In the mid-nineteenth century, the French writer Dumas wrote the novel La Traviata. In the novel, a tragic woman is forced to become a courtesan in order to survive, and spends her days selling laughter for a living. Because she often wears a camellia on her head, she is known as the Camellia Girl.
Gradually, the Traviata meets and falls in love with an aristocratic young man. But the gap between each other's identities is huge, and the love between them has been hindered a lot. In the end, the lovers turned against each other, and the end of the Traviata was also very tragic.
Ancient and modern, Chinese and foreign, the life of the singers and dancers at the bottom has always been very bumpy. In ancient China, there was a singer whose experience was very similar to that of Traviata, and she was Su Xiaoxiao, a famous trickster in Qiantang.
Born into a merchant family
For more than two hundred years before the Sui and Tang dynasties, Chinese history was divided and divided. Beginning in 420 AD, Liu Yu of the Eastern Jin Dynasty established the Southern Song Dynasty. The Xianbei also established the Northern Wei regime in the north. Since then, the south and the north have begun a long-term state of antagonism. The Southern and Northern Dynasties were also named after them.
At that time, not only were the regimes of the North and the South hostile to each other, but many such struggles took place within the respective regimes of the South and the North. In 479, Xiao Daocheng, a great general of the Southern Song Dynasty, usurped the throne, overthrew the Southern Song regime, and established the Southern Dynasty Qi regime.
Also in the year of the birth of the Southern Dynasty Qi regime, Su Xiaoxiao was born in a merchant family in Qiantang and was the only daughter of the family. Su Xiaoxiao's ancestor was an official during the Eastern Jin Dynasty. However, with the decline of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, the Su family also went into decline, and eventually fell from an official family to a merchant.
Under the influence of the idea of "emphasizing agriculture and suppressing business", the status of scholars, farmers, industrialists and merchants is different, and merchants are the lowest level. Therefore, although the Su family has a relatively solid family property because of their business and morality, they are rich and wealthy, but their status in the local area is not high.
Because she is the only daughter in the family, the Su family's parents are very fond of her. In order to let their daughter get rid of the restrictions brought about by the identity of the merchant, the su family's parents asked mr. Su to teach Su Xiaoxiaoqin, chess, calligraphy and painting, hoping to cultivate their daughter into a big girl.
In ancient times, the fifteenth and the 15th century. When a woman reaches the age of fifteen, it means that she has grown up and can marry. However, Su Xiaoxiao, who should have been happily waiting for the matchmaker to come to the door to propose to her, encountered a huge change in her life during this year: her parents both fell ill and died.
Both parents died and became kabuki
This change became a turning point in Su Xiaoxiao's life. The illness of her parents made her a lonely orphan girl. At that time, widows and orphan girls living alone would face many difficulties.
Therefore, in order to seek asylum, Su Xiaoxiao decided to sell the family property left by her parents and ran to her aunt's house with her nursing mother. The family property left by her parents is always limited, and in order to maintain her life, Su Xiaoxiao must find a way to earn money.
In the first fifteen years of her life, Su Xiaoxiao, who grew up in the favor of her parents, never did any housework. So she doesn't know how to do housework either. If you want to make money, you can only rely on performance talent. In the end, Su Xiaoxiao became a singer.
At that time, the status of merchants was low, and the status of kabuki was even lower. Men like to invite one or two tricksters to help when they drink and have fun. While these people appreciate the talents performed by the tricksters, they also look down on the tricks.
In such an environment, Su Xiaoxiao is a kabuki who is not respected, but she is very sober about what consequences she needs to bear because of her identity as a kabuki. She did not trust the rhetoric of others, she always had self-respect and self-love, and did not go with the flow.
Su Xiaoxiao's aunt's family lives on the bank of the Xiling Bridge in Qiantang, with beautiful scenery. Usually, when there is no invitation to perform, she always likes to sit in a fuel wall car and enjoy the beauty of the West Lake.
At that time, the celebrities of the West Lake gathered, the talents met the beautiful people, and the romantic love stories of mutual affection would always be staged from time to time. Su Xiaoxiao, who is versatile and beautiful-looking, has also become one of these beauties.
Meet the lover, the feelings are wrongly paid
One day, when Su Xiaoxiao was strolling around the West Lake in an oil wall car, he met a young boy named Ruan Yu. The two soon fell in love with each other and made a lifelong secret. This young man, Ruan Yu, was the son of an official in Jinling City.
Ruan Yu's father was very angry when he learned that his son was messing with Kabuki in Qiantang. After letting the man take his son home, he was no longer allowed to go to Qiantang. Originally, Ruan Yu had already promised Su Xiaoxiao that after returning home, he would let people come to propose to him and marry Su Xiaoxiao to go home.
However, Su Xiaoxiao, who was in Qiantang, never waited for the return of his lover, nor did he wait for the people who came to the Ruan family to propose relatives. She knew that the lover Ruan Yu would never come back, and her emotions were finally wrongly paid. After that, Su Xiaoxiao, who was seriously ill, regained her strength and continued her kabuki performance.
She suppressed her feelings for Ruan Yu in her heart and gradually resumed her former life. After that, she did not choke on food, nor did she dare to visit the West Lake where she met Ruan Yu. Even without Ruan Yu, she still lived a good life, living a life full of cars and horses, and was sought after and praised.
Although Su Xiaoxiao is a low-status singer, she always retains an arrogant bone and is unwilling to submit to authority. When a senior official hoped to invite Su Xiaoxiao to her home, she resolutely refused. Su Xiaoxiao's noble quality of "coming out of the mud without staining" has been praised by many people.
Red face and thin life
Although his own experience is bumpy, Su Xiaoxiao has always had a kind heart for others. One day, she took a gas wall car to play in the West Lake and saw a young man dressed in simple clothes and a melancholy look. Out of sympathy and pity, she stepped forward to inquire about the situation.
After inquiry, it was learned that the teenager's name was Bao Ren, and he was a reader, but because he was not entangled enough, he could not go to Beijing to catch the exam. In order not to let talented people miss the opportunity to take the exam, Su Xiaoxiao gave a part of his wealth to Bao Ren as a way to fund him to go to Beijing to take the exam.
Su Xiaoxiao's sponsorship of poor students soon spread in Qiantang. She was also admired by many readers. In the end, Bao Ren did not live up to Su Xiaoxiao's expectations and successfully obtained the meritorious name. However, when Bao Ren wanted to return to repay the favor, Su Xiaoxiao was already gone.
In the second year of Bao Ren's beijing exam, Su Xiaoxiao died of a serious illness. By the time Bao Renjin was inscribed and YiJin returned to his hometown, Su Xiaoxiao had already turned into a piece of yellow soil. Bao Ren wept bitterly in front of Su Xiaoxiao's grave and personally inscribed a monument for Su Xiaoxiao: The Tomb of Su Xiaoxiao in Qiantang.
Su Xiaoxiao, a legendary woman, although her life is only a short 19 years, her spirit has been passed down in Chinese history, influencing Chinese for more than 1500 years.
Although Su Xiaoxiao is a low-level woman in feudal society, her talent, her character, and her spirit have influenced countless Chinese, making countless talented literati admire her.