It is common for historical figures to be misinterpreted. Some are distorted by external forces, some are affected by currents in one place and another, and some are different interpreters with their own methods or angles, and they all claim that what they describe is "real". Some, however, may be the materials left by the parties, which have been completely misunderstood by posterity from the beginning in terms of emotional color.
In the words of the cultural scholar Luan Baoqun, it is too common for unserious people to pretend to be serious, and serious people occasionally pretend to be unorthodox, but they are taken seriously. He said this to refer to zhang dai, a historian and literary scholar of the Ming and Qing dynasties, and he himself was also a contemporary proofreader of Zhang Dai's works such as the Book of Stone Kui.
Throughout the ages, how many people have worked hard to live under various auras, and how many people have restrained their desire for fame and fortune, constantly introspecting themselves and even laughing at themselves. Zhang Dai is the latter. Needless to say about his historical creations, let alone his famous epitaph, in which he begins by saying:
"Shu people Zhang Dai, Tao Anqi number also." Less for the stupid children, very much love prosperity, good house, good beauty, good child prostitution, good fresh clothes, good food, good horses, good lanterns, good fireworks, good pear orchards, good trumpets, good antiques, good flowers and birds, and tea and orange abuse, bookworm poetry, toiling for half a life, all become dreams. ”
Zhang Dai is a long-lived person. At the turn of the Ming and Qing dynasties, when he was feeling nostalgic, he wrote "Self-made Epitaph" in the year of knowing his destiny. The whole article is like mixing red dust and seeing through red dust. It is no wonder that some descendants compared him to "Jia Baoyu" at this time. So, is he really a stupid boy?
Zhang Dai (1597–1689)
Today, when Zhang Dai's plaything cynicism has almost become a conclusion, Luan Baoqun wrote an article, peeled back the cocoon, and commented on Zhang Dai's personal affairs to us. Zhang Dai's article breaks through the principles of "sutra" and "carrying the Tao", does not serve religion or politics, and focuses on ordinary people and ordinary things. Today, when I go to see Zhang Dai four hundred years ago, in addition to understanding his sharpness and talent in sketching, I also have another meaning of observing people.
Written by 丨 栾保群
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Zhang Dai, a native of Shanyin, Zhejiang (present-day Shaoxing, Zhejiang), was born in Mianzhu, Sichuan, and the picture shows Zhang Dai in the character history of Shaoxing Province.
It is not only commonplace for immodest people to pretend to be serious, but also a norm. And serious people occasionally pretend to be unorthodox, although most of them can make the understander smile, but it is inevitable that the master will fall into his own trap, or be misunderstood by the villain, or misunderstood by the well-meaning person. Zhang Dai's "Self-made Epitaph" paragraph "Less for the Hakama Children" is an example that is easy to be misunderstood. "Extremely fond of prosperity, good fine house, good beauty, good child prostitute, good fresh clothes, good food, good horses, good lanterns, good fireworks, good pear garden, good trumpeting, good antiques, good flowers and birds, combined with tea obscene orange abuse, book bug poetry magic", plus the book "Dream Memory" ("Tao An Dream Memory") because the theme is limited to the "remembrance" of the prosperity of the old days, this is tantamount to presenting himself, sitting on the identity of Zhang Zongzi's "dumb disciple".
Of course, most of Zhang Dai's lovers are tolerant and have normal thinking. Eating and drinking is the basic need of life, play is also the expansion of life to the spiritual level after eating or half full, as for the pursuit of fresh clothes and food, pear garden advocacy and the like, although the reader's habits are different, but everyone can not only tolerate, but also have an appreciative attitude towards Zhang Dai's multi-faceted exquisite taste.
So what are the "misunderstandings" here? In my opinion, the misunderstanding lies in the belief that Zhang Dai's first half of life was just a rich and idle person who was good at eating, drinking and having fun, despising fame and fortune, and surpassing the dust, just like another "Jia Baoyu". Therefore, if I say that Zhang Dai not only does not despise utilitarianism, but is even very enthusiastic, he will definitely be complained about by many friends. However, this is the case, but we can put it another way: Zhang Dai is a person with "great ambitions".
"Lang Huan Anthology", by Zhang Dai, Luan Baoqun Dian School, Zhejiang Ancient Books Publishing House, April 2013.
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The Zhang family in Shanyin, prosperous in the high ancestor Zhang Tianfu, flourished in the great-grandfather Zhang Yuanbian, shoucheng in his grandfather Zhang Rulin, declined in his father Zhang Yaofang, to Zhang Dai's generation really responded to the curse of "five generations and beheading", although it has not yet fallen, but whether the Ming Dynasty dies or not, Zhang Dai has not yet passed the examination for nearly fifty years, and this life is not related to the officialdom. From the beginning of the great-grandfather Zhang Yuanbian to Zhang Dai, the fourth generation was the eldest son and eldest grandson, as the eldest son of the Yuanchangfang, Zhang Dai had the responsibility to inherit the generations of Hairpin Miao.
The sparse essays of the "Nanzhen Prayer Dream" written by him at the age of sixteen, "Meritorious Name Zhi Zhi" and "Prayer Heart Firm", can be said to have firmly laid a foundation since childhood; in adulthood, after repeated setbacks in the examination room, he even hung up on his mouth as a belief (see "The Biography of the Five Strangers" and "The Book of Lan Ting Ti" in the "Lang Huan Anthology"). Zhang Dai's close friend Qi Biaojia was five years younger than him, and he was a jinshi at the age of twenty-one, and when Chongzhen resigned from his imperial career in the eighth year of his imperial history and returned to retirement, Zhang Dai, whose talent was not inferior to Qi Biaojia's, was still bumping on the way to the township examination.
So where did Zhang Dai's belief that "he will restore his ancestors" come from? Zhang Dai's difference is that, like Gu Yanwu, he did not see the name of the subject as the only way to achieve his goals in life from a long time ago. He has written many articles in "Dreams" about the skills of craftsmen and dramatists, and since every skill can be immortalized, why should he entrust his life to the unknowable science field and examiners.
"Memories of Dreams of the Former Dynasty: Zhang Dai's Glitz and Desolation", [Us] Shi Jingqian, translated by Wen Qiayi, Guangxi Normal University Press, September 2010.
"Dream Remembrance" has several texts that write about the small scenery of the Zhangjia Garden in Longshan Xigang, and the style of the articles imitates Liu Tongren, scattered to see, only to see its delicacy, it seems that there is not much intention. But if you put them together, you will find that this is a set of deliberate and exquisite pieces, and cannot simply be regarded as "deliberately using strange sentences". Gao Zu Zhang Tianfu's "Junzhi Pavilion" is simple and unpretentious and the weather is lofty; his grandfather Zhang Rulin's "The Garden of Stones" is due to the situation and Hua Zhen's grace; Uncle Wu Xue's "The Pavilion of flowers" is more than exquisite and the atmosphere is forced; and the castle in the air of his father Zhang Yaofang's "Hanging Pavilion" was finally demolished. Compared and read, all reveal the temperament and fate of their respective masters, and in order, the family's self-rise to prosperity and decline are also like grass snake gray lines, winding in it.
This is not my reverie as a reader. Try to take one end: Junzhiting, when Zhang Dai wrote this article, he had already rebuilt it for his jizu Zhang Rumao twenty years ago, and did not return to his old appearance, but why did Zhang Dai write the old impressions before the age of seventeen? Because what he wrote is not so much The Pavilion of The Emperor, but rather Zhang Tianfu, in this small article, "the unity of the Pavilion of Man", the Pavilion of the Pavilion of the Emperor is Zhang Tianfu. You can take another look at Zhang Dai's "Family Biography and Supplementary Biography" of the narrative of the changes in the family's generations of family affection, and conclude that Yun "'Gentleman's Ze, the fifth generation and beheading', yu family lineage has since been cut off", it can be seen that Zhang Dai wrote this group of sketches has contained sentimentality about the decline of the family lineage, and each one is intentionally mixed with the body taste of the human world.
Zhang Dai is quoted as Liu Tong, a confidant of landscapes, and the characteristics of his landscape sketches are to take pictures of the situation with emotions, and zhang Dai's group of sketches with the style of Jinling is liu Dong's essence, which is the last article in this group of sketches, that is, the "Mountain Boat" written by Zhang Dai's reading office, which is particularly eye-catching. This article incorporates more symbolic interests, writing about the author's own stubbornness and indomitability in adversity and setbacks, and finding another way to break new ground. Here Zhang Dai takes "strange bamboo" as his own situation, although it is not "mature", but it can not be often regarded as bamboo, out of bamboo and better than bamboo, it is like a "golden wrong knife", such as "Huangshan pine", its interest is "in the light of the far away".
The so-called "light" is not keen on the name of the subject; "far", its merits can only be known to the world after a hundred years. The so-called "take it from a distance" is to do business outside the science field.
Zhang Dai's cause of "taking it from a faint distance" was to be a historian, and he was a great historian who followed Sima Qian's example. Zhang Dai made this ambition roughly in the early years of Chongzhen, when he was only in his thirties. After that, until the death of the Ming Dynasty for nearly twenty years, that is, when he seemed to be a "stupid disciple", he had actually been working hard for this "Ming History".
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Jia Baoyu, who was with Lin Daiyu and others. The picture shows the stills of the TV series "Dream of the Red Chamber" (1987).
Some people think that Zhang Dai was Jia Baoyu before the Ming Dynasty, and Cao Xueqin after the Ming Dynasty, as if his "Book of Stones" and "Dream Memories" were written after the Ming Dynasty. This is a big misunderstanding. The exquisite and gorgeous "Plum Blossom BookHouse" in "Dream Memories" is not the rich and idle Yihong Courtyard, and the "No Two Zhai" in front of the book house is the lecture place of his great-grandfather Zhang Tianfu, which makes him feel awe, in addition to talking with a class of intellectuals, the millions of drafts of the "Book of Stone" are completed here.
At the latest, ten years before Chongzhen, Zhang Daiyou collected from his friends the "Conquest of The History of the Ming Dynasty", from which it can be seen that he had not only looked at the "Records of dedication" and "Mingshan Collection" and no less than a thousand volumes of literature hidden at home. Why is it said that he has already recorded? Because a few years later, when the thirty thousand books collected by the Third Dynasty were turned into cold smoke, Zhang Dai already had a draft of the "Book of Stone", that is, the "long compilation" of the Book of Stone, and the number of words must be several times that of the book, not less than millions of words. Moreover, there was more than one copy of this draft, because when he was in exile in the mountains, he only "carried a copy of it", and the other was hidden with his grandfather's manuscript of "Yun Shan" in the Scripture Cabinet of Jiuli Mountain. From this section, we can imagine Zhang Dai's determination and meticulousness. This is undoubtedly the other side of Zhang Dai's little-known "willing to be lonely" who "loves prosperity".
On the one hand, it is full of passion for loving a prosperous life, on the other hand, it is a silent labor with lofty ambitions, and the two are one, which is Zhang Dai before the Ming Dynasty. Don't believe that because of the great changes in the country and the death of the family, Zhang Dai suddenly repented and changed his past wrongs, and only then did he become an inspirational story of the prodigal son of a writer and historian who turned back. Without this big change, Zhang Dai could only do better. Zhang Dai said in the "Dream Remembrance Self-Prologue" that "quite luxurious, today's results" yunyun, and regret has nothing to do with it, if it is really repentance, will he still record the prosperous article to the "Dream Remembrance"? At the time of the Ming Dynasty, Zhang Dai's article had reached the realm of pure fire, and his historical thought had matured, exaggerating to make an analogy, that is, he was not yet out of the woods, and the pattern of three worlds was already in his chest.
The Book of Stone Kui (all twelve volumes), by Zhang Dai, Luan Baoqun, Palace Press, December 2017.
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The great change of the heavens and the earth, the biggest impact on Zhang Dai's initial volunteering was that the "Book of Stones" could not be completed. This is zhang Dai's life's work, and in his "Pingshui One Dream", Qi Biaojia's dream soul instructed him to "finish the Book of Stone Kui" at all costs, which shows that this matter also has a very heavy weight in his lifelong confidant. It is no exaggeration to say that the Book of Stone Kui is the driving force for Zhang Dai to live tenaciously.
In the years of hardship and hardship that followed, Zhang Dai finally completed the Book of Stone Kui from Hongwu to Tianqi as originally planned, and a seemingly fortuitous opportunity allowed him to continue the Chongzhen Dynasty and become a complete history of the Ming Dynasty. Then the Mountain of Hidden Names, which has seemed to exist in the legend for hundreds of years. Finally, one day, the two manuscripts of the Book of Stone Raids miraculously appeared in the light of day, and Zhang Dai's half-life labor was almost intact to this day, and was photocopied four hundred years after his death. The result was perfect, which was exactly what Zhang Dai expected before he died. Although he failed to revitalize his family fortunes with his work (which was already impossible in an era when the system had become a zombie), the immortality of his articles allowed the reputation of the San'in Zhang clan to spread hundreds of years later.
In the past, there were clouds: Han Yu's grandson Han Gong was the champion, retired from the famous book Shandou, and no one knew that there was Han Gong. Wang Shouren's father, Wang Hua, was a Chenghua Zhuangyuan, while Yang Ming's name was far above Hai Ri (Wang Hua). Therefore, there are three immortals, and here is not the other. We can completely say that if there is no Zhang Dai, who knows that Shaoxing has a leader Zhang Yuanchen?
However, this is not yet a beautiful story of a person with lofty ideals, if Zhang Dai has a spirit in heaven, there may be a big regret: the fame behind him is not because of his "Book of Stones" that has invested half his life, but a prose sketch that seems to have been written inadvertently.
"Tao An Dream Memories", by Zhang Dai, Luan Baoqun Annotated, Forbidden City Press, September 2011.
Zhang Dai's literary name was not known before his death, or it did not exceed his circle of friends. Until one hundred years after his death, the "Dream Remembrance" was completed, and two hundred years later, the "Lang Huan Anthology" was engraved, and it had begun to be lamented by people as "the pen carries the wind and frost, swallows the "Zhuang" and "Column", and realizes (Xu) above the wenchang". Half a century later, under the recommendation of Zhou Zuoren and Yu Pingbo, Zhang Dai's sketches were shown in dozens of homes in the late Ming Dynasty. In another half century, Zhang Dai's "Dream Memories" became popular in the reading world, and more than fifty versions appeared in just a dozen years. Although Zhang Dai was already called a "great essayist" by the reading circles when it was discovered, this discovery did not cause the sensation it deserved, and it was only published as a kind of "Continuation of the Four Libraries complete book", publishing a shrunken photocopic copy with vague handwriting and few people being able to read it.
I am afraid that this phenomenon cannot be simply explained by "planting flowers and flowers with heart, and unintentionally planting willows and willows", of course, it is impossible to judge the value of works by the effect of distribution. There are many reasons, and there must be accidents. But what I just want to say here is that Zhang Dai may not be able to accurately grasp the importance of his multi-faceted talents. Zhang Dai's historiography put aside another saying, we only see that he shows his own poetry from time to time, but it is rare to boast of his own sketches, and in my shallow opinion, his sketches can be at the top of the late Ming list without suspense, as for his poems, I really don't know where he can be ranked in the late Ming poetry circle.
I put forward this point here, only one meaning, that is, Zhang Dai did not realize that the highest level of his xiaopinwen had surpassed his predecessors, not only surpassing Xu Wenchang and Wang Siren, but also surpassing Yuan Zhonglang and Liu Tongren. As a result, he did not put more energy into the creation of sketches, leaving us with more good works.
Zhang Dai's writing after middle age is very fast, and many famous works in "Dream Memories" such as "West Lake In July and a Half", "Yue Custom Sweeping Tombs", "Yangzhou Qingming", "Jinshan Jingdu" and other famous works that remember the people of guo in the ancient country were completed in the gap between writing the "Book of Stone" when he was in exile in the mountains. Ten years later, he lived in Hangzhou for more than a year and wrote dozens of volumes of the "Later Collection of Stone Books". With such a strong pen, it is not difficult to write a few more "Dream Memories", or even better collections than "Dream Memories". Regrettably, we now have only regrets.
This article is exclusive original content. Author: Luan Baoqun; Editor: Xixi; Proofreader: Liu Jun. Without the written authorization of the Beijing News, it shall not be reproduced, and welcome to forward to the circle of friends.