When Confucius and his students traveled around the world, one day Lutz fell behind when crossing the jungle. Luz was in a hurry when he met an old farmer doing farm work in the field, so he stepped forward and asked, "Have you seen Master?" Have you seen my teacher? The old farmer took a look at Luz and replied angrily: "Four bodies are not diligent, regardless of the grain, who is in charge!" "The old farmer means: if you don't work and don't know how to farm, you can't be a teacher! Lutz didn't dare to say anything, so he stood aside respectfully. Seeing that Luz was still a knowledgeable person, the old farmer "stopped Luz from staying, killing chickens and eating millet", that is, invited Luz to his house for the night, and also killed chickens and cooked millet to entertain Luz.
Millet, also known as yellow rice, is generally ground into cakes to eat, and of course it can also be used to make wine. In ancient times, "chicken and millet" was a meal for entertaining guests, which was very common in poetry. The most famous one is Meng Haoran's masterpiece "Passing through the Old Village", in which two sentences are "Prepare chicken rice for me, so I am entertained by you at your farm".
The allusion of "the promise of chicken and millet" comes from the Biography of Paradigm, but it does not appear as a key word in the biography. So, how did the paradigm biography become a "chicken-millet contract"?
The essence of "the Covenant of chicken and millet" is "the relationship between life and death". The prototype of "best friend" in history was first seen in Zuoyang Friendship. Left is left, and Yang is, both of whom were from the State of Yan in the Spring and Autumn Period. Once, they went to the state of Chu to ask for an official, and there was heavy snow on the road, and there was not enough clothes and food. Zuo gave all his clothes and food, leaving himself alone and freezing to death in a tree hole. When he became an official, he gave Zuo a good burial. Later, I dreamed that Zuo was asking for help in the underworld, so I committed suicide and went into the underworld for help. This is the story of Zuo Yang turning over, and this allusion often appears in the later paradigm of chanting things.
Another allusion to "making friends" and "best friends" comes from Paradigm Biography. There are actually two people involved here, one is Chen and the other is Chen. In this biography, although "the promise of chicken and millet" does not appear as a key word, it has been implied in the text, completing the transformation from "the turn of life and death" to "the promise of chicken and millet". Since then, the word "chicken and millet" has become a symbol of Zhang Fan's life and death. After generations of deduction, it has appeared in various texts.
The earliest clarification of the "chicken millet agreement" was Gong Tianting's zaju "Life and Death Zhang Chicken Millet" in Yuan Dynasty, which later appeared as a script in Jiajing period. This story was also used by Feng Menglong, a novelist in the Ming Dynasty, and was compiled into his famous book "Yu Shi Ming Yan", entitled "Fan Juqing's Chicken and Millet Yao". This title highlights the paradigm because the behavior of the paradigm is more commendable. In fact, the tradition of ancient literati highlighting paradigms has a long history, and some poems often use paradigms to enter poems without mentioning Zhang Shao. For example, Du Mu, a poet in the Tang Dynasty, wrote a poem "Li Rang in Chizhou, You Are Like a Prostitute after Your Death": "The great Qing cries, the clouds break, and the birds return to the moon." Li Zhi's poem "Crying for Lu Zhonghe" in the Ming Dynasty: "The dream that Ju Qing has not solved is always a car!"
After Feng Menglong's adaptation, the story of "The Covenant between Chicken and Millet" is more deeply rooted in people's hearts. The outline of the story is:
Zhang Shao went to Luoyang to catch the exam and was seriously ill in a small shop. Zhang bought medicine to save paradigm's life, and the two became brothers. When they broke up, they agreed to visit their parents every year on the Double Ninth Festival and every other year, and the other party would kill chickens and cook millet to entertain them. Many years later, the former paradigm neglected the "chicken and millet appointment" because of something, committed suicide and died, and traveled thousands of miles with his soul every day to keep the appointment. When Zhang Shao learned of this, he went to mourning for thousands of miles and committed suicide in front of Fan's tomb.
Ueda Akinari, a later Japanese novelist, was born in 1734 and died in 1809, which is roughly equivalent to the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty. He adapted Feng Menglong's "The Life and Death of Fan Juqing's Chicken and Millet" into "The Covenant of Chrysanthemum" and became the Japanese version of "The Covenant of Chicken and Millet".
The hometown of Paradigm is Ji Shu Town, Jinxiang County. Ji Shu Town has a long history. According to the Records of Jinxiang County, Ji Shu Town was known as "Jishu Town" in ancient times, and it was also known as "thirty-five miles southwest of the county seat, the hometown of Han Gong and Cao Fan". There is an appointment with Zhang Shao in Runan, hence the name ". Chicken millet was called Fan Zhuang in the Eastern Han Dynasty, and later it was renamed chicken millet to commemorate Zhang Fan's promise of chicken millet.
There is also an ancient "Erxian Temple" in Ji Shu Town, which was built to commemorate two sages, Fan Xing and Zhang Shao. It is said that the "Erxian Temple" was built in the Eastern Han Dynasty and later collapsed. During the Chenghua period of the Ming Dynasty, that is, in the spring of 1482, Shengde, then the magistrate of Jinxiang County, began to rebuild. After that, it was repeatedly destroyed and repaired until it collapsed during the Cultural Revolution.
There are two ancestral temples to commemorate Zhang Fan, one in Ji Shu and the other in Jinxiang County. There is an article "New Han Temple" in Jinxiang County Records, which was written by Guo, a famous person in Jinxiang. Guo lived in the Ming Dynasty, and we will introduce him later. He said in his notes that Fan Yuan was built in the east of the county seat and was rebuilt on the basis of the original temple. After the collapse, in the sixth year of Wanli in Ming Dynasty, namely 1578, with the support of the then county magistrate Ji Yang, Zhangfan Temple was rebuilt outside the east gate of the county seat. Since then, Fan Zhangci has been repeatedly destroyed and repaired. The last reconstruction was in the 19th year of Daoguang, namely 1839.