolate at the time.

He was very tired, he was very embarrassed, he went out of Bianliang, crossed Henan, crossed the Huai River, entered Hubei, and arrived in Huangzhou, and the depressed Huangzhou did not prepare any shelter for him, so he had to live in a temple. He wiped his face and took a breath, there was silence all around, not even a friend, he closed his eyes and shook his head. He didn't know that at this moment, he had completed a cultural breakthrough that would forever be recorded in history. Huangzhou is destined to have a magnificent dialogue with this scarred breakout.

Two

People may sometimes be foolish to think that a great literary hero like Su Dongpo, who has let the Chinese share a thousand years, should be the supreme pride of his era, and the people around him must cherish him carefully, look up to him religiously, and always be unwilling to go to his troubles, right? In fact, on the contrary, the more cultural celebrities are ahead of their time, the more incompatible they are with the specific era in which they live. The mechanism of China's secular society is very peculiar: on the one hand, it is willing to publicize and spread the reputation of a cultural celebrity, to use him, to exploit him, to seduce him, and on the other hand, to treat him as an inherently outlier, and sooner or later to reject him, abuse him, and destroy him. Both kinds of heckling originate from an inferior and cunning covetous mentality, and both kinds of heckling are at odds with a healthy cultural atmosphere.

Before Su Dongpo came to Huangzhou, he was caught up in a case called "Wutai Poetry Prison" by literary historians, and the specific content of this case is special, but it reflects the general experience of cultural celebrities in Chinese society, and it is worth mentioning. Only by figuring out the faces of the various people in this case can we understand what kind of encirclement Su Dongpo broke through when he came to Huangzhou.

In order not to make readers lose their attention to the specific content of the case, we might as well explain the bottom of the case first. Even from the standpoint of the imperial court, this is a completely ridiculous incident. A group of cultural bureaucrats, large and small, insisted that Su Dongpo expressed dissatisfaction and disrespect for the government in many poems, and the method was to make inferences and interpretations of the words and images in his poems.

Among the emperors of ancient China, Song Shenzong is definitely not bad, he did not have any attempt to persecute Su Dongpo in his heart, he knew Su Dongpo's talent very well, his grandmother Guangxian Empress Dowager even tried her best to protect Su Dongpo, and he respected his grandmother's opinion very much, in this case, Su Dongpo was not very safe? However, completely distracted by the will of Emperor Shenzong and the Empress Dowager, Su Dongpo, who was famous in Kyushu and had an official residence, was still imprisoned. This powerful and evil force is worth studying.

It's a long story. Rulers under the autocratic system often put on a posture of attaching importance to public opinion, and sometimes even set up so-called counselors who specifically found fault and faults among officials at all levels to act as the eyes and ears and mouthpiece of the imperial court. At first glance this is a good thing, but in reality there are many disadvantages. The words of these public opinion officials cannot be defended by others, and there is no investigation mechanism or arbitration mechanism, everything depends on their private qualities, but they also do not have a mechanism for examining their private qualities, so the so-called public opinion clouds often become a kind of social disaster that distorts facts and reverses right and wrong. This is like a modern newspaper that lacks sufficient professional ethics and does not have corresponding laws and regulations, and the injured have nowhere to speak, and the uninformed people mistakenly think that the black and white words are where the public opinion is, how much confusion will this bring to people! Su Dongpo has long seen the seriousness of this problem, believing that this kind of so-called public opinion and criticism without any restraint is enough to change the mentality of the decision-makers of the imperial court, and it has great political lethality ("When it comes to taking advantage of public opinion, the Son of Heaven will change his appearance, and if it is related to Langmiao, the prime minister will be punished"), and he must be vigilant, but Emperor Shenzong could not realize this due to his own status. Unexpectedly, it was Su Dongpo himself who tasted the bitter fruit he predicted, and in order to maintain his image of respecting public opinion, Emperor Shenzong couldn't say anything for Su Dongpo when the remarks criticizing Su Dongpo almost invariably converged.

So, why did the remarks criticizing Su Dongpo come together invariably? I think the most brief answer is what his younger brother Su Zhe said: "What is Dongpo's crime?" It's too high to be famous". He is too good, too loud, can compare the pen and ink around him very coldly, can compare the literati of the same generation a little embarrassed, arouse the sour hatred of some people, and then you punch me and kick me, it is almost inevitable. In this shameful siege, some low-character literati acted as the vanguard.

For example, Shu Yan. This person can be called a "professional whistleblower and whistleblower household", and while exposing Su Dongpo, he also exposed another person, who was the great benefactor who recommended him to be an official before. This great benefactor wrote him a letter, took his son-in-law's homework and asked him to give advice and counseling, which was a very normal trivial exchange between friends, but he did not expect him to ungrateful to write an inexplicable report and denunciation letter to the emperor, saying that we are both officials, and I am in the field of public opinion, and it is not appropriate for him to let me tutor his son-in-law. The emperor saw his report and exposed, and demoted that person. This is simply the story of Mr. Dong Guo and the wolf. is such a disgusting person, echoing He Zhengchen and others, writing an article to tell the emperor that Su Dongpo wrote a letter of thanks to the emperor after he took office in Huzhou, "there are words of ridicule about current affairs". Su Dongpo's letter of thanks The emperor has already read it and found no problem, but Shu Yan painstakingly analyzed it to the emperor one by one, Su Dongpo is against you, and it is fierce, and it has been reversed to the extent that "the customs are popular, they are competing to recite, and the loyal and righteous people are all indignant"! "Angry" is angry Su Dongpo, and "sorry" is sorry for the emperor. How many loyal people are "indignant"? He said that it was "nothing", that is, 100 percent, and nothing was missed. This kind of quantitative statistics is completely unverifiable, but it can make the heart of Emperor Shenzong, who cares about social reputation, sigh.

Another example is Li Ding. This is a high-ranking official who once caused people to scold for his disobedience to filial piety after his mother's funeral, and his attack on Su Dongpo was the most fierce. He summarized many of Su Dongpo's crimes, but after careful identification, I found that he was particularly concerned about Su Dongpo's poor background in his early years, and his current status and social reputation in the cultural circles. None of this could be included in the category of crimes, but he seemed to be unable to suppress his greatest indignation at these points. It is said that Su Dongpo "started from the grass and the wilderness", "there was no scholarship at the beginning, and he was indiscriminately famous", "although the words he did were unreasonable, they were enough to encourage the vulgar", and so on. Su Dongpo's background caused him to be dissatisfied and didn't talk about it, insisting that Su Dongpo didn't learn and didn't have good words, which really surprised me. But if he doesn't say so, he can't assert that Su Dongpo's social reputation and secular motivation are "indiscriminate". All in all, it is clear that there is a deepest element buried beneath the surface motives of Li Ding's attack: jealousy. In any case, it is too stupid to slander Su Dongpo's scholarship and literary brilliance after all, which could not add to Su Dongpo's sin at the time, but it became a laughing stock for thousands of years in the future. But when the jealousy is deep, it will get out of control, and he will only find the part he hates the most to attack, and he can't care about the credibility and reasonableness of even pretending.

Another example is Wang Qi. This is an old man who is domineering and hypocritical. He thinks that his articles are the best in the world by virtue of his qualifications and status, but in fact, he can't do without the words "gold and jade splendor" when he writes poems and essays, and everyone secretly laughs, and he still feels good about himself. Now, a rising star Su Dongpo is famous in the literary world, of course he has to do everything he can to deal with it. Once he said to the emperor: "Su Dongpo does have two hearts for the emperor. The Emperor asked, "How so?" He cited the word "dragon" in a poem written by Su Dongpo about cypress trees as evidence, and the emperor was puzzled and said: "What does the poet have to do with me writing about cypress trees?" He said, "Isn't it the emperor who writes about the dragon?" The emperor was sober-minded and retorted: "Not necessarily, people call Zhuge Liang or Wolong!" "This Wang Jue's intentions are so low, how good can the article be? Not to mention competing with Su Dongpo. A few strands of gray hair can sometimes pretend to be a teacher and cover up evil, but they can't deceive history. In the end, history did not rank his name in front of Su Dongpo because of age.

Another example is Li Yizhi. This is another special case, being a sesame mung bean petty official, in Lingbi County, Anhui Province, I heard that Su Dongpo used to write a garden for a local garden in the past, there were words and phrases to persuade people not to be keen on being an official, and he actually wrote a letter to the emperor to report and expose, and analyzed that this kind of thinking will make people lack enterprising spirit, and will also affect the selection of scholars. It seems that in addition to this Li Yizhi's improper mental skills, his intelligence is also very problematic, you see that he even finds a false accusation. However, in the absence of a rational court, even the most stupid accusations can be established, so it constitutes an encouragement to Li Yizhi scattered all over the country. Why would people of such a low grade squeeze in to besiege Su Dongpo? Mr. Li Yibing, a contemporary researcher of Su Dongpo, said very well: "He also came to intervene, without him, an obscure petty official, if he can participate in a major event that overthrows a celebrity, it is enough to gain weight." In a sense, his purpose has indeed been partially achieved, for example, when I write this article today, I will even write the name Li Yizhi, it is entirely because he participated in the siege of Su Dongpo, otherwise he would not have any reason to be written in print by even his contemporaries. Some of my young friends, based on their multifaceted observation of today's secular psychology, feel that people like Li Yizhi are not necessarily trying to make a name for themselves in history, but out of a kind of mischievous psychology that can be called "smashing windows." At night, a group of children stand in front of a building and point to see whose window is bright, pick a stone and throw it over, not for any purpose, just to make a show of the children. I think my young friends see Li Yizhi as too modernist and too urban. Li Yizhi's behavior was mainly out of a kind of political speculation, and when he heard that Su Dongpo was in a bit of trouble, he made a big trouble, anyway, he would not bear moral responsibility internally, and he would not bear legal responsibility externally. Such a person doesn't have the courage to attack a cultural celebrity first like Li Ding, Shu Yan and Wang Qi, maybe two days ago they were still boasting everywhere that they were lucky enough to meet Su Dongpo, and insisted that Su Dongpo was their friend or even a teacher.

Another example - I really don't want to write this name, but after thinking about it again, there is no reason to avoid it, so let's write it: Shen Kuo. This famous scientist, who occupies a large position in the history of ancient Chinese science and technology, also framed Su Dongpo out of jealousy, and the method used is still to denounce and expose Su Dongpo's poems that have a tendency to ridicule the government. If he and Su Dongpo are political enemies, then that's fine, the problem is that they used to be good friends, and the poems he reported and exposed were hand-recorded by Su Dongpo when he separated from him and gave them to him as a souvenir. It's just not a good taste. Historians analyzed that this was probably related to the fact that the emperor said good things about Su Dongpo in front of Shen Kuo, and Shen Kuo had a silent contrast in his heart, not wanting Su Dongpo's cultural status to be higher than himself. Another possibility is that he knew that Wang Anshi and Su Dongpo had different political views, so he bet on Wang Anshi's side. But after all, Wang Anshi is also a cultural master who pays attention to character and attaches great importance to Shen Kuo; But in the end, it came to the conclusion that this is an unapproachable villain. Of course, the inability to be close to each other in terms of personality and character does not affect our affirmation of Shen Kuo's scientific achievements.

There are still some besiegers, I think it's almost enough to mention these few, the reason why Su Dongpo suddenly fell into trouble can be roughly seen, and we have also appreciated a group of typical "small cultural groups" that may transcend time and space. It is very difficult for any of them to bring down Su Dongpo alone, but in the absence of a strong anti-slander and anti-slander mechanism in society, the adventure of probing one's brain will easily attract a bunch of people to join in the fun, so they are combined into a kind of pseudo-public opinion, and as a result, even Emperor Shenzong was puzzled by Su Dongpo, and issued an order to investigate clearly, and it was Li Ding who went to investigate.

Su Dongpo didn't care at first. Someone secretly told him that his poems were reported and exposed, and he was stunned at first, and then said in a chic and humorous manner: "In the future, my poems will not be able to be seen by the emperor." On July 28, 1079, the imperial court sent people to the state government in Huzhou to arrest Su Dongpo. A literati is a literati after all, he has no idea what crime he has committed, judging from the menacing appearance, it is estimated that he will be executed, he is scared, hiding in the back room and not daring to come out, friends say that hiding is not a way, people are already waiting in front, and they can't hide if they want to hide. Just as he was about to come out, he hesitated again, what should he wear when he came out? If you have already committed a crime, can you still wear an official uniform? My friend said, I don't know what the crime is, so I'd better wear an official uniform. Su Dongpo finally came out in his official uniform, and the errand officer sent by the imperial court pretended not to speak for a long time, deliberately trying to act out a scene that could not be overwhelmed. Su Dongpo became more and more panicked, and said: "I probably annoyed the imperial court, it seems that I have to die, please allow me to go home and say goodbye to my family." The messenger said, "It's not like this," so he asked two messengers to tie Su Dongpo with a rope and go on the road like driving chickens and dogs. The family rushed to cry, and the citizens of Huzhou City also shed tears on the roadside.

The long-distance escort was like showing the public all the way, but unfortunately there was almost no media at that time, and the people along the way did not know that this was Su Dongpo. In the barren and ignorant land, a rope is tied to a great poet of the world, step by step. Su Dongpo is showing the public, and the whole nation is being embarrassed.

Su Dongpo was only afraid that his relatives and friends would want to commit suicide by throwing himself into the water when passing through Taihu Lake and the Yangtze River, but he failed due to strict guards. Of course, it is also very likely that in the end, the rivers and lakes will be submerged by a large section of particularly bright Chinese civilization. The fragility of civilization lies here, and it is a group of small people who force the representatives of civilization to this one-step difference. The fact that a group of small people can do such a big thing can only be attributed to China's unique national conditions.

The villain holds the master, and the master holds history. The villain shook the rope with his hand, and the master and history became the embodiment of sin. A history of Chinese culture has been tied up in the dock for a long time, and the judges and plaintiffs are mostly groups of villains who are squeezing their eyebrows.

What exactly is the sin? Let's take a look!

How to judge? Beat!

An official who was once held in the same prison, separated only by a wall from Su Dongpo's cell, wrote a poem:

Yao pity Beihu Wu Xingshou,

Criticism is unbearable all night.

The all-night insults and destruction were so bad that other prisoners couldn't listen to them, and the object of the insults and destruction turned out to be Su Dongpo!

Allow me to pause my pen here. I believe that all cultural consciences will tremble here. How many lovely, noble and attractive people have been there in China for thousands of years? But cute, noble, charming, and the like often do not constitute neither social appeal nor self-defense, and the real power is evil, lowly, and rude, and they are almost invincible, invincible, and invincible. Now, Su Dongpo is grabbed and pinched by them, the more cute, noble, and charming he is, the more energetic he is kneading. In the face of this completely unfamiliar language system and behavior system, it is impossible for the great writer to make any decent arguments, and he must have become very clumsy, unable to mobilize the minimum of words, unable to complete simple logic. His handling in the cell was definitely no better than that of an ordinary thief. Therefore, the interrogators were angry and happy, it turned out that such a big celebrity was actually a straw bag, and your usual rhetoric was eaten by a dog? Look at your bear-like appearance and still write poems and lyrics? It's purely copying people's homes! Then came the fluttering, and the poet wailed in a voice like pure silver, wailing until he was hoarse. This is a place where you only need to wail, and it's ridiculous for you to write such beautiful poems, shouldn't you be playing? Fight, beat you with light makeup, beat you back with the wind, beat you out hunting in Mizhou!

At first, Su Dongpo also tried to use some normal logic to put a few words in his mouth, and the interrogator insisted that his poem had the meaning of ridiculing the court, he said: "I don't dare to have this heart, I don't know who has this heart and creates this kind of meaning." All framers like to dress themselves up as discoverers of some kind of "sinister intentions", Su Dongpo pointed out, they are not discoverers but makers. That is to say, the "sinister intentions" deduced by the framers can be seen as their own hearts, and therefore they should bear their own responsibility. I think that all those who have been framed will sooner or later think of this simple truth, and if this truth can be popularized in China, the number of false accusations will be greatly reduced. However, in the prison cell, Su Dongpo's line of thought attracted even more ferocious insults and torture, and when the framer and the case handler were completely integrated and strung together, it could only be like this. Finally, Su Dongpo couldn't stand it, couldn't stand the continuous forced confession day after day and all night, he wanted to close his eyes and take a breath, the only way was to admit it. As a result, there was "bitter plum beside the road" in his previous poems, which was to say that he was not valued by the imperial court; There is the word "villain" in the poem, which is a satire on the adults of the dynasty; In particular, Su Dongpo was too punctual in Hangzhou to rush to see the Qiantang tide, and came back to write a poem "Wu'er grows in the Taoyuan", which is said to be an allusion to the emperor's construction of water conservancy! This kind of bold association, even Su Dongpo, a romantic poet, feels that it is not easy to jump over, so it is not easy to "do it in one step" when admitting, and the interrogator has the ability to spend time and force it over little by little. The sentence that often appears in the case file records is: "Conceal it one by one, do not tell the truth, and then investigate the situation." Su Dongpo made all the moves, and at the same time he knew that he would definitely die. Imagine, if the emperor is said to be "Wu'er", and the construction of water conservancy is said to be playing with water, and when he is watching the tide of Qiantang, he is bent on writing anti-poems, so can he still live?

He was bent on dying. He felt that he had burdened his family, he was sorry for his old wife, and he missed his younger brother very much. He asked a kind jailer to bring two poems to Su Zhe, which included the following sentences: "It is a green mountain where bones can be buried, he hurts his mind alone in the night and rain, and he is a brother with Jun Shishi, and he has no cause in the next life." The place where the bones are buried, he hopes is the West Lake in Hangzhou.

Nothing else, it's poetry that pushes him to a dead end. I don't know if he complained or even hated poetry behind bars in those days. Unexpectedly, at this moment, faintly, a scattered cultural conscience began to gather, and his poems actually produced a positive response at this time of crisis, and his readers slowly raised their heads, about to say a few words worthy of their hearts. Many people dare not say it, but after all, there are still brave people; Most of his friends hid, but after all, there were still chivalrous people.

The common people of Hangzhou remembered his good deeds when he was a local official, and after he was imprisoned, he openly made a dojo to relieve his doom, asking the gods to bless him; The jailer Liang Cheng knew that he was a great writer, and tried his best to take care of his life when the interrogators left, and even prepared hot water for washing his feet every night; His friends Fan Zhen and Zhang Fangping, who were not afraid of being implicated, wrote to the emperor, saying that he was "a genius in the world" in literature and hoped for leniency; Wang Anli, the younger brother of his political opponent Wang Anshi, also spoke up and said to the emperor: "Since ancient times, the king of generosity has not sinnered people with his words", and if Su Dongpo is severely punished, "I am afraid that future generations will say that His Majesty will not be able to tolerate talents." The most interesting thing is the empress dowager we mentioned above, she was so sick and dying, Emperor Shenzong wanted to amnesty the prisoner to pray for her life, she actually said: "There is no need to pardon the murderers in the world, it is enough to let Su Dongpo alone!" The most straightforward is when Wu Chong, the left minister of the court, once he talked to the emperor about Cao Cao, the emperor did not have a high opinion of Cao Cao, Wu Chong immediately said: "Cao Cao's suspicion is so heavy that he can tolerate You Heng, why can't Your Majesty tolerate a Su Dongpo?" ”

To these people, whether they are the jailers or the queen mother, we have to be deeply grateful. They understand the value of Su Dongpo better than the researchers, and even the basin of foot washing water is full of cultural heat.

According to Wang Gong's "Jiashen Miscellaneous Records", Li Ding, who took the lead in framing, investigating, and interrogating Su Dongpo, was proud all day long, and one day with the Manchu officials waited outside the gate of the Chongzheng Hall to narrate the interrogation of Su Dongpo to everyone, he said: "Su Dongpo is really a genius, and the poems and writings of one or twenty years ago are clearly remembered during interrogation!" He thought that there would be many officials interested in such a famous case that spread to the government and the opposition, but the strange thing was that after he said these words that teased others to ask questions, no one spoke up, no one asked questions, and there was silence outside the Chongzheng Palace. He was a little flustered, pretending to sigh a few times, but there was still silence in response. This silence is not a struggle, nor is it public opinion, but it is really a little noble. In contrast, there has historically been some irresponsible buzz around many framers, fueling them with noise.

It was in this situation that the emperor released Su Dongpo and belittled Huangzhou. The importance of Huangzhou to Su Dongpo is self-evident.

Three

I like to read Mr. Lin Yutang's "The Biography of Su Dongpo" very much, and I can't remember how many times I have read it before and after, but every time I always feel that Mr. Yutang wrote about Su Dongpo's situation and mentality in Huangzhou too ideally. Mr. Yutang loves Su Dongpo's Huangzhou poems, so he is rendered by the poems, and rendered by the love, and rendered elegant and holy. In fact, as far as I know, Su Dongpo is still very miserable in Huangzhou, and his beautiful poems are a struggle and transcendence of misery.

Su Dongpo's life in Huangzhou has been described very clearly by a letter he wrote to Uncle Li Duan. The letter said:

Since the offense, deep self-occlusion, flat boats and grass shoes, wandering between the mountains and rivers, and woodcutters and fishing, often drunk and scolded, self-congratulatory gradually unknown. Relatives and friends in my life, I didn't see a word, and I didn't answer with a book, so I was fortunate to be almost free.

When I first read this paragraph, I was very shocked, because everyone knows that Su Dongpo, a big celebrity, has many friends. Day-to-day socializing, singing and harmonizing, has almost become the basic content of his life, and half of his life is for his friends. However, once something happened, my friends not only did not write back, but also did not reply to them. They all knew that Su Dongpo had been wronged, and now that the matter had largely passed, they were still reluctant to write a sentence or two of comforting words even as greetings. Su Dongpo's letters, written in wonderful pen and ink that illuminate the history of Chinese calligraphy, were painstakingly brought out of Huangzhou, but they could not get back a little bit of friendship. I believe that none of these friends are bad people, but because they are not bad people, I sigh deeply. All in all, the original world has disappeared around us, and a generation of celebrities has been mixed in with woodcutters and fishermen and is not recognized. Originally, this was probably in exchange for relaxation, but he felt that there were still countless pairs of eyes watching him in the distance, and he could not feel that the world still had a very warm response to his poems for the time being, and he could only panic in loneliness. Even if it was an irrelevant letter, he made it clear that it should not be shown to others. In daily life, before the family picked up, most of them slept during the day, went out alone at night, and drank a glass of light local wine when they saw it, but never drank too much, for fear of losing their words after getting drunk.

Was he really scared? Yes and no. He is afraid of trouble, but he is not afraid of righteousness and awe-inspiring sacrifice for morality, for the people, and even for the court and the emperor. He has already understood through the "Wutai Poetry Case" that if a person is framed, even if he dies, he will not be able to die with a reason, you will not find a target for a generous statement, and you will not be able to grasp the reason for calmly going to death. You want to be a hero who doesn't hesitate, and somehow I dress you up as a clown; You want to be an unyielding martyr, but you become a deeply repentant captive when you make a fuss. There is no way to wash it away, there is nowhere to justify, and I don't know how to make my own protest and make my own declaration. This is indeed very close to the "sauce jar culture" proposed by some scholars, once you jump in it, you can't wipe it clean. What Su Dongpo is afraid of is this, no high-grade cultural person will not be afraid. But there was still a fearless side in his heart, or the disaster made him even more fearless. In his letter to Timan Lee, he said:

Although we are old and poor, we have the truth in our hearts and hearts, and we must talk and laugh in the time of death and life. …… Although Huaikan is in time, when there is something to respect the Lord Zemin, he forgets his body and does it, and he loses the blessings and misfortunes, and pays for the creation.

Such sincere bravery, such free and easy feelings, from the pen of Su Dongpo, who has been naïve for most of his life, is completely credible, but where did he make this great article on life morality? There is no place, no opportunity, no viewer and no adjudicator, just a big sauce vat that dyes right and wrong, loyalty, good and evil. So, Su Dongpo just wrote the above sentences, thought about it, and immediately added: This letter will be burned after reading it.

This is a real spiritual loneliness, and there is nothing more painful for a cultured person. Na Yan's famous "Fortune Operator" used a very beautiful artistic conception to describe this spiritual encounter:

The lack of moon hangs dredging paulownia, and the initial tranquility of people is missing. Who sees a lonely person walking alone? Ethereal lonely shadows.

Shocked but turned back, there was hatred and no one to think. Pick up all the cold branches and refuse to perch, and the lonely sandbar is cold.

It is this unspeakable loneliness that makes him completely wash away the noise of life, to find the wordless landscape, to find the ancients who have passed away. Look for dialogue where you can't talk, and the conversation will inevitably become extraordinary. If a soul like Su Dongpo is silent, then sooner or later, a grand miracle will suddenly emerge and surprise the world.

However, even if he writes poems and essays, he will not pursue social sensations. He reflected on the past in loneliness, and felt that his biggest problem in the past was the exposure of talent and lack of self-knowledge. A tree pleases people with a gall, and a stone pleases people with a halo, but in fact, it is precisely their faults that can be used to please people, and their legitimate use is never here. For example, since I was a child, I have written political and policy theories for the entrance examination, and later I was even more interested in examining the rights and wrongs of history, and bluntly speaking out about the merits of the admonitions. I didn't know until I was facing death all of a sudden, that I was showing off my ignorance. This is where the biggest ill in more than three decades has been. Now I finally understand that I am an enlightened person when I come to Huangzhou, and I am two people from Su Dongpo before. (See Letter to Uncle Li Duan)

Su Dongpo's self-reflection is not a kind of psychological adjustment towards well-behaved, but an extremely sincere self-analysis, the purpose of which is to find a true self. He was ruthlessly stripping himself of every element of alienation, even if it had brought him office, honor, and fame. He gradually returned to purity and etherealism, and in the process, Buddhism helped him a lot, accustoming him to calmness and calmness. The arduous material life made him have to cultivate the land himself, and appreciate the primitive meaning of nature and life.

All this has made Su Dongpo experience a rebirth in an overall sense, and also made his artistic talent distilled and sublimated, and he has truly matured - like many people throughout the ages, he has matured after a disaster, matured after extinction, matured in the poor countryside, and matured in the moment when almost no one was around him. Fortunately, he is not old, he was forty-four to forty-eight years old during his time in Huangzhou, which is the most important years for a man, and there is still a lot to be done in the future. In Chinese history, many people have realized that they are in the twilight of their old age, in other words, maturity is in the age of passing the season, and they are just about to enjoy the blessings of maturity, but their steps have staggered; Compared with them, Su Dongpo is really lucky.

Maturity is a bright but not dazzling brilliance, a mellow but not tired sound, a calmness that no longer needs to be observed by others, an atmosphere that finally stops complaining to the surroundings, a smile that ignores the commotion, a kind of indifference that washes away the extreme, a thick that does not need to be spoken, and a height that is not steep. The pride of the gloom has been fermented, the sharp mountain wind has restrained its strength, and the turbulent trickle has merged into a lake, and as a result—

The prelude to guiding the masterpieces of the ages has sounded, and a mysterious light of heaven shines towards Huangzhou, and "Nian Nujiao Chibi Nostalgia" and "Chibi Fu" before and after are about to be produced.