The Story of the Peach Blossom Garden is one of the masterpieces of Tao Yuanming, a writer of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, which reads as follows:
During the Taiyuan period of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, there was a man in Wuling County who made his living as a fisherman. One day, he was traveling along a stream, forgetting the distance of his journey. Suddenly, he came across a forest of peach blossoms growing on both sides of the stream, hundreds of paces long, with no other trees in between, and the flowers and grasses were fresh and beautiful, and the fallen blossoms were scattered on the ground one after another. The fisherman was so amazed at this (the sight) that he continued on his boat, trying to reach the end of the forest.
At the end of the forest was the place where the stream originated, and there appeared a mountain, and on the mountain there was a small cave, in which there seemed to be a little light. So he got out of the boat and went in through the opening. At first the opening was so narrow that only one person could pass through. After a few dozen more steps, it suddenly became wide open and bright. (What appeared before his eyes was) a flat, wide land, with neat rows of houses.
There were also fertile fields, beautiful ponds and marshes, mulberry trees and bamboo forests. Paths crisscrossed the fields, and chickens and dogs could be heard everywhere. People come and go in the fields to plow and work, and men and women dress exactly like the world outside the Peach Blossom Garden. The old people and children were all comfortable and happy, enjoying themselves.
The people of the village were surprised to see the fisherman and asked him where he had come from. The fisherman answered in detail. Some people in the village invited him to their homes. They set up wine, killed chickens and cooked for him.
When the people of the village heard that such a man had come, they all came to inquire. They themselves said that their ancestors had fled the wars of the Qin Dynasty and had led their wives, children and neighbors to this place where they were cut off from the rest of the world and never went out again, and had thus cut off their contacts with the outside world.
They asked the fisherman what dynasty he was living in, but they didn't know that there was a Han dynasty, let alone the Wei and Jin dynasties. The fisherman told them what he knew in detail, and after hearing it, they all sighed with regret.
The rest of the people invited the fisherman to their homes and treated him with food and wine. The fisherman stayed a few days, and took his leave of the village. The people of the village said to him, "This place of ours is not worth speaking of to those outside!"
After the fisherman came out, he found his boat and went back by the old road, marking it everywhere. When he arrived at the county town, he went to the Tai Shou and reported the experience. The governor immediately sent his men to follow him, searching for the markings he had made before, and finally lost his way and could no longer find the way to the Peach Blossom Garden.
Liu Ziji, a native of Nanyang, was a hermit of high aspirations, and when he heard of this, he happily planned to go there. But it did not materialize and he died soon after due to illness. Since then there have been no more people asking about the Peach Blossom Garden Road.
Expanded:
Background:
When he was young, Tao Yuanming had the ambition to "help the people of the world", but he lived at a time when the Jin and Song dynasties were changing hands, and the Eastern Jin dynasty was extremely corrupt, surrendering to the outside world and settling down in the left side of the river. The ruling group lived in obscenity and internal conflict, and the warlords fought for years, with heavy taxes and corvée duties, deepening the exploitation and oppression of the people.
During the years of turmoil when the country was on the verge of collapse, Tao Yuanming's ambitions could not be realized. At the same time, the Eastern Jin dynasty inherited the old system and practiced the gate system, protecting the privileges of the noble bureaucrats of the high-ranking scholarly clans, leaving intellectuals from small and medium-sized landowners with no opportunity to display their talents.
Like Tao Yuanming's grandparents and fathers only did a governor of a class of official positions, the family has long been in decline of the poor, of course, "ambition is difficult to fulfill. In addition, his character is straight, clear and honest, not willing to grovel to attach to the rich and powerful, and therefore and the dirty dark reality of the society has been a sharp contradiction, resulting in incompatible feelings.
Yi Xi first year (405 years), he firmly and resolutely resigned only 81 days in office Pengze County magistrate, and the final break with the rulers, long-term return to seclusion, plowing the wilderness.
Although Tao Yuanming was far away from the rivers and lakes, he still cared about national politics. In June of the second year of the Yuanxi era (420), Liu Yu abrogated Emperor Gongdi of Jin as King of Zuoling and renamed his reign "Yongchu". In the following year, Liu Yu used a plot to smother Emperor Gong of Jin with a cotton blanket. These events could not but stir up the waves of Tao Yuanming's thoughts. From his inherent Confucianism, he became dissatisfied with Liu Yu's regime and deepened his hatred of the real world.
But he couldn't change and didn't want to intervene in this status quo, so he had to use creative writing to express his feelings, shaping a beautiful realm in contrast to the dirty and dark society, in order to send his political ideals and good feelings. It was against this background that the Tale of the Peach Blossom Garden was created.
Baidu Encyclopedia - The Story of Peach Blossom Garden