“A vain conceited talent is bound to rise to the sky, and I have never opened my arms in my life.” This is a famous line in the poem “Crying to Li Shangyin” written by Cui Jue, a poet of the Tang Dynasty. The reason why these two poems have been passed down through the ages is because they touched a pain point deep in the hearts of countless scholars and writers: underappreciated talents. For thousands of years, I don’t know how many literati who are full of splendid beauty and knowledge, full of lofty aspirations and lofty aspirations to make contributions, but no one appreciates and reuses them.
However, the phenomenon of “underappreciating talents” cannot simply be attributed to the loopholes and flaws in the ancient talent selection system. defect. As the saying goes, “gold always shines”, the reason why you have not been able to get ahead in your life and make achievements, lack of personal ability and limited talent, I am afraid it is the root cause. One of the most common mistakes made by ancient literati is to simply confuse literary talent with talent for governing the country and the people. They can write two good articles and a few good poems, and they suddenly swell up. Peace the world, dismount the horses and settle the mountains and rivers, and reach the emperor Yao and Shun, how difficult it is to do this.
But it turns out that many of these great poets and geniuses with outstanding literary talent are just Some unworldly nerds. If they really want to let them enter the imperial court, they often don’t even have the basic survival skills, let alone build a career. The great poet Li Bai is a good example. For thousands of years, Li Bai has been regarded by many people as a typical example of underappreciated talents, but in fact, Li Bai’s “talents” are limited to poetic talents, and his political and military talents are extremely limited. defeated.
Li Bai was also a passionate young man when he was young, full of pride and ambition, eager to use his talent to repay Country, do a great cause with great vigor. This is evident in many of his poems. He dreamed of imitating Zhang Liang, the founding hero of the Han Dynasty. Talents”, let him show his talents in economic development.
In fact, the only thing that can prove his talent is a poem with beautiful words and splendor. He was running around, taking his poems and prose to travel among the emperors and generals, hoping to gain their appreciation. In the eyes of these people, Li Bai is just a writer. Tang Xuanzong Liangcai hired him and gave him an imperial post, making him a minister of literary squire. However, this was not Li Bai’s original intention, and he passed away soon after.
The chance finally came. After the outbreak of the Anshi Rebellion, Emperor Xuanzong of Tang fled to Shu and appointed Prince Yong Wang Li Lin as the Jiedushi of the Four Roads in the south of the Yangtze River and the governor of Jiangling County. He led tens of thousands of troops to sit in Jiangling, vigorously recruited talents, expanded his strength, established the Jianghuai line of defense for the Tang Dynasty, and blocked Anshi. The rebels spread to Jiangnan. Li Bai went to defect immediately after hearing the news. Yong Wang Li Lin also heard his name for a long time, and immediately “became a bureaucrat assistant” and made him his own staff.
Li Bai was very excited. After so many years of anticipation, this time he was finally going to fight with real swords and guns. He was eager to show his skills in the pacification of the Anshi Rebellion, and to establish an immortal merit. His excitement is evident in the poem: “The northern captives in Sanchuan are in chaos, and the south in the south is like Yongjia. But Xie Anshi from Dongshan is used to talk and laugh for the king and Husha.” He seemed to compare himself with Xie An, the famous general of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, and imagined that he could command Ruo fixed while talking and laughing, and let the strong enemy vanish into ashes.
However, the ruthless fact caught him by surprise. “Zizhitongjian” records that the Yongwang Li Lin sits in Jianghuai and holds a heavy army. Jianghuai has always been a wealthy land in the Tang Dynasty, and the wealth and goods are accumulated. Li Lin actually has the heart of being a minister. Holding the four soldiers, covering thousands of miles of territory, it is advisable to occupy Jinling and keep the Jiangbiao, just like the story of the Eastern Jin Dynasty.” The funny thing is that Li Bai, as the staff of the Yongwang Li Lin, was unaware of this.
In December of the first year of Germany, King Yong Li Lin, without the permission of the imperial court, dispatched a navy to the east, trying to capture Guangling, an important town in the south of the Yangtze River, and officially opened the curtain of his rebellion.
Li Bai was still in the dark, and thought that King Yong Li Lin was going to send troops to fight against the Anshi rebels. He was so excited that he splashed ink and brushed his hair on the march, and wrote eleven poems in the “Song of the Yongwang East Tour” in one breath, and sang and praised the Yongwang Li Lin to the best of his ability. There is a poem in it, which brings disaster to himself and ruins the future of his life.
The poem is as follows: “Ancestral dragon patrols the sea and fails to make a bridge, Han Wu seeks the sun to shoot Jiao. This poem uses three allusions in a row, Qin Shihuang builds the bridge in the sea, Han Wudi Zongyang shoots the dragon, and Tang Taizong Li Shimin crosses the Liaohe River to conquer Liaodong. “Zulong” refers to Qin Shihuang, and “Emperor Wen” is the posthumous title of Li Shimin. This poem is the most stupid poem Li Bai has ever written. Just to please a prince, he provokes two emperors and ruins his future.
Yongwang Li Lin is Tang XuanThe sixteenth son of Zong, in the Tang Dynasty at that time, had Emperor Xuanzong of Tang Dynasty, Li Heng of Emperor Suzong of Tang Dynasty, and Li Lin, the king of Yong, was just an ordinary prince, neither the prince nor the right to inherit the throne. To compare a prince without the right to inherit the throne to the previous emperor was a taboo in any dynasty in ancient times.
It would be extremely inappropriate to assume that Li Lin was the crown prince, and on the premise that Tang Xuanzong and Tang Suzong were both alive. What is even more astounding is that Li Bai even said, “My king’s ships are lighter than Qin and Han”, saying that the Yongwang Li Lin is better than Qin Shihuang and Han Wudi, “but it is like Emperor Wen who wants to cross the Liaoning” and compares Li Lin to the ancestors of the emperors of the Tang Dynasty. Li Shimin, Emperor Li Shimin, even made Tang Xuanzong and Tang Suzong feel bad. In their opinion, this is simply an anti-poem.
Yongwang Li Lin was very talented and sparse. In addition, under the circumstance of the Anshi Rebellion, he provoked a civil war and was unpopular. Li Bai was kept in the dark from the beginning to the end, and King Yong Li Lin didn’t take him seriously at all, but his poem was circulated for a while, and it became an iron proof that he followed Li Lin’s rebelliousness, leaving him speechless.
“New Book of Tang” records that Li Bai was listed as a repeat offender by the imperial court, “should be punished” and sentenced to death. General Guo Ziyi knew very well that Li Bai was just an ignorant scholar, not a rebellious person, so he came to the rescue, “Ziyi please dismiss the official for redemption”, and asked to use his official position to atone for Li Bai’s crime. Tang Suzong saw Guo Ziyi’s face, Li Bai exiled Yelang. When the poet Wang Changling was exiled to Yelang, Li Bai wrote a poem to send him: “I send my sorrows to the bright moon, I will follow the wind until Yelangxi”, and it was passed on for a while, but now he has also fallen into this field.
Li Bai never recovered, was completely abandoned by the emperor of the Tang Dynasty, and his life was ruined. After returning from Yelang Yushe, he was framed again and imprisoned in Xunyang. After he was released from prison, he traveled to various places to live under the shelter of others, and died in the lament of “the great road is like the blue sky, I can’t stand it alone”. It can be seen from this that the tragedy of Li Bai cannot simply be said to be caused by the problem of the talent system in the Tang Dynasty. His own serious lack of political brains and skills is an important reason that cannot be ignored.
Li Bai’s poem that invites disaster and disaster once aroused strong interest in later generations, and many scholars in the past dynasties were puzzled. Li Bai also traveled between emperors and generals for many years. Why is his political acumen and level so low? It shouldn’t be so stupid to write such a taboo poem.
Yang Qixian, a scholar in the Song Dynasty, believed that this poem was probably a “pseudo-forgery”. Xiao Shiyun, a scholar of the Yuan Dynasty, also believed that this poem was “non-ethical”, citing allusions and metaphors, and believed that it was probably not written by Li Bai. But doubt is doubt, and they don’t have any reliable evidence. At present, only authoritative records such as “Full Tang Poems” can prevail, and this poem is still identified under the name of Li Bai.
In fact, it is not surprising that Li Bai wrote such a poem. It is reasonable to do it without hesitation, and without considering the inside story of those turbulent and intriguing court affairs.
From the perspective of the style of this poem, it is smooth and unrestrained, which is also in line with Li Bai’s consistent style of poetry. Li Bai was a minor character under the Yong Wang Li Lin, but he was severely punished afterwards and was almost beheaded. All these prove from the side that this poem was undoubtedly written by Li Bai. Although Li Bai has experienced ups and downs in his life and repeatedly lamented that “no one in the world knows my heart”, thousands of years later, his poems have been circulated and deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.