1, original text

Desperate poems

Author: Tan Sitong

Looking forward to James Zhang,

Treat Dugan.

I smiled at the sky from the horizontal knife,

Go and stay in the two Kunlun Mountains!

2. Translation

James Zhang hid in Tibet to avoid disaster.

Dugan pretended to be dead to avoid losing his life,

I will face death and face it calmly.

Because even if I die, there are two great men who help the country as sincerely as I do!

3. The author

Tan Sitong (1865- 1898) was born in Liuyang (now Liuyang City, Hunan Province). He used to be Zhang Jing's alternate sheriff and military minister. I traveled with my father since I was a child and traveled all over China to get familiar with the social situation at that time. He is a radical reformist. After the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, he resented China's weakness, actively engaged in reform activities, severely criticized autocratic monarchy and feudal ethics, and became a radical among bourgeois reformists. On 1898

Participated in the Reform Movement of 1898, was arrested for 1898 coup, and died generously. Author of The Complete Works of Tan Sitong.

4, the creative process

On June 1898, 1 1 day, Emperor Guangxu issued the imperial edict of "Ding Mingshi Kingdom" and announced the political reform. On September 2 1898, Empress Dowager Cixi staged a coup, imprisoned Emperor Guangxu, and began to search for and slaughter reformists. At that time, Tan Sitong refused the suggestion that others wanted him to escape (Kang Youwei fled to Hong Kong via Shanghai, Liang Qichao fled to Japan via Tianjin), determined to die, and was willing to warn the people with his life. He said: "The political reform in every country is caused by bloodshed. Today, China has not shed blood because of political reform, and this country is not prosperous. If so, please start from the beginning. "