A poet was praised by Chairman Mao as "the greatest poet of the Ming Dynasty", and was also praised as "the first poet in the Ming Dynasty" by Zhao Yi, a Qing scholar. The poet who won this honor was Gao Qi, a famous poet in the late Yuan Dynasty and early Ming Dynasty.
Gao Qi, a native of Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, was one of the "three masters of poetry and prose in the early Ming Dynasty" with Liu Ji and Song Lian in the history of literature, and another four masters with Yang Ji, Zhang Yu and Xu Ben in the early Ming Dynasty. Gao Qi had a high position in the history of literature, but his own ending was very tragic, and he died at the age of 38.
The reason why Gao Qi was sentenced to beheading was related to two other historical celebrities, namely Zhu Yuanzhang, the founder of Ming Dynasty, and Zhang Shicheng, the famous uprising leader at the end of Yuan Dynasty.
Gao Qi is a native of Suzhou, Jiangsu Province. He was born with wealth and received a good education since childhood. And he himself is intelligent, and he has been reading for a long time, and he is very talented.
at the end of the yuan dynasty, ruling corruption, class contradictions and ethnic contradictions became more and more fierce, and farmers everywhere rose up in revolt. Zhang Shicheng, one of several powerful insurgents, came to be king in Wu. At that time, he was a corporal of Rao Jie, who was involved in politics in Huainan province, to recruit talents. I heard that Gao Qi was famous and invited many times to be a guest of honor, so Gao Qi became Rao Jie's staff at the age of sixteen.
Gao Qi didn't like the darkness of the officialdom, so at the age of 23, he made an excuse to leave, and then he lived in seclusion around Qingqiu. After Zhu Yuanzhang, the first emperor of Ming Dynasty, unified the world, Yu Hongwu asked him to be the right assistant minister of the Ministry of Finance for three years.
Because he had entered the official career earlier and was unwilling to enter the DPRK as an official, Gao Qi refused to accept his firm resignation. Zhu Yuanzhang did not insist, but gave him money to return it. But in fact, Zhu Yuanzhang at that time was very unhappy with Gao Qi. In addition, he is a suspicious temperament, suspecting that Gao Qi made poems to mock him and hold a grudge against Gao Qi.
In fact, at that time, Gao Qi wrote "The Picture of Maids in Palace": "The little dog barks at shadows every other flower. Who will come to the palace at night?" Just writing Yuan Shundi Gong Wei's private idle work has nothing to do with Zhu Yuanzhang. However, Zhu Yuanzhang was seated in the right place, thinking that Gao Qi used the ancient irony to dig at himself, which became one of the important reasons for the tragic ending of Gao Qi in the future.
in the fifth year of Hongwu, Wei Guan, then the magistrate of Suzhou, had just arrived and started to build a new magistrate's office. The newly-built office building is located on the site of Zhang Shicheng Palace.
after the building is completed, according to the rules at that time, an article "On Liang Wen" should be written. This is the same reason that ordinary people in ancient times built houses and put pig heads to worship the gods when they climbed the most important girders, and lit firecrackers to drive away ghosts.
Gao Qi is famous all over the world for his excellent literary talent. It happened that he lived in seclusion in Qingqiu, so Wei Guan invited Gao Qi to be Liang Wen. This matter is not a big deal, Gao Qi agreed, and wrote an article entitled "Liang Wen in County Governance". It was such an article "On Liang Wen" that finally put Gao Qi on the execution ground.
Wei Guan built an office building on the palace in Zhang Shicheng. Zhu Yuanzhang was very unhappy when he learned that Wei Guan had ulterior motives and finally killed him. Gao Qi was implicated in this matter and was also condemned.
In Gao Qi's essays on Liang Dynasty, there is the word "dragon in a tiger's house", which directly ignited Zhu Yuanzhang's anger. Zhu Yuanzhang thought that the "Dragon Pan Tiger Residence" was the residence of the emperor, but Gao Qi described the ruins of Zhang Shicheng Palace as "Dragon Pan Tiger Residence", which was very reprehensible. Zhang Shicheng was Zhu Yuanzhang's arch-rival when he was fighting for the world. The word "a dragon in a tiger's house" naturally made Zhu Yuanzhang's taboo and was finally sentenced to halved.
The Biography of Gao Qi in the Ming Dynasty: "It is ironic to start to taste poems, but the emperor has not made them." From here, we can know that the word "Long Pan Hu Ju" in "Liang Wen on County Governance" is just a fuse. Zhu Yuanzhang's dissatisfaction with Gao Qi had existed for a long time, accumulated day by day, and reached its peak in Liang Wenshi, thus breaking out.
I lost my life because of four words. No matter in which era, the life of literati is not easy!