Zheng Zhizhen (1518-1595), zi ru xi, number Gao Shi. Anhui Qimen people. According to the "Epitaph" written by Ye Zongchun and the "Genealogy of the Zheng Clan of Qingxi" and the "Chronicle of The Characters of Daoguang Qimen", it may be said that he has "repeatedly stumbled on the field", or that he is "not a high talent", in short, he has only been a talent in his life and has not been an official.
However, he completed a large-scale legend of 100 out of 100 in distress, such as "Mu Lian Saving Mother".) (full name "Mu Lian Saves Mother Persuasion drama text").
Of course, this theme is not his first creation, in addition to the Buddhist scriptures, variations, and then through the Song miscellaneous dramas, Jin Yuanben, to the Yuan, Ming and up to now, this story has been widely circulated in the folk. At the same time, Zheng Zhizhen also indicated that his plays were written by "searching for actual traces and compiling according to Chen". This is tantamount to telling us that there had been a script before his "Persuasion of Kindness", but because it has not been handed down, we have not seen it.
According to Meng Yuanlao's "Tokyo Dream Hualu", at least in the Years of Xi Ning and Yuan Fu (1068-1100), the Goulan Washe in The Northern Song Dynasty in Tokyo had already performed the miscellaneous drama "Mu Lian Saves the Mother", and could perform for seven or eight consecutive days; In the play, it is also interspersed with many close eyes such as "Nun Sifan", "Dumb Back Crazy", "Wang Po Scolding Chicken", "Blind Man Watching the Lights" and so on.
In this way, the structure of its "even stage" makes it at least necessary to take the road of folk "outline drama" in an orderly manner. However, after a number of plays such as Jin Yuanben's "Da Qing Ti" and Yuan Miscellaneous Drama's "Walking Filial Piety Mu Lian Saving Mother" and "Mu Lian Into meditation" flowed from the Central Plains to the south, it had a great change in the process of turning.
According to several plays collected by Ma Zichen from Henan, in addition to making the play fully cultivated by Confucianism, the biggest change was to transform Liu Qingti, who was originally kind and virtuous, charitable, and compassionate for the old and poor, into an evil woman who beat up monks and cursed monks, broke the precepts and opened the meat, was greedy and murderous, and was debauched and unruly in Zheng Zhizhen's "Book of Persuasion to Be Kind". Judging from the repertoire performed by various dramas in the south (especially the dramas of the high cavity system), the content is almost all this way.
The initiator is not Zheng Zhizhen, because some of the previous 500 years of the book is basically complete, and it was not until the Ming Wanli Dynasty (1582) that "Mu Lian Saving Mother" (drama) was engraved for the first time in history, and became the first relatively complete text, so the evolution of this main character still needs in-depth research and the discovery of new materials to be clear.
During the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, Zhang Zhao referred to the legend of Zheng Zhizhen's "Mu Lian Saving Mother", and compiled a total of 240 court dramas "Persuasion jinke", which was performed 24 times a day, and 10 days of continuous performances of "Mu Lian Saving Mother" had a great influence on the stage of Chinese folk opera.
In recent times, the countryside of Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Fujian, Sichuan and other places has many performances of consecutive dramas, or varies from three days and four nights, and "Huamu lian" even has seven or nine consecutive nights; However, most of the Land of Zhongzhou in the late Qing Dynasty and early Ming Dynasty was only performed for two nights or only one night.