Writing ghosts write demons are superior, and thorns are greedy and abusive into the wood for three points. ——Guo Moruo
Pu Songling's "Chatting with Zai Zhiyi" must be familiar to many people. This novel has been adapted into a TV series, broadcast on CCTV, can be regarded as a generation of classics, there are many children who do not have a high degree of acceptance in their hearts, and even became their childhood shadow when they first watched TV series.
When I first watched "Chatting with Zai Zhiyi", most people would think that this was just a novel about ghosts. However, when you read such a novel after adulthood, you will find that in fact, the content is not just some legends of gods and ghosts, it can be said that Pu Songling told his views on the hearts of the world's people through "Liaozhai Zhiyi" in a very subtle way.
There are many stories in "Chatting with Zai Zhiyi", some are very long, some are very short, some stories are very touching, and some stories make people feel indignant. In particular, some of the short stories are memorable to read. "Liaozhai Zhiyi" has three of the most absurd small stories, when it was first read, people couldn't help but be amused, but when they reread it, they can feel the hardship and helplessness that the author wants to express, and they can no longer laugh, which three stories are these?
They are two short stories from "The Thief" and another story, "Guo An".
First, two short stories in "The Thief"
The first short story is about the theft.
After the Qing Emperor Shunzhi Emperor entered the customs, due to the initial decision of the world at that time, many aspects were difficult to manage for a while. There are also some ordinary people in Shandong who have become thieves, and due to the large number of thieves and celebrities, the local county officials are afraid to take care of them.
However, since there are thieves, the magistrate is always responsible, and if these thieves are not cleaned up, I am afraid that his black hat will not be able to last long. So the county officials thought of a way to appease these thieves.
In this way, these thieves were appeased, but in order to prevent them from rebelling against the local officials again, they would be partial to them in some things, and the conciliation was a solicitation, and if there was a rebellion under their rule, the county officials would probably be unlucky.
In this way, because officials often favor these thieves, many ordinary people feel indignant in their hearts, and gradually they also find out the doorway. The most important thing is that they live a very comfortable life, the population multiplies very quickly, and the magistrate cannot take the household registration book to verify the identity of these thieves one by one.
So in the litigation, there are some people who are not thieves, they also have the courage to say that they are thieves, and whenever they encounter these things, the magistrates have to take out the household registration booklet and compare it one by one, and check it from the blood relationship, which is very tiring.
At that time, there was a county magistrate's daughter in this place who was fascinated by a fox, so now she went to invite a Daoist priest with a high spell, and under the practice of this Daoist, this fox was forced to appear in its original form, and the Taoist priest was about to behead this fox, but he did not expect that the fox actually said: I am a thief!
Even the fox knew that thieves could be favored by the authorities, which showed how relaxed the local officials were to these people. Although when you first read it, you will think that this little fox is stupid, but the problem is that as long as you think about it deeply, you will know that this is the irony of these officials, under the rule of such officials, the common people are clearly in the depths of the water.
The second short story is a story about the name of the meritorious name.
Ancient readers attached great importance to meritorious names, even if it was a small talent, they also had the privilege of seeing county officials not kneeling, which is why so many people scrambled to get a meritorious name, and Fan Jin went crazy when he got the meritorious name.
At that time, there were some small problems in taxation, because these gentry had meritorious names, so they had the privilege of not receiving donations, so there were many poor people, and they hung their land in the name of these gentry, and these gentry did not have to farm, and they could get a reward from these peasants according to the privileges in their hands.
Later, a county magistrate discovered such a problem, he felt that it would cause damage to the country's tax revenue, and in the end the common people did not get any benefits, but only fed these greedy gentry. So he asked the imperial court for orders to get rid of such a defect.
Soon, the imperial court granted his request, and the county magistrate began to act in a big way, and he asked the people who had land attached to the names of the gentry to consciously take their land back. But soon some people discovered the problem, and some of them were helpless that they clearly did not have a field hanging in the name of the gentry, and they had to say that there was. Or some people, whose fields have long been sold to the gentry, are said to have been hung in the name of the gentry and forcibly taken by them.
In the face of such rogue tricks, the government actually chose to support these rogues' demands one-size-fits-all, so when it came to land disputes, these gentry were very passive.
Later, another lawsuit was fought in the official government, and the government found out the situation and asked the defendant at the time, why he was clearly a talent, why did he say that he had no meritorious name. The Xiucai then replied to him, Xiucai first hung aside, won the land back, and then said that he was Xiucai.
The behavior of the local officials favored these scoundrels, but the gentry could not speak bitterly, which is why Xiucai had such a move. In general, the officials in these two stories are extremely absurd, but they belong to the grass-roots officials who directly manage the civil affairs, and how the ordinary people like them can live, I think everyone can imagine with their toes.
These two stories are satirizing the absurdity of corrupt officials, and the next one is even more intolerable.
Second, the story in "Guo An"
Guo Anzhong's first story is about a servant named Guo An, who once saw a man named Li Lu resting on the bed, and the two people had a gap, so Guo An killed Li Lu for a while.
In the case of a human life lawsuit, Li Lu's father naturally refused to let Guo An go easily, so the old father reported Guo An to the county court. The county magistrate who came to the council felt that he was very famous, so he made a judgment, that is, Li Lu was the son of this father, Guo An was also someone else's son, and at present, Li Lu's father had no son, so he was sentenced to Guo An to be his son.
In the face of such a verdict, Li Lu's father could only retreat with hatred. Whether the county official was really stupid or accepted a large bribe from Li Lu, what the county official did was enough to make people feel infuriating, and the father lost so much hatred to his son that he did not care at all, and made such a joking sentence.
A similar one says that a man killed another person, and the wife of the person who was killed ran to the government office to file a complaint, and the official went so far as to sentence the wife of the person who was killed to marry the person who killed the person, and to make the wife of the murderer a widow.
How absurd it is for such county officials to do things, but it can also be seen that things like killing people will be like a child's play, how corrupt these grass-roots officials are, and officials without supervision are simply unscrupulous, completely disregarding the lives of ordinary people, and only thinking about taking money themselves.
In Pu Songming's "Liaozhai Zhiyi", these stories are very short and concise, but there is a very deep meaning behind them. In fact, there are many stories in the chat, and it is these corrupt officials who are as ironic as this, but only in the name of gods and ghosts. This is why the story of Liaozhai is of such high literary value.
brief summary
The more grass-roots officials, the more their every move can affect the lives of the people, like the ancient county officials, corrupt and perverted the law, bold and arrogant to put it now, even if it is sentenced to death, it will not make people feel strange, but it is these people, they say that no parent official of the people has such parents, and the people are definitely living in the depths of the water.
This was a norm in ancient politics, where officials who were far away in the capital, although powerful, eventually had to be exploited to the next level, so as to maintain their position in the capital. It can be said that the wealth of the whole world was finally gathered in the imperial city, which is the truth of ancient politics.
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