What does it mean that I am smiling to the sky from my own sword?

"I will smile to the sky with my sword across my body, so as to save my liver and gallbladder" means: Even if the butcher's knife is placed on my neck, I will smile to the sky. All comrades who fled or stayed behind will He is as heroic as Kunlun Mountain.

Original text:

? Inscribed on the wall in prison

Tan Sitong

Looking at the door and stopping, he thought of Zhang Jian, and he endured death for a moment and waited for Du Gen.

I am smiling to the sky with my horizontal sword, leaving my liver and gallbladder intact!

Word annotation:

①Looking at the door to stay: It means that when you are in distress and see someone’s home, you go to seek shelter in order to hide.

② Waiting for Du Gen for a moment: Du Gen, a man in the late Eastern Han Dynasty, wrote a letter asking the authoritarian Empress Dowager Deng to return power to the emperor. Empress Dowager Deng was furious and ordered someone to put him in her pocket and throw him in the hall. die. The executioner should respect what he is doing and do not apply more force to the punishment, so that he will not die. Empress Dowager Deng ordered someone to check and found that he had been pretending to be dead for three days and maggots appeared in his eyes. Later, he worked as a bartender in a hotel. After Empress Dowager Deng was executed, she was reinstated as Shi Yushi. This is to encourage the surviving reformers to take shelter for a while, waiting for their comeback. To endure death, to pretend to be dead. A moment, not a long time.

③Hengdao: refers to the knife placed horizontally on the neck. Smiling toward the sky: It expresses the heroic spirit of calmly dying.

④Go and stay in Kunlun: No matter who goes or stays, they are all aboveboard and honest, as tall and majestic as Kunlun Mountain. To go means to escape or die. Stay, stay or live. Refers to Wang Wu who was left behind when the coup took place. Liang Qichao's "Poetry in Drinking Ice Room": "The so-called two Kunluns, one is the South Sea (Kang Youwei), and the other is the swordsman Wang Wu." Kunlun, Kunlun Mountain, here is a metaphor for leaving and leaving, both of them are in the same spirit, as majestic and tall as Kunlun Mountain.