The Dream of the Red Chamber is a collection of masters in the novel, and its magic lies in its all-encompassing, known as an encyclopedia, which also establishes the author Cao Xueqin's position in the history of Chinese literature. In classical novels, the Dream of the Red Chamber is the most common one to describe foreign goods.
These foreign goods, there are many kinds, clothing fabrics have crepe, foreign brocade, foreign towels, foreign blankets, ocean tweeds, beeps, doraemons, chickadee, chinch gold clay, chickadee, snuff, snuff, yifu, food has wine, foreign sugar, luocha, foreign dogs and ducks and pigs.
According to the examination of Cao Xueqin's family lineage, it is recorded in the "Suiyuan Poetry" that "Cao Yin and his son (Xueqin) wrote a book on the dream of the Red Chamber, which is a record of the prosperity of the wind and moon", and some records of Cao Yin's history were found in other historical materials, and it is concluded that Cao Yin once served as a weaver in Jiangning.
Weaving was not a position in the official system at that time, but only a part-time difference. This official is not very high, most of them are the heads of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, or we can think of it this way, weaving is actually the emperor's personal slave, not a member of the imperial court. But because he could have direct contact with the supreme leader, he sometimes became the eyes and ears of the emperor.
At that time, the officials of the provinces, only the overseers could play things, and others did not have this treatment, only weaving could play solo. In the Ming and Qing dynasties, there were three weavings in Hangzhou, Jiangning weaving and Suzhou weaving. These weavings are of great significance in addition to the clothing and ornaments used to build the royal palace. In the existing literature, there is a lot of information about Cao Shi in the "Kangxi Zhu Commentary", Cao Xueqin's ancestors have such a family lineage, they have seen all kinds of scenes in their childhood, born in such a rich environment, naturally impressed in the mind, so we will see a lot of foreign objects and foreign goods in the dream of the Red Chamber.
So where did these foreign goods come from, and who brought them in? According to the original book, some foreign goods are foreign tributes, such as Siamese tea and Siamese pigs; Those who have subjects, such as wood incense and rose dew; There are those who buy from Jiangnan, such as self-propelled people and other foreign goods brought by Xue Pan.
Some studies believe that the Cao family served as a weaver in Jiangning for fifty-eight years, kangxi once went to Jiangnan six times, And Cao Yin took over four times, and these foreign goods were rewarded by the imperial court. But if it is a reward from the imperial court, the number is limited, how can it be that all the people in the Jia Family can enjoy it, especially the things given by the emperor, and they all have to be respected by the donors, how can it be allowed to pass casually? There are also several kinds of demarcation methods that indicate that Yatou Qingwen is familiar with the Western weaving and repair method, and compensates the peacock fur for Jia Baoyu's night, and the self-chiming bell in Jia Baoyu's room is often damaged and often needs to be repaired. Therefore, this court reward is untenable, and we will carefully analyze it according to the original text
In the original work, Wang Xifeng said that "our royal family prepared once (to take over), at that time my grandfather was in charge of the tribute and pilgrimage of various countries, and all foreigners came to feed our family, and all the foreign ship goods in Guangdong, Fujian, Yunnan, and Zhejiang were our family's", that is to say, the foreign supplies in the dream of the Red Chamber must be left in these foreign ship tributes. "When Wang Xifeng said that if foreigners come, they must be fed by our family" So it can be inferred that the royal palace once "fed" foreigners, and foreign goods were obtained by foreigners on ships. Then the same is true of Jia Fuzushang.
Historical records of trade in goods with foreigners during the Kangxi dynasty, in the "Pastoral Magazine" of the fifty-fourth year of Kangxi, recorded that "water wheels, chiming bells, microscopes, glasses, etc." from abroad, especially reading glasses, are "unprecedented in ancient times, no matter whether they are up and down, noble and low, men and women are unusable". This also shows that the foreign goods in Jia Province are not necessarily given by the imperial court, but are obtained from trade.
There are many kinds of foreign goods in the dream of the Red Chamber, and the use of food is different, since the government has received foreign cargo ships and foreign goods, but the foreign place names involved are only Western, Persian, daughter country, true country, Java country, especially the daughter country is Jia Baoyu's fabrication.
The encyclopedia of the Yangyang Grand View exposes the author's lack of geographical knowledge, which can only show once again that the Cao family was prosperous and declining. These items were handed down from the ancestors, Cao Xueqin had only seen them when she was a child, and when the family fell, she was deeply impressed when she thought about them again, as for those foreign cargo ships, those foreign merchants, he had not seen them, nor could he hear of them, and could only vaguely pass by.
This is when creating art, to have a sense of reality in life. Although Cao Xueqin had reached the point where "family porridge" was very poor when writing the Dream of the Red Chamber, he had a life of a magnate, and was very elaborate in the details of food, clothing, housing and transportation, as for foreign place names and foreigners because they had not experienced it, they could only be rougher, which was the same as gao osprey who read later, because there was no aristocratic life experience, and the things written out were inevitably rougher.