The Meaning of Plants (8)

山河破碎风飘絮；身世浮尘雨打萍：The country has broken liked willow catkin in the wind; My up and down life experience seemed the rain drop beating the duckweed.

This verse was written by the last chancellor of Song Dynasty 文天祥（6, June, 1236－9, January, 1283）.  1256, in the royal examination, he got the champion. Yet after four days, his father was dead. According Chinese tradition, father dead the son has to hold a mourning as long as three years. When he back to the public life, it was 1259, the army of Mongolia had occupied half of the land of Song Dynasty already.  文天祥use his own money to organise an army of 30,000 soldiers.  And he went to see the general伯颜 of Mongolia army for a peace talk. But during this period the coward emperor sending someone dismissed his army. When 伯颜 know this, he arrest文天祥at the negotiating table. Later someone helped him to escape successfully. At that time the emperor had surrendered already, but 文天祥 with other friends acclaimed a new emperor in other place. They had some victory but finally he was captured by the Mongolia army.  When the grandson of Genghis Khan, Kublai (23, Sep, 1215－18, Feb, 1294) offered him a choice; either to be the high rank officer of the new Dynasty or die. 文天祥 just wanted to die, the new emperor Kublai waited his surrender for four years, during that time, 文天祥  had tried to suicide by hunger strike but failed and He wrote the above verse.  Finally Kublai tried to persuade him surrender personally, but he refused the offer and was beheaded in 8 January 1283.