The Historical Exploration and Analysis on Su Shi and Su Zhe's Poems Guo Lun
Su Shi and his younger brother Su Zhe composed two poems with the same title Guo Lun in their ear-ly years.The poems were both written for a military officer Guo Lun.They probably met Guo Lun with a ob-scure bureaucratic position in Jiazhou in October,1098,the fourth year of Jiayou Period of the reign of Emper-or Song Renzong.The brothers would go to the capital by way of Jiazhou.They wrote the poems,in which they fully expressed sympathy.There is no biography for Guo Lun in Song Shi.Very few sources about Guo Lun can be found either.Guo Lun can,therefore,not be known very much."伦"and"纶"both exist in traditional sources.Some in-cluding Han Qi wrote the name as"伦"wronly as a result of getting the information from the report made by some officers who fought in the war.Su Shi and Su Zhe had just met with Guo Lun by themselves and therefore they would give us the very right form about Guo Lun's exact name.Guo Lun as an archer from the northwestern border area lived in the middle period of Northern Song Dy-nasty,whose family joined the army from generation to generation.He also served in the army in Zhenrongjun and was promoted to the position of Zhaizhu of Dingchuanzhai for his good performance.And his family's ol-der generation probably also served in the army as military officers.With the clues presented in the poems a-longside pertinent historical records,we can restore the obscure official's life to some extent,and corroborate some issues concerning the northwest frontier defence during the reign of Emperor Song Renzong.The fact that Guo Lun fought in the war of Dingchuanzhai as the Zhaizhu of Dingchuanzhai,which hap-pened in the Autumn in 1042,the second year of Qingli Period was a great war in the Emperor Song Renzong's time,can be learnt from the poems.The army of Song suffered another defeat and Guo Lun escaped by sheer luck.Guo Lun was not demoted for the failure and his name was not found in th list of the military officers who could be awarded.Guo Lun maybe thought that he had no good performance just because of the serious defeat.There are some lines of verse about the government of Song putting down the rebellion from the south of the empire,which tells maybe the things that the brave army of northwestern border region was sent to suppress the rebellion.Guo Lun was very good at using arrow and bow so it will be reasonable if he was one of the ar-mies.However,the relating telling in the poems cannot be demonstrated by direct historical records.The two wars in Hezhou in some sources happened before Di Qing was sent there.If Guo Lun went there with Di Qing,he would not fought there.Guo Lun maybe was sent there before.Su Zhe probably heard what Guo Lun had told was wrong.And there were wrong things even just as a result of Guo Lun who had been too old to have a good memory.Young Su Shi brothers had grown up in Shu,which is peaceful environment.They did not learn about the brutal and inhuman battles in the border region,so they were moved by the experiences told by Guo Lun him-self and wrote down everything that were full of positive feelings.The gist of the poems reflected their viewpoints on the military officials before they became officials.After engaging in politics,gradually influenced by the mainstream ideas of the stratum of scholar-officials,their atti-tudes towards military officials and military achievements had changed greatly.Thus,it also provides a pre-cious starting point for observing the changes of Su Shi brothers'civil-military conception.Northern Song Dynasty was established after dealing with the great chaos and mess during the Five Dynas-ties,with which the stratum of scholar-officials was deeply impressed and clearly knew military officers cruel and ferocious performance and scholar-officials's miserable scenes.Therefore they gradually caught the domi-nant position in the center of power and persuaded the emperors to depressing various military officers from the late period of Song Taizong.In the middle period of Northern Song Dynasty,with the political situation of scholar-officials governing the state coming into being absolutely,scholar-officials not only grasped administra-tive departments at all levels and wielded political power but also managed and controlled the power of making strategic decision on military move.And they gradually replaced the power of commanding direct operations of the military officers in combat zones under the rule of scholar-officials driving the military officers to move.The idea of holding scholar-officials in very high esteem and coercing military officers into submission not only con-trolled the directions of the state's policies but also posed widespread impact on the society.Running the state by civil servants and scholar-officials were revered highly.However,battle achievement and military officers were restrained and the whole society discriminated against battle achievement and military officers.
Su ShiSu ZheGuo Lunmilitary officialsthe Song-Xia Wars
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