1975 edition of The Great Knife
Shandong writer Guo Qingxing's novel "The Record of the Great Knife" was first published in 1975, and in 2005, the People's Literature Publishing House republished the novel.
2005 edition of "The Great Knife"
The age difference between them is up to 30 years.
The 2005 edition of The Great Knife is actually quite different from the original version 30 years ago.
Table of Contents page for the 2005 edition
This may also be a unique phenomenon in China's publishing industry, that is, re-editions, but more primitive than the first version.
This has also led to the 2005 edition of The Great Knife, which is not as condensed, vivid and literary as the 1975 edition.
Table of Contents page for the 1975 edition
For example, in the 1975 edition, this scene description can be described as very vivid, it can be seen that Guo Qingqing's language has learned landscape description from the Soviet novel "Quiet Don River", and in fact, Guo Qingqing has indeed improved his ability to write scenes by reading Sholokhov's novels again and again: "The social fire has long been over. The lights in the village are out, and everyone is sleeping. The whole Longtan Street seemed to be peaceful and peaceful and sleepy. The smoke of firecrackers, the flying dust, has also been killed by the dampness of the mist. The dead streets were full of shredded paper and sooted lights.
Night, dark, quiet. In the gloomy and thick sky, the net is covered with overlapping clouds, black and white. Behind these clouds, some heavier and more terrifying black clouds chased after them. ”
The social fire scene in the Shandong people's version of the "Big Knife" comic strip
Let's look at the same description in the 2005 version: "The social fire has long since stopped." The lights in the village are out, and everyone is sleeping. The smoke of firecrackers, the flying dust, has also been killed by the dampness of the mist. The streets were full of shredded paper and soot.
Night, dark, quiet. ”
The 1975 edition is clearly superior to the 2005 edition. This is because the 1975 edition was finalized after the author made changes after repeated times and forced by the situation, which is naturally more literary than the 2005 edition directly adopting the previous first draft.
Here, it is necessary for us to make a basic combing of the text of the Book of the Great Knife.
Guo Qingxing, the author of "The Book of the Great Knife", was born in 1929 and died in 1989.
The most famous work he created is the three-volume novel "The Book of the Great Knife".
Such a volume is rare in the system of contemporary Chinese novels, because in fact, the three-volume novels in the history of Chinese literature can be described as rare.
We must maintain sufficient respect for such multi-volume novels.
This is a sign of the literary taste and quality of a country.
Just like the thick four-volume edition of "War and Peace" in Russian literature, it is enough to make a country's literature have a thick foundation and a strong foundation.
In Guo's resume, we can see that he has written four novels — five, as detailed below.
The first novel: The Great Knife. It was first published by the People's Literature Publishing House in 1975.
The second novel: The Tale of Longtan, published by the People's Literature Publishing House in 1985.
The third novel: Duel, published by China Youth Publishing House in 1987.
In Guo Qingcheng's creative resume, you can also see a long novel "Echoes of Historical Tragedy", but the author searched on the relevant reading website and did not find this novel.
To this end, the author deliberately asked Guo Hongzhi, the son of Guo Clarification, through the "WeChat group".
Teacher Guo Hongzhi replied: "The Echo of Historical Tragedy" "Cangzhou Daily serialized, not published."
Guo Hongzhi also provided a piece of information, and another long documentary work by Guo Clarifier, "The Biography of Ma Zhenhua Lie", was just published this year.
In this way, Guo clarified that a total of five feature-length works were published. Among them, the most important is undoubtedly "The Record of the Great Knife", "The Record of Longtan", and "Duel".
The author traced the situation of "Longtan", and it happened that the author had this book in his hand. But I hadn't read it carefully before, and this time, because I had read through the Book of the Great Knife, I found out this very simple novel and was surprised to find that the "Longtan Chronicle" was actually the unabridged original manuscript of the "opening" in the "Record of the Great Knife", that is, the first part of the original manuscript of the "Record of the Great Knife".
Hebei edition comic strip "The Book of the Great Knife"
When the Book of the Great Knife was published in 1975, the first part of the original first draft was heavily abridged, and the original 33 chapters were shortened to 16 chapters, and then incorporated into the first volume of the Book of the Great Knife as the opening part.
Thus, the opening part of the 1975 edition of The Great Knife is a condensed version, and the detailed experience of the protagonist's family fleeing to the Kanto is completely invisible in the 1975 edition of the Great Knife Chronicle.
After the 1980s, the publishing house changed the original "Blood Stained Dragon Pond" to "Longtan Chronicle" for publication. The names of the characters in "Longtan" are exactly the same as those in "The Book of the Great Knife", but in some places, there are slight differences. For example, the traitor Que Bagui in "The Book of the Great Knife" is on the ground in Shandong, but because of the clues written about the northeast in the "Longtan Record", this Que Bagui has become an evil force on the northeast ground.
In general, the "Longtan Record" is actually the earliest first part of the "Record of the Great Knife".
Liaoning version of the comic strip "The Record of the Great Knife"
It is just that "Longtan Ji" was published in 1985, at this time, Shandong writer Mo Yan has already reinterpreted history in a way that refreshes the innovative significance of existing themes, so "Longtan Ji" can only belong to the novel of the first part of "The Record of the Great Knife", and it is difficult to have any repercussions. But this novel, which was able to be published in 1985, was not easy. After all, this novel is highly homogeneous with the content of the previous "The Book of the Great Knife" published in 1975.
It is worth noting that in 2005, "The Book of the Great Knife" was republished. In this edition, the first one directly abandoned the opening chapter of the 1975 edition of the "Record of the Great Knife" and included the "Longtan Record" into the first part, so that in disguise, the original creative manuscript of the author Guo Qingqing was restored.
Liaoning edition of "The Book of the Great Knife"
Let's take a look at the content of the novel "Duel", which was published by the China Youth Publishing House in 1987.
In fact, "Duel" is a rewrite of "The Great Knife". The protagonist yang long in the novel completely corresponds to Liang Yongsheng in "The Book of the Great Knife". The novel depicts his return to the Lubei region in 1942, the fifth year of the War of Resistance Against Japan, to carry out guerrilla struggle, thus unveiling the conflict front of the novel.
The main story of "The Book of the Great Knife" is that the protagonist Liang Yongsheng returned to his hometown from the main force in 1942 to rebuild the Great Knife Society and resist the Japanese invaders.
The protagonist Liang Yongsheng in "The Book of the Great Knife" is about forty years old, while Yang Long in "Duel" is only twenty-seven or eight years old.
From the perspective of the storylines of "The Great Knife" and "The Duel", we can see that the two novels share a background, a clue, and a plot, but the description of "The Duel" is much simpler than that of "The Book of the Great Knife", but the beginning and end are completely consistent, and the plot line is completely similar.
The background shared by the two novels is that the Eighth Route Army led by Xiao Hua marched eastward into the column and came to the Jilu Border Region to carry out the major event of building an anti-Japanese base area.
Shandong People's Edition Comic Strip "The Book of the Great Knife"
There is now an article introducing the "Record of the Great Knife", which calls the "Record of the Great Knife" "the only novel in China to describe the War of Resistance Against Japan in the Lubei Plain."
But this is not the case.
Shandong People's Edition of "The Great Knife"
In fact, there is another novel showing the War of Resistance in the Lubei Plain, which is also a three-volume version, that is, "Jilu Spring and Autumn" published by China Youth Publishing House, co-authored by Guo Minglun and Zhang Chongtian.
Although Xiao Hua's name does not appear directly in "Jilu Chunqiu", the protagonist of the novel, Yao Hui, is portrayed according to Xiao Hua's real prototype.
Although "Jilu Spring and Autumn" is written in three major books, the time described is very short, only one year, that is, from April 1938 to March 1939.
Yao Hui in "Jilu Chunqiu" is based on Xiao Hua
Later, in September 1939, Xiao Hua's advancing column left the Jilu Border Region and moved to the Luxi and Lunan areas.
The historical fact that Xiao Hua led his troops to leave the Jilu Border Region is not explained in "Jilu Spring and Autumn", because the "straight and longitudinal" departure from the Jilu border area does not fall within the scope of the novel.
In this way, after the advancing column led by Xiao Hua left the Jilu area, we can see a new interpretation in "The Record of the Great Knife".
The story of "The Book of the Great Knife" is dated to 1942, which is about two years different from the last time described in "Jilu Chunqiu" in 1939. In "The Book of the Great Knife", due to the Japanese and pseudo-clearance, our local armed forces were greatly damaged, and in the novel, Liang Yongsheng was described as returning from the main force to his hometown to carry out guerrilla work, and the first task was to find the big knife team that was lurking and dispersing.
In this sense, the story in the Book of the Great Knife can be seen as the spark of the spark left by Xiao Hua's advancing column in the Jilu area.
Originally, in the author's original manuscript, "The Record of the Great Knife" wrote about the great impact of the advancing column led by Xiao Hua on the local area, but the particularity of the age of the novel creation was not suitable for using the real names and real surnames of historical figures, and for this reason, in the "Record of the Great Knife", xiao Hua's name was not mentioned.
In the 1987 book "Duel", time has passed, and Xiao Hua's artistic image has appeared in the novel, and he has participated in the plot interaction of fictional characters.
In the Book of the Great Knife, it is described that Fang Yanbin, an instructor of the Eighth Route Army, was the guide for Liang Yongsheng to throw himself into the revolutionary tide. In the novel, it is written that Liang Yongsheng was deeply bullied and oppressed by the landlord Lao Cai, and was preparing to go to Yan'an to join the poor people's team, and on the way, he happened to encounter the Eighth Route Army team that was marching towards the Jilu area.
Comparing this contingent with history, we can generally recognize that it was the Eighth Route Army led by Xiao Hua as the eastward anti-Japanese advance column. Under the guidance of Fang Yanbin, an instructor of the Eighth Route Army, Liang Yongsheng joined the Eighth Route Army and became a fighter against the invaders.
In "The Book of the Great Knife", there is a detail that in 1942, when Liang Yongsheng returned to his hometown from the main force, he saw the former team members lock the pillar. Liang Yongsheng gave a fountain pen that Fang Yanbin entrusted him to hand over to Suozhu, hoping that Suozhu would study well and make progress in both wen and martial arts.
The novel reads:
Then, Liang Yongsheng took out a very beautiful fountain pen from his pocket and held it up in front of the small lockpost, gently shaking:
"Hey, lockpost, you see, what is this?"
For many years, The Lock Pillar liked two things the most: one was the gun and the other was the pen. Now, he lifted his face and glanced at it, and when he saw immortality holding a pen in his hand, his heart was immediately happy, and he snatched it away. He fiddled with it in his hand for a while, flashing two tearful eyes and smiling, "Hey! That's nice! Captain, who's it?"
"Who's it?" Yours!"
"Mine?"
"How? Don't want it?"
"Where did it come from?"
"I was asked to bring it to you." ——
The person who carried the pen was Fang Yanbin, the instructor of the Eighth Route Army. In the novel, it is written: "Fang Yanbin lived in the Suozhu family for some days in order to raise a gunshot wound. At that time, Suozhu had not yet joined the army, and there was a militia in the village. At that time, when Lao Fang saw that he could not read, he taught The Lock Pillar to read and promised to give him a fountain pen in the future.
In "Duel", when the protagonist Yang Long returned to his hometown from the main force, he also met his teammate and handed over a fountain pen to this teammate.
Let's see how it is described in the novel:
After a while, Yang Long put his hand into his pocket, took out a fountain pen, held it up in front of Xiao Zhang, and said, "Hey, Xiao Zhang, you see!"
Xiao Zhang grabbed the pen and asked happily, "Whose?"
"I brought it to you."
"Who brought it to me?"
"Guess what?"
"Teacher!"
"That's right!"
The "teacher" that Xiao Zhang is talking about here is Commander Xiao Hua. Four years ago, Commander Xiao Hua recuperated at Xiao Zhang's home and lived for two months. At that time, Xiao Zhang was only twelve or thirteen years old. As soon as Commander Xiao Hua was free, he taught him to read. In the past two months, the clever Xiao Zhang has learned more than a thousand words. Commander Xiao Hua left, but he did not miss any possible opportunity to help him, educate him, and encourage him, so Xiao Zhang had deep feelings for Commander Xiao Hua. Now, he stared at the pen, so happy that he couldn't close his mouth. ——
It can be seen that in "Duel", the leader of the Eighth Route Army who gave the pen to the little soldier is no longer the fictional Fang Yanbin in "The Book of the Great Knife", but Xiao Hua.
It can be seen that there has always been a clue to Xiao Hua's activities in the "Record of the Great Knife", and later, in another novel "Duel", which follows the development of the "Record of the Great Knife", the author finally refers to the commanders and fighters of the Eighth Route Army by name.
Therefore, it now seems that Xiao Hua's time in the Jilu Border Region was not a very long period of combat experience, and he hatched two novels, one is a long novel that shows Xiao Hua's achievements in opening up a base area in a panoramic way, "Jilu Chunqiu", and the other is the heroic legend "The Record of the Great Knife" burned by the revolutionary fire sown by Xiao Hua's troops.
According to Guo Clarification's son Guo Hongzhi's recollection: "After the official publication of the "Record of the Great Knife", General Xiao Hua once sent someone to Ningjin to find Guo Clarification, and after understanding some of the situation, he took away a copy of the "Record of the Great Knife", which made Guo Clarify's heart very unhappy, because after several deletions and corrections, there was no description of Xiao Hua in the book, and he did not know what General Xiao Hua would think after reading it. ”
This regret, in fact, Guo Clarifier made a limited compensation, which is to describe the deep friendship between Xiao Hua and the ordinary soldiers and civilians in the Jilu area in "Duel". A small fountain pen allows us to see the touching interaction between Xiao Hua, who is the commander, and ordinary soldiers, reflecting the essential attributes of the people's army.
In fact, if we understand Xiao Hua's experience, we will know that this founding general, who is called "General Poet", is very concerned about the cause of literature and art. In the process of publishing "Jilu Chunqiu", he has always been concerned about the writing process of the novel, and has established an extraordinary creative friendship with Zhang Chongtian, one of the authors, Xiao Hua has always hoped that Zhang Chongtian can create another novel about the "Long March", in the eighties, he was seriously ill, on the sickbed, he saw Zhang Chongtian, and also told him to write a huge work of the Long March.
This can also understand why Xiao Hua specially found the author and took away a copy of the "Record of the Great Knife" when the "Record of the Great Knife" was published.