According to the 1938 Genealogy of Ai Xin Jue luo, hongshi died in August of the fifth year of Yongzheng. At this time, Cao Xueqin should only be more than twelve years old. If "The Book of Stones" is indeed written by Hiroshi, then during the period from his accident to his death, the teenage Cao Xueqin obviously did not have the opportunity to contact Hiroshi, nor did she become interested in Hiroshi's experience.
In this case, through what channel did cao Xueqin obtain these details that happened to Hongshi after becoming an adult? Could it be that the "Stone Record" left by Hiroshi alone can fully understand the truth of what happened in the harem that year? Can you fully understand the thoughts of a prince based on this? Can you adapt a 400,000-word "Dream of the Red Chamber" novel? This may sound like a bit of a fantasy.
As we mentioned earlier, in the manuscript of "Dream of the Red Chamber", there is a large number of annotations made by a person with a pen named Li Yanzhai with a red pen, and these annotations are also called "lipograms" or "fat criticisms". From these lipograms, people found that Li Yanzhai should be a person who is very familiar with the background and content of the creation of "Dream of the Red Chamber", and even Cao Xueqin herself.
However, who is Li Yanzhai and what kind of relationship he has with Cao Xueqin, so far the red academic circles have not formed a consensus, but it can be summarized into two categories: one category believes that Li Yanzhai and Cao Xueqin are the same person, that is, the author of "Dream of the Red Chamber"; the other class believes that he and Cao Xueqin are two people, and Fat Yanzhai is just a person who specifically helps people read "Dream of the Red Chamber" and comments on this.
The first to propose that Li Yanzhai was the author of "Dream of the Red Chamber" himself, or Mr. Hu Shi, the founder of the new red science. According to the fat batch of the twenty-second time of Gengchen Ben," "Sister Feng points out the play, Fat Yan writes things, and now knows very little, do not complain about the husband", Hu Shi believes that because Sister Feng is illiterate, she must write when she orders a play, and Jia Baoyu is the most qualified, so Fat Yan Zhai is Jia Baoyu. Therefore, Hu Shi wrote in his "Examination of the Dream of the Red Chamber": "Now that I have read this book, I believe that Li Yanzhai is the baoyu who loves to eat rouge, that is, Cao Xueqin himself. ...... Li Yan is just the stubborn stone that loves to eat rouge, and it is the author's name, which is not suspicious. ”
Judging from the three words "Fat Yan Zhai", the word "Fat Yan" is pronounced in reverse as "Yan Fat", that is, the harmonic "Rouge"; and the word "斋" can also take its consonant word "Debt", so the Fat Yan Zhai can be expressed as "Rouge Debt". This seems to be really an allusion to the "daughter debt" owed by Jia Baoyu in "Dream of the Red Chamber", and it also seems to allude to Hu Shi's "Fat Yan Zhai for the author".
However, in the first episode of the "Dream of the Red Chamber", there is also such a fat criticism: "Now and then I only wish that the Creator will produce another one parsley and one fat, which is the book He Xing." The two of them were also very happy to be in the Nine Springs. Moreover, in other large numbers of lipid batches, there have also been many occurrences of such language forms as "Yu Erren", "Book Writer", and "Book Critic", which expresses the boundary between the author of "Dream of the Red Chamber" and the book critic very clearly, obviously indicating that Cao Xueqin and Fat Yanzhai are two people, which makes it difficult to establish Hu Shi's "Fat Yanzhai for the Author".
However, there is a situation that can not only be consistent with Cao Xueqin and Fat Yan Fat are two people, but also make Hu Shi's "Fat Yan Zhai for the Author" established, which is the point I put forward: "Dream of the Red Chamber" and "Stone Record" are not the same book, "Dream of the Red Chamber" is adapted from the original "Stone Record", Cao Xueqin is only the author of the adapted work "Dream of the Red Chamber", and Fat Yan Zhai is both a critic of "Dream of the Red Chamber" and the author of the original "Stone Record".
In the three words "fat Yan Zhai", "fat" obviously refers to the rouge, representing red; "yan" of course refers to the stone platform, representing the stone. Therefore, "Fat Yan" is "Red Stone", which is the hard stone that was abandoned by Nuwa in the original "Stone Record", and it is also the third son of the emperor who was abandoned by Yongzheng and did not become an emperor. The meaning of "斋" is "斋斋", which represents the meaning of writing, so "Fat Yan Zhai" is actually "Hongshi Zhai", which means that it is written by Hongshi. It should be a pen name that the original author, Hongshi, gave himself as a critic of "Dream of the Red Chamber".
However, if the commentator Li Yanzhai is Hongshi, there is a very crucial problem that seems to be difficult to justify. That is, according to the "Genealogy of Ai Xin Jueluo" published in 1938, Hongshi died as early as August of the fifth year of Yongzheng, how could he have "re-evaluated the Stone Record" under the pseudonym Li Yanzhai during the later Qianlong period?
Therefore, if we insist that Li Yanzhai is the author of the Book of Stones, Then it is necessary to deny this record in the 1938 "Genealogy of Ai Xin Jueluo", that is, Hongshi did not die in the fifth year of Yongzheng.
Is this possible?
According to the "Notes on the Living of the Yongzheng Dynasty", on June 20, 2016, the Yongzheng Emperor issued an edict to the then Prince Of Zhuang Yunlu and the Prince of Guo, Yunli, and others:
...... Nineteen ancient and modern books are integrated into a cotton paper book, one dedicated to the Shouhuang Palace, nine of which are handed over to the General Manager of the Qianqing Palace to be furnished, and the other nine are arranged in the places where they should be furnished, and the other nine are prince Xiangyi, Prince Zhuang, Prince Guo, Prince Kang, Fuhui Ago, Zhang Tingyu, Jiang Tingxi, Ortai, and Yue Zhongqi. There are forty-five bamboo paper books, one for each of Prince Chengcheng, Prince Heng, Brother Xianfugong, Brother Yuanshou, Brother Tianshen, Li Tingyi, Shi Yizhi, Tian Wenjing, Kong Yuxun, Gao Qikun, Li Wei, Wang Guodong, Yang Wenqian, Zhu Gang, and Ji Zengjun, and the remaining thirty are stored.
Did you find anything unusual in Yongzheng's edict? That's right, there was a XianfuGong brother inside.
In this edict, a total of four brothers appeared, namely Fuhui Brother, Xianfu Gong Brother, Yuanshou Brother, and Tianshen Brother. Fu Hui, the son of nian, was not yet eight years old when the Yongzheng Emperor issued this edict in June of the sixth year of Yongzheng, but died of illness less than three months later. Brother Yuanshou and Brother Tianshen refer to Yongzheng's fourth son Hongli and Emperor's fifth son, Hongzhi, respectively.
However, according to all the surviving Qing historical sources, in June of the sixth year of Yongzheng, the only sons alive under the knees of the Yongzheng Emperor should be Hongli, Hongzhi and Fuhui. So who is the Brother of Xianfu Palace mentioned in this decree? And why are the other three brothers called by their milk names, but this Xianfu Gong brother is particularly special, not by the name of the milk but by the name of the palace in the palace?
It is evident from this decree that the status of the youngest of the brothers at that time was the highest. Because the rewards he and Prince Yi and others of the same higher status received were higher-grade cotton paper books, while the other three brothers were only rewarded with lower-grade bamboo paper books. However, we also saw that in the ranking of the next three brothers, the Xianfugong brother actually ranked ahead of Hongli and Hongzhi. Since the next three brothers were rewarded with bamboo paper books, the ranking order of the three brothers was obviously not ranked according to their status, but by age.
However, according to the Records of Emperor Zongxian of the Great Qing Dynasty and the Notes on the Living of the Yongzheng Dynasty, in addition to the three sons of the Yongzheng Emperor, Hongshi, who are not mentioned in the records and the Notes on Living, other Yongzheng princes who are older than Hongli and Hongzhi have already died more than twenty years ago, and it is obviously unlikely that one of them will "live" to come.
Therefore, based on the above original material information, I think that Yongzheng's fifth year was at the age of twenty-four, and it is unlikely that Hongshi, who was twenty-four years old, died for such an unknown reason, but it is more likely that at some time after June of the sixth year of Yongzheng, he agreed with his father Yongzheng on the matter of his incognito and his inscription on the Buddhist Gate. Since then, Hongshi has lived in seclusion in The Panshan Mountains, known as the "First Mountain of Jingdong", like Miao Yu in "Dream of the Red Chamber", with his hair practicing, first writing his autobiographical novel "Stone Record" as "Hard Stone", and then ridiculing "Stone Record" as a "love monk". Unfortunately, after its publication, the Book of Stones was soon banned by the imperial court.
Later, Cao Xueqin, who had been raiding the family for many years and had read the "Book of Stones", out of sympathy for the emperor's third son Hongshi and his love for this novel, went to Panshan many times to learn about the situation from his cousin, who was hidden in anonymity, and hoped that he would agree to adapt the "Book of Stones". After much deliberation, Hongshi finally agreed to Cao Xueqin's request, and also commented on the "Dream of the Red Chamber" adapted by his cousin in the name of Li Yanzhai .