At the end of the Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the world was in turmoil.
At that time, Ningbo, known as Qingyuan Road, was occupied by the peasant rebel army in eastern Zhejiang led by Fang Guozhen, and between the Yuan and Ming Dynasties, it was wavering.
In 1356, Zhu Yuanzhang occupied Jiqing Road (i.e., Nanjing), renamed it Ying Tianfu, and pushed straight for Jiangnan.
In November 1367, Fang Guozhen submitted to Zhu Yuanzhang, and in 1368, Zhu Yuanzhang declared himself emperor in Nanjing, and the Ming Dynasty was founded.
Qu You, a literati who lived in Qiantang, avoided chaos and lived under the Zhenming Ridge on the shore of Moon Lake.
Qu You was born in Hangzhou in 1347, from childhood poetry, grew up in the chaotic world, personally experienced the cruel rule of the Yuan Dynasty, the early Ming Dynasty Zhu Yuanzhang rose up a cruel system of literary prohibition, in the face of severe criminal law, the literati had to write a legendary novel of girlfriends, ghosts and immortals to gently express their thoughts and opinions.
It is in this historical context that Qu You, who has never met and is depressed, has written a collection of essays: "Cutting the Lamp and Saying Something New".
"Cutting the Lantern New Talk" is a collection of legendary novels, mainly telling stories such as spirit monsters and erotic feelings, including a "Peony Lantern Record", which is written about the spiritual story that happened in Ningbo Moon Lake.
"Peony Lantern" is about the love affair between people and ghosts.
Qiao Sheng, who lives under the Ming Ridge in Yuehu Town, met the beauty Fu Liqing at the Lantern Night Lantern Festival.
The two fell in love at first sight and went home hand in hand that night, which was extremely happy.
After nearly half a month of love, the old man next door who must have doubts saw from the crack in the wall that it was a pink skeleton born with Qiao, and he was shocked.
When Qiao Sheng learned of this, he was terrified and worried, and under the guidance of his neighbor, he went to Xuanmiao Temple to ask Master Wei for help.
The Master gave him two red charms, ordered one of them to be placed on the door and the other on the bed, and repeatedly told him not to go to Huxin Temple again.
Qiao Sheng said according to the law, as the law settled, the beauty Fu Liqing did not come again.
More than a month later, Qiao Sheng went to Gongxiu Bridge to visit friends, returned home after drinking, forgot the master's ring, took the road of Huxin Temple, and met the beauty Fu Liqing unexpectedly, Qiao Sheng was pulled by the beauty, both into the coffin, and died in the coffin.
The Zhenmingling, Fenghua, Huxin Temple, Gongxiu Bridge, Ximen, Siming Mountain and other places in the story are all real Ningbo place names.
The story of "Peony Lantern" is based on the Moon Lake, with "Zhizheng Gengzi", that is, the Lantern Night in 1360 AD as the starting point of the story, and ending with the trial judgment of the Siming Mountain Tieguan Daoist, the veritable Ningbo version of the Liaozhai story.
"Peony Lantern" inherits the yuxu of the Legend of the Tang and Song Dynasties, and opens the precedent of "Liaozhai Zhiyi".
In the first year of the Kangxi Dynasty of the Qing Dynasty, that is, in 1662 AD, the 22-year-old Pu Songling began to write the ghost fox story, which lasted more than 40 years and wrote "Liaozhai Zhiyi".
"Peony Lantern" came out 300 years earlier than "Liaozhai Zhiyi".
In 1828, that is, the eighth year of Daoguang, the Ningbo scholar Xu Zhaofu compiled the "Four Ming Talks on Help", with the title of "Qiao Shengyue Night Encounter demon", and compiled and collected the Ningbo version of the Story of Liaozhai in "Peony Lantern Record".
The Peony Lantern Was printed in the eleventh year of Zhu Yuanzhang's Hongwu in the early Ming Dynasty, that is, in 1378 AD, and circulated as a manuscript.
However, in the seventh year of the Ming Dynasty, that is, in 1442 AD, the "Peony Lantern Record" was listed as a banned book by the imperial court on the grounds of "whitewashing girlfriends and picking up beautiful language", and all the books copied were burned.
However, "Peony Lantern" has been introduced to Japan and has been widely disseminated.
In 1917, Dong Kang, who was inspecting Japan, re-engraved the complete version according to the Japanese collection of the "Peony Lantern Record" and re-transmitted it back to China.
"Peony Lantern" has been adapted into movies, song and dance dramas and TV dramas many times in Japan, but in China, there are still few people who know about it.
The story of Liaozhai with Ningbo as the background, even ningbo people rarely know, is excerpted as follows, for the readers: