Chapter 45: Master, Stop Reciting

“First, let’s talk about character refinement—the simplest to appear, yet the hardest to master.”

Zhao Bian pointed to one of the examples and said, “The goal of character refinement isn’t to find the right word, but the right sound.”

“Couplets demand tonal harmony; look at this pairing: ‘cloudy mountains piled high’ against ‘misty waters adrift.’”

“Here, ‘piled’ and ‘high’ are both oblique tones, while ‘adrift’ and ‘craft’ are both level tones—seemingly balanced, yet violating the taboo of ‘same-tone endings’—four characters paired as double-level and double-oblique, creating a rhythm like a snapped zither string, devoid of melodic rise and fall.”

To be honest, tones are a real headache.

Policy essays don’t require tonal patterns—you can write freely—but poetry and fu compositions demand strict metrical discipline.

It’s not just about character parallelism—it’s about tonal parallelism too!

Remember, the Song Dynasty had no Hanyu Pinyin; every character’s pronunciation had to be determined by the fanqie system and rhyme group in the Guangyun.

And never try to be clever by using modern Hanyu Pinyin to judge tones—Song-era Chinese pronunciation differs from modern Mandarin in countless subtle ways!

Song-era Chinese was based on the ‘four tones, eight registers’ system: level, rising, departing, and entering tones, each split into yin and yang due to voicing distinctions, forming eight registers. Crucially, the entering tone remained independent, ending in stop consonants with abrupt, short pronunciation—unlike modern Mandarin, which merged it into other tones.

If you must find a modern equivalent, look to Hakka and Wu dialects—they’re closest to Song-era Chinese.

Hakka fully preserves the entering tone endings and typically has six to seven tones, closely mirroring the Song eight-register system with fine tonal distinctions.

Hakka also shares Song-era grammatical particles, like ‘ Xi ’ (to be), ‘ Mao ’ (not have), ‘ Yan ’ (just), and rich sentence-final particles such as ‘ Mie ’ and ‘ Fan .’

Moreover, Hakka retains many archaic pronunciations—‘ Xing ’ (hang), ‘ Shi ’ (siak)—extremely close to Song-era pronunciations.

Wu dialect preserves the full voiced initials of Song-era Chinese and distinguishes yin and yang entering tones, making Song poetry sung in Wu sound far more melodious than in modern Mandarin.

Returning to this point, the tonal properties of the four characters themselves are technically correct.

But writing poetry and fu isn’t about composing couplets!

It’s not enough to simply match level with oblique tones; in parallel prose or poetry, level-oblique matching is merely basic. Advanced technique demands the beauty of ‘oblique atop oblique, level atop level.’

Most people, by this point, are already dizzy.

Fortunately, Lu Beigu’s comprehension was sharp—he could still follow Zhao Bian’s teaching.

Zhao Bian continued, “If you change ‘piled high’ to ‘ranked peaks’ and ‘adrift craft’ to ‘lost ford,’ pairing ‘oblique-oblique’ with ‘level-level,’ it satisfies tonal rules—but ‘lost ford’ belongs to the ‘Zhi’ and ‘Zhen’ rhyme groups, still not ideal. Better yet, change it to ‘misty waters vast and dim’—maintaining tonal contrast while staying within the ‘Yang’ rhyme throughout, achieving true tonal harmony.”

Seeing Lu Beigu seemed to grasp it, Zhao Bian pointed to the scroll of his own calligraphy of the Lan Ting Ji Xu hanging in the main room.

“Look at this: ‘lofty mountains, steep ridges’ paired with ‘clear stream, swift rapids.’ At first glance, doesn’t it seem ordinary?”

Lu Beigu nodded—it did look unremarkable, though Zhao Bian’s calligraphy was truly beautiful.

The kind of beauty even someone with zero knowledge of calligraphy could recognize—purely aesthetic.

If you placed Lu Beigu’s own practiced regular script beside it, the difference would be like a child painstakingly tracing characters versus a master writing effortlessly.

But that didn’t matter—the Song imperial exams didn’t require beautiful handwriting, since all exam papers were transcribed before grading; no matter how elegant your original script, it made no difference.

So if you’re only aiming to pass the exam, not pursuing art, your calligraphy need only be legible—not scribbled like a dog’s scratch.

“The characters aren’t dazzling, but from the perspective of tonal rhythm, they’re profoundly refined. Wang Xizhi’s piece seems spontaneous, yet secretly follows the pattern of alternating tones.”

“Here, ‘steep’ is a departing tone, ‘ridge’ is a rising tone—both oblique, yet one firm, one soft, like the tension of a zither string.”

Zhao Bian’s finger moved to the words ‘swift rapids.’

“And ‘swift’ is an entering tone, abrupt; ‘rapids’ is a level tone, lingering—this is the classic example of ‘oblique atop oblique, level atop level.’ Do you understand?”

Lu Beigu wanted to tease him.

Master, stop reciting.

But the thought flashed through his mind and vanished.

He answered seriously, “I understand. You’ve explained it clearly and plainly.”

To be honest, poetry and fu metrical rules—

Without a teacher, you’d spend a year puzzling over them and still not get it.

But with a teacher, and sufficient insight, many things are just a thin sheet of paper away!

After all, no matter how convoluted or complex the content, in the end, it’s all governed by patterns.

What do exam candidates fear most?

Not memorizing questions—but having to think for themselves!

That’s why many candidates do well on classical texts and poetry, yet utterly fail policy essays—plainly, they lack talent and original ideas.

And precisely because Lu Beigu had already demonstrated his ability in forming ideas to Zhao Bian,

Zhao Bian was so patient in teaching him.

Zhao Bian knew Lu Beigu was gifted, talented—his only problem was ignorance of the rules.

And rules can be taught.

Before they knew it, half the morning had passed.

Lu Beigu’s understanding of tonal patterns had deepened considerably.

Just as he was about to ask another question, hurried footsteps sounded outside.

A clerk rushed in and whispered something to Zhao Bian.

Lu Beigu caught a few vague words.

“The Judicial Commissioner’s office has a high-profile prisoner…”

Zhao Bian’s expression turned grave. “I have official duties. Go home, memorize this manuscript. I’ll test you tomorrow.”

Lu Beigu promptly rose and took his leave.

When he stepped out of the yamen, the sun was near noon.

Lu Beigu looked back at the modest government office, feeling a quiet awe—who could have imagined that Zhao Bian, the famed ‘Iron-Faced Censor,’ would teach him with such patience and care?

——————

① The Guangyun, compiled by Chen Pengnian and Qiu Yong in the first year of Emperor Zhenzong’s Dazhong Xiangfu era, was designed to expand the Qieyun. The text spans five volumes, contains 26,194 characters with 191,692 annotations, divided into 206 rhyme groups: 57 level-tone groups (28 upper, 29 lower), 55 rising-tone groups, 60 departing-tone groups, and 34 entering-tone groups—13 more rhyme groups than the Qieyun, and double the character count. It served as the Song-era standard reference for rhyme and tone.

(End of chapter)