Disciples

Chapter 82

Original
But try hard, don't study literature,
Let your own opinion be true.

Translation
I only know how to bury my head and work hard, but I don't know how to learn cultural knowledge. I will never understand the real truth with my own shallow knowledge.

allusion
During the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty, there was an official named Ma Shaoliang who was very arrogant and conceited.

One day, the emperor let him enter the palace to appreciate poems.Ma Shaoliang didn't know that this was the emperor's poem, but he saw two lines in it: "The bright moon barks on the pole, and the yellow dog rests on the flower stamen." He said without hesitation: "This poem doesn't make sense. How can the bright moon bark on the pole, and the yellow dog sits on the flower stamen." How can you sleep in the flower stamens!" Ma Shaoliang picked up the cinnabar brush, and "swiped" to change two lines of the poem, and the original line became "the bright moon shines on the pole, and the yellow dog sits in the shade of flowers".After seeing it, the emperor smiled slightly, and demoted Ma Shaoliang to three ranks, and was demoted to Zhangzhou, Fujian as the prefect.

Ma Shaoliang felt very unlucky, so he had to leave Beijing to take up his post with his family.One day, he walked to the foot of a mountain in southern Fujian and was stopping to rest when he saw a yellow, chubby bug in the stamen.He asked the bearer: "What kind of insect is this?" The bearer told him: "My lord, this insect is called a yellow dog insect, and it is used to burrowing into the stamens of flowers." In the evening, Ma Shaoliang stayed in an inn in the mountains.At this time, the melodious chirping of birds continued to come from the sky.He went to the shopkeeper to inquire, and only then did he know that it was a bright moon bird. This bird only started singing at the middle of the moon, so it was called Mingyue bird.After hearing this, Ma Shaoliang suddenly came to his senses.Ma Shaoliang returned to his hometown after he was over seventy years old. He regretted his arrogance when he was young.

(End of this chapter)