Feng Menglong, a famous literary scholar of the Ming Dynasty, wrote "Chronicles of the States of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty", and the opening poem "Xijiangyue, Daode three emperors and five emperors", summarizing the changes brought about by the change of dynasties from the ancient era to the pre-Qin period, and wrote about the vicissitudes of the sea and the mulberry fields for five thousand years.
The language of this song is naturally fluent, imposing, and the syllables are sonorous, and it is helpless not to sign the author's real name - Yang Shen. This word comes from a popular history book by Yang Shen, the head of the three great talents of the Ming Dynasty, and was later changed to "Twenty-one Historical Bullet Words".
Feng Menglong", of course, is not for the sake of "plundering the beauty of people". Only because this song was well known in the Ming and Qing dynasties. However, with the passage of time, the "bullet word" has disappeared into the long river of history.
Later generations want to read these "nostalgic words" of Yang Shen, but they should look for them in the works of Feng Menglong and Mao Zonggang. So, Why did Mao Chonggang comment on the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and Feng Menglong write the "Chronicle of the States of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty", why do they like to quote Yang Shen's "nostalgic words"?
Below, let's use this song "Xi Jiang Yue Dao Dao Three Emperors and Five Emperors" to roughly analyze the fundamental reason why Yang Shen's lyrics are popular!
Appreciation of "Xi Jiang Yue, DaoDe Three Emperors and Five Emperors"
"Xi Jiang Yue, Daode Three Emperors and Five Emperors" - Ming Yang Shen
The Three Emperors and Five Emperors of Daode, with the name of Xia Hou Shang Zhou. The five hegemons and seven heroes were in the Spring and Autumn, and Qin Hanxing died.
Qingshi has several lines of names and surnames, and countless barren hills in the north. The former people collected the fields and the later people, saying that the dragons fought for the tigers.
Yang Shen's "Huai Gu Zi" is written in the Ming Dynasty vernacular, and the words and sentences are very popular, and people today can read and understand them without translation. But in order to take care of some friends who are not familiar with ancient words, here is a simple translation, followed by a little comment explanation.
Morally high, like the Three Emperors and Five Emperors in ancient times, the merits are grand, comparable to the founding kings of the Xia, Shang, and Three Dynasties. Once the dynasty "collapsed and was happy", the Spring and Autumn Five Hegemons and the Warring States Seven Heroes appeared one after another, disrupting the Spring and Autumn Period of history.
The Qin Dynasty was so powerful, but within a dozen years, it became the Han Dynasty. Qingshi left only a few lines of names, but on the North Mountain, countless lonely graves were buried. The country laid by the predecessors has let the future generations take advantage. What does it mean to say that the dragon fights the tiger?
This poem is written in the fourth paragraph of Yang Shen's "Twenty-one Historical Bullet Words", "Speaking of Three Points and Two Jin", which talks about the history of the Three Kingdoms to the Two Jins. The words say that the wise lords of the past and the present, on the morals, who can match the three emperors and five emperors.
The Three Emperors and Five Emperors refer to the most perfect monarch image in ancient mythology, including Fuxi, Shennong, and Nuwa. In addition to this group of people, when it comes to the great deeds established by the emperors, it is necessary to count the founding monarchs of the Xia, Shang, and Three Dynasties.
Some netizens believe that "Xia Hou" here refers to "after the Xia Dynasty", in fact, the monarch of the Xia Dynasty is called "Xia Hou Clan". The Zhou Dynasty was later divided into two periods, the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, and slowly came to the era of what Confucius called "the collapse of ceremonies and the destruction of happiness".
The ruling order of the country was destroyed, and the Spring and Autumn Five Hegemons and the Warring States Seven Heroes rose up one after another. The "Spring and Autumn" in the "Five Hegemons and Seven Heroes in the Spring and Autumn Period" does not refer to the Spring and Autumn Period, but borrows Confucius's "Spring and Autumn" as a synonym for history.
Because of the "collapse of the lid and the bad", the times have undergone tremendous changes, and history has gradually entered a period of competition for hegemony. When the times create heroes, you see that "everyone is vigorous, and everyone is disturbed and hurried."
The King of Qin swept through Liuhe, but it was only fifteen years, and as a result, the world changed its surname to Liu. The time came to the end of the Han Dynasty, which was the era of the Three Kingdoms. Wei, Shu and Wu talents are born.
There were not only the Ming lords Cao Cao, Liu Bei, and Sun Quan, but also the sages Xun Yu, Pang Tong, Zhuge Liang, Lu Su, Lu Xun, etc., as well as Guan Yu, Zhao Yun, Zhou Yu, Tai Shi Ci, and so on, and there were countless famous generals.
However, how many talents in history have finally turned into isolated graves on the North Mountain? How many people can leave their names in the history of Youth?
Beiqi is a mountain outside Luoyang City, which is a famous mass burial site in ancient times. Many of the failed emperors in history were buried there after their deaths.
The last two sentences of the word, "The predecessors cultivated and the people reaped, saying that the dragons fought and the tiger fought", which means "the three families return to Jin". The theme of this chapter "Say three points and two promotions" was clicked.
Speaking of which, I don't know if there are any careful friends to find. This poem actually includes Yang Shen's evaluation of the "Three Kingdoms Return to Jin", the Jin State Sima Clan.
After the three families returned to the Jin Dynasty, because of the incompetence of the Sima clan in the Jin Dynasty, it caused the "southern crossing of the crown", so the world often scolded the Sima family for its lack of character and ability.
But Yang Shen believes that the rise and fall of a dynasty is a natural law. Even if Sima Shi was as wise as the Three Emperors and Five Emperors, and their abilities were equivalent to those of the founding monarchs of the Xia, Shang, and Three Dynasties, they could not change the laws of history.
So Yang Shen once again lamented that the heroes of Haojie who fought and won in history did not realize the reasoning earlier. They were constantly fighting, killing corpses and mountains of blood, and stirring up the earth.
But in the end, the vast majority of them did not even have the opportunity to leave their names in the history books. In the end, he could only be buried on the mass burial hill in the North Mountain, accompanied by wind and smoke, and became a lone ghost.
All of Yang Shen's "nostalgic words" have a very significant feature, that is, they carry a very "yuanqu" style. Rhyming is one rhyme to the end and catchy to read. The use of historical allusions is also easy to understand.
The words contain both Taoist thought and distinctly personal emotional overtones. Yuanqu rhymes are often not divided into equals, because of the great fusion of north-south history, as well as the "three schools of chinese", later people gradually did not recognize ping.
Yuanqu was created to take care of the people at the bottom of society, and a large number of colloquial languages were used, which made people feel very kind. Yang Shen once wrote a literary theory book called "Words and Phrases", in which he mentioned:
Zen is the theory of desperation, and the reason why desire is hot; The Taoists have the theory of forgetting emotions, and the reason why emotions are beneficial is that they are wandering.
Therefore, Yang Shen believes that it is not advisable to be as completely desperate as the Zen and Taoists. Thus we see that his "nostalgic words", although with obvious Taoist ideas, also have a deep sympathy for the heroes.
In addition, Yang Shen also mentioned in his "Words" that if someone uses the allusions of the predecessors, "the reader does not know its origin and does not see its work", which will affect the appreciation of the word.
Therefore, Yang Shen especially admired some of the pre-pronouns of "good word meaning". Fill in the words yourself, and don't shy away from slang. Therefore, when writing popular history books, he will deliberately use some simple and easy to understand allusions and clear language.
Yang Shen's approach has obviously expanded the audience of his lyrics. Feng Menglong, Mao Zonggang and other literati could read the allusions and naturally applauded him.
Even those who do not know these historical allusions can appreciate the general meaning of the words and be moved by the sonorous and tragic style in them.
There are people who do not know what "Xiahou" is, and after reading it, they can also know that "Shang Zhou after Xia" is probably referring to three generations of emperors; some people who do not know "Beiqiu" can also guess that they are referring to the lonely grave of the loser when they see the "Desolate Hill".
Because of the use of vernacular slang, and a rhyme to the end, the work is catchy to read, the sense of rhythm is very strong, so everyone loves to read.
In one poem, there are both the favorite topics of historical rise and fall of the Chinese people, the philosophy of life that ordinary people can accept, and the great sympathy for the "obsessive" people in history, and it is difficult to succeed.
epilogue
It is said that Yang Shen was the first celebrity in the Ming Dynasty literature to carry out "popularization of literature". His "nostalgic words", with its majestic pattern and high pitched tone, were praised by Song Fengxiang in the Qing Dynasty as "the word carries the wind and frost, and the tone is sonorous and golden stone".
Because of this way of creating words and words, it has been a great success, and Yang Shen's works have been adapted into bullet words. His lyrics at the beginning and end of the volume were quoted into legendary novels, which directly affected the creation of bullet words and classical novels in later generations.
Since then, the beginning of the classical Chapter Hui novel will always quote someone's "Linjiang Immortal", or "Xijiang Yue". This custom has continued from the Ming Dynasty to the present.
When martial arts novels arose, Liang Yusheng created works such as "Ping Trace Hero Video", and each chapter would also fill in the words himself. Although Jin Yong is not good at filling in words, he will also write the chapter back table of contents like ancient poems.