History of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms

Chapter 211 Six Ministers Carrying the Coffin 2
[Six Ministers Carrying the Coffin 2]

These six people have different personalities and temperaments. Except for this time when they were carrying the coffin for the Tang Dynasty, it is difficult to accurately summarize them with the same label. However, history is fair and ruthless, and the label of "Tang Dynasty coffin bearers" is enough.

In the "New History of the Five Dynasties" compiled by Ouyang Xiu, these six people were specially included in one volume - "Biographies of Six Ministers of the Tang Dynasty". In it, Ouyang Xiu bluntly expressed his point of view: There are no gentlemen after the fall of the Tang Dynasty!
"When the Tang Dynasty fell, all the wise and noble men perished with it, and the remaining ones were all mediocre, cowardly, unworthy, treacherous, cunning, and profit-seeking traitors."

This statement is a bit extreme, but this is the character of Master Xiu, a man of temperament, sentimental, and a straight man. This is the boldness and loveliness of Master Xiu as a migrant poet. When we hold the scroll in our hands and read these words, we can imagine such a picture: Ouyang Xiu was furious and said to the six ministers carrying the coffin: "Please don't misunderstand, I am not targeting anyone, I am saying that everyone here (pointing to the map of China) is rubbish!

Anyone who was still alive in the fourth year of Tianyou in the Tang Dynasty (907) was a bastard, and all the good people were dead.

The "good people" that Master Xiu mentioned refer to the scholars who died in the "Three Tragedy of Luoyang" represented by the "Baima Posthouse Disaster", such as Pei Shu, Cui Yuan, Dugu Sun, etc.

Xiu Ye pointed out that although Pei Shu and others were unable to prolong the life of the Tang Dynasty, they would never "destroy the Tang Dynasty and survive alone". They would rather die with the Tang Dynasty than live in disgrace.

There are several stories related to the "Six Ministers", which show the image of the "Six Ministers" in the minds of later generations.

The Yuan Dynasty poet Qiu Yuan wrote in his poem:
"My name is not included in the Six Ministers' Chronicles, but my appearance is worthy of being recorded in the Nine Elders' Monument."

This is a birthday poem. At that time, the great poet Fang Hui was celebrating his 70th birthday, and Qiu Yuan gave him this poem as a gift. The first half of the sentence uses the allusion of "six ministers", and the second half uses the allusion of "nine elders" in parallel.

There are five interpretations of "Six Ministers":

1. Six ministers who discussed medicine with Huangdi in ancient times, including Qibo, the main participant of Huangdi Neijing, the "ancestor of traditional Chinese medicine" and the "medical saint";
2. The Six Ministers of the Shang Dynasty, including Yi Yin, a famous minister who assisted King Tang of Shang;
3. Six rebellious ministers in the early Han Dynasty, including Han Xin;
4. Six ministers of the Tang Dynasty who annotated "Wenxuan".

"Wenxuan" is the earliest extant collection of poetry and prose in my country. It was compiled by literati organized by the eldest son of Emperor Wu of Liang during the Southern and Northern Dynasties. It includes more than 130 poems and prose by more than 700 authors over a period of about years since the Zhou Dynasty. It has rigorous selection of materials and pays attention to rhetoric. Most of the selected works are elegant, and they are basically classics handed down from generation to generation. After all, it was led by the crown prince, created by the court, and of royal quality, so it is worth owning.

Since its publication, it has been regarded as a literature textbook by literati and a required reading subject, and has been circulated for more than a thousand years.

When the great poet Du Fu's youngest son celebrated his birthday, Du Fu wrote a poem as a gift to him as a lesson. The poem included the line "Be familiar with the principles of the Selected Works of Literature, and do not seek for light and colorful clothes." Du Fu warned his son to read the Selected Works of Literature carefully and not to do anything improper that would make him look ridiculous!
Lu You, a great poet in the Song Dynasty, also had a proverb in his works that has been passed down to later generations: "If you have a bad literary selection, you are only half a scholar."

"Wenxuan" is undoubtedly a monument in the history of literature.

Li Shan, Lu Yanji and six other people from the Tang Dynasty annotated "Wenxuan", namely "Six Ministers' Annotations on Wenxuan", which is the most representative and longest-circulating annotated version among many versions of "Wenxuan".

5. The Six Flatterers in the Late Tang Dynasty refer to the “professional team” mentioned above.

So which allusion does the “six ministers” in “their names are not included in the biography of six ministers” refer to, and how should it be explained?
The old man who was given the poem, Fang Hui, insisted that they were the "six ministers who carried the coffin". He thought that Qiu Yuan was slandering him, comparing him to Liu Can and Xue Yiju, and calling him a traitor.

Fang Hui said to the people around him: "He said that I was one of the six treacherous ministers in the late Tang Dynasty. Isn't that a hint that the current emperor is Zhu Wen? He is so bold to dare to call the emperor Zhu Wen!" So he was going to report to the authorities and want to kill Qiu Yuan.

There are many more stories about Fang Hui, but they are not relevant to this book and will not be expanded here. We will only talk about the "birthday poem incident".

If we must take the sentence out of context and only focus on "his name is not included in the biography of six ministers", Qiu Yuan is indeed speechless. But anyone with a little knowledge of poetry will combine the second half of the sentence and use rhetoric techniques such as parallelism, antithesis, and intertextuality to infer the true meaning of the whole sentence. "The appearance is worthy of being passed on to the Nine Old Men Monument", there is another allusion here - "Nine Old Men", referring to the nine historical celebrities headed by the great Tang Dynasty poet Bai Juyi. Bai Juyi had a rough career and was repeatedly demoted. In his later years, he retired to Xiangshan and was called "Xiangshan Jushi". He often went to Xiangshan Temple with literati and poets to play, climb high and look far, recite poems and compose essays, and cultivate his sentiments. People at that time respectfully called them "Xiangshan Nine Old Men". In order to commemorate them, later generations built the "Nine Old Men Pavilion" in Xiangshan Temple, and the nine old men's faces were sculpted in the pavilion, and Xiangshan Temple has therefore become a holy place for literati and poets.

Fang Hui was also a poet, so it is obvious that Qiu Yuan was singing praises to Fang Hui. The meaning of this poem is to praise his level as being comparable to the six ministers who annotated "Wenxuan" and being on the same level as Bai Juyi and other "Nine Elders of Xiangshan".

But for some reason, Fang Hui took Qiu Yuan's words out of context, insisting that Qiu Yuan was using the "six ministers carrying the coffin" to satirize the emperor, and wanted to sue the officials to have him killed.

Maybe... naked hatred exists only among colleagues.

Fang Hui's friends came to stop him, but they couldn't stop him. He had to kill Qiu Yuan. He had moral problems!
At this time, Qiu Yuan asked a friend, Hou Zhengqing, for help.

Hou Zhengqing came to Fang Hui's house and asked him about it. He said, "I heard that Xiao Qiu had offended you recently. Why? Is it because he is a rising star and a non-mainstream person, which makes you, a mainstream senior, embarrassed?"
Fang Hui smiled coldly, "This man has moral problems. I want to fight against vulgarity. He dares to compare the current emperor to Zhu Wen. He is courting death!"

Hou Zhengqing asked for the poem that was used as evidence, read it, and said with a smile: "Xiaochou only mentioned the 'six ministers', and did not mention the current emperor, let alone Zhu Wen. It was you who compared the emperor to Zhu Wen."

Fang Hui's face changed drastically. He quickly snatched the evidence and tore it into pieces. "I was just joking with him. Don't take it seriously." From then on, he dared not mention the matter of suing the officials again.

The "birthday poem incident" was thus settled, and Qiu Yuan's poem was lost, leaving only the sentence "His name is not included in the biographies of six ministers, but his appearance is worthy of being recorded in the nine elders' stele."

Although the author Qiu Yuan did not intend to use the allusion of "six ministers carrying the coffin", Fang Hui got angry when he heard the "six ministers" and felt that he was greatly insulted. This also reflects from one side the contempt and abuse of the "six ministers carrying the coffin" by later generations. You are the six ministers, your whole family is the six ministers!
Here’s another little story:

Gu Yanwu, a great scholar in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, wrote in his poem "Wangguan Valley":

"Looking at those six ministers, I feel ashamed to be in the same league as them."

Gu Yanwu lived during the period when the Ming Dynasty fell and the Manchus invaded. Gu Yanwu devoted himself to studying the way to save the country and wrote books such as "The Book of the Advantages and Disadvantages of Counties and States in the World". Before he finished the book, the Ming Dynasty fell and the Qing army marched south. His mother starved herself to death for her country and left a suicide note, ordering Gu Yanwu not to serve as an official of the Qing Dynasty.

Gu Yanwu was filled with hatred for his country and his family, and he actively devoted himself to the great cause of overthrowing the Qing Dynasty and restoring the Ming Dynasty. After his failure, he began a long life of escape, during which time Gu Yanwu's luggage was almost entirely books. Reading thousands of books is like traveling thousands of miles.

Gu Yanwu was a man of profound learning, but he followed the will of his ancestors and vowed to never become an official of the Qing Dynasty. In the 13th year of Emperor Kangxi's reign, his friends recommended him to become an official, but he replied in a letter: "I have the sword and the rope, please don't hasten my death!"
The following year, the imperial court decided to compile the history of the Ming Dynasty and invited him to come out to compile the history of the Ming Dynasty again. Gu Yanwu refused sternly, saying, "What else can a 70-year-old man ask for? I owe you my death. If you force me to do so, I will sacrifice my life for it."

He refused to obey orders again and again, threatening death. His loyalty and integrity won the admiration of the Qing rulers.

When Comrade Gu Yanwu read about the history of the late Tang Dynasty, he could easily resonate with it. Combining the actual situation with his own beliefs, he naturally took up his brush and wrote from the bottom of his heart, "Looking at those six ministers, I am ashamed to be ranked with them."

As a citizen of the Ming Dynasty, it is a great shame to strive to be an official of the Qing Dynasty instead of trying to save the Ming Dynasty! This is just like the "Six Ministers Carrying the Coffin", a bunch of beasts in human clothing!
These two short stories are enough to illustrate the historical image of the "Six Ministers Carrying the Coffin".

No matter whether the "Six Ministers Carrying the Coffin" did so willingly or out of necessity, in short, the six of them will be forever nailed to the pillar of shame in history, cursed forever and infamous for eternity.

(End of this chapter)