From the Historical Revolution to the War of Gods and Demons: How was "Feng Shen" canonized?

In the Ming Dynasty, there was an unknown old Confucian who had a hard time, but he loved his daughter very much, and when he married his eldest daughter, he devoted his family wealth to buy a dowry. The second daughter panicked when she saw it, and asked her father, you spent all the money, so what should I do when I get married?

The old scholar was very calm, comforted the second daughter and said, don't be afraid of a good daughter, I have my own way.

When the second daughter got married, Lao Confucian took out his novel "The Legend of Fengshen "Legend of Fengshen ", adapted from the history of Shang Zhou, and asked the bookseller to publish it.

Once the novel was released, it became a phenomenal bestseller, and the old scholar made a lot of money, bought a dowry for his second daughter, and made her happily marry.

This is the story told by a "Fengshen fan" fan named Lin Qiaoyin in the late Qing Dynasty when he was researching the author of the novel "Romance of Fengsheng".

Seeing this, many people should wonder, no, the author of "Romance of the Gods" I read is Xu Zhonglin, not a nameless scholar.

This is because the inscription of the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty, on which the current popular version of "Romance of the Gods" is based, is inscribed with the title "Edited by Zhongshan Yike Xu Zhonglin", so it is speculated that its compiler was Xu Zhonglin in the Ming Dynasty.

However, like many strange books of the same period, the author of "Romance of the Gods" has always been controversial, some people say that it was written by the Ming Dynasty Taoist priest Lu Changgeng, and others believe that the author is Liu Bowen, a hero of the early Ming Dynasty, and fabricated the story of Liu Bowen betting with Shi Nai-an, the author of "Water Margin", to write a book.

Today, many scholars believe that "Romance of the Gods" is a "generational accumulation" novel, in which many familiar stories have gradually taken shape over thousands of years with the ears of Chinese literati and artists. The universe was born.

Wu Ershan's "The First Part of Fengshen Book" is under heated discussion, and today we will talk about the historical truth of "Fengshen "- how "Fengshen " was canonized.

Stills from the movie "Fengsheng"

01

In "A History of Chinese Novels", Mr. Lu Xun divides the novels of the Ming Dynasty into three categories: history, gods and demons, and human love, while "Romance of the Gods" is not only a novel of gods and demons, but also has the characteristics of historical interpretation.

As we all know, the first framework of the novel "Feng Shen" is the history of Yin Zhou Dingge and King Wu. The ancients' understanding of this history basically comes from various historical documents since the Zhou Dynasty.

This is the first source of the novel "Fengsheng".

"Shiji Yin Benji" records that in the last years of the Shang Dynasty, after the son of Emperor Yi ascended the throne, Yin Shang Jiangshan came to an end.

Shou is the King of Shang, also known as Di Xin.

The king in the history books, in the first half of his life, has the style of an ancient hero, he is born with divine power, can fight beasts with his bare hands, and is talented and quick to react.

Genius emperors often regarded themselves very highly, and so did King Shu, and during his reign, he used his high value of force and repeatedly sent troops to attack the surrounding countries and tribes, causing the Dongyi forces to take the opportunity to launch a rebellion. Although these wars caused the Shang Dynasty to obtain a large number of prisoners, they greatly consumed Yin Shang's national strength and gradually made King Shun gradually lose the hearts of the people, so the "Zuo Chuan" said: "Feng Ke Dongyi and die." ”

After returning to the capital from the battlefield, the king acted perversely for the government, and was desolate and cruel.

In order to enrich the treasury, the king used the taxes stolen from the people to build a tall and majestic Lutai, and used the world's grain and corn to enrich the granary of Juqiao. At that time, from Chaoge (present-day Qi County, Henan) in the south to Handan (present-day Hebei) in the north, there were everywhere the palace annexes of King Shu, who used wine as a pool and hanging meat as a forest, allowing men and women to run naked in it, drink for a long time, and indulge in a life of luxury and corruption.

King Jun is probably a sadist. According to historical records, he made cannon burning, smeared oil on copper pillars, lit charcoal fires in the pillars, ordered the guilty to walk on them, and watched them fall one by one, so he had fun.

In terms of employing people, King Feng reused traitors such as Chonghou Hu and mutilated heavy ministers such as Bigan.

The "Shiji Yin Benji" records that King Cheng was tired of Bigan's advice, and Bigan's words said: "I have heard that the heart of a saint has seven secrets. Then he ordered the man to open Bigan's chest and dig out his heart to watch. This story is the prototype of the later "Daji design harm than gan", but in the historical records, it was originally just a brutal king who insisted on going his own way, and there was no Daji's pampering.

In addition, the minister Maeber was blunt and gave advice, and was chopped into meat sauce by the king of Jun; Shangrong, a sage beloved by the people, was deposed and expelled by the king; The Nine Marquis of the Nine Kingdoms (the prototype of Jiang Huanchu, the Eastern Marquis of the Middle East in "Romance of the Gods") sacrificed his daughter to King Shu, but King Shun executed Jiuhou on the grounds that his daughter was unpleasant; In order to dissuade King Cheng, Ehou (the prototype of Southern Bohou Echongyu in "Romance of the Gods") was also sentenced to death and made into meat.

The king and Daji in the old version of the "List of Gods". Source: Film and television stills

In the western part of Yin Shang, the leader of the Zhou people, Ji Chang (i.e. King Wen of Zhou), sighed secretly when he learned of what had happened to the Nine Marquis and Ehou. Chonghou Hu, who was jealous of his ability, took the opportunity to go into the rumors, and Ji Chang was jealous, summoned by King Cheng, and imprisoned in Xieli (羑里, in modern Tangyin County, Henan).

Under grief and indignation, Ji Chang acted in prison as the sixty-four trigrams and three hundred and eighty-four trigrams of "Zhou Yi", which is what Sima Qian said, "King Wen detained and played Zhou Yi".

Later, Ji Chang escaped death and was released back to Zhoudi, where he continued to "work tirelessly to serve Yin", carefully serving King Shu, while paying tribute to corporals, recruiting talents, secretly forming alliances with princes, and winning over small countries opposed to the Shang Dynasty.

When his strength grew, King Wen of Zhou sent troops to attack the states of Li and Chongguo, attacked Chonghou Hu, who had framed him, and moved the capital from Zhou Yuan (around Fufeng and Qishan, Baoji City, Shaanxi Province) to the east to Fengjing (present-day Chang'an District, Xi'an), opening the gateway to the Central Plains and subjecting Yin Shang to direct threats from the west.

This history is known as "King Wen's Merchant".

Portrait of King Wen of Zhou. Source: Network

The Book of Shang records that after King Wen of Zhou sent troops to the Kingdom of Li, some ministers ran to King Shun to report, saying: "Yin Shang's Heavenly Destiny is about to be lost, because you are absurd and tyrannical, and you have forbidden your future, so the heavens have abandoned us!" Now the people of Yin Shang are saying, why hasn't the divine spirit yet appeared, why hasn't Yin Shang perished? What do you say to do now? ”

After hearing this, King Shun still put on an invincible appearance and said, "I was born to be a king, isn't this to obey the destiny of heaven?" ”

The Yin people advocate the historical view of divine providence and the mandate of heaven, and it can be seen from the oracle bones that have now been unearthed that they are superstitious in divination, believing that the quality of the year and the appointment of the monarch are all decided by heaven. King Shun considered himself a representative of heaven, and he did not think that Yin Shang's mandate and his royal power would be replaced by others.

The Zhou people believed that the Zhou annihilation of Shang was a battle of benevolence and righteousness "to the point of benevolence to the unkind", similar to the historical view of the Mandate of Heaven advocated by later generations of Confucianism, "the emperor has no relatives, only virtue is auxiliary".

According to historical records, after the death of King Wen of Zhou, in the second year of Ji Fa's accession to the throne, he allied with the princes and watched Mengjin (Mengjin District, Luoyang). According to history, at that time, "eight hundred princes who met Mengjin unexpectedly", they shouted in unison: "Harvest! ”

Jiang Ziya, a counselor, thought that the time was not ripe, and he said to King Wu of Zhou: "When there is no warning of disaster in the Heavenly Dao, you cannot first initiate a requisition; When there is no disaster in humanity, we must not plan to raise troops first. It is necessary to see both natural disasters and man-made disasters in order to plan for the conquest of Xingshi Division. ”

Therefore, King Wu of Zhou decided to judge the situation and said to the princes: "You do not know the destiny of heaven, and you must not send troops." ”

King Shun continued to use military force and tyranny, and soon after, the Yin Shang ruling clique fell apart, and the young masters of the Shang Dynasty, Neishi and other ministers rushed to Zhou with sacrificial instruments, musical instruments, tufa, and other renegades. King Wu of Zhou thought that there was an opportunity, so he gathered the princes and led the people to destroy the people.

On the eve of the felling, King Wu of Zhou had people use the fire tortoise shell to calculate a trigram.

Guibu was a major national event in the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, especially before the war, and the results of divination were always used to predict auspiciousness.

However, this time the trigram was extremely unlucky, and a sudden storm seemed to indicate that the sky would not allow it. The ministers panicked, and only Jiang Ziya was able to line up the crowd and insisted on persuading King Wu of Zhou to go to war.

Jiang Ziya knew that the fierceness was not fierce, but because the Mandate of Heaven was in the week. Therefore, under the auspicious situation of Gui Zhao, King Wu of Zhou still followed Jiang Ziya's advice and led his troops east out of Muye (in present-day southern Qi County, Henan) to fight a decisive battle against King Shu.

King Shu hastily incorporated a large number of people and slaves into the army, and waited until the Zhou army arrived at the city to plan countermeasures against the enemy.

King Wu of Zhou, however, took the lead in pacifying the local people, publicizing that the main target they wanted to attack was King Shun and would not harm the people, and issued a mobilization order to the whole army, counting King Shu's crimes and declaring that he was carrying out heavenly punishment.

Because King Feng had lost his hearts, this great battle that decided the fate of the two dynasties took less than a day to divide the victory and defeat, and King Feng fled to Lutai and died by self-immolation. The Shang Dynasty fell and the Zhou Dynasty took its place.

Portrait of King Wu of Zhou. Source: Network

02

After reading the Wuwang felling in the history books, people who have long been accustomed to big scenes may have a reaction - just this? What about the immortal fights I want to see?

As mentioned earlier, the novel "Romance of the Gods" is a "generational cumulative novel". In fact, the history of King Wu's felling is also in line with the "ancient Chinese historical view caused by layers of land" proposed by Gu Jiegang. The records of this history and related historical figures continued to evolve and adapt in the following three thousand years, and characters such as King Wen of Zhou and Jiang Taigong were finally "sent to the Feng Shen Platform".

According to Gu Jiegang's research, long before Sima Qian wrote the "Shiji" in the Han Dynasty, in the Western Zhou literature, the biggest crime of King Feng was "alcoholism", "just a confused person, he was gluttonous for alcohol, so he forgot about political affairs, so he destroyed his country", and by the Spring and Autumn Warring States period, his crimes "suddenly increased a lot, and they are all very specific facts", and in later documents, King Shuo's crimes are innumerable.

In the story of King Jun, there is a key character, that is, the much-loved beauty Daji, who has participated in events such as Cannon Burning, Wine Pool Meat Forest, and Heart of Jibigan, and is a complete bad woman.

However, the image of Daji has also undergone a process of "starting from nothing".

In the Western Zhou literature, there are only records of King Shu favoring women, for example, the Book of Shangshu says that King Feng "performed miracles and skillful skills to please women" and "King Shang was only used by women", but did not mention Daji's name.

After the Spring and Autumn Warring States, Daji's name and deeds appeared in the literature, such as the "Chinese" record, the king sent troops to fight the Su clan, and in order to please the king of the Su, the Su family gave the beautiful woman Daji in the clan to the king of the family.

In the Han Dynasty, under the influence of the idea of "female calamity", Daji carried more black pots on his back, and the image was further demonized, so there was a record in the "Legend of Lienu" that King Feng "does not leave Daji, Daji's reputation is noble, and Daji's hatred", originally the bad things that King Shun himself did are now related to Daji, such as killing Meibo, Jiuhou, and Bigan.

However, it is unknown how the author of the Han Dynasty heard about the secret of the palace of King Shang and Daji.

After Wei and Jin, the legend of Daji being a fox spirit appeared, and the image of the fox demon Daji in the novel "Fengsheng" was initially established, and Daji became synonymous with "red face and misfortune", and even changed from a person to a demon, and could never turn over.

King Shun and Daji in "Fengsheng". Source: Film and television stills

Not only has the villain undergone a complete adaptation, but the historical image of the positive character has also changed.

Jiang Ziya is the central character in the novel "Fengsheng". In history, Jiang Ziya was the founding father of the Zhou Dynasty and the "master and father" of Zhou Tianzi, and in his early years, his family was poor, but he studied astronomy and geography and military strategy hard. After returning to Zhou, he fulfilled his good plan, commanded the battle, and made great achievements, the so-called "three points under the world, and the second returned to Zhou, and the Taigong's schemes were most." After King Wu destroyed Shang, Jiang Ziya was sealed in the State of Qi for meritorious service.

In ancient historical texts, Jiang Ziya was originally an image of a hidden wise man. According to the "Records of History", the elderly Jiang Ziya came to the territory of the Zhou people, fished on the bank of Weishui, and met Ji Chang, the king of Zhou Wen, who was out hunting. Before Ji Chang set off, he divined a trigram and said: "The income is not a dragon or a roar, not a tiger or a bear, but an auxiliary minister who can realize the cause of kingly hegemony." "The result was an unexpected encounter with Jiang Ziya.

After some conversation, Ji Chang found that Jiang Ziya was a rare genius, and sighed: "Our ancestor said: 'When there is a saint, Zhou Yixing. 'It's you, we've been waiting for you for too long.' After that, Ji Chang and Jiang Ziya returned in the same car, respecting him as a teacher.

In the classics after that, the image of Jiang Ziya became a strange old man who was a bit of a maverick, he used to slaughter cattle in Chaoga as a butcher, and did business in Mengjin, but he achieved nothing, and when he was seventy years old, he went fishing on the shore of Weishui, and found nothing for three days and three nights, he was a little angry, and threw his hat and clothes on the ground, when a worldly man with the appearance of a farmer came over and told him, you make the hook a little thinner, the bait is a little more fragrant, quietly throw it into the water, don't scare the fish.

Jiang Ziya followed his advice, and sure enough, he caught a big fish, opened the belly of the fish, and saw a letter in his belly, which read: "Lü Wang should be sealed in Qi (Jiang Ziya, also known as Lü Shang, Lü Wang). Jiang Ziya was overjoyed, and later he was reused by King Wen of Zhou.

Jiang Ziya is also one of the earliest figures in the history of Shang and Zhou to be added to the supernatural color.

The "Shiji Feng Zen Book" records that Qin Shi Huang toured the east to the sea to worship the famous mountains and rivers and the eight god generals, saying: "The eight god generals have been made since ancient times, or since the Duke of Taigong." ”

This is to say that it is rumored that Jiang Ziya helped King Wu to fell, and once sent eight gods to help in the battle.

With the evolution of historical books, the story of "Feng Shen" has begun to appear.

Under the pen of folk authors, with history as the bone and imagination as the wing, the historical story of the Yin Zhou Revolution has been rewritten into a literary work of the war between gods and demons.

03

During the Song and Yuan dynasties, scriptures written in popular characters were popular.

These literary works were the basis for the rap of folk artists at that time, and they were also the literary source of many Ming and Qing dynasty novels.

Among the texts that tell the story of King Wu's felling, the most influential is "Wuwang Falunping Dialect", the earliest surviving publication is the Yuan Zhizhi (1321-1323) edition, and the later "Romance of the Gods" was deeply influenced by it.

When the pen and ink of creation were handed over to folk authors, the people began to create some of their favorite images, and also awakened their anti-feudal and anti-authoritarian consciousness.

"King Wu Fa Ping Ping" fictionalizes a male protagonist, that is, Yin Jiao, the son of King Feng (一作宷家).

The Yin Jiao image of "King Wu Fa Lun Ping" is very different from the Yin Jiao image of the later "Romance of the Gods".

In this story, Yin Jiao, as the male protagonist, in order to avenge the murder of his mother Empress Jiang, made a covenant with Jiang Ziya of the Zhou army, joined the team of King Wu, became the general with the most meritorious achievements in the Zhou camp, and finally killed King Feng and Daji with his own hands under the banner of the big and small whites, and later became a god of taisui.

"King Wu Fa Lun Ping" is completely a "Yin Jiao Biography", the author not only pinned the ideal of anti-tyrant and anti-tyranny on this fictional character, but also described him as a mythical character, Yin Jiao in the script was given an axe by the dream god, and he could wield a hundred-pound axe at the age of 10, and the plot was strange.

At this time, the image of Yin Jiao has obvious anti-feudal, anti-authoritarian metaphors, and a strong sense of revenge. Although it is to avenge the murder of his mother, the plot of the murder of the father of the King of the Blade is too advanced in the eyes of the ancients, so in "Romance of the Gods", the king is defeated and self-immolated, and the story of Yin Jiao has also been adapted a lot, reduced to a supporting role with contradictory behavior.

In addition, many stories in "King Wu's Plain Words", such as the fox refinement of Daji's soul, the murder of Empress Jiang, the spit of meat as a rabbit by King Wen of Zhou, Huang Feihu's anti-business, and the birth of Lei Zhenzi, have all been followed by the later "Romance of the Gods".

In the Yuan Dynasty version of the "Fengsheng" story, Yin Jiao, the son of King Cheng, is the protagonist. Source: Network

In the Ming Dynasty, with the prosperity of folk novels, a "Romance of the Gods" came into being, which combines historical romance and god and demon stories.

Two-fifths of the length of "Romance of the Gods" is roughly the same as literary works such as "King Wu Fa Ping" and "Legend of the Nations", many stories are derived from the previous versions, and the remaining large number of pages, the author connects the fictional interpretation and truncation of the two sects with the Shang and Zhou Revolution in the world, describing a protracted war of gods and immortals.

Li Yihui in the

A horizontal stroke divides the book into two worlds, the fairy world above and the human world below. The middle vertical divides the immortal world into the Interpretation Sect headed by Yuan Shi Tianzun and the Truncated Sect headed by the Tongtian Sect Lord, dividing the human world into two camps: Zhou and Shang.

In the context of the Shang and Zhou War, the two sects of Intercept and Xue each took sides and fought each other, and the dead ministers and immortals went to the "list of consecrated gods" that had been set up before, and went to the Heavenly Court to become "civil servants". In the end, Zhou destroyed Shang, Jiang Ziya opened the list for heaven and sealed the gods, and King Wu of Zhou divided the princes in the world.

This is the story line of "Romance of the Gods", which is full of the so-called concept of the Mandate of Heaven.

By the time "Romance of the Gods" was written, "King Wu" became a melting pot, and all kinds of stories were moved into it.

Many of the active characters in the book, such as Li Jing, King of Tota, Nezha, Yang Jian, Wen Taishi, Tuxingsun, the four brothers of the Demon Family, Deng Jiugong and his daughter Deng Chanyu, are characters that were not previously found in the "Wuwang Fa Lu Pingyu", and even have nothing to do with the history of Shang and Zhou.

Most of these characters are not original by the author, but "arrow-stacked characters" accumulated over generations, derived from well-known folk tales before the Ming Dynasty, such as "Erlang God Drunken Shooting the Magic Mirror" and "Fierce Nezha Three Changes".

The so-called "arrow-stacked characters" is Hu Shi's term, which refers to ancient Chinese historical or legendary characters, which have been continuously adapted by successive generations, and the story has snowballed, and many similar deeds have been attributed to him.

For example, Nezha already has a complete character image in the previously compiled "Three Religions Original Flow Search God Collection".

He debuted into Buddha, the two religions were honored together, he was the son of the king of Bishamen, the full name was Nazha Kuvara, "with a golden wheel on the head, three heads, nine eyes and eight arms, spitting green clouds in his mouth, stepping on a rock, holding the law", with great powers and many magic weapons, once made a big fuss in the East China Sea, killed the dragon king, cut the flesh and carved the bones to return to his father, and was reincarnated as a lotus incarnation.

These stories had been widely circulated before the Romance of the Gods, and were later copied into the book, where Nezha became a disciple of Taiyi Zhenren among the twelve immortals of Kunlun, and a symbol of perverse ethics in the book.

Another example is Yang Jian in "Romance of the Gods", from the true disciple of Yuding Zhenren, who has practiced the Nine Turns Xuan Gong, has 72 changes, and is accompanied by a "thin dog" (Howling Heavenly Dog). This is the author's combination with the existing image of Erlang God into a new character and added to the story of King Wu.

"Romance of the Gods" integrates the literary images of Nezha and Erlang in the past. Source: Film and television stills

In addition to the enduring setting of gods and demons, "Romance of the Gods" also implies the anti-feudal and anti-authoritarian consciousness of the literati at that time, as well as the mapping of realpolitik and the pursuit of the ideal of benevolence and government.

At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang read the book "Mencius" and saw that Mencius had so-called "Tuqi" and "Kou Yun" and other statements for the ruler, and advocated that "the people and nobles are light". Zhu Yuanzhang was very angry, thinking that this should not come from the mouth of the courtiers, and wanted to pull Mencius from the worthy position of the Temple of Confucius, and those who dared to dissuade him ordered the soldiers to shoot to death.

A minister named Qian Tang was not even afraid of death, opened his chest, exposed his chest muscles, and was ready to receive an arrow at any time, and went to the hall and said: "The minister can die for Meng Ke, although the death is still glorious." Before he finished speaking, Qian Tang was shot and wounded, but still did not move, and Zhu Yuanzhang, seeing that his attitude was sincere and could not bear to kill, pardoned him and asked the imperial doctor to heal his injuries.

After that, Mencius's status was restored, and Mencius continued to be published, but an abridged version.

Zhu Yuanzhang also abolished the system of prime ministers, which had been passed down from generation to generation. In the Ming and Qing dynasties, the absolute monarchy was unprecedentedly strengthened.

The "Romance of the Gods" repeatedly describes the cruel and evil deeds of King Feng who tortured and did not listen to advice, which is to advise the rulers of the Ming Dynasty not to repeat the mistakes of the past.

"Romance of the Gods" has a lot of ink for loyal and righteous people, and in the camp of Yin Shang, he specially wrote a loyal and outspoken Taishi Wen Zhongwen who was loyal to Shang and dared to speak out.

Wen Zhong, a fictional character in "Romance of the Gods", symbolizes the image of loyal and patriotic and outspoken. Source: Film and television stills

In the novel, after hearing about the evil deeds of King Shun in his northern expedition, he was furious, went to the temple to face the king, and made a generous statement, hoping that King Feng would "painfully correct the past wrongs, act benevolence and righteousness, be far from a lesser, and be a near gentleman", and proposed ten reform measures. The inhuman king in the novel is also afraid of the upright Wen Zhong, and most of his ten requests are agreed to, except for "degrading himself" and "demolishing the deer platform".

In the novel "Romance of the Gods", when the Zhou army met with the princes and immortals of the world and besieged the dynasty, the author borrowed Jiang Ziya's mouth to say the great righteousness of King Wu:

"He who is under heaven is not the world of one man, but the world of all people."

This sentence is also not original to the "Romance of the Gods", it has appeared in classics such as "Liu Tao", "Lü's Spring and Autumn", "Meng's Notes" and so on.

Perhaps, this is the "Fengsheng" universe suitable for the physique of Chinese babies, written about gods and demons, and also the vicissitudes of the world.

Bibliography:

Shangshu, Zhonghua Bookstore, 2016

[Han] Sima Qian: Shiji, Zhonghua Bookstore, 2014

[Ming] Xu Zhonglin: "The Romance of the Gods", People's Literature Publishing House, 1997

Gu Jiegang: "Ancient History Discerning Self-Order", Commercial Press, 2011

Lu Xun: A History of Chinese Novels, People's Literature Publishing House, 2022

Xu Zhuoyun: "History of Western Zhou", Life, Reading, New Knowledge Sanlian Bookstore, 2018

Zhao Xingqin: "Words

Li Yihui: "