It is said that "the strong Han flourished in the Tang Dynasty, and the rich Song Dynasty was strong and bright", and the indomitable twists and turns of the Ming Dynasty were also among the best among the various dynasties in ancient mainland China. Otherwise, in the more than two hundred years that the Qing Dynasty ruled the Central Plains, there would not always be people clamoring to "oppose the Qing Dynasty and restore the Ming Dynasty".
But as the saying goes, the method of destroying a dynasty often comes not from external aggression, but from internal corruption. The Ming Dynasty, which in the early days of its establishment, preached Wang Yangming's "Knowledge of Qualities and Things", but somehow went farther and farther down the road of male and female eroticism, until the entire dynasty became the dust of history and did not wake up from the sound and color of dogs and horses.
Take the "Four Strange Books of the Ming Dynasty" as an example, and the "Golden Plum Bottle", which is still famous today, is the leading work of the "erotic novel" in that period. Of course, from our current perspective, "Jin Ping Mei" is just a book cloaked in the skin of a "erotic novel", but in fact it is a satirical novel about how dark the middle and late Ming Dynasty was.
However, in addition to "Jin Ping Mei", there are also books such as "The Interesting History of Zhaoyang", "The Sea of Monks and Nuns", "The History of Zhu lin ye" and other books that are completely "erotic novels" circulating in the folk.
The circulation of these "erotic love novels" can be said to be the best satire on Wang Yangming's psychology in the same period.
As a dynasty where Wang Yangming's mind was flourishing, the Ming Dynasty, in the early days of its establishment, can be said to have done the best in everything it could. Both officials and ordinary people perform their duties and live in peace and prosperity. Although after Zhu Yuanzhang's death, the Ming Dynasty broke out another four-year "Battle of Jingnan", but after the end of the war, Zhu Di, known as the "Yongle Emperor", still restored the people's livelihood to the level of the Hongwu period in the shortest time.
It is said that after the material life is satisfied, people will begin to pursue spiritual satisfaction. Coupled with the imperial examination system used by the Ming Dynasty, there are more and more readers in the world, and the whole world is showing a thriving atmosphere. Wang Yangming's mind science also became the most sought after Confucian doctrine in the entire Ming Dynasty at this time.
Although from the perspective of the development of psychology, there are still some theoretical meanings of "preserving heavenly reason and destroying human desires", but as far as the actual situation of mind science is concerned, the requirements for people are far lower than the requirements of science for people. In Wang Yangming's own words, it is actually the eight big characters of "storing good to eliminate evil, and knowing things from things".
The emergence of the Ming Dynasty's "erotic novels" seems to be precisely because of the development of Yangming Xinxue. Since the appearance of the first "History of Zhaoyang Fun", arguments that are incompatible with or even the opposite of the Heart Study Sutra have begun to appear frequently. Especially after the Wanli Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, the entire Ming Dynasty almost put Yang Mingxin on the shelf as a means for the literati and scholars to cover their faces.
For example, in that period, the literati's pursuit of "wind and currents" had been seriously influenced by the folk "erotic novels".
During the Tang and Song dynasties, the literati were not happy in their hearts, or when their careers were not smooth, or they went directly to climb the mountain. For example, Su Shi, a great scholar of the Song Dynasty, after being degraded several times, always borrowed the way of sightseeing to explain himself. The famous "left lead yellow, right Qingcang" is not what happened after Su Shi was degraded in order to relax himself.
Of course, in the late Ming Dynasty, the methods of those literati who explained themselves did not depart from these, but at this time, the literati would always add a step to it--the trick.
Tricks, toys too. What the so-called prostitutes refer to, we should be able to know in our hearts. The prostitutes mentioned here do not mean drinking and listening to music, but between naked men and women. For example, Yuan Hongdao, a famous literary scholar of the Ming Dynasty, was a person who regarded prostitutes as one of the "five pleasures of life". In his "Book with Mr. Gong Weichang", he regarded the behavior of fox prostitutes as the same level of pursuit as food and beauty.
In addition to the famous literary heroes like Yuan Hongdao, many other Ming Dynasty literati thoughts were not much different from Yuan Hongdao. Opera artists such as Chishui Jushi were infected with syphilis because of the prostitutes, and eventually they could only die of depression.
In fact, when it comes to the prostitute behavior that was popular in the literati class during this period, it can actually be explained from history. Because in the middle and late period of the Ming Dynasty, ordinary literati basically went back to the passage of ascension, and could only be reduced to the lowest level of officials, and some even worked in vain for a lifetime, and they did not necessarily pass out an official and a half-post when they died.
In this case, the minds of the literati gradually changed. Coupled with the requirements made by Yang Mingxin to the literati class, it further deepened the rebellious psychology of the literati's ordinary life. Therefore, under this double pressure, the "erotic novel" replaced the sage classics and went from books to the lives of literati.
Why was the Ming Dynasty "erotic novel" very popular, not to say that it is necessary to "know about the characters"?
Why did the Ming Dynasty have so many "erotic novels"? Maybe it has to do with stress