After being demoted, Su Shi experienced a life of despair and drift from place to place. He began to reflect deeply and changed step by step, and finally became the "Dongpo lay man" we revere today. At the same time, these three relegations may be unfortunate for Su Shi himself, but they are great fortune in the cultural history of China. Because Su Shi wrote a lot of literary works during this period.
When Su Shi first arrived in Huangzhou, he lived alone in a small temple called Dinghui Garden and waited for his family on the road. He was in a bad mood. One night, he was too worried to sleep. He wrote: "Pick all the cold branches and refuse to be born. Lonely sandbar is cold. "
But after all, there is a strong "optimistic factor" in Su Shi's nature. In addition, Xu Taishou, who cherishes local talents, has long heard of Su Shi's reputation and appreciated it very much, so he tried his best to make Su Shi's relegated life more comfortable. So Su Shi later moved to Lin Haoting with the help of Xu Taishou, and called his house "Tang Xue". He also opened a field in the east of Tang Xue, named Dongpo. Since then, Tao Yuanming has lived in seclusion as a farmer. Dongpo lay man, since then "online".
The life in Huangzhou also cultivated Su Shi into a "gourmet". Dongpo meat, which is familiar to later generations, is also a "special dish" created in this period. He even wrote a poem "Ode to Pork": "Clean pot, lack of water, can't afford firewood. Don't hurry when it is ripe, it will look good when the fire is enough. Huangzhou good pork, the price is as cheap as dirt. Noble people refuse to eat, and poor people don't know how to cook. I got up in the morning and played two bowls, so I was too full to care. "
While in Huangzhou, Su Dongpo also participated in charity. At that time, there was a barbaric custom of drowning newborn babies in the area where he lived. As long as he couldn't afford it, he would do it. This made him very sad. He wrote a letter to the local magistrate, denouncing the evil of infanticide, and set up a rescue society, asking the rich to donate money, letting the monks in the temple take charge of the accounts and helping poor families feed their babies. At that time, the word "humanitarian spirit" had not appeared, but what Su Dongpo did was undoubtedly the best interpretation of the word.
Su Shi lived in Huangzhou for more than four years. In the eighth year of Yuanfeng, Song Shenzong died and Song Zhezong succeeded to the throne. Because Zhezong was young, he was in charge of the Empress Dowager. Empress Dowager Gao has long appreciated Su Shi's character and talent and attached great importance to him. She not only transferred Su Shi back to the imperial court, but also entrusted him with the important task of being an academician. It can be said that Su Shi finally "turned over". However, soon after Su Shi was promoted to a bachelor's degree in Hanlin, Sima Guang died. Su Shi, who held a high position, became the target of attack by ministers. After Sima Guang's death, political factions such as Shuo Party, Luo Party and Shu Party gradually formed, and Shu Party regarded Su Shi as a leader without his knowledge. Su Shi is in distress situation. How can he form a clique with his character? After fighting alone, he became more and more disappointed with the smoky central government. In the next few years, he took the initiative to apply to be a satrap in several places, and also worked as a minister of war and a minister of rites.
From the famous sentence "300 lychees a day, I will not hesitate to be a Lingnan person." We can also see that Su Shi's life is by no means lonely. He returned to the "old style", tasting sandalwood, sitting quietly, taking a nap every day, tasting wine and writing articles. Dongpo, where I went to eat, developed some new recipes, such as roast sheep spine, roast eel and so on.
The leisurely life did not stop Dongpo from caring about people's livelihood. He began to care about the improvement and innovation of Huizhou city. He cooperated with the magistrate and county magistrate, built two bridges for Huizhou, and also built a discharge pond in the west of the city. Because the local food price is unbalanced, write a letter to the higher authorities to express your feelings. He also brought the "floating horse" he once invented in Huangzhou to Lingnan, where rice is widely planted, so that farmers don't have to bend over to transplant rice.
Su Dongpo was exiled to Danzhou, Hainan Island at the age of 61. At that time, the natural conditions in Hainan Island were worse than those in Huizhou. It is said that the reason is that Su Shi is still "stubborn" and wrote two interesting poems describing his carefree listening to the clock every day. This is, of course, self-consolation in suffering, but Zhang Dun read those poems and immediately said, "It seems that Huizhou is quite comfortable! Here we go again! "
So Su Shi, who had already passed the flower, crossed the ocean and embarked on a farther road from his old country. This time, Su Dongpo himself felt that there was no hope for survival in the mainland. His youngest son, Su Guo, left his family in Huizhou and followed his father to Hainan Island. Before crossing the sea, Su Shi met his younger brother Su Zhe who lived in Leizhou, and this was the last time they met in this life.
Hainan is extremely humid and muggy in summer, foggy and rainy in winter, and everything is moldy, which is really not suitable for an old man's life. There are frequent new and old diseases in Dongpo, but there are no decent doctors in the local area, because Danzhou residents still believe in the technique of witch doctors, and when they are sick, they will ask magicians to kill cows and burn incense as treatment. So he began to study Chinese medicine on his own, went to the countryside to collect medicines, and also treated local people. Therefore, the situation that Han people do not get along well with ethnic minorities has been greatly alleviated after the arrival of Dongpo.
In 65438 AD, Zhezong died and his younger brother Song Huizong acceded to the throne. The new Regent Queen Mother advocated pardoning all the old ministers in Yuan You. 11kloc-0/year, 65-year-old Su Dongpo fell ill in Changzhou when he returned to the north, and never stood up again.
A generation of literary giants has fallen. Twenty-five years after his death, the Northern Song Dynasty perished.
Su Dongpo's life is full of ups and downs, not only in temples, but also in rivers and lakes. He is not only an optimist whose nature cannot be changed, but also a moralist who is considerate of others. He is a good friend of the people, a prose writer, a new painter, a Buddhist, a scholar-bureaucrat and the secretary of the emperor. At the same time, he is also a poet who walks for a month, a big boy who loves to joke ... but these do not seem to outline the whole picture of Su Dongpo.
However, from another perspective, whenever Mr. Dongpo is mentioned, people can't help but smile-is there a better evaluation than this?