Sky Curtain: The Overlord Charges into Battle, Shocking Emperors of All Dynasties

Was the Southern Ming Dynasty the same as the Southern Song Dynasty?

We knew it!

Zhu Yuanzhang's teeth were grinding together.

It's internal strife, who else could it be but the civil officials themselves!

At that time, the Ming Dynasty was on the verge of collapse, and all they knew was internal strife!

These people are like dogs that can't stop eating shit!

"Internal strife, internal strife, all they do is fight amongst themselves! They're all corrupt and forming cliques, and they're still fighting amongst themselves even with a formidable enemy at hand!"

Just imagining that scene made Zhu Yuanzhang feel his blood pressure spike and his temples throb.

Empress Ma stepped forward and stood behind Zhu Yuanzhang, gently pressing his temples with both hands.

Zhu Yuanzhang felt the familiar warmth on his head, and his body visibly relaxed.

"Girls are the ones who are considerate!"

"Girl, how can we live without you!"

Empress Ma gently patted Zhu Yuanzhang's head with her right hand.

"Virtue!!"

"Without me, you can go find your concubines and go with them!"

Zhu Yuanzhang chuckled dryly twice, but didn't respond.

The Southern Ming Dynasty was essentially a civil service infighting affair, perhaps only slightly more severe than the Southern Song Dynasty.

Only civil officials could fight each other; otherwise, how could it be the emperors fighting each other?

That's impossible! There can only be one emperor!

The image on the screen shifted, and a question appeared on the screen, catching everyone's attention.

[Some people ask, why did frontier poetry decline after the Tang Dynasty?]

Did frontier poetry decline after the Tang Dynasty?

When the ancients looked at this problem,

Frontier poetry simply refers to poems that depict the border regions of a country. The quality of these poems ultimately depends on the poet's skill.

Shame, just one kind of shame!

During the Song Dynasty, the emperors and scholar-officials felt they had been greatly insulted.

Let's leave it at that, after all, the Song Dynasty truly lacked martial spirit.

However, in terms of culture, if the Song Dynasty is second, which dynasty dares to claim first?

Even the Tang Dynasty wouldn't do!

Let's write! Let's write frontier poems now, we refuse to believe we can't surpass the Tang Dynasty!

Of course, this is on the premise that Li Bai cannot be involved.

This guy is just pure genius; it's like a game-changer!

The problem actually stems from a slight issue with the Song Dynasty's definition of the frontier.

A Tang Dynasty poet was writing a frontier poem, lamenting that he was going to the frontier and didn't know when he could return home. He was so sad, but when he looked at the address, it was Kyrgyzstan.

[As for the frontier poems of the Song Dynasty, there were originally no frontiers. It was only because the Song army lost so many battles that my home became a frontier.]

The poet, who was heading to the frontier, was about to write poems reminiscing about his hometown when he joined the army and found himself back home.

A few years later, I was able to write poems about missing my hometown again, only to find out the address was in Jiangsu.

In the Tang Dynasty, poets chased after the frontier; in the Song Dynasty, the frontier chased after the poets.

Hahahaha

"Is that so?"

One of the ancient people couldn't help but burst into laughter.

This is simply the biggest mockery of the Song Dynasty!!

The Tang Dynasty poets laughed the loudest.

In the Tang Dynasty, who couldn't write a few poems?

However, the number of frontier poems is still relatively small.

There's no other reason than that the border region is too far away.

If you want to write frontier poems, you should at least go to the frontier to see what it's like. Otherwise, how can you write good frontier poems?

"Cen Jun, this time you're going to the frontier to serve as a judge in Luntai, so you'd better write a few good frontier poems to bring back!"

"Yes, let's write more poems to pass down to future generations, so that the people of Song can also experience what Luntai is like!!"

"Okay, okay!!"

Cen Shen readily agreed, his heart filled with anticipation for this journey beyond the Great Wall.

If he actually writes a few famous poems, maybe he can make a name for himself and bring glory to his ancestors!

"Frontier poetry? Easy!!"

"Can't one write frontier poetry without having been to the frontier?"

Li Bai spoke dismissively, downed the remaining wine in his gourd in one gulp, and immediately began to recite poetry.

"The bright moon rises over the Tianshan Mountains, amidst the vast sea of ​​clouds."

"A long wind blows for tens of thousands of miles, passing through the Jade Gate Pass."

The Tang Dynasty produced many famous poems and lines about frontier life, such as Wang Wei's "A lone plume of smoke rises straight from the desert, the setting sun is round over the long river," and Cen Shen's "The vast sea is frozen solid, hundreds of feet thick," etc.

But did the Song Dynasty truly lack good frontier poems?

There are still some!

Every line of Lu You's poem "Written in Anger" is a masterpiece.

In my youth, I knew not the hardships of the world; gazing northwards towards the Central Plains, my spirit soared like a mountain. Warships sailed through the snowy night at Guazhou Ferry, while iron horses galloped through the autumn wind at Dasanguan Pass.

[Especially this line, "Iron horses and autumn wind at Dasanguan Pass," uses no verbs, yet six scenes perfectly capture the desolate and melancholic atmosphere of the frontier.]

These two lines of poetry would be unparalleled even in the Tang Dynasty; even Li Bai couldn't have come up with the idea of ​​"Iron Horse in the Autumn Wind" followed by "Da San Pass."

These two were indeed the frontier fortresses of the Song Dynasty.

[Following this are tales of war-torn Yangzhou Road, and the desolate loneliness of Lingdingyang, among others.]

Yangzhou became a frontier, Dasanguan Pass became a frontier, but Lingdingyang is in Guangdong. Can this be considered a frontier of the Song Dynasty?

[It can only be said that the Song Dynasty was too authoritative, single-handedly filling the void of frontier poetry in Jiangsu and Guangdong.]

"I really can't think of anything!!!"

"Isn't Dasanguan Pass right at the doorstep of the Tang Dynasty? Who would have known that these three words would follow 'Iron Horse in the Autumn Wind'!"

Li Bai was speechless. Even as a banished immortal and a poetic prodigy, he...

He also couldn't write frontier poems for the Song Dynasty, because he simply didn't know where the Song Dynasty's frontier was.

What if, as I write this, this place stops being a frontier and becomes enemy territory?

During the Zhenguan period,

"This is hilarious!"

"No wonder the frontier poems of the Song Dynasty were so poor, unable to capture the desolation and grandeur of the Tang Dynasty."

"These poets have never even seen deserts or snow-capped mountains, what kind of frontier poems are they writing? Just look at the poems of my Great Tang Dynasty!!"

Li Shimin laughed heartily.

The main border fortresses of the Tang Dynasty were opened up during his reign, so the phenomenon of poets chasing after the border fortresses was created by him.

Li Shimin even began to consider whether he should send some poets to write about the frontier regions of the Tang Dynasty.

Let's see if these poets can keep up with the pace of the Tang Dynasty's border expansion.

In various time periods of the Song Dynasty, there were taxi drivers who had previously harbored resentment towards the officials and were even prepared to write frontier poems.

Now, the brush dipped in ink is slowly placed on the table, the white Xuan paper is completely blank, not a single word has been written.

The body, which had been motionless, suddenly kicked out with tremendous force, overturning the table and splashing ink from the brush.

Writing frontier poems? What the hell am I supposed to write?!

Writing it out isn't embarrassing enough.

Some people even lowered their heads in shame, having thought they could surpass the Tang Dynasty culturally, only to find they had still lost.

I never imagined that we would lose so completely after only taking this one serious attempt.

During the Southern Song Dynasty, it wasn't even possible to say that "even jumping into the Yellow River couldn't clear one's name," because the Yellow River wasn't within the territory of the Southern Song Dynasty.

Follow-up comment: Now I know why the emperors of the Southern Song Dynasty didn't perform the Fengshan ceremony at Mount Tai.

Follow-up comments: Frontier poetry, Guanzhong poetry, Hedong poetry, Hebei poetry, Yangtze River poetry, Guangdong poetry

Follow-up comment: Song Dynasty poets could never have imagined what the desert looked like, let alone the scenery of the northern lands.

[Furthermore, after Emperor Taizong of Tang, officials of both the Tang and Song dynasties would go to Zhaoling to mourn when they suffered injustices, but the Southern Song dynasty suddenly stopped doing so.]

Follow-up comment: A loyal heart with nowhere to turn, weeping at Zhaoling.

Follow-up comment: Because there really was no way to get there, Zhaoling was no longer within the Southern Song Dynasty.

Follow-up comment: Although it's a bit hellish and makes you want to laugh, it also feels strangely melancholic.

Follow-up comment: I can't imagine what Lu You and Wen Tianxiang were feeling when they wrote these poems.