Inscriptions and Calligraphy, the collective name of inscriptions and calligraphy, include rubbings and ancient calligraphy. In the early days of the development of printing, rubbings of inscriptions and calligraphy were important means of spreading culture and important materials for learning calligraphy. Recently, Shandong Pictorial Publishing House published a new book "Who Rows the Clouds in the River: Another Narrative of Inscriptions and Calligraphy", which includes 17 classic inscriptions and calligraphy, such as "Declaration", "Thirteen Lines", "Lanting Preface", "Jiuhuatie", etc., telling the emotions and fate of the ancients from the inscriptions and calligraphy.

This article excerpts a section of Lu Ji's "Ping Fu Tie". In the turbulent times, this talented scholar from the Eastern Wu recorded his inner struggle and helplessness in a letter.

"Yanxian is weak and ill, and I'm afraid it will be difficult for him to recover..."

If inscriptions and calligraphy could speak, Lu Ji's "Ping Fu Tie" might be related to Gu Rong.

Gu Rong, courtesy name Yanxian, was Lu Ji's cousin. When Sun Ce of Wu died young, Sun Quan decided to marry his brother's two daughters to the sons of two prime ministers of Wu, Lu Xun and Gu Yong. Their most famous grandsons were Lu Ji and Gu Rong.

Image of Lu Ji from the Jin Dynasty in ancient books

In ancient times, when people wrote letters, they were accustomed to putting the date at the beginning and the recipient's name at the end. However, this letter has no date and no recipient. It is just named "Ping Fu Tie" based on the four words "Maybe it's difficult to calm down."

Generally speaking, the lifespan of paper rarely exceeds a thousand years, but the Pingfu Tie is an exception. It is even older than the Loulan fragments of paper with recorded ages. The ink is mottled, and the characters are so bizarre that they are unreadable. One can vaguely distinguish: "Pingfu", "Linxi Fulai", "Kouluanjiji"...

It is said that the author is Lu Ji because there is ink writing on white silk paper in front of the post: "Written by Lu Ji Shiheng, the former internal historian of Wujun (Jin Ping)" and there is also gold pen writing by Song Huizong Zhao Ji: "Pingfu Tie (Jin) Lu Ji".

The commentary says: Yanxian suffered from tuberculosis and may not recover. This was the first time he had been ill. I was worried that it would not stop. This is a blessing. I am the only man I have been sent to. Fortunately, I have not lost my worries. Wu Ziyang came to the Lord for the first time. I cannot describe him in detail. When he came back to the west, he was majestic and graceful. His movements were a spectacle, which was the beauty of his body. His thinking and knowledge were advancing. This was a natural trend and he deserved praise. During the time of the invasion, Xia Boyong was asked about it but did not know everything. (There are many versions of the commentary on the Pingfu Tie. This commentary comes from Qi Gong's "Commentary on the Pingfu Tie and the Commentary" (Qi Gong Collection, Zhonghua Book Company, 1999)

"Ping Fu Tie"

Postscript to "Ping Fu Tie" by Dong Qichang

When Sima Yan, Emperor Wu of Jin, first opened his court, Lu Ji and Gu Rong were the first group of Wu nobles to enter Luoyang. Together with Lu Ji's younger brother Lu Yun, they were known as the "Three Talents of Luoyang". Luoyang was not only the political and cultural center of the plain, but also the political and cultural center of East Asia. But how did Lu Ji describe Luoyang? In his poem "Presented to My Wife by Gu Yanxian", he wrote: "The capital city of Luoyang is full of wind and dust, and the white clothes have turned black." This means that the wind in the capital city of Luoyang is so strong that the white clothes they usually wear have turned black.

Gu Rong also disliked Luoyang, not only because of the strong wind. In the court of Sima Jue, the King of Qi, he felt that a disaster was coming, and he got drunk and acted stupid every day. He envied Zhang Han's unrestrainedness. When the autumn wind came, he thought of the wild rice and sea bass in Wuzhong, and left without hesitation. But for him, "it is difficult to retreat."

Lu Ji also had a friend named Yanxian, who was He Xun, who went to Luoyang with Zhang Han. During the reign of Sun Xiu, Emperor Jing of Wu, the Lu, Gu, and He families each guarded one side. He Xun's father He Shao was the governor of Wujun, Gu Rong's father Gu Mu was the governor of Yidu, and Lu Ji's father Lu Kang was the general of Zhenjun.

The Pingfu Tie may also be written to He Xun, because He Yanxian was indeed "sick and frail". The Book of Jin, Biography of He Xun, records that when Sima Lun, the King of Zhao, usurped the throne and when Chen Min rebelled, He Xun twice pretended to be sick and refused official positions.

After Zhang Han left, Gu Rong also saw that things were hopeless. He Xun, who went to Luoyang with Zhang Han, also claimed to be ill and was able to return home to avoid disaster. Only Lu Ji, like this letter without a recipient, his fate is hard to come by.

Page from the book Who Rows the Cloudy River: Another Narrative of Inscriptions and Calligraphy

Regional Black

Lu Ji, courtesy name Shiheng, was from Wu County. Ancient people often used official titles as personal names. He and Yan Zhenqing were the two most famous Pingyuan gentlemen.

Lu Ji's grandfather was Lu Xun, his father was Lu Kang, and his uncle Lu Kai was also an important official of the Eastern Wu, the left prime minister. When Sun Hao, the last ruler of the Eastern Wu, succeeded to the throne, he had the following conversation with Lu Kai:

"How many people are there in the Qing clan?"

"Two prime ministers, five marquises, and more than ten generals."

"Splendid!"

But Lu Kai said that a country can only be called prosperous when its ruler is virtuous and its ministers are loyal, and a family can only be called prosperous when its father is kind and its sons are filial. Now the government is in chaos and the people are corrupt, and there is a fear of destruction. How can it be called prosperous? For Sun Hao, who had just ascended the throne, these words were undoubtedly a bit harsh.

Sure enough, as soon as Lu Kang died, Sun Hao exiled Lu Kai's family. Six years later, Jin conquered Wu, and Lu Ji's two elder brothers also died on the front line.

This is Lu Ji at the age of 20. His father and brother died, leaving him helpless. The merits of three generations were gone. He returned to his hometown Huating and studied behind closed doors. Du Fu said, "Lu Ji wrote Wenfu at the age of 20." It is hard to say whether Wenfu was written at the age of 20, but its academic status is unmatched. If there was a citation rate in ancient times, the impact factor of Wenfu must be terrifyingly high. Even Emperor Taizong of Tang, Li Shimin, said, "There is only one Wenzong in a hundred generations."

If it were put into the present, Lu Ji's articles would definitely be the most popular. He said "How smooth is the fresh skin, how beautiful is the color that can be eaten", and people learned that "beauty can be eaten"; he said "May this be said unswervingly, and be honest and upright to become famous", and people learned that "words are unswerving"; he said "Men like the wise and despise the foolish, and women like the old and avoid the beautiful", and people learned that "men like women"; he said "Thank you for the morning flowers that have already bloomed, and welcome the evening beauty that has not yet bloomed", and Mr. Lu Xun began to write books with the title "Morning Flowers Picked at Dusk"...

When you have nothing to do, you can listen to the cry of cranes in Huating, be a great writer, and live your life there. But Lu Ji didn't think so. "Although my country has been destroyed, I will never be discouraged. I will fight for my country and ancestors." He still chose to go to Luoyang with his brothers Lu Yun and Gu Rong. On the way to Luoyang, he wrote: "The sadness touched everything, and I was deep in thought. Standing and looking at my hometown, I felt sorry for myself when I looked at my own shadow."

In Luoyang, Lu Ji encountered unprecedented "regional discrimination".

He and his brother Lu Yun went to see Sima Zhao's son-in-law Wang Wuzi. The man pointed at the goat cheese in front of him and asked, "How can you Jiangdong compete with this?" He said, "We have a thousand-mile water shield soup, but we haven't added salt and soy sauce!"

When the Wu people came to Luoyang, they encountered more discrimination. When Cai Hong went to Luoyang to apply for a job, a northern official asked him, "You are from Wu and Chu, and you have lost your country. What special talents do you have?" Cai Hong replied, "Why should I stay in a place where sages and wise men come from?"

Nowadays, "Lu Hai Pan Jiang" is often used to describe a person with great talent, but Lu Ji and Pan Yue were incompatible. Pan Yue even mocked the people of Wu in the poem "Presented to Lu Ji" written on behalf of Jia Mi: "What is the Southern Wu, claiming to be the king... The fake grandson holds the jade and returns to the border with land." Jia Mi was the nephew of the Empress of Emperor Hui of Jin. He was a "literary youth" who liked to be pretentious. Some people said that he could be compared with the talented Jia Yi, and he really believed it. When Lu Ji first arrived in Luoyang, he was invited by him as a guest of honor and became a key member of the "Twenty-four Friends of Jin Gu".

As the name suggests, the organizer of the "Twenty-four Friends of Jingu" was Shi Chong, the owner of Jingu Garden. The name of this organization was "to attract literary talents from all over the world", but in fact it was to flatter the nephew of Empress Jia. Lu Ji despised Shi Chong and Pan Yue the most. Every time Jia Mi left, they would exaggerately "get off the carriage to the left of the road, look at the dust and bow". So every time Pan Yue came, Lu Ji and Lu Yun got up and left. Pan said: "The breeze comes, the dust flies." Lu replied: "All birds gather, the phoenix flies." One sentence offended a lot of people.

Even Lu Ji's calligraphy was discriminated against. His handwriting was called "Wu Shi Shu" by the Southern Dynasties, which means it was different from the Luoyang style. At that time, the popular calligraphy styles in the Central Plains were Wei Guan and Suo Jing. Cursive script was introduced to Wu after the Central Plains gentry migrated south in the Eastern Jin Dynasty. Therefore, in "Ping Fu Tie", we can see that the cursive script of Wu people has not yet lost the traces of Zhangcao.

The most intense one took place in Sima Ying's court. "Lu Zhi was sitting among the crowd and asked Lu Shiheng: 'What are Lu Xun and Lu Kang to you?' He replied: 'Like you to Lu Yu and Lu Ting.'" This passage is recorded in "Shishuo Xinyu Fangzheng". Lu Zhi was from the Fanyang Lu family. Lu Ting was his father and Lu Yu was his grandfather. His great-grandfather was Lu Zhi, who quelled the Zhang Jiao Rebellion in the late Eastern Han Dynasty. Liu Bei was his great-grandfather's student.

Lu Yun was terrified, and after leaving, he told his brother that maybe they really didn't know. Lu Ji said, "My father and grandfather are famous throughout the country, so how dare they not know? How dare the devils do that!"

Lu Ji was just like this, a scholar, neither humble nor arrogant, honest and upright. But it was precisely because he was not "discerning" enough that he brought about his own death.

Gu Rong could certainly feel the xenophobia of the northern gentry. After Zhang Han left, he also found an excuse to return to the south, and before leaving, he persuaded Lu Ji to resign and return home. However, Lu Ji accepted the appointment of Pingyuan Nei Shi in order to repay Sima Ying for saving him from prison.

"I should be ashamed of this. I cannot bring shame upon my clan and tribe. I can't report this to the higher authorities." His words came true.

Book cover of Who Rows the Cloudy River: Another Narrative of Inscriptions and Calligraphy

Huating Crane Cry

The year Wang Xizhi was born, Lu Ji was killed.

In Luoyang, Lu Ji had a dream that he couldn't wake up from. He dreamed that the wheels of the carriage were entangled by the black curtains and he couldn't pull them apart no matter how hard he tried. At dawn, the people who wanted to kill him came to the outside of the military tent. He took off his military uniform, put on a white casual cap, and met the people as a civilian.

The man who came was called Qian Xiu, a former subordinate. He looked at the familiar yet unfamiliar face, and his thoughts were a little vague. He remembered that before this expedition, he was appointed as the head of the three armies, commanding an army of 200,000, including Qian Xiu's troops. But he refused at that time. He said to Sima Ying: Our Lu family has been generals for three generations, which is what Taoists hate. But Sima Ying did not accept this reason. He also told Sima Ying that Duke Huan of Qi trusted Guan Zhong, so he was able to unite the nine princes and pacify the world; but King Hui of Yan doubted Yue Yi, so he failed. "Today's matter depends on you, not on chance."

He recalled the day when they marched from Chaoge to Heqiao. The sound of drums and horns stretched for hundreds of miles, and the momentum was overwhelming. Such a grand military spectacle had never been seen since the Han and Wei dynasties. But in the end, "the dead piled up, and the water stopped flowing." His soldiers blocked the river.

He was not afraid of death, but on the day when his grandfather Lu Xun burned down the camps, "corpses floated down the river and blocked the river." Isn't this fate?

Thinking of this, Lu Ji's scholarly temper came back. He said to Qian Xiu, "Since the fall of the Wu Dynasty, my brothers and my clan have been greatly favored by the country, serving in the tent and splitting bamboo talismans. Chengdu has entrusted me with an important task, and I have no choice but to refuse. I am being executed today. Isn't this fate?"

What he didn't know was that Sima Ying no longer trusted him, not only because of the slander of his northern officials, but also because of Lu Zhi's words. Lu Zhi said to Sima Ying: Lu Ji compared himself to Guan Zhong and Yue Yi, and compared you to a tyrant, "Since ancient times, no minister has ever been able to overcome his monarch and help the cause."

Qian Xiu was ordered by Sima Ying to kill him simply because he was the scapegoat chosen by referendum.

At this moment, Lu Ji suddenly remembered: "How can I ever hear the cry of the cranes in Huating again?"

What Lu Ji could not see was that his son and brother were executed one after another, and the Lu family, the largest family in Jiangdong, was almost wiped out. His subordinate Sun Zheng was exterminated with his entire family, and Sun Zheng's followers cried out for justice for the "two Lus" and were also killed. Since then, no one from the Eastern Wu aristocracy dared to set foot in the Central Plains again.

What Lu Ji could not have foreseen was that a few years later, Sima Rui and the Wang family of Langya crossed the Yangtze River and brought Zhong Yao's "Declaration" to the south, and regular script took root from then on. People no longer discriminated against "Wu Shishu" because the history of calligraphy was about to be rewritten by two people named Wang Xizhi and Wang Xianzhi.

Gu Rong finally had the opportunity to pick ferns in Nanshan and drink water from the Three Rivers with Zhang Han and He Xun, but Lu Ji and Lu Yun were missing, so "it was never like the travels of our youth."