Text/Fu Huaxuan
If a person is "proud", do not "forget the form"! Otherwise, there will be a story. In the folk, if there is a little "proud" thing, so "forget the form", the big deal is ugly, let people despise, let people laugh. If you are with a high-ranking official and have a "proud" thing, you just casually and get carried away, then something big will happen! The story I want to tell today is an actor, it should be a national-level actor, because he was overwhelmed in front of the emperor and lost his life.
Look at today's actors are amazing, make a lot of money, are sought after, have unlimited scenery, are high-minded, and some people have also got a "civilian major general" treatment, or a certain committee member. However, before the Qing Dynasty, drama was the lower nine streams, and prostitutes and other people were a kind of people, which was a very low-level industry. It can be seen that the descendants of the drama are not allowed to participate in the "imperial examination"! The fact that the common people have cut off this road of examination means that they will never turn over at the bottom of society, which means that they are not qualified to participate in the college entrance examination now, so it can be seen that the social status of the plays before the Qing Dynasty was very low.
In the Qing Dynasty, from the imperial palace to the common people, watching the opera was regarded as an important entertainment activity. The peasants are idle, there are temple fairs, there are often opera groups in the village to sing operas, the stage is staged is the emperor and generals, singing is the talented and beautiful, the stage is like a dream, listening to it is like a mesmerizing.
The emperors and queens of the Qing Dynasty were almost all fans of drama, they loved to watch drama and understood drama.
After entering the customs, influenced by Han culture, members of the royal family loved to watch drama. The Shunzhi Emperor liked to read the "Departure from sorrow", Hanle Fu, etc., and ordered the musicians to compose it in the palace. The words and songs are all ancient, and the smell is fresh and melodious, so it is named "Qingping Tone".
The Kangxi Emperor also loved to watch drama, and he renamed the Jiaofang Division "Nanfu", which was subordinate to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, recruiting famous folk artists to teach young eunuchs and artists' children, performing for the court, and belonging to the state-level literary and art groups. Kangxi also carefully studied the relationship between Jiangsu Kunqu and Jiangxi Yilu and Silk Bamboo and Qulu, and sent people down to Jiangnan to find Yilu to teach.
The Yongzheng Emperor was also fond of drama, and when he was crown prince, the Kangxi Emperor asked him to ask Nanfu about the teaching of drama. After he succeeded to the throne, he naturally couldn't avoid this pleasure, but this suspicious emperor had done the work of killing Youling with a staff. According to the "Miscellaneous Records of the Xiaoting Pavilion", one day, the Yongzheng Emperor was in the palace watching the miscellaneous drama "Zheng Dan Baozi", playing the Changzhou assassin Zheng Dan's handsome singing performance was outstanding, at that time, he should be a national first-class actor, a star big name, because of his performance of "good music and battles", the Yongzheng Emperor was very happy, and immediately ordered someone to give this actor a lot of rewards. Favored by this, this man became so overwhelmed that he dared to ask the Yongzheng Emperor who the current Changzhou Assassin was. When the Yongzheng Emperor heard this, he immediately became furious and said, You are just a small and handsome untouchable, and where are the qualifications of the unworthy people to ask about the affairs of the imperial court! The fact that the entertainers in the palace are involved in politics is a crooked and evil trend. So he ordered the man to be killed. The palace sergeants who executed him pulled him out and beat him to death with a stick. A generation of famous artists, famous performance artists, lost their lives because of their arrogance.
The Qianlong Emperor was even more of a fan of the opera, and after he succeeded to the throne, he expanded the scale of Nanfu (increasing the establishment of the State Opera House), ordered the selection of Suzhou artists to enter the palace as errands, named "Foreign Studies", which belonged to the jurisdiction of Nanfu, and the eunuchs who learned art in the former palace were called "Internal Studies", and the number of internal and external students in the Qianlong Dynasty was more than a thousand. When acting in the palace, the Nanfu will first write the performance location, date, opening time, repertoire and main actors into a document and submit it to the empress dowager and the emperor, and the empress dowager or the emperor will be allowed to perform after nodding, and sometimes the empress dowager and the emperor will personally order the play. The Qianlong Emperor personally loved Kunqu opera, and was quite proficient in music, able to beat the drum board and write scripts. It is said that he also personally performed the play "Li Sanlang Karma Drum Flower".
During the Qianlong period, when the development of opera was prosperous, all classes generally loved to watch opera, and performances were frequent in the residences of princes and ministers and scholars.
After Jiaqing, with the decline of the national fortunes, the situation deteriorated, the court opera performance activities began to decrease, Jiaqing ChaonanFu internal and external studies there were more than 800 people, to the Daoguang period, Nanfu was renamed Shengping Bureau, due to the lack of national treasury, foreign studies were cancelled, and the eunuchs in the palace were gradually reduced to more than 200 people.
Acting in the palace slowly declined.