Mei Cheng

Mei Cheng

Mei Cheng (about 210-138 BC?) In the Western Han Dynasty, he was also called Zou Mei with Zou Yang, meima with Sima Xiangru, and Meijia with Jia Yi.

In her early years, Mei Cheng served as a literary servant of Liu Zhen, king of Wu. She became famous for admonishing Liu Zhen twice before and after the Seven Kingdoms rebellion. Later, she left Liu Zhen and became a guest of Liu Wu, king of Liang. She was appointed as a lieutenant of Hongnong county when emperor Jing of Han Dynasty was appointed. After Liu Che ascended the throne, she was called up to set up a chariot and a pulun. She died on the way to Beijing. She was about 73 years old.

In literature, Qifa, written by Mei Cheng, plays an important role in the history of the development of Fu, and is a symbolic work of the formal formation of Fu in Han Dynasty. In ideology, Mei Cheng's political thought shows his spiritual recognition of unification, while his musical thought shows his utilitarian social view, tragic musical aesthetic view, and ultimate pursuit of artistic aesthetics, while his health preserving thought transcends the general concept It has more social significance. Now there are three editions of Mei Shu Ji.

(overview photo source: the painting of China's 100 Confucians, painted by Lu Yanguang)

Life of the characters

Two remonstrations to the king of Wu

About seven years after the Han Dynasty (181 BC), Mei Cheng began to serve as the doctor (Literary servant, similar to the Secretary of writing) of Liu Zhen, king of Wu. When Liu Liao was planning a rebellion because he resented the imperial court, he was admonished by Shangshu Jianwu Wang. He used a long metaphor to persuade Liu to judge the situation and give up the idea of rebellion, but Liu didn't take his advice. Therefore, in the second year of Emperor Wen's reign (162 BC), Mei Cheng left the state of Wu and went to the state of Liang to make friends with Liu Wu, the king of Liang.

After emperor Liu Qi ascended the throne, Chao Cuo, the imperial historian, established a system for the Han Dynasty, weakened the princes, and successively cut off Donghai County of Chu state, Changshan County of Zhao state, and six counties of Jiaoxi state. In the third year of emperor Jing of the Han Dynasty (154 BC), the court officials talked about the reduction of Wu's fiefdom. Fearing that there would be no end to the reduction of fiefdoms, Liu Zhen joined forces with Liu ang, king of Jiaoxi, Liu xiongqu, king of Jiaodong, Liu Xian, king of liaochuan, Liu piguang, king of Jinan, Liu Wu, king of Chu, and Liu Sui, king of Zhao to launch a rebellion in the name of killing Chao Cuo. After learning about it, Emperor Jing of Han Dynasty killed Chao CuO at the suggestion of Yuan ang and others to express his apology to the princes. At this time, Mei Cheng admonished Liu to stop the rebellion with Shangshu remonstrance to the king of Wu. However, Liu refused to accept Mei Cheng's suggestion and insisted on the rebellion, resulting in his death.

Two dynasties known

After the rebellion of the seven kingdoms was settled, Mei Cheng was famous for admonishing Liu Bi twice, so emperor Jing of the Han Dynasty appointed Mei Cheng as the Duwei of Hongnong county. However, Mei Cheng had been a guest of honor to the great powers for a long time. She liked to associate with Junyan, a talented person, but did not like to be an official. So she resigned sick and went to the state of Liang to make friends with Liu Wu again.

Liu Wu died in the sixth year of emperor Jing of Han Dynasty (144 BC). Later, about the next year (143 BC), Mei Cheng returned to his hometown Huaiyin county.

When Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty was the crown prince, he heard that Mei Cheng was famous. When he became emperor, Mei Cheng was already old. Therefore, after September of the third year of Jianyuan (138 BC), Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty asked Mei Cheng for help by setting up a cart with PU wheels. As a result, Mei Cheng died on the way. He was about 73 years old.

Main impact

Literary influence

In literature, Mei Cheng's Qifa plays an important role in the history of the development of Ci Fu, which not only lays the foundation of the typical Han Fu, but also is the first work of "Qiti".

On the one hand, Qifa draws lessons from the literature of the pre Qin Dynasty. It combines the grand system of Lisao and its form of question and answer, the question and answer between Emperor Zhaohun and Wu Yang, and the arrangement and description of Zhaohun and Dazhao. In the process of inheritance, Qifa has great creativity, showing the aesthetic taste and artistic orientation different from the pre Qin period. The main manifestations are as follows

① Fine narration and description. Qifa is good at presentation, exaggeration and exaggeration. Its writing is characterized by description, scenery, voice, color and mood, delicate and vivid description. Although the fictional frame of the story is very simple, it gets rid of the limitation of describing actual events and expressing feelings, so that the author can freely choose and express the content of natural and social life. The contents of his works have opened up literary themes from many aspects, which have been inherited and further developed in later Fu, and become the themes widely used in later Fu. Therefore, although Qifa is not famous for Fu, it sets a good example for the creation of Fu in Han Dynasty in terms of system and artistic techniques. It is a pioneering work that lays a foundation for the fictional exaggeration and parallelism of Fu.

② The combination of rhyme and prose. The whole chapter of Qifa is a prose mixed with Chu Ci poetry. On the one hand, its language forms absorb the sentence patterns of Chu Ci and the word "Xi". On the other hand, it uses a lot of prose sentence patterns, but also uses antithesis and parallelism sentence patterns. Compared with the songs of Chu, the composition of his poems is reduced and the composition of his prose is increased, which is the combination of verse and prose, the prose of prose and the prose of prose.

③ Fictional exaggeration. Qifa has a peculiar conception and a magnificent structure. It starts with "the prince of Chu is ill, and the Wu guest asks about it". Through the mouth of the Wu guest, it explores the cause of the prince's illness and the method of treatment. It makes a full comparison of the six aspects of music, diet, chariots and horses, court, hunting, and watching the waves. Finally, it comes down to the sage's "wonderful words", and its characters and dialogues are quite different It is fictional, narrative and description are imaginative, which has the meaning of literary creation.

On the other hand, since Fu Yi imitated Qifa and wrote Qiji in the Eastern Han Dynasty, some scholars began to take Qifa as one of the articles ("Qiti") and imitated it one after another. Later, in the Wei and Jin Dynasties, Zhiyu regarded "Qiti" as a literary style; in the southern and Song Dynasties, Fan Ye separated "Qiti" from other literary styles; in the southern and Liang dynasties, Liu Xie's Wenxindiaolong · Zawen specially talked about "Qiti", and Xiao Tong's Wenxuan had the category of "Qiti"; in Sui Shu · jingjizhi, Xie Lingyun's Qiji was recorded There are ten volumes, ten volumes of Bian Jing's Qilin and one volume of Yan Zhitui's Qiwu; twelve volumes of Bian Jing's Qilin and one volume of Yan Zhitui's qiwuji are described in the new history of Tang Dynasty Yiwenzhi; there is no description in the history of Song Dynasty Yiwenzhi. According to the statistics of Ping Buqing, a scholar in the Qing Dynasty, there are more than 40 works of "seven styles" from Meicheng to Tang Dynasty, and there are also imitations of writers in various dynasties after Tang Dynasty.

Main ideas

political thought

Mei Cheng was one of the first scholars who agreed with the unification. With the rational judgment of the current situation, Mei Cheng was keenly aware of the irresistibility of the trend of the unification of the regime, so she wrote a letter to admonish the king of Wu to admonish Liu to judge the situation and not to beat the stone with eggs. Her position always focused on the Han Dynasty The stability and unity of the United States clearly show its recognition of the great unity. However, unlike Chao CuO and other people's extreme maintenance of the imperial court, Mei Cheng was only a kind of spiritual identity for the unification. She didn't want to be dispelled by the high pressure of the unification or become the victim of the political struggle between them. She was more willing to face the peace between the imperial court and the local vassal kings.

Music thought

According to a passage about music in Qifa written by Mei Cheng, Mei Cheng's music thoughts are as follows:

① Utilitarian social view. In Qifa, what music plays is not a simple art form with entertainment function, but a moral education tool full of utilitarian color. This idea has a long history, and the way of music has been regarded as the way of human relations since the spring and Autumn period at the latest. In the 29th year of Duke Xiang of Lu (544 BC), jizhaguan was happy with Lu. From the style, elegance and ode of the book of songs, he felt that it was human morality and character. According to the Confucian theory, the custom of rites and music was to teach the public to distinguish right from wrong, to pursue good and eliminate evil, and to return to the right way of human nature. But Mozi, Han Feizi and other people's "non music" is nothing more than saying that the concert is wrong, wrong for the country, wrong for the people, which can also prove from the negative that music has always been considered to be utilitarian, which is harmful to the society, and its entertainment function is almost always ignored, and Meicheng is no exception. "Yaoyanmiao Dao" in Qifa is certainly a good way to cure the disease of Chu prince. Mei Cheng, from the utilitarian view of music society, thinks that music is the second, because it is the basis of moral education and can most directly reflect social life. Therefore, he ranks music as the first of the other six things and highlights the key points.

② The music aesthetics of advocating sadness. Ji Kang, who lived in the Three Kingdoms period, summed up a kind of music aesthetic view of advocating sadness reflected in music Fu of the past dynasties in the preface of Qin Fu - "the sound of Fu is mainly sadness", which can be seen in Qifa. When describing the growing environment of tung tree, the raw material of Qin making, Qifa highlights the dangers and hardships, and chooses silk of wild silkworm, hook of orphan and prominence of widow as accessories. It is only in this way that the tung tree is permeated with the sadness and desolation of all things in the world, and only when it has the quality of sadness can it become the best material. The Qin made of such materials naturally has the quality of sadness. According to Yang Xiong's Qin Qing Ying of the Han Dynasty, "pheasant flying" chants the tragic marriage stories of young men and women, which is a very sad and tactful song. Playing such a piano and singing such a song are just in line with the saying "the most sad thing in this world". And "Qifa" originally started with seven things

Chinese PinYin : Mei Cheng