On the 14th day of the first month of the decade of Tongzhi (187 1 year), Gu Wenbin just returned home from Beijing and soon received a letter from Yu Yue for help. It turned out that he wanted to print seven volumes of "Talking about the Lake Building", but he was short of money. Frankly speaking, it will cost 50 yuan. Please sponsor Brother Gu.
Yu Yue (1821-1907), a native of Deqing, Zhejiang Province, was a famous scholar, writer, scholar, ancient philologist and calligrapher in the late Qing Dynasty. In the thirty years of Daoguang (1850), he was a scholar and once edited by the Hanlin Academy. After dismissing from office, he moved to Suzhou and devoted himself to academic research, focusing on Confucian classics, supplemented by hundred schools of thought, history and exegetics, which can be described as extensive and profound.
However, in addition to being full of knowledge, poor scholars are always tired of money. Qu Yuan, where they live, was still built with the help of relatives and friends, but now they still lack the funds and gold to publish books. Gu Wenbin is open-minded and generous, and is keen on public welfare undertakings. He has helped countless people in his life, not to mention publishing a book. On the second day after receiving the letter, he visited Yu Yue and promised to fund the publication of A Story of the Lake Building. Gu Wenbin and Yu Yue are ten years apart. They are both scholars. The former is a court official with a smooth career, and the latter is a scholar called a book writer by his teacher Zeng Guofan. One is honest in asking for help, and the other is enthusiastic in giving financial assistance. Judging from their future contacts, their relationship is quite good.
After ten years of Tongzhi Spring Festival, Gu Wenbin went to work in Ningbo. During his visit to his boss in Hangzhou, he and his friends visited four major buildings in Hangzhou. He suddenly felt that this building, like what he wanted to build, was the first to win my heart. The courtyard on all sides is very wide, surrounded by Taihu rocks and chisels, and decorated with cloisters and pavilions. Even this project needs tens of thousands of gold, which is beyond my power.
Although my ability is limited for a while, this dream has been haunting me. As he grew tired of officialdom and longed to go home for the aged, his son Gu Cheng responded to his father's call to look for land and gardens in Suzhou. On the fourth day of April in the first year of Guangxu (1875), when he learned that his resignation application had been approved by the emperor, he immediately wrote a poem: I was grateful for your illness and moved, and my brow was beaming. When I first learned that Xiang Huan resigned, I was like an urchin after school.
Back in Suzhou, Gu Wenbin and his son Gu Cheng continued to improve the Yiyuan project, such as buying lake stone trees, and invited friends such as Yu Yue, Wu Yun and Shen Bingcheng to write plaques. There are three trees in the east of Yiyuan Garden, surrounded by stone fences and hundreds of plum trees. Gu Wenbin named it Plum Blossom Hall, and there is a cave in the west. A room in the cave is called Old Moonlight, and this plaque is inscribed by Yu Yue. The word "Old Moonlight" is taken from "Old Moonlight with Dark Fragrance" by Song Dynasty poet Jiang Kui: Old Moonlight, how many times have you looked at me and played the flute at the plum blossom? Arouse jade people and climb regardless of the cold. Qu Yuan and Yiyuan are close at hand. Yu Yue said: Lotte said that' the bright moon is the same as three nights', but the moonlight in Yiyuan Garden can also be divided into different gardens. The ancients bought thousands of neighbors, not bad! Obviously, both Yu and Gu are happy to be neighbors. On the stone screen wind to the east of Xiaocanglang in Yiyuan, Yu Yue's ink-the word "three screens" was also left.
On May 17th, Guangxu three years (1877), Gu Wenbin visited Yu Yue again and sent the paper and seal of Yi Yuan Ji, asking him to write Yi Yuan Ji. The garden has been built, so it is very important to ask people to write down the ins and outs of Yiyuan and the landscape of the garden. Yu Yue is the most suitable candidate. Last October, Yu Yue wrote "Stay in the Garden" for Kang Sheng at his request, and the history of the garden was vividly recorded in "Friends of the Gentry".
Yu Yue said bluntly in the Collection of Art Gardens: Fang Bo of Guzishan built a righteous village in the shade of spring and a garden in the east to support his life with kindness. It's called' Yiyuan'. From the beginning, he saw his descendants write it. After crossing the wall of Matsuse Pavilion in Fangzhai, I saw the exquisite Wu Bi Mansion and the phoenix in the garden to the south, and then turned to the Plum Blossom Hall surrounded by plum trees in the east ... There are sparse flowers and trees, pavilions, lotus ponds and stone screens, and the winding path is secluded and beautiful. Finally, he wrote, our garden is watery in the southeast and mountainous in the northwest. There are four twists and turns for the swimming pool. There are many strange peaks in the mountains, and lakes are embedded in them. Fang Bo was in charge of the garden. When it was finished, he was sent to Wu.
Yu's evaluation of Yiyuan Garden not only subjectively affirmed the beauty of the gardens built by friends, but also objectively described them, as he said, climbing mountains all day and describing them roughly. The relationship between Yiyuan and Yiyua continues. 1987, the tablet of Meihuatang was supplemented by Bao Xu, the great-grandson of Yu Yue, and now hangs in Chuyuexuan, with Yu Yue's Art Garden Collection below.
Gu Wenbin likes to write poems and lyric poems, leaving eight volumes of Poems of Meilulou. On the fourth day of July in the eleventh year of Tongzhi (1872), Gu Wenbin, who was far away from Ningbo, missed his Suzhou friends and wrote a poem "Feng Huaiyu Yin Fu": Dongwang missed his old friends in his hometown, and the draft of the note delivery department was fresh. Blue clouds swim in Momiji Mountain, and white dew and pale water hinder Thailand. The distant poem tube gladly receives it, and the new cool lamp gladly meets each other. Xiling used to make an appointment with Mao and asked Ziting to be his neighbor. On the fifth and sixth days, and Yu wrote two poems. Writing inscriptions and chanting poems are the ways of communication between scholars and elegant people. With their elegance, there will be vivid memories such as yesterday.