Tao Yuanming, also known as Mr. Jingjie and Mr. Wuliu, was the first pastoral poet in my country. Later generations called him "the master of pastoral fields for centuries and the sect of seclusion for thousands of years." He has a poem "Drinking": "The house is in a human environment, and there is no noise of carriages and horses. I ask you how you can do it, but my mind is far away. I am picking chrysanthemums under the east fence, and I can see Nanshan leisurely. The mountain air is beautiful day and night, and the birds are flying. There is a true meaning in it, but I have forgotten to tell it." This drinking song, which has been recited from ancient to modern times and has been popular for generations, depicts a paradise on earth far away from the world, allowing us to unconsciously get rid of the hustle and bustle of the world. Get inner peace from it. We can't help but ask what kind of person Tao Yuanming is? Why can he write such beautiful poems? What kind of unique experiences does he have?

Tao Yuanming was born in about the third year of Xingning (365 AD) of Emperor Ai of the Eastern Jin Dynasty. , was born in a declining official family. After Tao Yuanming lost his father at the age of 9, his family declined and he lived with his mother and sister. Orphaned and widowed, most of them live in the home of their grandfather Meng Jia. My grandfather had a large collection of books at home, which provided him with the conditions to read ancient books and understand history. In the Jin Dynasty when scholars regarded "Zhuang" and "Lao" as their sects and deposed the "Six Classics", he not only learned the "Six Classics" like ordinary scholar-bureaucrats, "Laozi", "Zhuangzi", and also learned the Confucian "Six Classics" and "exotic books" such as literature, history and mythology. Influenced by the ideological trends of the times and his family environment, he accepted two different ideas, Confucianism and Taoism, and cultivated two different interests: "a strong ambition to travel to the world" and "a natural love for mountains and hills".

In the seventh year of Taiyuan (382), when Tao Yuanming was 18 years old, he went to seek refuge with Xie Xuan, his father's best friend during his lifetime. Xie Xuan was serving as the governor of Yanzhou at that time. He warmly entertained Tao Yuanming and asked Tao Yuanming and his son Xie Huan to study and practice martial arts together. He planned to officially appoint Tao Yuanming to his post after a while. Unexpectedly, Tao Yuanming soon received a letter from home, saying that his mother was in poor health and asking him to return as soon as possible. Not long after Tao Yuanming returned home, Xie Xuan fell into depression and died suddenly due to the suspicion and attacks by Sima Daozi, the authoritarian royal family at that time, and others. Facing this sudden and huge blow, Tao Yuanming was at a loss, so he drank every day to drown his sorrows. Gradually, Tao Yuanming became addicted to alcohol, and he always got drunk every time he drank. After getting drunk, he would sit under the tree in his house, recite poems and compose poems, or roar loudly. He did this all year round, which became a habit. Tao Yuanming liked drinking, and he wrote more than twenty poems directly about drinking. However, he was not addicted to alcohol, but "drink without disorder". Later generations used the term "Tao (Yuan Mingzhi) drunk" to describe a person's extreme love and fascination for something, which also proves that his taste for wine was limited to intoxication. The wine-related stories he left behind can also bear witness to his sense of balance between drunkenness and sobriety.

Tao Yuanming not only loved wine, but also loved chrysanthemums. Tao Yuanming's ex-wife Chen was a well-educated, courteous, gentle and virtuous woman. She had been married to Tao Yuanming for six years and had four sons. Due to the close number of children and overwork, her body was extremely weak and she died in a famine year. The soul returns to heaven. Chen's early death was a heavy blow to Tao Yuanming, so Tao Yuanming placed all his love for his beloved wife on chrysanthemums. He combined chrysanthemums with wine and brewed chrysanthemum wine, which not only satisfied his appetite, but also made his own chrysanthemum wine. It also satisfies his spiritual sublimation.

Since the situation at home is getting worse day by day, since Mr. Zhai came in, his hurt body and mind have been cared for and comforted. He can't bear to let Zhai The Chen family also made the same mistake as the Chen family and suffered poverty and hardship. Under the repeated persuasion of his friend Pang Zun, in the fourth year of Emperor Long'an (400), he went to Jingzhou and joined Huanxuanmen as a subordinate. However, Tao Yuanming discovered Huan Xuan's ambition to usurp power, so he resigned and returned home on the pretext of his mother's death.

Later, Huanxuan rebelled against Jin and was defeated by Liu Yu, Liu Yi, etc., and took Emperor An of Jin to Jiangling. Tao Yuanming defected to Liu Yu, but soon he discovered that Liu Yu cut off dissidents and favored nepotism. He was disappointed and planned to resign and live in seclusion. Tao Yuanming's cousin Tao Kui did not agree with Tao Yuanming's seclusion and said to him: "It is good for you to go back to the countryside again, but have you ever thought about it? You are old, not good at managing money, have young children, and your family is poor. How should you maintain your life in the future? In my opinion, it is better for you to take the path of Zhongyin. "What is Zhongyin? It refers to being a minor local official. Tao Yuanming thought over and over again and accepted his appointment as magistrate of Pengze County.

After serving as a county magistrate for more than eighty days, Tao Yuanming sighed: "How can I bow down to a village boy for five buckets of rice?" Because the postal supervisor made trouble, Tao Yuanming left the officialdom and truly embarked on the road of returning to his hometown to live in seclusion.

After Tao Yuanming lived in seclusion, he learned that Liu Yu had usurped power and proclaimed himself emperor, which completely frustrated his dream of reviving the Eastern Jin Dynasty, so he changed his name to Tao Qian and refused any official contacts. Tao Yuanming's wife, Zhai, shared the same ideals with him. She lived in poverty and contentment. "The husband plowed in front and the wife hoeed in the back." They worked together to maintain their livelihood. At the beginning of returning to the fields, life was acceptable. "The square house is more than ten acres, with eight or nine thatched houses, elm and willow shade on the back eaves, and peach and plum blossoms in front of the hall." Tao Yuanming loved chrysanthemums, and they were planted all around the house. "Picking chrysanthemums under the eastern fence, leisurely seeing the Nanshan Mountain" ("Drinking") is still popular today. In the fourth year of Yixi's reign, his residence in Shangjing (the foothills of Yujing Mountain in the west of today's Xingzi County) caught fire, so he moved to Lili (today's Lilitao Village in Xingzi Hot Spring), where his life was more difficult. If there is a good harvest, you can also "have a great time drinking spring wine and picking vegetables from my garden." If there is a calamity year, "you will be hungry in the summer and sleep in bed in the cold nights". In his later years, his life became increasingly poor. Some friends took the initiative to send money to him, and sometimes he would come to ask for a loan. His old friend Yan Yanzhi was appointed as the prefect of Shi'an County in the first year of Jingping (423), the Young Emperor of the Liu Song Dynasty. He passed by Xunyang and went to his house to drink every day. Before leaving, he left 20,000 yuan, which he sent all to the restaurant and drank one after another. However, he was principled in asking for loans or accepting alms. He did not change his ambitions when he was poor, nor did he seek "food for the money". Once, Tan Daoji, the newly appointed governor of Jiangzhou, sent him a generous gift and advised him: "When a sage is alive, if there is no way in the world, he will hide, and if there is way, he will come. Today (you) are born in a civilized world, why are you suffering like this?" He said: "How can a potential person dare to look for talents? He has no ambition." He refused because he had no merit and no salary.

In mid-September of the fourth year of Yuanjia (427), when Tao Yuanming was still conscious, he wrote three "elegy poems" for himself. In the last two sentences of the third poem, he said: "Death He said, "The body is the same as the mountain." It shows that he views death so plainly and naturally. Soon, Tao Yuanming completed his 63 years of life. Su Dongpo once commented on Tao Yuanming: "If you want to be an official, be an official, and don't think it's a disgrace to ask for it; if you want to be hidden, be hidden, and don't think it's high to leave. If you're hungry, knock on the door and beg for food; if you're full, beg for food. The wise people of ancient and modern times, "People value authenticity, and poetry also values ??authenticity. This is the main reason why Tao's poems have enduring charm."

Tao Yuanming was buried in the Tao family cemetery at the foot of Nanshan Mountain, at the foot of Mianyang Mountain at the junction of Jiujiang County and Xingzi County in Jiangxi Province today. Today, Tao Yuanming's tomb is well preserved. The tombstone consists of three stone tablets, one large, two small, and one large. In the middle is the regular script "The Tomb of Mr. Tao Gong Jingjie, a Scholar of the Jin Dynasty" in regular script. On the left is an epitaph, and on the right is an epitaph "Returning to the West". It is from the Qing Dynasty. It was established by the descendants of Tao in the first year of Qianlong's reign.