Zhou Muwang was the fifth king of the Zhou Dynasty, who reigned for 55 years and was the longest king of the Zhou Dynasty. When he was young, he liked to cultivate immortals and wanted to learn from the Yellow Emperor and ride around the world.
His driver was Zhao Fu, a famous driver at that time. Zhou Muwang, the coachman, has a very prominent family background, which can be traced back to the granddaughter of Zhuan Xu, the grandson of the Yellow Emperor. Several ancestors of Zhao Fu were coachmen in Zhou Wang. In order to make Zhou Muwang's westward journey more fashionable, Zhao Fu went to Taolin, the place where Kuafu, who was chasing the sun, died, and selected eight fine horses for him.
These wild horses are descendants of horses scattered in Kuafu Mountain after Mu Wang's grandfather settled in the world, and still retain the heroic spirit of their ancestors in the wilderness. Moreover, Zhao Fu can not only drive horses, but also raise horses. These eight good horses are fed by him. Some of them run without practicing soil, some are faster than birds, some can travel thousands of miles at night, and some have wings on their backs, which is amazing.
Zhao Fu presented these eight horses to Queen Mu, and King Mu raised them near Longchuan, East Island, where there was a kind of grass called "Dragon Grass". After those horses were eaten, it was even more amazing, a Chinese odyssey.
Extended data
Yao Chi by Li Shangyin, a poet in Tang Dynasty;
The Queen Mother of the West opened the window on the Yaochi; The voice of bamboo songs is very sad. Eight-horse car, traveling three thousand miles a day; Zhou Muwang, why didn't the default come again?
Translation:
The carved window of the West Queen Mother of Yaochi opened eastward, and only the "Huangzhuge" shocked the earth, which was sad. Eight good horses can drive three times a day. Wan Li, why can't you come again?
Poetry appreciation:
This is a poem written against the background of myths and legends. There are two unusual figures in the poem, one is the Queen Mother of the West, and the other is Zhou Muwang. These two men are a fairy in the sky and a king on the earth.
In Shan Hai Jing, the earliest record of the Queen Mother of the West, she is a monster that combines god, man and beast. Some experts speculate that the prototype of the Queen Mother is the female chief of the nomadic tribe in Qinghai, but she has become a beautiful and charming oriental goddess in people's legends and finally synthesized into the Queen Mother of the Taoist Jade Emperor. According to the legend in heaven, the emperor was before the jade emperor, because there was a jade emperor in Taoism, and the wife of the emperor was the Japanese mother He.
The fairy tale Zhou Muwang and the Queen Mother of the West was originally about the feelings of men and women, but Li Shangyin did not use it to write a love poem, but wrote a satirical poem with political significance.
In the late Tang Dynasty when Li Shangyin lived, the country declined and the emperor was in a coma. Several emperors believed in the immortal way and took the legendary elixir, hoping to make themselves immortal. As a result, they were not immortal, but poisoned to death. Li Shangyin used the story of Mu Wang to satirize these stupid kings who pursued immortality.
Of course, his writing is very clever, and there is not a word of discussion and evaluation in the poem, which completely disappears into the actions and psychological activities of the queen mother. The conception is very clever.
The last sentence of this poem is not a rhetorical question directly put forward by the poet, but a natural question in the queen mother's heart. Therefore, although the irony contained in the poem is sharp, the expression is euphemistic and implicit, which is exactly the way that Li Shangyin is best at dealing with satirical poems.
Baidu Encyclopedia-Yaochi