Chapter 1283 - 316: A Historian’s Pen Like a Blade (Part 4)

Chapter 1283: Chapter 316: A Historian’s Pen Like a Blade (Part 4)

The Sword Saint nodded. He had never been an obstinate pedant to begin with. Glancing at the sky, the Sword Saint said:

"All of a sudden, I feel like drinking a bit."

The blind man immediately said, "Alright, I’ll have them prepare a plate of peanuts, and match it with a pot of yellow wine and three cups."

"Three?"

"This wine, of course we have to go drink it in Gou Moli’s room—only then will it taste right."

The Sword Saint laughed.

......

Outside Fengxin City,

a carriage was trundling along at a slow pace,

with a troop of cavalry riding to its left and right, escorting it.

Up ahead a temporary pavilion came into view: a wooden roof, three sides boarded, leaving one side open for air.

Inside the pavilion,

sat a man in a white robe embroidered with python patterns.

The cavalry around the carriage immediately spread out, and the carriage halted before the pavilion.

The curtain was lifted, and an elderly white‑haired man alighted from the carriage with the support of servants.

The old man wore a long black robe. His figure seemed thin, yet between his brows there was something like the force of a fierce gale.

Yao Zizhan, Literary Sage of Qian State, had once mocked himself,

saying that in his life he had done absurd deeds, written absurd poems, and been an absurd man.

This was not self‑deprecation, but because he truly was wild, unrestrained, and loved freedom. In poetry and prose, he was free; in the court, he was free; within his clan, he was likewise free.

To match those three lines of absurdity he had given himself,

Yao Zizhan had deliberately pointed out three others.

In Jiangnan of Qian, there was a great Confucian; sixty years ago his literary aura was already famed afar, yet all his life he refused office. After passing the provincial exam and establishing his own household, he repaid the kindness of his clan’s upbringing by securing exemption from taxes on the clan’s fields, but he did not go to the imperial capital to sit for the Spring Exam. Instead, for 60 years like a single day, he walked among the common folk, ran private schools, took no tuition, and taught the sons of poor families to know characters and read texts;

In his youth, he had many fine works, but once he took up the teacher’s ruler, all he recited and chanted were the Three‑Character Classic and various primers.

Yet Yao Zizhan revered him as one whose whole life had composed "proper poems," for truly, there is no poem more proper than teaching and nurturing others, and educating without discrimination.

In West Mountain Commandery of Qian, there had once been a scholar who passed the Spring Exam, and in the palace examination was personally chosen by the imperial clan as Third‑Rank Scholar. Yet he did not go on to continue writing wind‑and‑moon tales of a Flower‑Searcher’s romantic life. Instead, half a year later, he resigned office and returned to his hometown. West Mountain Commandery suffered frequent droughts, and so was one of the few impoverished places within Qian. After he resigned and went home, he led his clansmen and villagers in opening canals and designing river courses. Once he began, he worked for twenty years; after long exposure to wind and sun, that former Third‑Rank Scholar now looked no different from an old farmer.

To read the books of sages and do the deeds of sages; moreover, the people take food as their heaven, and the altars of state take the people as weighty—thus his whole life was spent doing proper deeds.

The third,

was not a Qian person,

but a Chu person.

He was born into the Chen Clan of Chu, the Chen Clan being second‑rank legal nobility of Chu State, but he himself was not a legitimate son of the Chen Clan, indeed not even a concubine‑born son, but rather an illegitimate child.

All his life he followed his mother’s surname, Meng, and was named Shou.

After Meng Shou came of age, he entered Chu’s Literary and Historical Pavilion, and together with his supervising master, revised Chu History, which records events from when the first Duke of Chu entered Chu down to the present day.

When Chu History was completed, at age thirty he entered Jin State, invited by the Wenren Family to compile Jin Dynasty History, which he finished in seven years.

The Wenren Family offered him a thousand gold, wanting him, within Jin Dynasty History, to speak favorably of their house, granting them a touch or two of Spring‑Autumn brushwork.

But he stubbornly insisted on leaving in Jin Dynasty History a single line: that from Emperor Dezong onward, imperial power began to slip away, and the signs of "three clans dividing Jin" had appeared.

He directly named that the power of the Emperor Jin lineage, after Emperor Dezong, had begun to be carved up by three feudal vassal families: the Situ Family, the Wenren Family, and the Helian Family.

Because of this sentence, the Wenren Family imprisoned him for three years. During that time, they used both threats and bribes, yet still could not force him to change his wording.

Later, when the Wenren Family’s old head died and the new head took his place, that man respected Meng Shou’s moral backbone and pardoned him to leave their territory.

From then on, people of the world all called Meng Shou "whose history brush is like a knife."

The seven years spent compiling Jin Dynasty History, plus three years in prison—by the time he left Jin land, Meng Shou was already forty. Later, a man of letters wrote a poem for this, establishing the phrase: "Enter Jin in the age of not-yet‑confused, exit in the age of no confusion; the spring wind is still that of a young man."

Instead of returning to Chu, Meng Shou accepted an invitation from the ruling clan of Qian State and entered Qian. In the Hanlin Academy of the imperial capital, he spent three years compiling Qian History.

Thus, in the opening of the Annals of Emperor Taizu in Qian History, it is stated outright that Emperor Taizu seized his realm.

With a single character "seize," it makes clear that the founding of Qian was built on bullying and plundering widows and orphans.

The ruling clan of Qian did not imprison him, nor did they make things difficult for him; they escorted him out of Qian State with due ceremony.

At forty‑four, Meng Shou entered Yan State to compile Yan History; and once he began, he has worked on it down to the present, nearly thirty years.

One reason is that the nobility of Chu greatly revere restoration of antiquity: there are many ancient texts, all well preserved; Jin State has the Wenren Family, a great house that delights in elegance and culture, and they too have rich collections; as for Qian, needless to say: a single Hanlin Academy may be called a gathering of culture, and Qian’s history itself is short.

But Yan State, though founded eight hundred years ago, has been almost constantly at war. Emperors there are liable to die in battle from time to time; as for other matters, few have recorded them in detail, and Yan people have never placed much weight on education and culture.

Thus, in compiling Yan History, there were not so many historical materials and ancient texts at hand to examine and cross‑check. Many times, he could only do it himself; in earlier years he still had to go personally to the great gate‑clans of Yan State to beg for books;

Furthermore, once a person grows old, his energy is not what it was, and naturally the compiling of history slows.

Even so, Meng Shou alone has roamed the feudal states and compiled the histories of four great states, and may be called the foremost historian under heaven.

Yao Zizhan evaluated him thus: "His history brush is like a knife—not that the brush itself is like a knife, nor that history itself is like a knife, but that the heart of the one who wields the brush is like a knife."