Readers keep "urging"! "Great Song Dynasty" is fully equipped this year

It has always been said that books have "scholars", and each book has its own life and story, but as a book editor, in the past ten years, there are few books with many stories like He Hui's long historical novel "The Great Song Dynasty".

For the Great Song Dynasty, it is a bit premature to use the word "shusheng" now, because it is still in the stage of not yet "full moon". From creation to publication, its "birth" is not a simple process such as "pregnancy and childbirth in October".

"Great Song Dynasty": "Heavy Yellow Robe", "Dadi Chess Game", "Tianxia Buwu", "Battle Lu Ze", "The Fate of the Kingdom", "Candle Shadow of the Inner Court", "Pen and Sword", "Jiangshan Duojiao" He Hui authored by Writers Publishing House

He Hui's creation of the Great Song Dynasty began in 2009, and if you want to calculate the time when the book was conceived, it would be back to the period between 2005 and 2008. At that time, He Hui was studying for a doctorate, the research topic was the history of consumption in the Song Dynasty, and in the process of academic research and thesis writing, "I always felt that Shi Zai could not provide me with a complete imagination of historical figures, nor could it provide a complete and vivid picture of a piece of history." Between the passages of the historical record, there are too many 'historical gaps'. This 'historical gap' cannot be filled by academic writing. However, this 'historical gap' has become a 'block' in my heart. "How did the characters, stories, and historical events that really exist behind those short historical sentences develop? These questions stirred his mind and stimulated his imagination, "I finally decided to create a literary work. Because literary works can use imagination to achieve goals that academic research cannot achieve. As a result, He Hui began the literary creation of the Great Song Dynasty for more than ten years.

Soon after the first song dynasty came out, it attracted widespread attention because of its plump characters, tortuous storyline and unique way of telling, not only some readers praised it as "China's realistic version of the "Song of Ice and Fire", but also known as He Hui's writing style that created a "new historian novel stream". Many loyal readers have "urged" in the form of messages, emails, etc., asking the author about the progress of his subsequent creation... Until this year, Writers Press put it in its entirety. Those readers who really like "The Great Song Dynasty" have waited really hard!

He Hui wrote the first "Heavy Yellow Robe" of the Great Song Dynasty in 2013, followed by "Dadi Chess Game", "Tianxia Buwu", and "Battle Lu Ze". When writers publishing house launched a new fifth "Fate of the Kingdom" in 2018, the last three "Candle Shadows of the Inner Court", "Pen and Sword", and "Jiangshan Duojiao" were still in the process of creation and revision. At the beginning of 2020, when the Writers Publishing House republished "Heavy Yellow Robe", all the manuscripts of "The Great Song Dynasty" were finally finalized. Today, the "Great Song Dynasty" has a total of 8 parts, sprinkled with nearly 2 million words, and finally came out, which is also the tome that many editors have been looking forward to, planning and editing for a long time.

Speaking of which, the editing and publishing of "The Great Song Dynasty" is still relatively "grinding", not only reflected in the long creation and publication cycle, but also in the content editing, communication and communication and publishing process and other small links.

He Hui is a scholar-type writer whose creation originally sprouted from academic research, and did a lot of research before and during the creation, which is a solid foundation for the creation of the long historical novel "The Great Song Dynasty". Because the manuscript involves the names, titles, time, place and intellectual content of many characters, many details are often communicated with them during the editing process to remind, confirm and even correct errors. Over the past few years, several editors have sorted out the relevant exchanges as a whole in the editing process of the complete set of 8 books of the Great Song Dynasty, which means tens of thousands of words and hundreds of pictures and videos.

For example, it involves official titles, such as the similarities and differences between the envoys of the counting and the degree of moderation, the styles of the battle robes of officers and men of different camps and different ranks, etc.; it involves the etiquette regulations of the monarchs, such as the different titles of Yin Xun and other ministers in front of Zhao Kuangyin, the different occasions used by the auditor and the zuoyi, the seats of the important ministers at the banquet of "cup of wine and the release of military power", the order in which the inner temple is turned to the ministers of various ministries such as shi officials, households, soldiers, and criminals; it involves literary and historical knowledge, such as the time when food such as strawberries and watermelons were introduced to the Central Plains, the history of the development of seats, palanquins, and shoulders. The differences in the functions of the plutonium and the song chapter are equal; it involves the early Song Dynasty laws, such as the punishment standards for the escape of the active DingFu, the relevant provisions on the issuance of usurious loans, etc.; it involves relevant historical materials, such as the relationship between Zhu Quanzhong's parent-child murder and the birth time of Gao Congjie, the son of Gao Jichang; and many other details involving the logical relationship of the storyline. These communication confirmations are specific and trivial, and even very grinding, but the author He Hui replies and confirms very seriously every time, and often reads the relevant literature on this. When discussing the description of the courtyard of Zhao Guangyi's mansion, he even drew a simple schematic diagram. It's a genuine approach to text, creation, and readers, and in the process, as an editor, I benefit a lot.

In the process of editing, the greatest disagreements and discussions with the author focused on the speed of the narrative rhythm and the amplitude of the original citations, and among a few mild-mannered people, this exchange and discussion sometimes even had a slightly sword-rattling flavor. Considering the roles and responsibilities of editors, and given that the author is a mature writer, we ended up choosing more respect. Literary works and reading should be diverse, and tolerance and openness are the characteristics and characters that editors should have, only in this way can we ensure that various styles and types of works bloom and can different reading tastes and demands be satisfied.

The designer of this set of books, Cao Yongyu, is from South Korea and communicates in Chinese on professional issues such as book binding design, and the difficulty, effect and efficiency can be imagined. When he collaborated on the first book, Cao Yongyu was a student at Tsinghua University and in the internship stage; when he focused on designing the covers of six books in 2021, he was already working for a Korean company, so communication often happened late at night and on weekends. He is really a very serious, dedicated and hard-working designer, often sending design documents late at night on weekdays or before going to work in the morning, effectively ensuring that the set of books is published on time.

This year marks the tenth anniversary of the launch of the global hit drama "Game of Thrones", which is based on the novel by George W. Bush. R· R. Martin's fantasy epic masterpiece, A Song of Ice and Fire. Although the novel's rich fantasy elements such as court battles, battlefield battles, travel adventures and magical confrontations have deeply fascinated readers, the author Martin himself has to admit that in the huge fictional "alternate world", it is necessary to rely on embedding some realistic elements to make readers feel the existence of the "second world" in the book. The Great Song Dynasty, which is called "China's realistic version of the Song of Ice and Fire" by book lovers, is rooted in Chinese history and traditional culture, based on the author's solid academic research and realistic creative techniques, and is an uncompromising "Made in China", to some extent, this is a "long work that highlights the cultural self-confidence of Chinese writers".

Source Beijing Daily | Author Xiang Shang

Edited by Wang Qiong

Process Editor Wu Yue