As soon as the idiom “sleeping on firewood and tasting gall” is mentioned, according to the habitual thinking, people will associate it with Gou Jian, the king of Yue, and Gou Jian’s bitter and arduous cause of restoring the country. Even now, people often use the phrase “lie on the brushwood and taste the gall” to express their determination and perseverance to work hard and make progress. In fact, the “sleeping on firewood and tasting gall” incident in history does not really exist.
According to the traditional saying, “sleeping on firewood and tasting gall” should have occurred in the spring and Autumn period. Among all the historical materials that record the historical events of the spring and Autumn period, the most primitive and credible ones are Zuo Zhuan and Guoyu. But if you look through these two books, you will find signs of disappointment and even confusion. “Zuo Zhuan” in the “Ding Gong” and “Ai Gong” parts, as well as “Guoyu” in the “Wu Yu” and “Yue Yu” parts, although they all described in detail the life story of Gou Jian, the king of Yue, but they did not mention the “sleeping on firewood and tasting gall”, even if it was just a phrase. This coincident historical record makes people feel puzzled and puzzled.
As we all know, “sleeping on firewood and tasting gall” is a synthetic word, which is the general term of “sleeping on firewood” and “tasting gall”. As for the “taste gall”, the historical data of the spring and Autumn period are blank, and the initial records did not appear until the Han Dynasty. Sima Qian, a historian of the Western Han Dynasty, wrote in the historical records for the first time that Gou Jian, the king of Yue, had “the courage to sit, the courage to sit and lie, and the courage to eat and drink”, but did not mention the “lying salary”; When Zhao Ye, a scholar of the Eastern Han Dynasty, wrote the spring and Autumn period of Wu and Yue, although he also said that Gou Jian “hung his courage at home and tasted it in and out”, there was still no record of “lying down for salary”.
It was not until the Tang and Song dynasties that Gou Jian, the king of Yue, began to say that he was “brave enough to bear the burden”. Dufu, a great poet of the Tang Dynasty, once said in his poem Zhuang you that “a hundred million people are fighting against each other.”. Wang Zhu, a scholar of the Northern Song Dynasty, commented that this poem said: Gou Jian, the king of Yue, “tastes courage when he comes out, and pillows when he lies down.”. In the early years of the Southern Song Dynasty, Li Gang said in his book “discussing the country is”, Gou Jian “felt brave to encourage his ambition”; In the “commentary on envoys”, it is said that “Gou Jian felt brave and died to repay Wu”. Ge, a weapon in ancient times, is obviously not the legendary dry wood and hard stick. It can be seen that Gou Jian’s “sleeping on firewood and tasting gall” has not been clearly recorded from the spring and Autumn period to the Han Dynasty and the Tang and Song dynasties.
The words “lying in bed” and “tasting gall” are used together as an idiom, which first appeared in Su Shi, a literary giant of the Northern Song Dynasty, in his “quasi Sun Quan Da”
Cao Cao
Book. Su Shi’s response to Sun Quan
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The man of the moment is obviously respected. In that game epistolary article, Su Shi, through the tunnel of time and space, with his bold and rich imagination, imitated Sun Quan’s tone and wrote: “… Since his servant was left behind, he has been lying on the brushwood and tasting the gall, mourning the passing of the sun and the moon, lamenting the failure of his fame, being loyal to his predecessors who did not report, and being wise to others.” Whether Sun Quan had “slept on firewood and tasted gall”, which was not recorded in the annals of the Three Kingdoms and the Hanshu, and even the widely spread romance of the Three Kingdoms novel could not find any clues. It can be seen that Sun Quan’s “sleeping on firewood and tasting gall” is purely fictional and fabricated by Su Shi. Even if there is, it has nothing to do with Gou Jian’s eight pole swing.
However, Su Shi is Su Shi after all. As a literary leader in the late Northern Song Dynasty and a famous literary giant for half a century, his articles have a great influence, and the word “endure hardships” initiated by him has also been widely spread. Therefore, in the Southern Song Dynasty, patriotic officials and scholars such as Zeng Kai, zhendexiu and Huang Zhen could not meet half of the Southern Song Dynasty, and often recalled the heroic deeds of Gou Jian, the king of Yue. In their memorials and writings, they repeatedly mentioned that Gou Jian had “sitting on the firewood and tasting the gall” or “lying on the firewood and tasting the gall”, which was nothing more than talking about Gou Jian and beating the consistently weak and incompetent Southern Song Dynasty from the side
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Ladies and gentlemen. At the same time, many scholars also put forward diametrically opposite views. For example, Lu Zuqian, a scholar of the Southern Song Dynasty, said in the legend of the Zuo family that fuchai, the king of Wu, once “sat on the brushwood and tasted the gall”. When Zhang Pu, a scholar in the Ming Dynasty, wrote the theory of the kingdoms in the spring and Autumn period, he said, “Fu Chai ascended the throne and lay on the brushwood to taste the gall.”. Later, Ma Jia, a historian in the Qing Dynasty, still attributed the matter of “sleeping on firewood and tasting gall” to fuchai, the king of Wu, when compiling Zuo zhuanshiwei and Yi Shi. It is rare in history to use an idiom and an allusion respectively on two opponents who are at the same time and are tit for tat.
However, many scholars are still willing to add the matter of “sleeping on firewood and tasting gall” to Gou Jian, the king of Yue. Wu Chengquan, a great scholar in the early Qing Dynasty, recorded in the compilation of the “outline of the book of easy knowledge”: “Gou Jian’s rebellion against the country was painstaking, lying on firewood and tasting gall”. Pu Songling also clearly wrote in a widely circulated couplet: “where there is a will, everything is done, and the hundred and twenty-two Qinguan pass will eventually belong to Chu; painstaking people, heaven does not bear, lay down hardships and taste gall, and three thousand Vietnam armor can swallow Wu”, expressing his infinite feelings for Xiang Yu and Gou Jian’s great achievements, as well as his helpless self encouragement for his repeated failures and extreme despair. Later, Cai Yuanfang, a writer in the Qianlong period, said in the revised annals of the kingdoms of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty: “Gou Jian, the king of Yue, was tired and lay down without a bed; he hung his courage in the place where he sat and slept, and he would take and taste it in his daily life.” In this way, the story of Gou Jian, the king of Yue, who “lay on the brushwood and tasted the gall” has been more and more widely spread until now.
Many people’s records of “sleeping salary” first appeared in the Song Dynasty, and may disagree. They believe that Gou Jian, the king of Yue, recorded in the spring and Autumn Annals of Wu Qi, said that “if you lie down, you will attack it with Polygonum”. This kind of “Polygonum” dish accumulates much, and becomes “Polygonum salary”, which means “lying salary”. The so-called “Polygonum” was once interpreted by Ma Ruichen, a scholar in the Qing Dynasty, as “a hard dish” (Volume VI of Mao Shi Zhuan Jian Tong Shi). They believed that Gou Jian, the king of Yue, was working day and night and his eyes were so tired that he wanted to sleep (“eyes lie”), so he used spicy and bitter Polygonum herb (“Polygonum salary”) to stimulate his eyes and dispel sleepiness. According to this statement, “tasting gall” is to make the taste feel bitter, “sleeping salary” is to make the vision feel bitter, but to say “sleeping salary” as sleeping on hard firewood is obviously a misunderstanding.
Is it true in history that the “taste gall” recorded since the Han Dynasty and the “lying salary” seen only since the Song Dynasty, or is it out of misinformation? Did Gou Jian, the king of Yue, ever “endure hardships” or “endure hardships”? Does “sleeping salary” want to stimulate your eyes with “hard dishes” when sleeping, or do you want to sleep on hard firewood to exercise your muscles and bones? It seems a lot of deliberation to clarify these problems.
A Chinese idiom of “lying on firewood and tasting gall” was attached to the names of Sun Quan, Gou Jian and fuchai by celebrities of all dynasties, and was finally “locked” by most people on Gou Jian, the king of Yue. It can be seen that people attach importance to and love this word, which has experienced thousands of years of development and evolution, is full of commendation, represents praise, and is eager for success. In fact, now it seems that whether the idiom “lying on firewood and tasting gall” has an exact historical allusion and which historical figure it happened to is not so important. What is important is that it has generally become the internal driving force for a person, a nation and a country to be unwilling to fall behind, to strive for self-improvement, to be inspired and to strive for rejuvenation. This is the infinite wealth left to the Chinese nation by this idiom that has been debated and even misunderstood for thousands of years.