Yang Wanli advocated the war of resistance all his life and opposed kneeling and surrendering. In many books, strategies and articles he gave to the emperor, he lamented Chen Jiazhi's illness many times, strongly criticized the mistake of surrender, and his patriotism was beyond words. He is an honest official and tries his best not to disturb the people. At that time, the poet Ji Xu praised him as "clear as water, poor with gold" ("Vote for Yang Chengzhai"). After the completion of the Jiangdong transfer agreement, he should have had a large sum of money, but he abandoned it in the official treasury and did not return a penny. He is open-minded, outspoken, critical and reckless, so he can never be of great use. In fact, he didn't work hard as an official. When he was an official in Beijing, he was always ready to lose his official position. So, he prepared his way home from Hangzhou in advance, locked it in a box and hid it in his bedroom. His family was not allowed to buy anything, for fear that his luggage would be cumbersome when he left his post and returned home. Later, during the fifteen years when Han Zhou was in power, Han Xinjian Nanyuan asked him to write a "record" and promised to reward senior officials. Wan Li insisted on not doing it, saying that "officials can be abandoned and' recording' can't be done." To stop a few things, you can imagine him as a person. Ge, a poet, boasts "a backbone like a stone" (see Collection of Sages in Southern Song Dynasty). Ge Wu Huai Ji), this is not a beautiful word.
Yang Wanli was an outstanding poet in the Southern Song Dynasty and had a great influence at that time. His poems are on a par with those of Lu You, Fan Chengda and You Mao, and are called "the four great poets in the Southern Song Dynasty". At first, he imitated Jiangxi Poetry School. Later, he realized the shortcomings of Jiangxi Poetry School, such as the difficulty in pursuing form. In the thirty-second year of Shaoxing (1 162), he burned thousands of representative poems and decided to jump out of the trap of Jiangxi poetry school and find another way. In the preface of Jing Xi Ji, he once recalled his own creative path: "His poems began to learn from the philosophers in Jiangxi, as well as the five-character law of Houshan (Chen Shidao), the seven-character quatrains of an old man in the Mid-Levels (Wang Anshi) and the quatrains of the Tang Dynasty. ..... When I was writing a poem during the Reform Movement of 1898, I suddenly realized that it was afraid to learn to politely refuse the Tang people and Wang, Chen and Jiangxi gentlemen, and then I was so happy. " He also made it very clear in his poem: "I am ashamed to pass on the story, and the writer has his own romantic feelings." Huang (Tingjian) and Chen (Shidao) rested under the fence, while Tao (Qian) and Xie (Lingyun) stood out. (Xu's Postscript to Recent Work in the Province (3)) It is precisely because he did not follow others' heels, leaned against others' fences, and did not dare to turn around and innovate that he finally formed his own poetic style and named it "Chengzhai Style". It promoted the change of poetic style at that time.
Yang Wanli is knowledgeable and talented. His works are eclectic and varied, including "Returning to the Division with a Thousand Troops, Overturning the Three Gorges, Piercing the Heavenly Heart and Piercing the Moon Cave". There is also a gesture that writes about people's feelings, which is readily available, but can write beautiful lyrics. The poetic style is simple and natural, ingenious in conception, humorous, fresh and lively, with strong artistic appeal. He also paid great attention to learning the advantages of folk songs and absorbed a lot of vivid oral proverbs in his poems. Therefore, his works are often "slang sayings, from the mouth" (Jiang Hongao's "Han Tang Poetry"), giving people a simple and natural feeling. Such as: "the bright moon shines on Kyushu, and several families are happy and several are sad; If you are worried about nailing people to the moon, you have to have a rest and have a rest. " (Song of Zhi Zhu) is a completely blurted out folk song, which reflects his achievements in learning folk songs.
Some of Yang Wanli's existing poems directly express his patriotic feelings and concern for current politics. In particular, when he was the escort of Ambassador He of the State of Jin, he crossed the Huaihe River for the first time and went north to meet the ambassador. He saw with his own eyes that the great rivers and mountains of the Song Dynasty fell into the hands of the Jin people, and the Huaihe River became the northern boundary of the Southern Song Dynasty. People of the same flesh and blood on both sides of the strait can't travel freely, and they have written many patriotic poems, such as: "People are not happy to go to the Huaihe River when the ship is away from the beach of Hongze; Why is Sanggan far away, and the north of the middle stream is the end of the world! " "Ships on both sides of the strait are running backwards, and it is difficult to negotiate the wave standard. Only the gull heron flies freely from north to south. " ("Entering the Huaihe River for the first time") When passing by Jinshan in Zhenjiang, I saw that the picturesque pavilion in Jinshan had become a place dedicated to making tea for the golden envoy, and wrote indignantly: "The great river is ashamed of others! The poem "Golden Mountain Worries for Others" ("Snow Ji Xiao Deng Jin Mountain") profoundly lashed the humiliating little court in the Southern Song Dynasty. In addition, there are "Crossing the Yangtze River", "Reading Your Guilt", Zhang Weigong's poems, Prime Minister Yu's poems, Jiang Gang's two poems, Qin Taishi's tomb and Su Mu Niu Ting's ancestral temple. , or miss home country, or call for the war of resistance and national rejuvenation, or praise the generals who died against the enemy, or satirize traitors.
Some of his poems also reflect the life of working people, expressing his concern for people's livelihood and sympathy for working people. Such as Compassion for Peasants, Looking at Crops, Peasants' Sigh, Autumn Rain Sigh, Compassion for Drought, Songs of Bamboo Branches, Songs of Transplanting Rice, etc. , with high ideological and artistic. But the latter two kinds of works are few.
Most of Yang Wanli's existing poems are lyrical and entertaining works praising Yue. Some themes in this part of the works are too detailed, lacking a high degree of artistic generalization and superficial. But he also has many lyric poems, which are interesting and touching because of careful observation, vivid description and sincere feelings. For example, "Plum teeth are sour and soft, and bananas are divided into green screens. I slept for a long time and thought mercilessly, watching children catch willow branches. " ("Taking a nap in early summer") "You can't see the truth clearly outside the fog, and you can only recognize Qiancun by chickens and dogs. The frost on the ferry is like snow, which is the first mark of my green shoes. " ("Gengzi crossed the river at dawn on the fifth day of the first month") "In the spring rain, people are drunk in plum blossoms and bamboo shadows." (New Year's Eve) are all round and natural, fresh and lively, full of thoughts, which are different from those poets who specialize in describing the wind, clouds and the moon.
Yang Wanli was extremely diligent in writing all his life. According to legend, there are more than 20,000 poems, more than 4,200 existing poems and 133 volumes of complete works of poetry, which are known in the world.