Abstract:

In the sixth year during the reign of Yuanyou under the Northern Song Dynasty, SU Shi was impeached by JIA Yi. On hearing the secret from SU Shi that he was also attached to the impeached list, QIN Guan promptly tried to seek support from relevant supervisory officials. Unfortunately, his inappropriate behavior led to the result that SU Shi and his younger brother were under a fiercer attack from their political enemies on their political conduct, and therefore the relation of QIN Guan to SU Shi underwent a subtle change. This paper argues that the latter part of QIN's well-known poem, Treading on Grass (Ta Sha Xing), composed in the spring of the fourth year during the reign of Shaosheng was most likely a circuitous profession in his days in exile to SU Shi via SU's friend HUANG Tingjian.

Key words: Treading on Grass, Party conflict during the reign of Yuanyou, profession, regret