Spring Return from Longshang

Shen Zhiwei, a doctoral student in the Department of History, has studied the famine politics of the late Ming Dynasty all his life. She knew better than Chongzhen when the Changping warehouse should be opened, when the tax exemption application should be submitted, which group of refugees should be cared for, and which disaster should be endured. Sitting in the library, she looked at the three words "people eat each other" in "Yan'an Prefecture" with red eyes, and wrote a line of comments: If Chang Pingcang opened three months earlier, this matter might be a little slower. Then she opened her eyes and became a fifteen-year-old girl in Yan'an Mansion in the first year of Chongzhen. My father was a member of the Yan'an Bingbei Road, a fourth-rank official, and also supervised the grain reserves. He had soldiers and power, but he couldn't even make a pot of gruel in the porridge shed last until the sun went down. Shen Zhiwei thought, she knows this question. Sweet potatoes, farming, business taxation, and team training, in nine years, she nailed all of these into the loess, turning a vast city thousands of miles away into an isolated island that could stay open at night in a troubled world. The granaries in Yan'an are full, the books in the kindergartens are ringing, and the lights on the city walls are kept on all night long. Others said that the Shen family had a great daughter. But this world never intends to remember her. She settled the food accounts for her father, and her credit was "well-managed". The city she defended was rewarded with "the legacy of a virtuous wife helping her husband". The land and water she had worked so hard to save was finally revealed by a decree from the imperial court. Even her name was stuffed into a jade book, locked into a deep palace, and made into a clay body covered with brocade. Shen Zhiwei suddenly felt that there was nothing she could do to save her in this big tomorrow. That autumn, she stood at the top of Yan'an City, looking at the columns of soldiers and horses heading south, the dust covering the sky and the sun. The fortunes she had desperately wanted to preserve for this dynasty were slipping away one by one from her fingertips. Chongzhen hanged himself in the palace. Hundreds of officials were martyred when the city was broken. She stood at the top of the city all night. When dawn was about to break, she told the people behind her that the world was in chaos and someone had to clean it up. Many years later, the historian of the New Dynasty opened the first volume and asked her how she put it down. She said, just write four words - spring return from Longshang. "The return of spring comes before the guests, the mountains and apes share the same dawn and dusk, the rivers and willows share the wind and smoke. It is like Changsha Fu, and it will be a few years from now." She is not a guest. This high loess slope is her root, and this scorched earth is her country. Chungui is not behind her, but in front of her. Intention: written in front - why I wrote "Spring Return from Longshang" What I want to write about this book is not a cool article about "How a female doctor saved the Ming Dynasty by relying on foresight." What I want to write about is the process of how a woman is stripped of her name, achievements and freedom in the huge web woven by patriarchy and monarchy, and how she finally tears open the web with her own hands. Shen Zhiwei has been doing practical things for ten years, and any one of them done to a man would be enough to leave a mark in history. But what did she get? The credit was recorded in her father's name, and the award was written as "the legacy of a virtuous wife helping her." Even the emperor valued her by accepting her into the palace and making her his concubine, so that her talents were transferred from her father's hands to her husband's hands, but they never belonged to her. The world recognizes her usefulness, but refuses to acknowledge her existence. She spent ten years of hard work in exchange for the titles of "Daughter of the Shen Family" and "Emperor's Imperial Concubine". The more important the status, the lighter she becomes. It is this "lightness" that I want to write about. A woman is obviously strong enough to hold up a land, but she still has to be transferred, rewarded, and canonized like a tool. Even if she refuses, she has to kneel down and say "parents' orders." This is not a specific person who is bad, it is the entire system that only allows women to exist in that way. It packages plunder as grace and beautifies imprisonment as heavenly grace. If you don't thank me, you don't know how to praise me; if you thank me, you will no longer be yourself. Shen Jingxiu is a good father, that's true. But a good father is also a part of fatherhood. He loved her and protected her, but he never thought of letting her become independent from her identity as "daughter". He suffered her merits and felt sorry for her grievances, but he could not give her any real status that belonged to him. It wasn't until he named her "Wei Yan" in the end that the father really released her from the shell of "Shen's daughter". That was one of the few places in the book where I wrote extremely slowly and couldn't bear to finish writing. As for Chongzhen, I don't want to write him as a faint king. He is diligent, frugal, and works day and night, which is why he is even more desperate. When a good emperor faces a capable woman, his first reaction is to admit her into the palace. This is the most terrifying thing about monarchy: it does not depend on people's good or evil, it just turns everything into the emperor's property, including people. Therefore, Shen Zhiwei's final choice is not revenge or darkness, but self-rescue. She wanted to separate the three words "Shen Zhiwei" from all attachments, use the fate of the dynasty to pave the way for herself, and use countless blood debts to exchange for her name to stand independently in the annals of history. This road is too hard, but looking back is like a phoenix chariot, which means living for others all your life. "The return of spring comes before the guests, the mountains and the apes share the same day and night, the rivers and willows share the wind and smoke. It is like a Fu in Changsha, and it will be a few years from now." Jia Yi is frustrated, at least he can still be remembered as a "scholar". And she is not even qualified to be "unencountered", she is just a footnote in other people's biographies. I wrote this book because I wanted to turn that footnote into a history of her own. I hope that every girl who works hard but finds that she is just paving the way for others can wait until her own spring returns.