Spring and Autumn I Am King

The translator's order of "The Record of the Southern Expedition":

"Records of the Southern Expedition", also known as "Records of the Conquest of Wu", the original author Liu Xiayue, courtesy name Ziqian, was from Juye County, Shanyang County, Yanzhou. His father Liu Xiazhi was from the State of Lu. He used to be a thief in Dayezawa. After being defeated by Zhao Wuxi, he became an official in the left army of the State of Lu. "The slaughter of prisoners." Based on the above, some people say that he is a "hero", that he is "the first peasant uprising in history", and some people say that he is a "butcher", calling him a "robber". Regardless of whether what he has done is greater than his faults or his faults are greater than his achievements, Liu Xiazhi, on the eve of the establishment of the Zhao State, entered Taolinsai along the Weihan Ancient Road to attack the Qin State and died when he was struck by an arrow. Controversial life.

According to "Historical Records. Biography of Liuxiazhi Liuxiayue" and the existing Liuxia family genealogy records, when Liuxiazhi died in battle, his eldest son Liuxiayue was only seventeen years old and was studying at the Linzhang Academy. Linzhang Academy is the state-run university of Zhao State, and it is also the first university in the world in the true sense. However, at the beginning, the Academy did not have the grand occasion of the gathering of scholars and the contention of a hundred schools of thought. There were only a few schools, and various disciplines were also in their infancy. .

Liuxiayue did not show extraordinary talent when he was young, and he was able to join the Academy by relying on his father's prestige. From the archives of the Linzhang Academy, it can be seen that he is a partial student, and he is interested in etiquette, music, poetry, and books. They are not interested, as the saying goes, "The boy has no other ambitions, and only wants to imitate Yu Longcheng and Zhao Ziwei to make achievements in exotic areas in order to gain the title of emperor. How long does it take for An Neng to spend a long time in the pen and inkstone?" At that time, the famous cavalry generals Yu Xi and Zhao Jia It had a great influence on him. Among them, Zhao Jia was also a close friend of Liu Ziyue when he was in the school. After Zhao Jia joined the army, he often corresponded with him by letters.

The merits of his father, the encouragement of his friends, and the advocacy of "military merit awarding" at that time made Liu Xiayue not become a gentleman of the school, but chose to write and join the army. Compared with poetry and books, Liu Xiayue's equestrian, imperial skills, swordsmanship, and bow and arrow are all very good. What is particularly commendable is that he is outstanding in the study of geography and has a strong interest in the "Great Kyushu Theory".

After Liu Xiazhi died in battle, Liu Xiayue chose to leave the school to welcome his father's bones back to his hometown and buried him on Dongshan Island in Onoze. Two thousand years of vicissitudes, with the diversion of the Yellow River to the river, Dayozawa gradually disappeared. The Dongping Island in the past is now an inland depression, and the tomb of Liuxiazhi is hard to find.

In short, based on Liu Xiazhi's contempt for the filial piety of ritual and music, Liu Xiayue also abide by his last words, and only after a month of filial piety, he resolutely joined the Zhao army.

It's a pity that he has already missed the battle of Hedong and the subsequent battle of Qin. In the battle of Zheng, Zhao's army was so powerful that he didn't encounter any tough battles, and Liuxiayue, who was placed in the middle army, did not show any outstanding performance. It was only this first expedition that allowed him to see the geography of mountains and rivers between Zheng and Zong, and to broaden his knowledge.

After the establishment of the State of Zhao, the twelfth grade was promulgated. As a hero, Liu Xiazhi was posthumously named "Public Doctor". In the first place, he became an "official doctor".

The official doctor belongs to the ninth rank of the twelfth class, and is a high-ranking title that can have a household tax. It was also a trick of fate. Liu Xiayue's original intention was to make meritorious deeds on the battlefield and to be awarded a title. Unexpectedly, he hadn't made any credits yet. He won such a high position based on his father's merits alone, and he couldn't help but feel uneasy. At the same time, he will also be questioned by meritorious officials. According to the "Historical Records. Biography of Yu Mutianwu", Tian Ben, who has the same title as him, even called him "a father of a tiger and a dog of a dog" in front of the courtiers.

Under such circumstances, Liu Xiayue was under great pressure as one can imagine, and hoped that he would have the opportunity to prove himself.

His opportunity soon came. In the first year of Zhao, the contradiction between Zhao State and Wu State on Lu Song Si intensified, and eventually turned into a war. At that time, the Marquis of Zhao Wuxi decided to go to the expedition in person, and Liu Xiayue also enthusiastically invited Ying, and was allowed to be a lieutenant in the cavalry and go out to the army.

The Battle of Zhao and Wu in the late Spring and Autumn Period was a major war that established the pattern of the cauldron, and even our current history. It is a pity that we can know from the historical records that Liu Xiayue still did not have any outstanding contributions in this war, and he returned in anger, but he left behind a precious record of the war for future generations, that is, "The Record of the Southern Expedition" .

Although Liu Xiazhi often appeared in the dramas and videos of later generations as a hero according to Xiaoshanlin, in fact, he was born in the Zhan clan, a nobleman of the state of Lu. Confucius was speechless. Under the influence of his father, Liu Xiayue was literate since childhood. Although he did not perform well in poetry, calligraphy, ritual and music after entering the school, he was in contact with scholars from the "historians" and "novelists" at that time, and he was very impressed by it. His writing skills are not bad, and he has always liked to record the geography of mountains and rivers along the way, which led to the birth of this notebook with only tens of thousands of words.

It is worth mentioning that there has always been a saying in the field of history that "the literary style is prepared at the end of the Spring and Autumn Period", that is to say, the history books, novels, notes, poems, poems, operas, and even prose and notes of later generations are all in the Spring and Autumn Period. In the end, the blowout occurred in less than fifty years. One of the reasons is that the world tends to be unified. After the establishment of the Linzhang Academy, Chinese scholars had a platform for extensive exchanges, and the culture of the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties was summarized and brought into play, which gave birth to new ideas and styles; , the invention of paper, the improvement of the brush, and even the advent of woodblock printing, making writing no longer an expensive aristocratic privilege, and the content presented on the carrier of paper is no longer the few oracle bone inscriptions and golden inscriptions. The pen, or the cherishing ink on the bamboo slips and silk books is like gold.

The founder of the genre of notes was precisely Liu Xiayue's "Records of the Southern Expedition", and he was also regarded as a member of the "novelists" in his "Records of the Grand Historian. Art and Literature" fifty years later.

To sum up, the "Nanzheng Ji" was written in chronological order in the form of notes. Although the text is slightly rough and the rhetoric is immature, it is far less gorgeous and magnificent than the "Historical Records" in describing the war. It is not as rigorous and in-depth as Zuo Shiqiu Ming's "Zuo's Spring and Autumn". But the victory lies in the fact that the author is a witness to this "Battle of the End of the Spring and Autumn Dominance", and in many details, Shi Ji and Zuo Shi cannot match.

Of course, from the perspective of our descendants, the more important thing is that "The Story of the Southern Expedition", as Liu Xiayue's debut novel with a sword in one hand and a pen in the other, is the stage for his later creation of greater works. What Liu Xiayue saw, heard, felt, and thought in this war is also the source of motivation for him to do a greater cause in the years to come.

Although it is old, the manuscript of "The Story of the Southern Expedition" has been circulating~www.readwn.com~ The Liuxia family also has a relatively complete manuscript. It is based on the six or seven other versions that have been circulated, and it is compiled against the relevant historical materials such as "Historical Records. Liuxiayue Biography".

As mentioned above, the historical research on the "Nanzheng Ji" has been very in-depth, but it is not known to the public. Translating this ancient book more than 2,000 years ago into a vernacular that is close to the public, so that more people can understand the magnificent era and the magnificent history from another level, and understand the early experience of Liu Xiayue, the great pioneer of the Chinese nation. and mood are very necessary.

When we translate this book, we will try our best to respect the original text, but we will try our best to be as easy to understand as possible in terms of sentence logic and rhetoric. However, out of respect for the original appearance of history, the names of people and places at that time were kept according to the original text in the book. For example, Zhao Wuxi was only a prince at that time, so the translation did not use various honorary titles added by later generations, but continued to use the titles Liu Xiayue addressed to him in the book, such as "gong" and "jun Shang". .

Finally, when the vernacular translation of "Nanzheng Ji" is published, the author still wants to thank the leaders of Yecheng Bookstore for their support and the assistance of the descendants of the Liuxia family. It is your understanding as always that this book was born!

ps: The second chapter is at night (to be continued.)