Ren Tanghui killed Yang Liulang, and the difference between the two was a few red hairs
In Mr. Liu Lanfang's commentary "Yang Jia Jiang", there is a special character Ren Tanghui, who looks exactly like Yang Liulang, and the two often impersonate each other, leading to a series of stories.
In the book, ren Bingzitang Hui, a native of Zhaotong, Yunnan, his mother Hao and his wife Bai, his family has been good at soma for generations and has been selling livestock for a long time. Because he was saved by Yang Liulang, the two became allies, and Liu Lang also taught him the Yang family's marksmanship. Ren Tanghui finally lived up to his brotherly feelings and sacrificed his life at the critical moment.
Liu Lang sent Yunnan, and the traitor king forcibly took the head of another person when he preached the holy will. When Ren Tanghui learned of this, he deceived Yang Liulang's battle robe, which he had originally given to Liu Lang, and Liu Lang's wife, the Lord of Cheshire, embroidered a "Jing" character on the neckline to indicate that it was Liu Lang (Yang Jing's) clothes. After Ren Tanghui put on this robe, he falsely called Yang Liulang, and Wang Qiang cut off his head and returned to Beijing. Everyone in the dprk thought that Rokuro was dead when they saw the head, only Kou Zhun was alert, and he thought that Rokuro had quietly told him that Rokuro had a few red hairs on the top of his head, which was the only difference between him and Ren Tanghui. Kou Zhun pulled the bun of the man's hair, did not find the red hair, and understood that it was a fake Rokuro. After Ren Tang Hui's death, Yang Liu Lang had to sell livestock as Ren Tang Hui for a living, and did not tell the truth until the time of the big swing of the yak array.
The reason why Ren Tanghui sacrificed his life to save Yang Liulang, according to the account in the book, is that the two are like brothers and sisters in love, and the second is to let Liu Lang one day redo the Grand Marshal to defend the country after the grievances are revealed.
The story sounds very funny, but it is also obviously absurd and bizarre, and such a plot is impossible for a realistic work to appear. However, this is also the biggest feature of the book review, it is a half-truth and half-false myth! Only by penetrating the absurd superficial semantics can we touch its true meaning.
So, why did "Yang JiaJun" design a pair of characters like Tang Hui Yang Liulang who are like "twins"? Let's slowly uncover the truth.
Ren Tanghui in the Peking opera "Three Forks" and local music
Looking at the Ming Dynasty Xiong Damu's "Yang Family General Yanyi" and Qin Huai Moke's "Yang Family House Yanyi", none of them found the character of Ren Tanghui. In the Peking Opera "Three Forks", there is a character with the same name.
"Three Forks" is simply a representative play of Peking Opera martial arts, and many people remember the scene of two of the martial artists silently "touching the dark" to fight, but the causes and consequences of the story are not very clear. In fact, this is a play related to the story of "Yang Jiajun". The gist is that Jiao Zan broke into a catastrophe, and the King of Song was furious and sent him to Shamen Island. Yang Yanzhao sent his general Ren Tanghui to secretly protect Jiao Zan. When they reached the three forks, they took Jiao Zan to stay in a guest house, which was a black shop, and the owner Liu Lihua and his wife specially robbed and killed passing passengers. Ren Tanghui arrived and also entered the store to stay. In the middle of the night, Liu Lihua came to kill Ren Tanghui, and Ren Tanghui had already foreseen that the two of them would catch and fight each other in the dark. Later, Jiao Zan found out and also joined the battle, and at dawn, Ren Tanghui and Jiao Zan killed Liu Lihua and his wife.
(The scene later changed Liu Lihua to a positive character, and after dawn, the three found a misunderstanding, and everyone was happy.) The current performance of "Three Forks" is this new edition. ）
Most of the time in this scene seems to be a silent movie, two martial arts, one black and one white, one handsome and one ugly, silent fighting, all relying on actions and expressions. However, there is no mention in "Three Forks" that Ren Tanghui and Yang Liulang are similar in image.
In some folk songs such as Henan Pendant and Duo Ren Zhuan, there is a plot in which Ren Tanghui and Yang Liulang look the same and generously die, which is roughly similar to the plot of Liu Lanfang's commentary.
Ren Tanghui and Yang Liulang look exactly the same, and this plot similar to the "twin" relationship is actually widely present in ancient and modern Chinese and foreign literature and drama.
The "twin terrier" is widely used in literary drama
The characters in the story have a twin brother (sister), or the two are just the same for no reason, so the two identities become stand-ins for each other, causing a series of misunderstandings and contradictions, which is a common technique in literary drama throughout the ages. This article refers to this creative technique as "twin imagery" (in layman's terms, "twin terriers").
For example, Jia Baoyu in "Dream of the Red Chamber" has a contrasting character "Zhen Baoyu" who is exactly the same as his image; the plots of "true and false Li Kui" and "true and false Song Jiang" appear in "Water Margin"; "true and false Wukong" and "true and false Tang monks" in "Journey to the West"; and the plot of "true and false Jiang Wei" in "Romance of the Three Kingdoms".
Looking at Western literary and artistic works, in the legendary novel "The Three Musketeers" by Dumas of France, Philippe, the twin brother of Louis XIV, was arranged to sit on the throne, and Louis XIV was imprisoned in the Bastille. In fact, this is not exactly Dumas's original, his novel absorbs the folk stories about the Iron Mask and the Twins.
The "twin terriers" of Western literary and artistic works can be traced back to the ancient Roman playwright Platos (254-184 BC) 's twin brothers'. The synopsis goes like this, the merchant Siculus gave birth to a pair of twin sons, one of whom was lost. Later, the children at home went to find their brothers and made a lot of misunderstandings and jokes in a foreign country. Eventually, the brothers recognized each other.
"Twins" began a precedent for misunderstanding comedy, that is, because of the misidentification of identity and triggered various jokes.
In the 16th century, Shakespeare created the Comedy of Errors on the basis of this play, and the plot has many similarities with the previous work, but it is richer and more lively. There are two pairs of twins in the play, the two masters are twins, and their two servants are also twins, and after misalignment of each other, you can imagine how many misunderstandings and jokes will be made.
"Twin Terrier" creates a dramatic conflict, not only because the external image of the characters is surprisingly consistent, but more importantly, the strong contrast between the characters. Two people with exactly the same image are very different in many aspects such as personality, identity, words and deeds, etc. This also shows that the real meaning of the "twin stem" is to create a binary antagonistic relationship, which can be used to allude to natural counterpoint concepts such as good and evil, good and evil, poor and rich, honor and inferiority.
The two protagonists in Jin Yong's novel "Chivalrous Journey", Shi Baotian and Shi Zhongyu, have exactly the same appearance, but they are one good and one evil. The novel not only uses various plots to highlight the inherent contrast between the two, but also creates this counterpoint relationship in details. For example, the parents of the two, Shi Qing and Min Rou, wear a black and a white dress, and the place where they live is called Xuan Su Zhuang, which is also known as Black and White Zhuang. Even the horses they ride are particularly interesting:
These two horses are very strange in shape. One horse is black hair from beginning to end, but the four hooves are white, the famous foal of 'dark clouds covered with snow'; the other four hooves are black, the whole body is white, and the horse is called 'black-hoofed jade rabbit' in the horse's score...
Two horses, one black and one white, are not counted, the black four hooves are white, and the white four hooves are black, which clearly symbolizes "you have me, I have you".
It can be seen that the "twin terriers" in literary drama not only reflect the binary concept of black and white, but also pay more attention to the relationship between the two counterpoint concepts that blend and reflect each other.
For example, in the Jackie Chan movie Double Dragon Society, there is such a pair of twin brothers, one is a small in the society, and the other is a music conductor in the upper society. When the identities of the two brothers are confused, the masculine and uninhibited arrogance of the little bastard impresses the conductor's girlfriend, and the conductor's elegant demeanor makes the girl that the little has been pursuing especially like. Although this is a commercial film, it is quite successful in using the method of misunderstanding comedy, that is, laughing at the misidentification of identity. At the same time, it also skillfully incorporates the literary concepts of duality and intermingling into it, which makes the film suddenly add a philosophical connotation that is not easy to be detected.
Poster of "Double Dragon Society"
Regarding the application of "twin terriers" in literary works, Jin Yong also specifically expressed his views in the afterword to his book "Chivalrous Journey":
Because of the similarity of the appearance of the two people, which caused all kinds of misunderstandings, this ancient legend must not become a solid structure of the novel. Although Shakespeare has repeatedly used the themes of twin brothers and twin sisters, none of those works are his best plays.
Obviously, this comment has a low evaluation of the "twin terrier", which contains a little humility. In fact, for modern readers, the biggest flaw of the "twin terrier" may be that it is difficult to come up with new ones and easy to fall into clichés.
When the novelist is still agonizing over the difficulty of innovating the "twin terrier", it has already been "second spring" in film and television works, after all, it is an excellent material that allows the actor's acting skills to be fully utilized. The once-popular and widely acclaimed web drama "White Night Pursuit" is a very successful example of the application of "twin terriers". Perhaps most netizens are not clear when they are fascinated by it, and this storytelling technique has continued from distant antiquity to the present. I believe that such an excellent "stem" as the "twin terrier" will be "hot" for a long time, and it will continue to renovate the pattern.
"White Night Pursuit"
"Twin Terrier" is used in many places in "Yang Jiajian" to interpret the theme of "full loyalty and full righteousness"
After understanding the ins and outs of the "twin terriers", and then looking at the relationship between the Yang family's general Zhongren Tanghui and Yang Liulang, there may be new gains.
Although there are no obvious twin-shaped characters in the Beijing opera "Three Forks", it actually implies that there is still such a pair of characters. Ren Tanghui and Liu Lihua are black and white, ugly and handsome, one good and one evil, which is actually a counterpoint relationship. The two fight each other in the dark, which is a metaphor for the indistinguishable between true and false, and between good and evil. In the end, good triumphed over evil, and the praise of the loyal and upright Yang family general was completed.
It seems that Ren Tanghui always has the functional meaning of "twin" in the Yang family's story.
The images of Ren and Yang are completely identical, but the identities are hugely different. One is noble and one is humble. In the commentary, after Ren Tanghui replaced marshal Yang Liulang to die, Yang Liulang committed himself to becoming a cattle dealer, and finally put down the yak array as a humble identity of "livestock dealer", breaking the Liao army, thus successfully "transforming" and returning to the identity of the marshal. In this process of constant replacement, "marshals" and "commoners" become you have me and I have you.
Isn't this the way the "twin terrier" is commonly expressed in literary drama?
In fact, if you think about it carefully, the "twins" in the story of "Yang Jiajun" are not only Yang Liulang and Ren Tanghui, but also two pairs, namely Yang Dalang and Emperor Taizong of Song, Yang Erlang and Zhao Defang, the Eight Sages. Because they have similar images to each other, at the critical moment, there is a big drama of "dying in place".
Remember the famous Battle of Golden Beach? The Liao army set up a feast at the Golden Beach and invited Song Taizong and Zhao Defang, the King of the Eight Sages, to the banquet, but in fact, they secretly set up an ambush to wipe out the Song Dynasty's monarchs. At the time of crisis, Yang Dalang disguised himself as the King of Song, Yang Erlang disguised himself as the King of the Eight Sages, and the rest of the Yang family's sons and daughters disguised themselves as courtiers and generals. After a fierce battle, the Yang family's Seven Langs and Eight Tigers died in battle, and the scattered were scattered, and Yang Laolinggong died under the Li Ling Monument, staging a heroic drama that swept away.
There was a catchy slip of the tongue to sum up this story:
Da Lang died in place of king Song, Erlang replaced Zhao Defang, Sanlang horse stepped like mud, Shilang Balang fell to Fanbang, Wulang became a monk, Qilang shot a random arrow on the high pole, one hundred single three arrows, seventy-two hearts were cold, Li Ling's monument met and killed Yang Lao, and only Liu Lang sat firmly in the Chinese military tent.
If the "twins" of Ren Tanghui and Yang Liulang embody a relationship of inferiority and respect, then isn't Yang Dalang and Yang Erlang the same relationship between respect and inferiority for the King of Song and the Eight Sages? It turns out that these twin relationships are all substitutes for His Holiness by the lowly.
Ren Tanghui died for Yang Liulang, which meant the righteousness between friends and the loyalty of the soldiers to the generals; and the death of the Yang family in the form of the emperor meant that the courtiers were loyal to the monarch and the country. (We don't have to be harsh, such a loyal idea is the most respected value of the ancients.) In such a relationship, there is no absolute boundary between honor and inferiority, and the king treats his subjects with courtesy and his subjects with loyalty. Work together from top to bottom, and fight with the enemy.
It turns out that the Yang family's repeated "twin terriers" and "stand-in to death" plots in the story are a different interpretation of the belief in "full loyalty and full righteousness"!