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Chapter 361: Outstanding Women

The vows they made in the past were still ringing in his ears, but Tang Wan had already married Zhao Shicheng. Even though his love was as deep as the sea, he could no longer express his longing through poetry. Lu You felt deeply regretful, but he could do nothing about it.

He wrote this poem just to vent his emotions, without considering whether Tang Wan could see it, what she would think after seeing it, and whether Zhao Shicheng would misunderstand it after seeing it. That short-lived sincerity and romance did not take Tang Wan's feelings into consideration at all.

In 1156, Tang Wan saw the "Phoenix Hairpin" written on the wall of Shen Garden by chance. She was overwhelmed with grief and tears when she learned that Lu You had repented and admitted that the separation was his fault. The anger and helplessness buried deep in her heart surged out like a tide, and she also wrote a poem "Phoenix Hairpin":

The world is cruel and people are mean. The rain sends the evening flowers to fall easily. The morning breeze dries the tears. I want to write down my thoughts, but I can only talk to myself. It is difficult, difficult, difficult.

People have grown apart, today is not yesterday, sick souls often seem like swing ropes. The horn sounds cold, the night is late, afraid of being questioned, swallowing tears and pretending to be happy, hiding, hiding, hiding.

This poem is both her accusation against the persecution of feudal ethics and her resentment towards her ex-husband Lu You for his cowardice and incompetence in love.

Not long after, Tang Wan passed away. Zhao Shicheng was heartbroken after his beloved wife's death, but he did not vent his anger on others. After dealing with his wife's funeral, he did not mention the past between Tang Wan and Lu You again. After getting over the pain of losing his wife, he devoted himself to his career.

After 40 years, Lu You once again visited Shen Garden. The elderly Lu You could not help but recall the good times he had with his late wife Tang Wan.

However, the world has changed, things have changed, and the buildings in Shen Garden have also changed several times. Only the scenery of the gurgling water remains as poetic and picturesque, as if the scene of Tang Wan wading through the water on the bridge with her skirt pulled up is still vivid in front of our eyes, but the flowing water is still there, but the beauty is hard to find again.

Throughout his life, Lu You could never let go of Tang Wan. If he could go back to the past and make a choice between his family and his beloved wife, I believe he would definitely seek a more appropriate solution.

However, life is unpredictable and time is hard to find. For Tang Wan, Lu You was just a passer-by with a lot of affection, but the one who really deserved her wholehearted devotion was Zhao Shicheng, the man she entrusted her life to.

[The richest woman, also the earliest female entrepreneur, historical trivia and historical figures]

How powerful can a woman be if she focuses on her career? Her business even made the emperor admire her. Although she was a widow, she was able to become one of the seven great chaebols in the Warring States Period and became the richest woman in ancient my country.

Unlike other women who were trapped by love, she devoted herself to her career. She was the earliest female entrepreneur in the world and one of the earliest women in ancient my country to be recorded in official history. How great was her charm? She could even make the Qin Shihuang, who swept across the world, admire her. In this video, let us learn about the life of this legendary woman, "Ba Qing".

"Ba Qing" is not her real name. Her real name may be Qing Bajun, and some people say her name is Huai Qing. Because she was born in the Bajun family and was a widow, she was called "Ba Qing".

Regardless of which statement is true, she was the first woman in ancient my country to be recorded in the official history, an honor that even the Queen Mother Xuan of the pre-Qin Dynasty and the biological mother of Qin Shihuang did not enjoy.

Ba Qing was born in the late Warring States Period and lived in Changshou County, Chongqing. She was originally an ordinary woman. At the age of 18, she married a businessman who ran a cinnabar business. However, the good times did not last long. Her husband unfortunately passed away just a few years later. She became a widow at the age of 22, but she did not become depressed. Instead, she took over her husband's business and expanded the business.

Although history books do not record in detail how Ba Qing struggled to run the business, we can imagine how hard it was for her to independently support the entire family business.

The wealth of Ba Qing's family originally came from the mining and smelting of cinnabar by their ancestors. With rich experience and unique technology, Ba Qing's family almost monopolized the cinnabar market at that time, thus accumulating huge wealth.

According to records, the wealth of Ba Qing's family reached 580 million taels of silver and million taels of gold. If it were in today's terms, it could be said that they were rich enough to rival a country.

According to the records of Changshou County, the population in the area where Ba Qing's family lived was about 5, of which nearly 1/5 depended on her family for their livelihood, and there were more than 1 people working for her family, which shows how great the influence of her family was.

However, Ba Qing was not a person who was unkind because of her wealth. She treated her employees well, improved their welfare and benefits, and used her family's wealth and private armed forces to actively help the poor and the needy and maintain local peace.

According to the "Discourse on the Qin Dynasty", after Qin Shihuang unified the six kingdoms, he collected all the weapons in the world and cast them into bronze statues. Only Ba Qing was allowed to keep her own private weapons to protect herself.

Until her death, Ba Qing always maintained a strong power. Qin Shihuang also built Nv Huai Qing Terrace for her to honor her achievements. This treatment was unique in the entire Qin Dynasty and even rare in later generations.

As we all know, the Qin State has been deeply influenced by the Legalists since Shang Yang's reforms, and emphasizing agriculture and suppressing commerce is one of its core policies. In such a social context, why did Ba Qing receive such high praise?

First of all, during the Qin and Han dynasties, women had a high status, remarriage was common, and the concept of chastity was still weak. However, Ba Qing defended the relationship between husband and wife throughout her life, was willing to remain a widow, and independently took on the responsibility of the family, which undoubtedly made Qin Shihuang admire her.

Secondly, Ba Qing may be the embodiment of the mother image in Qin Shihuang's mind. She is strong and independent, which is admirable, in sharp contrast to Qin Shihuang's biological mother Zhao Ji. After the death of King Zhuangxiang of Qin, Zhao Ji had an affair with Lu Buwei and even tried to seek the throne for her illegitimate son. Therefore, Qin Shihuang respected Ba Qing even more.

In addition, it is said that Qin Shihuang once toured the Xiang River and encountered a strong wind and rain, and was almost unable to cross the river. He asked people around him whether there were gods here, and learned that Xiangshan Temple enshrined Shun's wives Ehuang and Nvying, who rested here after death. Qin Shihuang was extremely angry and ordered 3000 prisoners to cut down the trees on Xiangshan, dyeing the mountain red. He was the only emperor in history who dared to punish gods.

Ba Qing was just a widow from a remote place, but she was canonized as a "chaste woman" by Qin Shihuang, and the Nvhuaiqing Terrace was built for her to show her glory, which was enough to prove that her status in Qin Shihuang's heart far exceeded that of other women.

Furthermore, cinnabar had multiple functions in ancient times. In addition to its well-known use as a pigment, cinnabar is also a medicinal material with extremely high medicinal value. It has the functions of clearing away heat and detoxifying, calming the nerves, and is an essential medicine in war.

For the Qin State, which was eager to unify the world, the importance of cinnabar was self-evident. In addition, cinnabar also had an anti-corrosion effect, could be burned into mercury, and could still be turned into cinnabar after reduction.

The ancients therefore endowed cinnabar with the mysterious color of resurrection and immortality. Cinnabar has therefore become an indispensable raw material in alchemy. In his later years, Qin Shihuang was obsessed with finding immortals and medicine, and his underground palace was supported by mercury, which shows how much he needed and relied on cinnabar. The Ba Qing family controlled this important material, so the authorities had to pay attention to it.

Finally, the Ba Qing family had huge wealth and a large private army, which played a big role in Qin Shihuang's conquest of the six kingdoms. If this power could not be controlled, it would cause great trouble. As the greatest emperor in history, Qin Shihuang naturally had to consider everything carefully.

There are very few female characters in "Records of the Grand Historian", but Sima Qian, the Grand Historian, spared no effort to describe this legendary woman in 69 words, especially the last sentence "Resisting Manchester City and making it clear to the world, isn't it already restored?", which makes this woman worthy of being remembered in history and worthy of praise.

[The first woman of the Qing Dynasty who suffered domestic violence and abuse, historical knowledge and historical figures]

Domestic violence from her husband and abuse from her mother-in-law caused her to die in her prime. She was gifted, gentle and virtuous, and a good poet. She was known as the Li Qingzhao of the Qing Dynasty and should have become a great writer. However, fate was unfair to her. A marriage full of domestic violence and abuse completely destroyed this naturally romantic woman.

She was the most gifted and talented, but also the most unlucky. Her short life was full of misery. She was He Shuangqing, the first female poet in the Qing Dynasty. In this video, let us learn about He Shuangqing's miserable life.

Speaking of He Shuangqing, we have to mention the Qing Dynasty talent Shi Zhenlin and his work "Xiqing Miscellaneous Notes". He Shuangqing, despite her poor and difficult background, was not buried in the dust of history, and later generations were able to appreciate her outstanding talent, largely thanks to Shi Zhenlin's work "Xiqing Miscellaneous Notes".

According to "Xiqing Miscellaneous Notes", on a certain day in April 1733, Shi Zhenlin and others who were studying at Wugeng Academy in Xiaoshan saw a beautiful woman cleaning up garbage with a dustpan in her hand, and they could not help but marvel that there was such a beauty in the countryside.

The careful friends found a quiet and graceful poem written on the leaves in the garbage, and they were surprised. Later, they learned that the woman had a miserable life, which made them feel deeply sympathetic.

They read He Shuangqing's poems and were deeply impressed by her talent, so they wrote poems to pay tribute to her. He Shuangqing had deep respect for these literati and also responded to them with poems. Although she was full of affection, she always abided by etiquette and never crossed the line.

Shi Zhenlin and others have always wanted to help He Shuangqing out of her predicament. However, He Shuangqing, who was bound by feudal ethics, said: "Although the country boy is vulgar, he can still be connected with me in a tactful way. Who knows that I don't want to know the thoughts of a scholar in this life." The general meaning is: "Although my husband is a rough man, he is also considerate and caring about me. How can I have the heart to hate him? So I don't want to see you scholars again in this life." It is a pity that she personally cut off the possibility of changing her destiny.

He Shuangqing was born in the 1715th year of Emperor Kangxi's reign (7 AD) in Jintan, Jiangsu. Her family was poor, and her parents were busy making a living all day and had no time to take care of her. So little Shuangqing played around in the village until she was years old.

This small village had no appeal to her, and her greatest hobby was to go out of the village and go to the town's school to play with her uncle who worked as a handyman there. Sometimes when her uncle was too busy to take care of her, she would quietly wait outside the school window to eavesdrop on the teacher's lectures.

Although Xiao Shuangqing didn't understand the "zhihuzheya", she still enjoyed it and imitated it with her head shaking. Finally, the teacher was moved by her eagerness to learn and made an exception to let her into the class to audit.

He Shuangqing was a girl who knew how to be grateful. She was able to enter the school thanks to the teacher's kindness, so she took the initiative to make tea and water for the teacher in her spare time, warming his hands in winter and driving away mosquitoes in summer. She studied like this for three years, and learned to read and write, recite poems and compose essays. This period of time undoubtedly became the most beautiful memory of her life.

Later, her parents thought that she was too old to run around, so they stopped letting her go to school. At this time, Shuangqing was already able to recite poems and paint, but even with such outstanding talents, she had never attracted the attention of her family.

When she was waiting to be married, He Shuangqing liked to write poems, calligraphy and painting in her spare time. Because she had no money to buy books, she traded her delicate handicrafts with vendors for some poetry books. Unfortunately, the good times did not last long. When she was 18 years old, her father passed away. Her uncle took the betrothal gift of three loads of grain and married her to Zhou Dawang from Xiaoshan Village, Jintan.

Zhou Dawang was more than 10 years older than her, an alcoholic, violent, and addicted to gambling. Her mother-in-law, Yang, was also unruly and tyrannical, and treated her badly, and her miserable life began from then on.

At first, Zhou Dawang treated the delicate He Shuangqing well. Although he could not write poetry, he was very considerate. But in the eyes of his mother-in-law, He Shuangqing's frail appearance made her look like a little vixen, and her son had to ask about her well-being all day long. So the mother-in-law deliberately made trouble for He Shuangqing and kept complaining to her son, saying that he had forgotten his mother after marrying a wife.

Gradually, Zhou Dawang also felt that it was his wife's fault, so he also started to beat and scold her. The mother and son treated He Shuangqing like an ox or a horse, and asked her to clean, cook, feed chickens, raise pigs, pound rice, etc. She had to do all the hard work.

"The cold and heat are like humidity, and the eaves are not settled yet. The submarine is built by oneself. The soul of the white flower is broken to avoid the sorrow of the sky, and a desolate double purity is pushed down. The chickens in Yelang are lazy and unclear. The doctor is afraid of greed for love in removing frost, and is busy even in the most idle time." A poem by He Shuangqing cannot express her bitterness.

She was weak to begin with, and had never done any heavy work at her parents' home. Now she had to learn everything, take care of the family and the fields, and her body couldn't bear the burden. But she was afraid of her mother-in-law and husband, so she could only hold back her tears.

In this physically and mentally exhausted situation, she contracted severe malaria not long after getting married. The hard work, the torment of illness, the unhappiness of marriage, the mental torture, the sorrow of the soul, all kinds of sorrows and pains tortured He Shuangqing together. In this suffocating family, He Shuangqing had no one to confide in, and only poetry could express her heart.

Most of He Shuangqing's poems express her hardships and pains in life, full of strong repression and sadness. Not only that, her personal tragedy also projects the dark side of society, reveals the suffering of women at the bottom of the feudal society, and makes people hear their inner cries and their deep regrets for their talents being buried.