Tao Yuanming does not bend his back for five buckets of rice. What does this "five measures of rice" mean?

"Five buckets of rice don't bend over", "five buckets of rice" and "five buckets of rice" were later used as idioms, meaning to be lofty and have backbone. The meaning and usage of the whole idiom have never been different. However, there are two different versions of what "five measures of rice" refers to: first, it refers to the salary amount of the county magistrate. The second refers to the "five meters" that Du You believes in. The first statement is the most common, and no example is needed. The second statement, which I have seen, was said by two people. One is Mr. Kuaiqinli, a mainland scholar, and the other is Mr. Zhang Zongxiang, a Taiwan Province scholar. They all put forward this view in the 1970s, and I don't know whether it coincides with mine or whether it comes from a saying. It is said in the article that when Tao Yuanming first became an official, Jiangzhou offered wine, which was a senior position second only to the state secretariat (), and the establishment of this position "may be related to Wang's" Five Dou Mi Dao ". He also said, "Fortunately, a history book reveals the real reason for this dismissal, and that is because he disdains to bow and scrape to a noble family like Wang Ningzhi.". He thinks Tao Yuanming did it. He is also a descendant of the aristocratic children of the Eastern Jin Dynasty. "In order to show his contempt for Du You, who came from a commoner, he pretended to look down on Wang Ningzhi, a noble family." Mr. Zhang Zongxiang's article entitled "Reading Tao Yuanming Occasionally" is found in the seventh volume of's On China Art Forest. The article said that the Wu Dao of the Huang-Lao School "was actually used by Zhang's followers in Shu at the end of the Han Dynasty. The two schools of Buddhism and Taoism are deeply jealous. They are famous for their far-reaching public virtues, and they are invited to buy wine. If they don't join the Lotus Society, Wudoumi, a tributary of Taoism, is far-sighted and unwilling to serve the public. Du You, who is interested in this Sect, hates it and denounces it as a village man? " Zhang put forward this statement because "five loads of rice" is not the salary amount of the county magistrate in the Jin Dynasty. According to the official system of the rulers, the salary of the county magistrate is 600 stones. Even if the salary of "Wudoumi" is only 15 stone a month, it is only 180 stone a year, which is far from 600 stone. And Tao Yuanming came out as an official to help the poor. The arguments are quite different, but the conclusion is the same. Although their statement has been verified, I still find it hard to accept. There are three main reasons: First, Mr. Kai Li Qin's statement is too tortuous and speculative; Second, Mr. Zhang Zongxiang regards "five fights" as the real number of county magistrate's official salary, which is suspected of being a rubber column; Third, it is not grammatical. The original text is "bend over for five buckets of rice", not "bend over for five buckets of rice (Tao)" Then "bending down for a bucket of rice" means "... working for a village child" or "going to a village child". Tao Yuanming looked down on Du You, who was born in poverty, and had nothing to do with what Du You believed in. As Mr. Liang Shiqiu said, "Even if he. It has nothing to do with his inspection duties. " (See Liang Shiqiu's Notes: Five Menfan) In my opinion, a more reasonable understanding refers to the salary of officials. But "five-door rice" refers not to real numbers, but to a rhetorical device-exaggerated and minimalist words. There is circumstantial evidence, which is how poets in the Tang Dynasty understood it. "Five Doors" is what the poets in the Tang Dynasty saw: "See you for five buckets of rice, don't thank you" ("Send Xu Jieyi back to Jiangning to visit relatives"); "After two rooms for a long time, I can see that he has five buckets of rice" (Cen Can's "Listening to Apes in Linjiang, East of Emei, Pregnant with Two Rooms for Old Accommodation"); "Five buckets of rice keep people, and Dongxi recalls fishing" (Cen Can's "My official county guards also"); "It takes only five measures of rice to destroy a fishing rod" (Cen Can's "The First Official Caotang"); "At the beginning, I resigned five measures of rice and only offered a bag of money" (Han Yi's "My brother returned to Shannan to offer a poem narrative"); "Who fights for five buckets of rice, the north window becomes windy" (Li Shangyin's "Cultivation"); "Give up the three mountains and couples, and leave the grain" (Cao Ye was ordered to judge in qi zhou and send it to the court minister). Mr. Liang Shiqiu guessed that the word "five" was used because "five is the mean number and five is the positive number, so it is easy to say". This speculation involves metaphysics and is difficult to prove. It is better to guess that "five fights" was just a habit of people at that time. In the Tang Dynasty, some poets measured wine by "five fights". Du Fu has "five fights to make him stand out, and talk about the Eight Immortals' songs during drinking", while Yuan Zhen has "five fights to solve doubts, but still hate less, and flying is not too much" (one of the Five Words). The difference is that the five fights of wine show that.