Xu Xiake: If you can only pursue one meaning in your life, it is traveling

Author:Literary vision Time:2022.08.25

Text/Shen Lujun

Speaking of ancient Chinese travelers, who would you think of? Is Zhang Jian, who was ordered to "empty" the Western Regions? Is Xuan Zang, who is looking for the Fa? Or the civilian walker, Xu Xiake?

As mentioned below, the differences between Xu Xiake and Xuan Zang and Zhang Jian lies in "he has never been ordered by anyone. With a crutch and a pair of old shoes, I completed the feat of walking. "

It is this ordinary greatness and resonance with intimacy that makes Xu Xiake a unique traveler; it also allows countless tourists today to think of him, find him, and pursue his footprint when going out.

In the following, we will review Xu Xiake's life travel footprint, especially his last, the most important travel -the "10,000 miles" to the southwest of China.

At the same time, we tried to analyze and understand the content of "Xu Xiake's Traveling", and see what kind of spiritual wealth has been left for our travel notes.

The most important thing is that we will try to answer such a question, that is, Xu Xiake, as a cloth, in the troubled times in the end of the Ming Dynasty, why do you travel regardless of life and death?

After understanding this, we can understand the most important meaning of Xu Xiake for us; let us understand the meaning of the sentence written in the preface of "Xu Xiake":

"Do not avoid the storm, do not dare to tiger and wolf, do not have a period of time, do not ask for a partner. You travel with sexual spirit and live with your body. Since ancient times, just one person!"

1. A crutch, a pair of old shoes, a lifetime of thousands of miles

If you want to take stock of the most important travelers in Chinese history, Xu Xiake is an absolutely inevitable name.

Zhang Jian was empty and did not see Kunlun; Tang Xuanzang and Yuan Yelu Chu Cai's order of the Lord, who got the west. I use old cloth clothes, lonely and double -handed, poor river sand, upper Kunlun, and the Western Regions.

In "Xu Xiake Biography", this is the last words left by Xu Xiake at the end of his life. But in fact, this passage was written and fabricated by the author of this biography, Qian Qianyi, the famous scholar in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties.

Qian Qianyi compared Xu Xiake with Zhang Jian, Xuanzang, and Yelu Chucai, and pointed out the differences between Xu Xiake -he has never been ordered by anyone. The identity of the "flat -headed people, relying on a crutch and a pair of old shoes to complete the feat of walking.

Moreover, the era of his trip was not a unified Taiping era, but the end of the Ming Dynasty when the soldiers of the soldiers and horses -peasant uprising, continuous plague of disasters, and flowing all over the place. Therefore, compared to the other three people mentioned by Qian Qianyi, Xu Xiake's travel shows a great greatness.

However, Qian Qianyi still made a mistake. In the real history, the focus of Xu Xiake's travel is not the Western Regions, but the southwest of China.

Today we mentioned that the southwest, there are always imaginations such as the south and four seasons of colorful clouds. However, more than 400 years ago, the Yunnan -Guizhou Plateau still had not yet been fully developed. It is not directly jurisdiction of the central government, but is ruled by semi -feudal and semi -slavery by the local toast. The Central Plains world is also aware of the shape of the mountains and rivers and humanities here.

Here, compared to the Western Regions, the Silk Road business that has been mature since the Han Dynasty has added unknown risks.

If you really choose to travel instead of travel vacation, then you will definitely find that most travel is not easy.

Make very complicated preparations for traveling alone: understanding of regional and routes, controlling the danger you may encounter. Deserts, grasslands, high temperature, cold, hunger ... Even in modern society, we have better equipment, medicine and rescue, and we may have a fatal danger.

So we can't help but ask, why did Xu Xiake resolutely chose to go to a clothing body to go to a scene that could not bring him a trip recognized by Confucian society and reputation at that time?

Second, the world is big, but the time of a person has been used up

Xu Xiake, named Hongzu, Zhen Zhenzhi, Jiangyin Wuyi. Born in the fourteenth year of Wanli, 1587 AD.

Jiangyin belongs to the Changzhou government of the Ming Dynasty. It is adjacent to the Yangtze River, and the river network is dense. It is the most developed place in China in the late Ming Dynasty.

Although the Xu family also has a tradition of farming and reading, parents have no hard demands on Xu Xiake. His father Xu Youmian did not have imperial examinations, but preferred to play landscapes.

In this environment, Xu Xiake has developed the correct way to touch the fish since he was a child. Every time I pretend to read the Four Books and Five Classics, in fact, I am looking at the leisure books such as the history and geography below. The most want to do is to "swim the world."

At the age of fifteen, he cope with a boy test. He was under the test, and he never touched the imperial examination again. When Xu Xiake was nineteen years old, his father Xu Youmian "died in the stolen, and his (Xu Xiake) encountered this big cause, and mourned his bones ... such as white clothes, the more he was disgusted and abandoned the vulgarity. ","

Xu Xiake's twenty -first to 38 -year -old was the stage of sightseeing in his early trip. In 1607, the year of weak crowns had arrived, and Xu Xiake decided to move. His mother Wang was very encouraged to produce a long -term crown for him, the purpose of.

During this period, Xu Xiake was particularly respectful to northern China because he read the geographical historical works from an early age. In 1623, Xu Xiake traveled to Songshan, lamenting, "Yu Yuenian accumulated the five wins, and Xuanyue came out of the Five Yue, Mu Youcai." Xu Xiake, named Hongzu, Zhen Zhenzhi.

On the other hand, adhering to the self -requirement of "parents are there, not far away, there must be squares", his travel plan is very strong, and there is almost no purposeless wave. Instead, it is "settled and returned as scheduled". Often traveling in spring, as short as ten days, long in March. In addition to several long -distance travels to the north, he also has many short -term travel in the Jiangnan area. He has traveled to Taihu, Luojiashan, Tiantai Mountain, Yandu Mountain, Lushan, Huangshan and other places.

In 1624, because his mother was 80 years old, Xu Xiake intends to stop traveling and serve his mother. However, in order to show his support, his mother made amazing moves and travel with her son. Of course, their two trips are limited to Xu Xiake's hometown in Jiangsu Province. The two travels with mother were the last time of the mother and son. In the second year, the mother died, and Xu Xiake had three years of funeral.

In 1628, after the three -year expiration of the filial piety, Xu Xiake stepped on the journey again. Visit Fujian Jintou Mountain and Luofu Mountain, Guangdong. In 1629, he was on the north of canals and visited Pangshan, Shishi Mountain and other places in Hebei.

In 1633, he went north to Beijing to visit Wutai Mountain and Hengshan. Unfortunately, most of the travel notes that record these strokes have been lost. Among the existing Xu Xiake travels, the content of the book before 1636 was only one -tenth of the book.

In 1636, Xu Xiake, fifty -year -old, felt that "the old illness is coming, and it will be too late."

At this time, there were seven years before the Ming Dynasty was destroyed. There are still five years before Xu Xiake's death. In the last five years of this life, he set off from Jiangsu, visited the south of the southern provinces, penetrated into Yungui, and visited the southwestern border of the empire.

This is the longest consecutive and most fruitful travel travel, and the last trip in his life.

In Jinhua, Zhejiang, he boarded the top of the mountain and watched the sun sinking into the river of the River River, and wrote:

The setting sun has fallen, Hao Shou Jihui, Wan Yan is done, and a bleak is really a jade pot. I feel that the two of me are different in shape, and I think of the bottom of the world.

The setting sun had fallen into the mountains, Mingyue then shines on the earth, and the world is silent, and it is like washing. We really seemed to wash the bone marrow with jade pot water. Recall that people are busy in the world, who knows so clear!

In Jiangxi, Xu Xiake wore cloth shoes to climb the cliffs of Ji'an Baihefeng, which was unable to pass.

Just after New Year's Eve, Xu Xiake saw the spectacular scene of the frozen waterfall in the southern waterfall for the first time:

Seeing that Bai Meng on the cliff was like a dragging waterfall, he blame his potential without flying, and played finely.

On the morning of the next day, Bai Hefeng stopped and fogged. Xu Xiake woke up and pushed the door and saw the Qianshan jasper covered with snow like a lot of snow.

While Xu Xiake's emotions were naturally magnificent, the entire country was sliding to the edge of the extermination. From the north to Jiangnan, the large -scale famine was flying in the field; the peasant uprisings led by Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong swept Henan Hubei.

When Xu Xiake passed Jiangxi and arrived in Hengyang via Xiangjiang, it was Zhang Xianzhong's army defeated by officers and soldiers in Hubei. Behind him is countless defeats and more fled people. Xu Xiake's journey was not directly attacked by the war, but the bandits on both sides of the Xiangjiang River still gave him a fatal blow.

In "Xu Xia Ke Journey", there are only a few descriptions of the bandits:

The group thieves shouted into the boat, and the torch sword went down.

It was a group of people who were tortured by hunger. Their blade did not know Xu Xiake. They chopped wildly on the boat. The wooden boat was vulnerable and quickly covered. Xu Xiake also fell into the river. He escaped in the cold river water in winter, but he was "no silk" after landing.

Friends advised him to go home and come again next time, but Xu Xiake should know that there is nothing next time. At this age, when he meets such risks, his family will never let him go out, so he "do not want to change my will" , Persist in continuing to travel to the West, and said that I took the iron cricket, "Where do I not bury my bones."

He moved towards Guangxi. Those mountains that we are called "Guilin landscape" today are summoning him to find out.

He held the fire to deeply penetrate the Karst caves from unmanned, and studied the phenomenon of limestone. He wrote these inspections into the travels and left the first geographical literature in China to study Karst landforms.

In 1637, Xu Xiake arrived in Guizhou. In the Qiuling Mountain Forest of Guizhou, he was filled with thorns and confronted with poisonous insects and radon. In Huangguoshu Waterfall, he records the hardships of the people's livelihood and economy of Guizhou-

Poisoned by Anbangyan, the harm is very miserable, and everyone hates to wash its acupuncture points.

The suffering of the Yi Yi is really distressed by the erosion of the toasts.

Because of the indulgence of the toast, there are even people who sell the population--

Turkish people are restrained by Taoist and resale. If you are strong, you can sell thirty gold, and the old and weak are not less than ten gold.

The cruel and cruel Guizhou land eventually gave him a severe damage -several times he encountered robbery, fraud and betrayal, Xu Xiake lost all the entanglement, and even lost his monks and friends who walked with him. But he promised his friends to take him to the Buddhist sacred land in southwestern China at that time -Jizhan Mountain.

So, he continued to move forward with his friend's bones and vowed to fulfill his friend's last wish.

One year later, Xu Xiake finally entered Yunnan. He practiced his promise and appeared twice to Jizu Mountain and wrote "Jizu Mountain Zhi".

He crossed the Lancang River and arrived at the limit of his travel, Tengchong, and returned to the north to travel to Lijiang, Yunnan.

He walked for a long time and destroyed his feet. After he arrived in Lijiang, he couldn't walk, but he insisted on writing a travel notes. In 1640, his condition was even more serious, and Xu Xiake returned to Jiangyin by local official car vessels in Yunnan.

In the first month of 1641, Xu Xiake, 56, died of illness. His legacy was organized into a book.

There is no need to have a path, involving it does not need to be inherent,

Those who are critical in the peak will jump to the top;

Those who are extremely stubborn, they must hang snakes,

Poor on the way, do not regret it.

， Between the trees and stones, hunger is the fact that the grass and trees are practiced,

Do not avoid the storm, do not dare to tiger, do not have a period of time, and do not ask for a partner.

Tour with sexual spirit and live with your body. Since ancient times, only one person!

This is the preface made by Xu Xiake's Jiangnan fellow Pan Yan in the Kangxi period.

I was wondering whether there was a moment, Xu Xiake's heart also contained a trace of regret. When he stood on Tengchong's Yunfeng Mountain to look farther, he knew that he could no longer go there. The world is still very large, but the time of a person's life has been used up.

3. He has been different from his predecessors from the beginning

Zhou Chen in the early Ming Dynasty wrote, "The victory of the mountains and rivers in the world may not be able to come, those who can reach the person may not be able to speak, and those who can speak may not be able to text." "Being able to speak" and "capable text", the three are indispensable.

Xu Xiake undoubtedly achieved the extreme. But this is not why he can be remembered.

Before him, there were many great travelers, Zhang Jian of the Han Dynasty, Xuanzang of the Tang Dynasty, and the Qiu Chuji of the Song Dynasty, and he, from the beginning, was different from his predecessors.

Before Xu Xiake, there were several main types of traveling in ancient China. Like Dao Yuan's "Water Sutra", it is an amateur job for officials, and it is not idle. Like Su Shi all the way to Huangzhou, Huizhou, and Yazhou, it is necessary to be degraded. Like the Emperor Hanwu's parade, it is not broad to show the authority of the emperor. Like the poets of the Tang Dynasty, the poets of the Tang Dynasty connected each other, drinking and singing, and visiting famous mountains. Like Xitian's scriptures, it is a purpose -dominated.

And Xu Xiake, there is no backstage, no background, a clothing, outside the system, is not subject to official appointment. His travel is completely spontaneous, with the journey itself. He travels not to cultivate his body, nor is he to find literary inspiration, but to take the walking itself as his inspiration.

On the way, he did not follow the routine bureaucratic doctors and traveled near the official road. In order to explore the strange scenery, "It does not follow the official way, but it is famous, and it is roundabout."

On the water, he took a small boat and on the ground, almost all walking. In the case of a servant running away, he also had to bear all his luggage. Because it was not an official, he couldn't stay in the station. In fact, he rarely lived in the inn. In addition to setting up temples, a small boat, he was his car and horse during the day, and his inn night.

As an ordinary person in the times, he traveled in this way, but left more than 2 million words of travel notes. The so -called "first tour of the ancient and modern times" is not vivid.

In scientific, Xu Xiake is a full empiricalist. Through the "field survey" method, he denied some geographical concepts in the classic "Yugong" errors in the classic "Yugong" through the "field survey" method. The sources of many waterways such as Jiang, Dayingjiang, and Lancang River are also the world's first scientific research Castant landform.

In terms of literature, his travel notes got rid of the stereotypes of the "flowing account" style in writing, so that travel was written as a true literary writing, and he took another step.

For the clouds of Huangshan, in the travel notes, he has a very exciting description:

The dense fog ends and half, and every time, the opposite is not seen.

Overlooking the lotus peaks, mostly in the fog. There are people who are still very vertical and horizontal.

The mountains are high, and the fog comes without fixed.

Looking forward to Zhufeng, when it comes to a blue, it is not the silver sea; if you overlook the mountain, the sun is crystal, and the other district Yu also.

From this text, we can also see the focus of Xu Xiake's travel, which is to emphasize the narrative of the journey itself. The ingenious use of action verbs and action verbs makes the picture formed not only clear, but also continuous movement. And Xu Xiake himself is a participant in this species scene. Through writing, he reconstructs the scene of sports and physical experience in this situation.

With the concept we are more familiar, this is the subjective narrative of Xu Xiake. Following his footprint and changes, he can see his expression of honesty and feelings of his feelings and feelings. Feeling his sorrow, regret, happiness and ecstasy. And that direct personal experience is the most attractive and empathy place in travel literature.

Fourth, the significance of life lies in "starting again", let us return to the initial question, why did Xu Xiake travel?

You must know that although the journey is difficult and the country is fluttering, Xu Xia's Hakka has always been quite solid. Going home means the joy of the superior material life and the gods and grandchildren. For decades, he has experienced the risk of life and death several times. Why did he leave again every time, but chose to start again?

Among them, of course, there are external reasons, which is the fever of tourism at the end of the Ming Dynasty. At that time, there was a group of "subculture" intellectuals who did not love the career and loved travel.

Looking at history a little, you can find that until the end of the Ming Dynasty, for the lives of ordinary people, their rules are: if it is unnecessary, not going out.

The Ming Dynasty's "Huizhou Prefecture" records:

In the world of Jialong, people have never entered the city. Dr. Buxu disciples, the non -examination is not the official of the exam.

If you are not for the imperial examinations and go out because of the public, you will be exposed to the external world without any reason, and even the neighborhood blind date will be ashamed of you. However, with the development of the commodity economy, the people's exchanges are becoming more frequent. In addition, the south, especially the ideological liberation of the Jiangnan region, in the late Ming Dynasty, in just decades, the atmosphere has changed greatly. People, they think they are not suitable, they are old hats. This kind of transparent customs reflected in the literati group, which is the integration of "knowledge" and "line".

In the past, for intellectuals who were born in the wild, people's imagination of them was "under the fence of chrysanthemums". Dong Qichang, who was contemporary as Xu Xiake, officially proposed the saying of "reading thousands of books and walking thousands of miles".

In the "Tour · Ji Tour", Wang Siyuan even seated the type of travel type 23 in accordance with the identity, interest and habits of the tourist:

The official travel is not rhyme, the taxi travel is not convinced, the rich travel is not all, the poor travel is not the same,

Old travel is not before, the childish travel is puzzled, the travel is not thinking, the travel is not talking,

If you are not prosperous, you will be disrespectful.

I am not happy to travel, unwilling to travel, not far away, travel without paying,

Do you do n’t whatever you do, do n’t travel while you travel, you do n’t go to swimming, you do n’t continue to travel,

Skin tour does not reward, limited to travel, waves are not rhythmic.

Jiangyin Xu Xiake's former residence

There are also Xu Xiake's "peer" and traveler Wang Shizhi. He raised the landscape to the height of "teacher" and regarded travel as a way to gain knowledge and mysteries:

Next to the people in the past, the obstruction of the mountain, the godlinds and ghosts, the palace of the fish and dragon, all of them, the true my teacher. Why is this on the pillow? Yu Jiashan travels.

Shanquan Shenlin is the "true teacher". How can people who pillow the autumn and moon spring breeze at home understand this truth? These ideas have enriched the understanding of travel content and significance. It is also an objective condition for Xu Xiake to travel several times. It was their blessing Xu Xiake, which made him a pioneer who went out of the book and moved towards the earth in that era.

What about internal conditions? What is the starting point in Xu Xiake's heart?

Enjoying the joy of heaven is not his pursuit. In the chaotic super bureau, the Daming bureaucratic system has been difficult to return, and he cannot change anything. And travel is the only way he can confirm himself. In his time, his trip was the only powerful practice.

A phrase "swimming with sex, traveling with the body" is really treating travel with a serious attitude of life. This seriousness did not live up to him.

However, like the decline of everything, after the iron ride of Manchuria entered the customs, later generations discussed Xu Xiake. The words "deliberately travel".

It has not been a hundred years, and later generations can no longer understand what Xu Xiake did.

Kang Yonggan's intellectuals, those who did not enter the official, or the books under the bonuses of the scholarship, or obsessed with those more and more carved artificial styles, immersed in the size world of "Oriental Baroque", they forgot their forgotten After that, I have been alone in the mountains and seas.

Or there are two or three confidantes discovered and compiled the travel notes again, but the rest is just admiring and admiration.

When the time when the world opened the world in the late Qing Dynasty, people would think of Xu Xiake again. Liang Qichao, who also traveled to Europe and the United States, has repeatedly evaluated and introduced "Xu Xia Ke Travel Notes", which is intended to pass Xu's life experience as a side certificate. As a modern national form, China is the same as Western countries. The spirit of practice.

The more well -known evaluation comes from the author of "History of Chinese Science" Li Joseph. He commented on Xu Xiake's travel notes "unlike the work of the 17th century, but more like the work of the 20th century field investigators."

Fortunately, we no longer need Western scholars and judgments today to recognize Xu Xiake. His life does not need to be a nation as a nation for his own proof.

Personal life is not related to the destiny of the country at all times. When a dynasty died, Xu Xiake was still insisting on his journey, walking on his route, and doing what he thought. He is worthy of our respect as those who protect the country and the oppressive uprising.

The point is not that everyone has invested in the struggle of the country's rise and fall. We may just be an unknown generation in our own field and life. Maybe this kind of unknown time will last for a lifetime, but this does not prevent us from doing our own things, only " "Doing" is the basis for us to confirm our existence. We may not be the second Xu Xiake, but we can be our own Xu Xiake. In addition to understanding the revelation of his life by understanding his life, Xu Xiake and his travel notes should be correctly placed in the team of his peers and in the world of travel writing to determine the position that should be.

We are too proficient to use the concept of "on the road". We also know countless highway stories, love the name of "backpacker" and all the imagination behind this word, and most of us are familiar with Still Western travel writing.

And Xu Xiake and his travel notes should be the one we regain the huge memory of travel and the source of travel literature. It was the lack of "Yijie cloth" outside the "backpacker".

Because there are enough dreams about the distance, because the Highway 66 and the National Highway 318 are already crowded, and because when the breeze blows through the lake, we are not with others, but he, he, where this body is, is where this body is, is where this body is. The same land.

That is where we live, and that is also part of the world. Isn't it?

Reference materials:

"Xu Xiake Travel Notes" Xu Xiake

"The Times of Xu Xiake" Zhu Kezhen

"Xu Xiake Biography" Qian Qianyi