Many people in modern times have the impression that the jianghu has been influenced by many popular martial arts novels, believing that there are many chivalrous, enmity, black and white, good and evil and other factors.
But in fact, these are basically fictional stories, and the real jianghu is more complicated and more real. It is so real that the rivers and lakes of different eras have different appearances.
The jianghu in wuxia novels is closer to the pre-Qin period
In modern popular martial arts novels, the jianghu they portray often highlight a chivalrous feeling of happiness and revenge, and the most important element lies in the word "en-vendetta". Whether it is the mode of confrontation between good and evil, or the process of the protagonist's growth, there is no "enmity" or no jianghu.
This feature is particularly similar to the jianghu environment of the pre-Qin era. Gong Zizhen felt a sense of emotion when reading Tao Yuanming's poems, and wrote in a "Miscellaneous Poems of Self-Hai":
"Tao Qianshixi said Jing Ke,
I want to see The Cloud Ofs.
Groaning to the heart of vengeance,
There are not many jianghu heroes. ”
The warring states period figure Jing Ke mentioned in the poem is the representative of the jianghu chivalrous guests at that time, and the story of "Tian Guang's neck recommending Jingke" can be called a model of the jianghu people's behavior at that time.
Tian Guang was a warrior of the Yan Kingdom who refused to be an official, but made many friends, including the Yan State Taifu Juwu, and later through Ju Wu's introduction, he became acquainted with Prince Dan of Yan. It happened that Prince Dan was looking for a warrior for the "Hedgehog Qin" project, and Tian Guang recommended his best friend Jing Ke.
Prince Dan of Yan may not be too familiar with the temperament of these chivalrous guests, and when he and Tian Guang are separated, they advise him not to divulge the matter. Tian Guang saw Jing Ke and obtained his consent to fulfill his promise to Prince Dan. However, he believes that the reason why Prince Dan told him not to leak secrets is because he does not trust himself in his heart, so he draws his sword and kills himself, taking action to prove to Prince Dan that he abides by his credibility.
A similar story happened twice in Wu Zixu.
Wu Zixu was hunted down and killed by the State of Chu and rescued by a fisherman at a ferry port. Worried about his whereabouts being revealed, he untied the seven-star sword from his waist and gave it to him to lure him. When the fisherman saw this, he immediately slashed himself with a sword to show his credibility.
Another time, Wu Zixu was starved and cold on the way to being hunted down and killed by the Chu State, and was rescued by a Huan Sha woman and given him food. When Wu Zixu was parting, he asked Huan Shanu to keep his whereabouts secret, and this woman threw stones into the river to dispel Wu Zixu's concerns with death.
Judging from these stories or records that have been handed down, "emphasizing righteousness over life" in the pre-Qin era was not only the character of the scholar class, but even among the people at the bottom, there was no lack of chivalry.
But what is different is that the jianghu of this era is not lawless, and the jianghu people will also be bound by the laws of various countries, but they are willing to bear the corresponding consequences while they are happy to take revenge.
For example, when Jing Ke went to Qin, he had the heart of death; Nie Zheng also self-destructed his face after the assassination, gouging out his eyes and cutting his abdomen; after specializing in stabbing, he was cut into meat sauce; Yu Rang was inspired by the great righteousness and died before completing the assassination.
Unlike martial arts novels, these jianghu heroes do not walk the rivers and lakes all day, they also have their own lives. The composition of these people is very complex, a considerable number of them are large landowners and some are patrons who are attached to the landlords, and some are just farmers who cultivate themselves or craftsmen who sell some goods, but in fact, most of them are just relatively ordinary people.
The reason why these people are limited to the pre-Qin period is because their disappearance is directly related to Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty.
There were some powerful groups among the heroes, which seriously affected social stability in the early Han Dynasty. Not only did they encroach on land, but they often committed adultery, and even colluded with the ministers of the DPRK and China. After Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty built Maoling, in order to combat this group, he ordered them to be relocated to the Maoling area. Among them, the heroic hero Guo Xie found Wei Qing and others to intercede, but Emperor Wu of Han did not agree, but was angry that a cloth cloth could make the imperial court important ministers speak for him. Later, he saw that Guo Xie and others had a very high reputation in the jianghu and violated the law and discipline, so they exterminated them.
Since then, the ranger Haojie group of the pre-Qin era has disappeared, replaced by another more pyrotechnic jianghu.
The real rivers and lakes are embedded in the rich pyrotechnic atmosphere
What the real jianghu of ancient times was like, the details of which can actually be glimpsed from various literary works of chronicle and narrative. It is not the kind of chivalrous group that is high up in it, but one ordinary person after another who is both ordinary and respectable.
Although rangers, haojie, etc. have lost their legal status, the chivalrous spirit and the bloodiness of fighting fiercely in these groups have not been lost, but have scattered into a wider group.
Friends who have read "Water Margin" should remember that many of the good people in Liangshan had legitimate occupations before they fell into the grass. For example, Song Jiang is a small official in Yuncheng, Zhang Shun is a fisherman in the water, Dai Zong is a messenger in the state capital, and the Ruan brothers are fishermen in the village... These people included almost all aspects of all levels of society at that time, and the "good men in the green forest" were just their common identity after entering the rivers and lakes.
At this stage, the rivers and lakes and the temple are truly separated, although the two have cooperated from time to time, but in the end it is no longer a "mixed" state.
Just like the "chivalrous" theme works in classical novels, such as the "Seven Heroes and Five Righteousness" and other plain novels, although Zhan Zhao, Ouyang Chun and other jianghu people have cooperation with Bao Zheng and other officials, and even the relationship between the upper and lower levels, they are not completely all the way. Remarks such as "every time there are more slaughtered dogs in battle, more negative hearts are readers" have drawn a clear line between "rivers and lakes" and "temples".
This is completely different from the pre-Qin period, which also leads to many later works are shaping folk heroes, chivalrous characters, even those "head-hunting and cracking" legends, the focus of their plots is often in their jianghu adventure stories.
As an extremely popular theme in modern times, wuxia novels can indeed show some of the appearance of martial arts rivers and lakes, but they also have great limitations. It has a serious fictional component, which has caused many readers to have a cognitive bias in the field of "jianghu", and there is also an omission of other forms of "jianghu". And these more ordinary and trivial jianghu chivalry are expressed in novels such as "worldly feelings" and "romance".
In his famous work "Laughing Causes", the modern popular novelist Zhang Hexhui created a pair of jianghu father and daughter figures, namely Guan Shoufeng and Guan Xiugu. These two people are actually martial artists who sell art on the street for a living, do not have too high culture, do not understand any big truth, dress sloppily, live on a shoestring, and do not even have money to see a doctor.
However, it is such a pair of fathers and daughters, after being rescued by Fan Jiashu, they showed their chivalry as jianghu people, rescued Fan Jiashu from danger many times, and even risked risks to practice the righteousness of "repaying the fountain of dripping water" to the end.
This type of chivalrous guest represented by Guan Shoufeng and Guan Xiugu is undoubtedly a more real portrayal of the jianghu at that time, which is in the same line with the jianghu in ancient society, and is fundamentally different from the glamorous chivalrous guests who walk in chivalry and righteousness all day long in martial arts novels, and they are more authentic and have more pyrotechnics.
This also means that the "jianghu" has never been independent, it may have little to do with the "temple", but it is integrated with real life, after all, the "jianghu" is also composed of all kinds of ordinary people.
With the development of the economy, the social division of labor has become more and more meticulous, and in many fields there will be some unwritten rules, which are what we think of today as "jianghu rules". These "rules" Mr. Guo Degang introduced a lot in recent years, after all, their cross-talk industry itself is mixed in the rivers and lakes, whether it is recorded or verbally retained rules, are part of the rivers and lakes.
Like the rules of all walks of life, there are also some "hidden words" in many industries, and people who are not in this industry may not be able to touch or understand. For example, the following words:
"Flat head, air worker, Yokogawa, side eye, lack of ugliness, broken big, soap bottom, split head, unmaru, Tian Xin."
Many people may not know what they mean at first glance, but in fact, this is the "one, two, three... Ten" is synonymous with it. Different times and different industries have different descriptions of the same thing, which are varied and interesting.
Therefore, this is also a "jianghu", there are not so many swords and light sword shadows, the reason why it is mysterious, only because modern people do not understand it, after all, people are always full of curiosity about the unknown field.
As the saying goes, the real jianghu is human, not fighting, killing. Although it is desirable to be happy and vengeful, the essence of the jianghu is still to constitute the various people and their own ways of life in this world.