In the 2nd year of Tiansheng (1024), the entire Song Dynasty was busy with two major events: 1. The imperial examination and 2. His Majesty’s wedding.

On March 18, the top three in this subject were Song Xiang, Ye Qingchen, and Zheng Jian, and the rankings were Zeng Gongliang, Yu Jing, and Yin Zhu... All of them were famous in the history of the Song Dynasty. But the 10th place in the first class was Song Qi.

He is the younger brother of the top scholar Song Xiang, and his talent is far higher than his brother. But Empress Dowager Liu may have started from the defense of human ethics or family harmony. She said, "How can the younger brother be ranked higher than his brother?" So Song took the lead, and Xiao Song retreated to the 10th place, and he was done.

The top scholar was gone, but Xiao Song didn't care at all. He was born in a cold family and jumped into the silk cluster. His wealth was infinite. How could he be so enchanting? From him, let's see how the top literati of the Song Dynasty lived.

Song Qi focused on enjoyment and was a typical talented man of the Song Dynasty. The reigns of Zhenzong and Renzong were the richest, most peaceful and most enlightened era in Chinese history. The happiness he enjoyed was beyond the reach of Sima Xiangru of the Han Dynasty, Li Bai of the Tang Dynasty, or Tang Bohu of the Ming Dynasty. It was reflected in the poems and essays that "the joy of spring is not clear about the sky." He was more luxurious than Kou Zhun. Kou Zhun drank a night of wine, at most candles were poured on the ground, and a few people fell on him. He made all the guests dizzy after drinking, and fainted when he went out. Because he wrapped the wine shop with a heavy curtain, lit huge candles inside, singing, dancing, and singing, completely ignored the time. The opening cloth ended and the sun shone outside...

The real master in this regard is the former prodigy Yan Shu. He has long stopped pursuing the superficial enjoyment of luxury. He pursues the highest realm of wealth, that is, wealth is not like wealth. Yan Shu once despised a poet at that time. Li Qingsun, a poet at that time. In Li's "Fugui Song", it said that "the music of the music and the music of the music and the name of the flowers of the tree are written by the jade seal card" and the name of the jade seal card is recorded by the jade plate. Rich is very rich, but he is just a nouveau riche. Yan Shu is "the flowers on the side of the tower pass by, and swallows fly in the middle of the curtain", "the moon in the pear blossom courtyard is melting, and the willow pond is faint wind." There is no praising words and sentences, but the superior and idle life is vivid. This is the realm. But neither Yan Shu nor Song Qi can lead the literary world alone.

First, they are good at Xiaoling, which is a colloquial short lyric that has been popular since the Five Dynasties. They have very high requirements for speech ability, and they all do very well. But in the end they are just inheritance, at most they carry forward on the original basis, but they do not innovate and create a new world. The classic "slow lyrics" of Song Ci will have to wait for a while before they can be created by the talented man who has been in trouble for the rest of his life and has replaced his fame with a light drink and sing.

Second, their literary style is too frivolous. After all, it is the Huajian School, the legacy of the Southern Tang and Later Shu, who pursues extreme beauty and pure court enjoyment style. Just like Li Yu before the country was destroyed and his family was destroyed. So how can they compare to Li Houzhu? Li Yu's lyrics cannot be compared with Tang poetry. Poetry uses the past to describe the present, and it is all-encompassing, can be reminiscent of the past, can be political, and can be hurtful. In comparison, the lyrics at this time are just folk songs. The glory of Song Ci has to wait for more than half a century, and was cast by the most famous talent in the history of Chinese literature.

Therefore, the art of Yan Shu and others is just showing off their elegance in a wealthy life. They hold on to their money and show their lifelessness that they don’t care and yearn for free life. They want to be rich and a casual person. After seeing through this, they will know their so-called achievements and personal character.

But there is a different person. He is the real only one in this era. He is a real hermit: Lin Feng, Lin Hejing. He will die in 4 years. He is living in seclusion on the lonely mountain of West Lake in Hangzhou. West Lake has been visited since ancient times, and Hangzhou is a beautiful metropolis in the southeast. The so-called greatness is hidden in the court and hidden in the city. Lin Feng did not deliberately force himself to hide in the deep mountains. Speaking of his life, the world praised him as "the plum wife, crane son" so elegant that it is beyond description. Because humans are so proud that they are not allowed to describe it.

Consensus: It is rare for a person who abandons the joy of husband and wife in the world to be happy, so he becomes a hidden saint who has been passed down through the ages. What is even more rare is that Lin Feng has been self-reliant and planted more than 300 plum blossoms in Gushan. He worked hard to sell plum blossoms and made a living. What a poor life! It was under such living conditions that he wrote the eternal sentence "The sparse shadows slanted across the water and the clear fragrance floated at night and dusk", and how he was willing to be poor and willing to be poor!

The sentence he left after his death was "Maoling asked for manuscripts in the future, but he was still happy that he had no Fengshan books." He affirmed Emperor Wu of Han's behavior of guilt in his later years, but did not flatter the emperor of the dynasty and praised the emperor for his sacredness of the emperor's feudal worship. Later, someone built the "Three Fairy Hall" on the Su Dike in West Lake, Hangzhou. Two of them were Bai Juyi, the builder of the Tang Dynasty, and Su Shi, the builder of Su Dike in the Song Dynasty. The other was Lin Hejing, who had a lifetime of white clothes.

After the Song Dynasty moved south, Hangzhou became the imperial capital. It was ordered to build a royal temple on Gushan. All the original buildings on the mountain were moved out, leaving only Lin Bu's tombs. This also brought the final disaster to Lin Bu. After the demise of the Southern Song Dynasty, some tomb robbers thought that Lin Bu was a famous scholar and there must be many treasures in the tombs. So they went to dig.

As a result, the only burial of Duan inkstone and a jade hairpin was dug. Duan inkstone was Lin Fu's own thing. What about that jade hairpin? What happened to Lin Fu, who never married for the rest of his life, made him discouraged in the world when he was young and retired to Lin Quan for the rest of his life? Perhaps another small poem written by Lin Fu in a woman's tone was his voice: Wushanqing, Yueshanqing, and the green mountains on both sides welcomed each other, who knew the love of parting? You are full of tears, and I am full of tears. Luodai's heart has not been formed, and the tide by the river has been calm.

It is better to bless Lin Bing than to sigh for him. May he be happy in heaven and see the people he misses for his whole life...

Of course, the fate of the country and the future of the nation cannot rely on hermits like Lin Hejing. It cannot be separated from the support of those who care about the world. Their people and poems are the real essence of the literati of the Song Dynasty.

Let us know such a person. His greatness made the later great sage Zhu Xi praised: The Song Dynasty was destroyed, but this person did not die, and he was the first person in the country's dynasty for three hundred years.

But this person's life originated from poverty and even humiliation. At this time, he had just 9 years of his surname. Before that, his surname was Zhu, and his name was said to be the "son" of a wealthy family named Zhu, Changshan County, Zibo Prefecture, Shandong Province, who was different from others since childhood. His family was rich, but what he liked was studying. In order to seek peace, he took the initiative to go up the mountain to board in Liquan Temple, live a lonely life with the mountain monks, and study the scriptures hard in the morning bell and dusk. By chance, when he learned about his life experience, everything changed...

He was not from the Zhu family, but the son of the Fan family in Suzhou. His father was Fan Yong. Fan Yong first married Chen family and then Xie family. He was born to Xie family, which was born in illegitimate. The second year he was born, his father died. Xie family and his son were kicked out of the house and had to remarry them to the Zhu family in Shandong.

Zhu said he knew all this. It turned out that another person's blood was flowing. In the Zhu family, he was a burden of the oil bottle, and in the Fan family, he was a concubine son who was kicked out of the house. In any aspect, he was a waste and had no honor. He immediately packed his luggage, bid farewell to his mother, and hiked to another place to study. He vowed that he would succeed before he came back to welcome his mother. In order to thank his stepfather for his years of upbringing and to consider that his mother still needed the Zhu family to take care of him, he retained the name Zhu said.

The legend of worrying about the world first and then having fun in the world begins like this... Zhu said that the starting point is low.

In 1011, Zhu Shuo came to Yingtianfu Academy to study. This was his best choice at that time, and it could also be said to be a gift from the Song Dynasty to him. Yingtianfu Academy was one of the four famous academies in the Song Dynasty. Zhu Shuo's hard study began. Regarding his difficulties, historical records record: He only had a bowl of thick porridge every day, which was cut into 4 pieces after it was cold, and 2 pieces were eaten in the morning and evening, plus a few pickles and half a bowl of vinegar sauce, which was all. Then, some classmates couldn't bear it anymore and gave him some delicious food. But after a few days, the things were not moved and their hair was rotten. The classmate was very angry and asked him what he was doing. Zhu Shuo bowed and thanked him and said that I was used to suffering. Once I enjoyed these, I was afraid that I would not be able to hold on in the future. The classmate was relieved. But the deep words could not be said to others. If I could swallow the food of giving, why did I leave the Zhu family at the beginning?

Zhu said he was more diligent and spent all his time reading books. Even the emperor went to Bozhou to worship Taiqing Palace, and passed by the academy, and everyone rushed out to read. He still read books. His classmates came to pull him, and he replied, "It's not too late to see you again in the future."

Sure enough, the next year, he passed the Jinshi exam and took the palace examination at Chongzheng Hall. He met Emperor Zhenzong of Song for the first time in his life. It was 1014, and Zhu said that he could finally return to Shandong to pick up his mother and restore his surname to him. From then on, his surname was Fan and his name was Xiwen.

Fan Zhongyan started out as a small army. In 1021, he was transferred to Taizhou to be the chief of the salt warehouse. He left his first achievements in history. Taizhou was lying on the coast, and cooking sea and salt was a big business. However, seawater flooded every year. Before the Tang Dynasty, there was a sea-defying dam here. However, it had been abandoned and disrepaired during the Five Dynasties. Entering the Song Dynasty, the city was flooded every year, and even the Taizhou Prefecture City was flooded several times. Fan Zhongyan proposed to rebuild a long sea-defying dam on the super long coastline of more than 500 miles of Tongzhou, Taizhou, Chuzhou and Haizhou to protect the people's livelihood on the coast of the Yellow Sea.

Things are good things, but they are super difficult to do. Competing for profit with the sea is no less difficult than digging a canal in the mainland. Fan Zhongyan first asked the Jianghuai Grain Transportation for instructions, and the Grain Transportation was reported to the court. The court ordered him to be the magistrate of Xinghua County and be directly responsible for the operation of this super project.

In the autumn of 1024, Fan Zhongyan led tens of thousands of civilians from four provinces to the beach to surround the dike and control the dam. It was completed that year, and hundreds of miles of long dikes were really built. But who could imagine the difficulties and obstacles? At the beginning, he encountered a snowstorm, followed by the sea tide, which not only destroyed the newly built dike, but also drowned more than 100 civilians. For a time, many officials believed that this was God's will. God did not allow this dike to be built and proposed to cancel the project. It was Fan Zhongyan's strong request, and his friend Teng Zongliang's strong help, which completed this great project that benefited the people of the coast. At the same time, this was one of the few political achievements that Empress Dowager Liu had in his ten years in power...

After that, Fan Zhongyan was transferred back to the capital and became the chief of the Dali Temple, but he was close to the government... Fan Zhongyan's contribution to the country and his life began with the world. But it must be pointed out that he was not the first person to create the world and divide the times in the history of Northern Song Dynasty literature.

The man is still dressed in white, only 18 years old, and has not become the great man who broke through the side of the Five Dynasties and returned to the prosperous Tang Dynasty. It is recognized that his classic moment was 33 years later in 1057, which was also the year when Su Shi, a great writer who was not born in the Song Dynasty, came to Beijing to take the exam. As the chief examiner, this man regained the so-called literary style that lasted for nearly a hundred years. He raised the literary style of Song Dynasty to a peak that could rival the Han and Tang Dynasties!

But perhaps, this classic moment was not in 1057, but as early as around 1013, when this person was only five or six years old.

Like Fan Zhongyan, this man lost his father at the age of 3. Fortunately, he had a good uncle who had been taking care of them. Although he was poor, he had no worries about food and clothing, and he studied since childhood. His hometown had a rich and polite neighbor named Li. His eldest son Li Yanfu was his lifelong friend. The Li family had a lot of books and he could borrow them at will. One day at the age of five or six, he accidentally found a broken basket in the attic of the Li family, which was covered with dust, and a corner of the book was faintly exposed. Wipe the dust and the title of the book was revealed. The child was stunned: "The Collection of Mr. Han Changli's Essays" was Han Yu who had declined in the eight generations of literature!

This was a great opportunity. When he was young, before he was completely frozen in his spiritual sense by the imperial examination, he knew that there were such a powerful and profound article in the world, so he would never forget it all his life and finally promoted the ancient Chinese movement of the Song Dynasty!

This man's surname is Ouyang, his name is Xiu, and his courtesy name is Yongshu. He was a great master who followed Han Liu of the Tang Dynasty and the Three Su of the Song Dynasty. Among the eight great masters of the Tang and Song Dynasties, he inherited the past and the future, and achieved great success in two generations.

The happiest person in the world is the emperor, and the emperor loves his prince the most. This should be a universal truth. But that is false. There is another saying that "the father and son of the Tian family have no affection." Regarding Zhao Zhen's first marriage, he had his memories of dreams and emotional pain from the people. The reason is that his "mother" Liu E.

Empress Dowager Liu is very strict with her "son". Although she adopted her, she was disdainful of hang out with the children all day long. She had so many national affairs to worry about. Deep in Zhao Zhen's heart, the 'mother' that made him feel warm was Concubine Yang. It is historical records that Liu E had never seen Zhao Zhen's "son" that she had never seen her smiling face. Zhao Zhen was sick and wanted to eat seafood. Liu E knew it clearly, but she didn't give it to her. In the end, Yang couldn't stand it anymore and secretly made some for the little emperor to eat, and lamented, "Why did the Empress Dowager abuse my son like this?"

Now that Zhao Zhen has become emperor, he can't even keep the person he loves, and he can't watch her be taken away...

Zhao Zhen's first love was the daughter of a folk woman, the great squire Wang Mengzheng. It is said that this girl surnamed Wang is so beautiful and beautiful. Zhao Zhen, who has been restricted by rigid ethics since childhood, fell in love with her deeply and took her for granted. Because of her, the little emperor suppressed his fear for many years and revealed his worries to his mother: I want to marry her. But Liu E refused harshly. The reason was that the girl was "too charming, and it may not be beneficial to the young master" immediately drove Wang Mengzheng's daughter out of the palace. Zhao Zhen was sad, but he could not help... But what happened immediately made him sad, angry, and unable to bear it.
Chapter completed!