Introduction of Pu Songling

Pu Songling (1640-1715), the word Liuxian, a word Jianchen, the name of Liuquanju Shi, known as "Mr. Liaozhai". The Qing dynasty famous writer, short story writer. Shandong Zichuan (now Zibo City, Shandong Zichuan District), Mongolian. Pu Songling was born in a family of books, since childhood, intelligent, knowledgeable, 19 years old, that is, the county's first place in the examination, to take in the Xiu Cai. But later to participate in the imperial examinations, repeatedly failed, despite its academic reputation in the countryside, but the pursuit of fame has not always been able to aspire to. Until the age of 71, it was made up as a tributary according to the regulations. Pu Songling's life repeatedly failed to pass the exams, poverty, descendants with 8 words will summarize his life: reading, teaching, writing books, science and technology examination.

Pu Songling, at the age of 19, was the first to take the examination for children, and then he was awarded the title of Xiucai (scholar) in the county, prefecture and provincial examinations. His writings were highly appreciated by Mr. Shi Yushan, the school administrator of Shandong, and he became famous for a while. In order to seek fame, realize the ideal, 20-year-old Pu Songling and his fellow countrymen good Li Youmei, Wang Luzhan, Zhang Liyou *** knot "Ying Poetry Society", dedicated to study. Now Zichuan's Liuxian Lake, like the Yang River and other places is where they often activities. 25 years old when the Pu family because of the first Yul did not agree, brother separation, Pu Songling only divided into "farms, three old houses, open no four walls", life is in a difficult situation. Forced to make ends meet, Pu Songling was invited by his friend Sun Hui of the same county in the ninth year of the Kangxi period to work as an advisor to Sun Hui, the governor of Baoying, Jiangsu Province. During that time, Pu Songling broadened his horizons and wrote a lot of poems, but he also tasted the pain of being under the fence, plus homesickness, and the next year he resigned from his post and returned to his hometown. Pu Songling 74 years old when his wife Liu died of illness, he was grief-stricken, doubly short life, so after two years, Pu Weng also in the fifty-fourth year of the Kangxi that is the first month of the 22nd day of the month of 1715 AD, in the former residence of the Liaozhai with the world long death. Pu Weng tomb unearthed things, there are tin wine pots, tin wine cups, dry tobacco bag, rosary beads, Xuande stove, four Shoushan stone seal, and his wife with a bronze mirror, ear spoon. A generation of literary masters finished his bumpy life, but the wealth he left behind for future generations is indelible!

When Pu Songling was young, his life was not very hard, because his father abandoned Confucianism and went into business, and his family was a well-off family. Under his father's protection, the young Pu Songling could study at ease and start a poetry club with his friends. But the good times didn't last long because he split up his family. Why did he split up? Because of family conflicts. Pu Songling's two brothers were both scholars, but his two sisters-in-law were both shrews. Pu Songling once said in his book, "At the head of every bed, there is a night fork." His two sisters-in-law were really typical of nightmares, and they often made the house in chaos over trivial matters. Pu Songling's father had to divide his son's family. The family was divided and divided very unfairly, because the two sisters-in-law and can fight and can scream and can rob, and Pu Songling's wife, Liu's very virtuous, silent and hide on the side. The result of the division of the family is Pu Songling to share the old farm house three, so broken that even the door is not, Pu Songling had to borrow the door plate on. He was allocated twenty acres of thin fields, two hundred and forty pounds of grain, only enough to eat for three months. In this way, Pu Songling has to earn his own living, he then began a 45-year-long career as a private school teacher. Private school teacher is the village elementary school teachers, and is to teach in private homes, treatment is very low. Calculating the specific accounts, how much salary can I get each year as a private school teacher? At most eight taels. What is the concept of eight taels of silver? At that time, a family of four in the countryside to maintain a year's subsistence to twenty taels, this account is "Dream of Red Mansions" in the Grandma Liu counting the Grand View Garden's crab feast calculated. So, our great writer Pu Songling worked hard for one year to teach, but the money he earned was not enough to pay for half a crab feast in the Grand View Garden. When he was 30 years old, because his father had died, Pu Songling had to support his old mother, how poor was he? How poor was he? "A family with four walls and a woman who worries about her poverty". He has a poem, called the "meal in the day", written to the time of the wheat harvest, the family did not have food, had to cook a pot of rice, he then had three sons and a daughter, the eldest son looked at the cooked rice, grabbed the spoon to grab the hand inside, to the bottom of the pot to find the thickest to the side of their own bowls, the second son did not do it, go up and brother to grab. Pu Songling's daughter stood there pitifully, looking at her father from a distance. Pu Songling was very distressed, how can I feed these poor children of mine ah! Pu Songling also wrote an article called Offering to the God of Poverty. He said, "Poor God, poor God, I and you have what relatives, how do you follow me all day long without moving an inch, I am one of your guards of the house of the family, I am the general of your escort, you have to let me a few days of vacation ah, but you do not relax a step, as if it is two entangled hot lovers?" This is the suffering of Pu Songling's life.

Pu Songling's life, always struggling on the poverty line. He dug his heels in for food and clothing; he spent decades of his life taking the imperial examinations, losing many battles, losing many battles, very painful; he suffered a lot in order to write "Liaozhai Zhiyi". Liaozhai Zhiyi is a very magical novel, and the birth of the author of Liaozhai Zhiyi itself carries several magical colors. In the thirteenth year of Ming Dai Zong Zhen, A.D. 1640, on the night of the sixteenth day of the fourth month of the lunar calendar, Pu, a merchant from Pu Jia Zhuang in Zichuan, Shandong Province, had a strange dream. He saw a robed monk, thin, bony and sickly, enter his wife's inner room, the monk's bare chest was a copper coin large plaster, Pu woke up. He heard a baby crying, and it turned out to be the birth of his third son. "Holding the child and washing the couch, the moon slopes over the southern chamber." Under the illumination of the moonlight, Pu was surprised to find a clear mole on the chest of his newborn third son, the size and position of which matched exactly the anointing of the sickly monk he had seen in his dream. The sick monk entered the room, which was Pu Songling's description of his birth when he was forty years old. Ancient writers in China liked to make their births mysterious. Li Bai, the great poet, said he was born when his mother dreamed that the Great White Star had entered her bosom. And Pu Songling was born of his father's dream of a sick monk entering his room, and he explained that the fact that I have been so unpopular and poor all my life is probably because I am the reincarnation of an ascetic monk.

Pu Songling traveled less to foreign countries in his life, and his family was poor and lived in poverty, but he often stayed in Jinan. During his stay in Jinan, he left behind a lot of writing, including a poem entitled Morning Cooking in the Guest House:

Daming Lake on the smoke and haze,

Maohuya three rafters leased to the writer.

Corn draws water to cook white porridge,

Garden vegetables are brought to the table with yellow flowers.

In a few short lines, it illustrates the vivid scene of Pu's living on the shore of Daming Lake, cooking in the morning sun. In particular, the last two lines describe the boiling of corn porridge in spring water, and the cutting of vegetarian vegetables, including cauliflower, on the table, which was used as a snack. One can imagine the breakfast situation of Pu Songling at that time, when he cooked and ate his own food with great relish.

Pu Songling's account of cooking millet congee, accompanied by vegetables for breakfast, is also the daily dietary practices in most parts of Shandong. Shandong folk in the morning like to eat porridge, porridge variety is very much, there are millet porridge, rice porridge, millet and green bean porridge, rice porridge, bean juice porridge, red bean porridge, lotus leaf porridge and so on.

Pu Songling 74 years old when his wife Liu died of illness, he was grief-stricken, doubly feel the shortness of life, so after two years, Pu Weng also in the fifty-fourth year of the Kangxi that is the first month of the 22nd day of the first month of the year 1715 A.D., in the former residence of Liaozhai and the world long death. Pu Weng tomb unearthed things, there are tin wine pots, tin wine cups, dry tobacco bag, rosary beads, Xuande stove, four Shoushan stone seal, and his wife with a bronze mirror, ear spoon. A generation of masters of literature finished his bumpy life, but the wealth he left for future generations is never to be erased!