The Story of Li Fangying, Eight Monsters in Yangzhou in Qing Dynasty

Oumei in Langya Mountain was planted by Ouyang, a great scholar in the Northern Song Dynasty. It is one of the four longevity stars of plum in China and is loved by literati and ink-writers of all dynasties. Li Fangyuan, one of the Eight Eccentrics in Yangzhou, "Laomei is my teacher before the court", praised him very much. He left a story of "worshipping Mei with pens" in front of Omei.

Li Fangxuan (1695-1755 A.D.) is a famous poet and painter in Qing Dynasty. He liked plum and painted plum all his life, such as Qiuzhong, Xiaoqingjiang, Qiuchi, Yiyuan, Baiyishan people, etc. In his life, he was an official with three ups and downs. His official position was not obvious, but he was an official with integrity and nobility. Li Fangyan went to Chuzhou to act as an agent for Zhizhou, and when he learned that there was an Ou Gong-hand plum planting near the drunken Weng Pavilion, he rushed to hail, then laid a felt blanket in front of the plum tree, and worshiped the pen, which was praised by the world for a moment. In fact, Li Fangying's love for and respect for plum is an outward reflection of his own personality, which is based on plum as a spiritual sustenance and yearns for plum's character and disposition. Since Ouyang Xiuzhi was planted, Ou Mei has gradually merged with the image of Ou Gong and become the carrier of European culture. Therefore, Wu Ying, a Qing Dynasty writer, wrote in "Drunken Weng Pavilion Visits Ou Mei" that "Drinking Spring and Rewarding Weng and Rewarding Mei, Visiting Mei was originally visiting Weng." Therefore, Li Fangying "worshipped the pen and plum" not as a plant, but as a representative of the spirit of European character.

Ouyang Xiu and Li Fangying have become historic figures, but Ou Mei is still flourishing, blooming year after year and bearing fruit year after year. Coming here today, recalling the story of Li Fangying in those days, maybe we can feel the charm of Omei's "noble and arrogant".