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Her beauty can make the moon hide in shame
Her beauty can embarass a flowers appearance
This is the legend of 'An Incomparable Beauty'
They are Diao Chan and Yang Yu Huan
Welcome to the 6th episode
of Learning Chinese Idioms with Steven.
To have a good understanding of the Chinese idioms
can help grasp the essence of the Chinese language,
discover the Chinese history and taste the Chinese culture.
There’s a pretty interesting
phenomenon for Chinese Idioms,
that is, different idiom's have the same history background,
describes the same story, reflects the same content,
and presents the same meaning.
Today, I will be teaching you one of these idioms.
In the last episode,
I have introduced the idiom “Make Fish and Geese Alight”
which the main characters are “Xi ***”
and “*** Zhaojun”, the two out of the
four prettiest girls in Chinese History.
In this episode, I will continue introducing the
idiom: “An Incomparable Beauty" with
the other two beautiful girls as the main character.
“An Incomparable Beauty” also
describes the beauty of the girls,
even moon and flowers are afraid to compare
their beauty with the girls,
so the moon hiding behind the cloud and flower withered.
In this episode, the main characters are
“Diao Chan” and “Yung Yu Huan”,
who are the other two of the four
most beautiful girls in China’s History.
Let’s talk about Diao Chan.
Diao Chan is a beautiful god-daughter
of “*** Yun (a Chancellor)” in
Eastern Han Dynasty in China’s History.
According to legend, she is singing
and playing the zither under the moonlight,
a cloud floats and covers the moonlight,
Diao Chan is even prettier under the hazy night.
The saying of the beauty of Diao Chan is able to
make the moon hide behind the cloud,
and so they start to use “Bi Yue” (Make the Moon hide) to
describe her beauty.
Diao Chan’s godfather wants to kill his most hated
chancellor “*** Zhuo” who is cruel, heartless, and
intent on being the king of the “Han Kingdom”.
But *** Yun didn't have a chance to kill him
because *** Zhuo has a greater army and
also has a famous god-son “Lu Bu”,
who has the most powerful army in China,
and stays beside *** Zhuo all the time.
Therefore, *** Yun couldn't bring him down,
But finally, he has a great idea
which uses the *** of *** Zhuo and Lu Bu.
He lets Diao Chan secretly marry Lu Bu,
and then offers Diao Chan to *** Zhuo as well
in order to alienate both *** Zhuo and Lu Bu.
In here, it shows the governor will do anything
with any cost to achieve his ambitions.
“the hero succumbs to the seduction of ***” .
after *** Yun introduces Diao Chan to Lu Bu and
*** Zhuo, Diao Chan starts to flirt with these two guys.
One side winking at Lu Bu and
another side enchanting *** Zhuo,
captivating both of them.
Diao Chan then marries *** Zhuo
and become his concubine,
Lu Bu is really furious of what *** Zhuo has done.
One day, *** Zhuo goes to the palace,
Lu Bu has snuck into *** Zhuo’s house to meet Diao Chan,
and Diao Chan pretends she is suffering
from *** Zhuo’s forceful marriage.
In the meantime,
*** Zhuo is on the way home and sees
Lu Bu is secretly meeting Diao Chan.
*** Zhuo is so angry that he tries to
stab Lu Bu with a spear,
but Lu Bu chose not to fight
with him and so he runs away.
Since then, the relationship of *** Zhuo
and Lu Bu is broken,
they see each other as enemies.
*** Yun then uses this chance to execute his plan
by convincing Lu Bu to betray *** Zhuo
and finally killed *** Zhuo
by using Lu Bu's power and force.
This story is also well described in
the 'Three Kingdoms' which is one of
the most famous classic novels in China.
This is a description from the literature
that Diao Chan’s surname
is "Huo” and some say “Du”.
She is from Mu Zhi village which
which is 3 km south east of Xinzhou City in Shanxi,
which is the same village as the famous general "Guan Yu".
She is born with talent and she is smart.
She got selected to be in charge of the
accessories in the Han palace.
“Diao Chan” is actually her position name in the Palace.
To avoid the Imperial revolution,
she escapes out from the palace and
*** Yun accepts her as his god-daughter,
and that’s why she helps *** Yun in
achieving to alienate *** Zhuo and Lu Bu.
But in the end, where is Diao Chan
and whether she is alive, still remains a mystery.
Let’s introduce another main character in this idiom.
In Puzhou Yongle County in Tang Dynasty,
which is today’s Shanxi Yongji,
there’s a girl name “Yang Yu Huan”,
her beauty is capable of controlling or collapse a country,
and she is a master in music, singing and dancing.
She got chosen into the Palace because of her talents.
One day, she misses her family after living in the Palace.
She is having a walk in the garden and
saw the blossom of Peony,
and she starts feel sad about her life, which has been wasted
and trapped in this palace.
She touches the flower and says: “Flower... flower,
you have the brightest period in every year,
when am I going to be successful like you?”
She cries… then flower starts to wither away.
A servant sees all of it,
and she starts spreading the words: ”Yang Yu Huan
is so pretty even the flower gets shy”.
In fact, Yang Yu Huan is touching a Mimosa flower,
which will close itself with one touch.
But word spread around the palace that
Yang Yu Huan can make a flower wither.
The emperor Xuan Zong quickly request to
see Yang Yu Huan after he heard the story,
and he was shocked by Yang Yu Huan’s beauty,
Emperor loves Yanh Yu Huan so much, he even marries her.
He knows Yanh Yu Huan loves to eat lychee from the south,
so he specially orders
people to carry the fresh lychee from south to the Capital City.
Later poets described that:
'Smile while riding the world of mortals imperial concubine,
no man know to be lychee.'
After Xuan Zong married with Yang Yu Huan,
he gave up on managing his country.
The country then started to become corrupt.
And that’s how the rebellion started.
His own army started to turn against him.
Xuan Zong ran away with Yang Yu Huan from
captital city Chang An to “Mawei” ,
which is today’s “Xingping City in Shanxi Province”.
The army is not willing to continue to give up the chase,
because they believe Yang Yu Huan is the cause of
all these rebellion and disaster.
The army request that emperor kill Yang Yu Huan.
The emperor Xuan Zong gets pushed to the edge,
he has to kill Yang Yu Huan to calm the army down.
And so Yang Yu Huan gets killed.
Not long after, Xuan Zong also dies from the depression
of losing Yang Yu Huan.
Regardless of Emperor Xuan Zong's actions,
their love has been passed down as a legend.
Just like poet “Bai Ju Yi” said in “Everlasting Regret”:
'We wish to be the love birds in sky,
we wish to be the branches on the ground
Forever it ends, but sorrow is endless'
Make Fish Sink and Geese Alight of last episode
and An Incomparable Beauty
are both used to describes the beauty of girls,
different story, different people but
both used in the same way.
Thank you for watching.
See you next time.