Ren An was the secretariat of Yizhou during the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty. Liang Wudi trusted Jiang Chong in his later years. Jiang Chong framed Liu Yuxin, who was forced to fight for Jiang Chong and committed suicide after his defeat. When Liu started his army, Ren An accepted his orders and was sentenced to death.
When Ren An was in prison, he wrote to Sima Qian, hoping that he could do his duty of "promoting the sage as a scholar" and come forward to save himself. Sima Qian was brutally imprisoned because he spoke for Li Ling. In view of the past lessons, he thinks it is useless to come forward to rescue himself. So it was very difficult, and I didn't reply for a long time. I wrote this letter when Ren An was about to be executed.
In this letter, Sima Qian described in detail his unfortunate experience of innocence and injustice, focusing on his shame and humiliation after being imprisoned; Exposed and criticized the feudal supreme ruler's moodiness, ignorance of right and wrong, ignorance of virtue and ignorance; At the same time, he quoted the deeds of many historical figures with bumpy fate and outstanding integrity to encourage himself and determined to finish his historical works with humiliation.
Extended data
On the surface, the letter to Ren An was written as a reply to Ren An, but it only touched on the problem that Ren An asked him to "promote sages and scholars" and spent a lot of space telling his friend Ren An his extremely angry mood. When I arrived in Ren 'an, I also told the world the great shame I suffered because of Li Ling's disaster, poured out my long-pent-up pain and resentment, and boldly revealed my dissatisfaction with Emperor Wu of Han Dynasty's ignorance of right and wrong and meanness and ingratitude.
Bao Ren An Shu is of great value to the study of Sima Qian's thought, writing motivation and the writing process of Historical Records, and it is a rare masterpiece in the history of China literature. The ancients have long regarded it as a "wonderful article in the world", which can be compared with Li Sao.
The strangeness of this article is first manifested in its grandeur. The author's grief and indignation, which has been suppressed in his heart for a long time, gushed out with this article, like a great river of the Yangtze River, magnificent and breathtaking; The beauty of this article lies in its ups and downs.
The author is frank and has complicated inner contradictions. He didn't mean to put on airs, and he came one by one because he couldn't say clearly in a few words; The wonder of this article is still that it is sometimes impassioned, sometimes sobbing, sometimes quoting classics, and sometimes awkward. Repeated twists and turns, twists and turns, fluent writing and vivid language.
Baidu Encyclopedia-Reporting Ren Anshu