On February 27, 2022, Qunxue College, together with the Plum Garden Classics Co-reading Group and Sichuan Literature and Art Publishing House, held the first co-reading salon of the Chinese New Year. Under the leadership of Teacher Zhong Siyuan of Shangluo College and Teacher Zhang Deqiang of Nanjing Academy of the Arts, readers will set their sights on the beautiful Western Sichuan Plain, using Li Jieren's "Backwater Breeze" as an anchor to feel the unique waves stirred up by Chengdu's straightforward and fiery urban character in a pool of backwater at the end of China's imperial society.
This article is a summary of the forum, compiled by Wu Xinxin, a volunteer of the Plum Garden Classics Co-reading Group.
Minutes of the online reading sharing meeting of "Backwater Breeze"
Text | Wu Xinxin
Figure | Old photograph of Chengdu by Luo Lin Zhang Bolin in 1909
After the "Great River Trilogy" ("Backwater Breeze", "Before the Storm", "Big Wave") came out, it immediately became the masterpiece of literary master Li Jieren. Set against the backdrop of three major historical events in China's modern history, the novel series writes a humanistic picture of Western Sichuan under the political turmoil of modern China. The three symbolic titles correspond in turn to the Social Changes in China caused by the Yihe Fist Movement, the Restoration and Reform Movement, the Sichuan Baolu Movement, and the Xinhai Revolution.
Three famous figures in the history of modern and contemporary Chinese literature have given Li Jieren a very high evaluation of his works. Guo Moruo enthusiastically wrote the article "China's Zola Waiting to See", praising Li Jieren as "China's Zola". Ba Jin wrote in the guestbook of Li Jieren's former residence: "Only he (Li Jieren) is the historian of Chengdu, and the past Chengdu lives in his pen." Literary critic Liu Zaifu said: "In the history of modern Chinese novels, if "A Q Zheng Biography", "Border City", "Golden Lock", and "Field of Life and Death" are the most wonderful novellas, then Li Jieren's "Backwater Breeze" should be the most exquisite and perfect long piece."
Taking "Backwater Breeze", the most widely circulated in the "Great River Trilogy", as an example, what did the above three commentators see? Why do they say that? Teacher Zhong Siyuan analyzed and elaborated on the five aspects of novel character shaping, world love novel style, literary projection of author experience, geopolitical writing concept and literary historical significance.
01
Character shaping - take Aunt Deng as an example
The characters in "Backwater Breeze" are outstanding among Chinese modern and contemporary novels, of which the female characters are the most vivid.
The heroine, Aunt Deng, subverts people's stereotypes about the image of rural Chinese women, especially low-level rural women. At the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the People's Republic, many major historical events occurred that changed the direction of China's destiny. Although Chengdu is in the hinterland of Chinese mainland, the traffic is not smooth, and the acceptance of ideological and cultural information is inevitably lagging, dislocated and weakened, but the tide of change of the times is unstoppable, and it will affect special figures such as Deng Shugu, and it will also be like the end of the wind.
In the suburban townships of Chengdu where Deng Shugu grew up, the social psychological and emotional changes that occurred among the small people of Shengdou were certainly very different from the central cities of China's economy, politics and culture at that time (such as Nanjing, Shanghai, Beijing, Tianjin, Guangzhou, etc.), but there must also be "backwaters and backwaters" before the storm.
Li Jieren is typical of Aunt Deng (Sister-in-law Cai), intending to create a female image that has been stimulated by the trend of history to inspire new vitality. Once the idea of changing their fate in their hearts is ignited by the opportunity of the external world, they will burst out with great energy and break free from the "three mountains" that weighed on the women of the old era: clan power, husband power, and patriarchal power. After their awakening, the old ethical and moral concepts will loosen or even collapse in them. Whether it is to marry the old gentry to be a child in order to realize the life of the "Chengdu wife" who lives in a mansion, or to be under the same roof with her husband and lover in disregard of ethics and morality, or to take the initiative to marry her lover's enemy in order to save her husband from prison... All of them show a value and outlook on life that is completely different from that of traditional low-level rural women such as Xianglin Sister-in-law.
In contrast, the other female figures in "Backwater Breeze" also reflect the respective living conditions and ideological concepts of women of different identities and classes at that time. For example, Gu Tiancheng's original wife was a foolish, submissive, and conservative peasant woman, whose fate was bleak and pitiful; Gu Tiancheng's neighbor Zhong Tiancheng was influenced by the external environment and dared to believe in foreign religion (Christianity), although snobbish, sharp but not sympathetic, and was a pungent peasant woman; the former master and mother of Zhong Tiancheng's sister-in-law's maid was originally an orphan daughter adopted by foreigners, and later became lovers with her adoptive father (foreigners), and there is no shortage of legendary in her fate. Behind these female figures, intertwined with the political forces in The Chinese land at that time, the collision of Eastern and Western civilizations, the origin of individuals and their game with fate, and finally caused their different personalities and behaviors. They live ordinary and authentic lives. Li Jieren never gives them a different face of good and evil, but presents them with observation close to life, so that the complexity of life itself makes the character's soul rich.
There is also a group portrait worth pondering in "Backwater Breeze", that is, the gentry class (such as: the old lady and miss Gongzi in the Hao Mansion in Chengdu). Hao Mansion was a typical gentry family in Chengdu at that time, and the people in the mansion and their relatives and friends often talked about the past and the present at home and discussed the major affairs of the family and the country. In them, Li Jieren vividly shows how the people of Chengdu, more than 2,000 kilometers away from Beijing, feel the righteousness and fist turmoil. It can be seen from the novel that the invasion of the Eight-Nation Alliance was only used by them as a talking point after the tea, as if it did not concern themselves. This is surprising, the gentry who are familiar with "Xiu Qi Zhiping" are still like this, and why the Chengdu world wind was like "backwater" at that time, and why "Wei Lan" was still far away from "storm", can be seen.
02
Worldly love novel style
Different from revolutionary novels, enlightenment novels, and intellectual novels, world love novels (extremely imitating the differences between human feelings and worlds, preparing to write about sorrow and joy) are the most bloodline of traditional Chinese novels. The continuation of the tradition of Chinese world love novels in "Backwater" is mainly reflected in two aspects: one is that the character image (regardless of the primary and secondary) has no typical positive and negative differences; second, the author's value judgment involves less and there is no obvious indoctrination tendency.
In The Comedy of Man, Balzac said: "French society will be a historian, and I can only be its secretary." Placing this in the context of Chinese literature, the world love novel embodies the Balzac way of writing social history and people's hearts in a literary way. The characters in such novels are vivid and natural, close to life, and easy to resonate with the public, so that people unconsciously experience their lives more deeply through the fate of the characters in the novel, reflect on their own lives, and form a personalized understanding of social history. In the worldly love novel, the people cannot see the so-called historical laws, nor can they see how their lives have been changed by the hand of God in the dark, and the author and the reader feel the joys and sorrows of life together.
From this, a question also arises: how do we look at history and society from literature? Perhaps it can be divided into two categories: one is scientific history, which is based on facts, and needs to be verified and evidenced, such as the ancients' so-called "I note the 'Six Classics'". The other is literary history, which is people-oriented, and the author expresses his personal views on the world through historical confirmation, such as the ancients' so-called "'Six Classics' Note Me".
Where the history of orthodoxy (or the so-called "history of facts") is silent, the writers have their own special mission, and they paint a living civil society with their pen and ink. From heroic leaders and doctors and officials to workers, peasants, merchants, and peddlers, literary history often has another eye, paying attention to many unknown small people, making them vivid and figurative. Under the merciless wind and rain of history, they have left a strong mark on the changes in the material and spiritual survival conditions of these ordinary people. This is not only the awakening and reproduction of the magnificent and complex history itself, but also the charm and magic of the literary cave. To borrow Márquez's words: Here, the literary imagination jumps out of the gaps in history and unfolds an incredible flight.
03
The literary projection of the author's experience
Why is the image of Aunt Deng (Sister-in-law Cai) created by "Backwater Breeze" so different? This may be related to Li Jieren's experience in France (from the end of 1919 to the autumn of 1924). At that time, Li Jieren saw the healthy nature of the living conditions of French women, as well as the freedom and freedom in the interaction between men and women in France, which triggered the collision of new ethics and old morals in his heart. His rebellious erotic relationship between men and women in a troubled world thus has a sense of rebellion and challenge to the Chinese ritual tradition.
The emotional entanglement and marital relationship of the main characters in "Backwaters" (Cai Dajie, Cai Xingshun, Luo Crooked Mouth, Gu Tiancheng) directly challenge the traditional Chinese marriage moral bottom line. And the novel also writes that there was a popular homosexual atmosphere in Chengdu at that time, and the rich and powerful people of the gentry class not only had to associate with prostitutes, but also raised a husband (male prostitute). Many literary critics (starting with Guo Moruo) believe that Li Jieren was influenced by the French naturalistic literary trend represented by Zola when writing the novel. Li Jieren himself did not agree with this. He argues that naturalism often falls into a quagmire of deliberately and directly exposing the darkness and evil of human nature. Li Jieren believes that his novels are only truthful observation, not vain and beautiful, not hidden evil, writing about the irrational impermanence of life, but also writing about the sentient and righteous nature of life. Although the local Chinese society presented in "Backwaters and Gentle Waves" is in decline as a whole, the hearts of the people in the world are not lacking in pathologies, and folk beliefs and ethics are also chaotic in the conflict between various forces, Li Jieren insists on writing the reality of the coexistence of hope and suffering and the city wells that are constantly pyrotechnic in the wind and rain.
04
Geopolitical writing view
Li Jieren was a pioneer in the history of modern Chinese literature who consciously created novels in dialects. "Backwater Breeze" is of great significance for the preservation and display of the Sichuan dialect. However, this novel is not all written in dialects, although there are many dialect vocabulary, the grammar of the narrative is still modern vernacular, and many dialect words are carefully annotated by Li Jieren. Therefore, whether it is read in Sichuan dialect or Mandarin, it can be relatively fluent.
In "Backwater Breeze", the most intense aspect of local color is reflected in the large number of narratives and exquisite descriptions of Chengdu's folk culture. The grand situation of the rural market, the decoration of the mansion, the lantern festival of the Qingyang Palace, and the lantern festival of the East Street, the meticulousness of the paving, the sensitivity of the feeling, and the vividness of the atmosphere are rare in the history of modern Chinese novels, so that posterity has specially compiled more than 100,000 words of the "Great River Trilogy" about the folk customs and customs of Chengdu, and merged some other texts of Li Jieren to talk about the history, society and culture of Chengdu to compile the book "Li Jieren Says Chengdu".
Mao Dun once said: "Regarding local literature, I thought that there was only a special description of local customs and customs, but it was like looking at an exotic picture, although it could cause us to be amazed, but what was given to us was only the satisfaction of curiosity." Therefore, in addition to the special customs and customs, there should be a universal struggle for fate that we share. Mao Dun and Li Jieren are friends of the same generation and cherish each other, and his words also explain well the reason why the local colors of "Backwaters" complement their eternal value.
05
Literary historical significance
Li Jieren wrote About Chengdu, compared to Balzac writing About Paris, Dickens writing about London, Faulkner writing Pattafal, Márquez writing Macondo, Lu Xun writing Shaoxing, Zhang Ailing writing Shanghai, Shen Congwen writing Xiangxi, Xiao Hong writing Hulan... In the world, the vernacular is both a specimen of the times and a model for generations.
Whether it is in a realistic way, or in a lyrical tone, whether it is magic realism, or critical realism, or prose culture writing... The country and society, the nation and culture have vigorously stretched in their respective localities, and the lives and destinies of the people at the bottom are breathing in between, which is also the historical significance of their works.
As a model for generations, because they have their own advantages in the form of literary expression, they have left valuable artistic masterpieces for future generations. In their novels, lifelike characters are alive, as in the present things are alive, and life is flowing. They have transformed books from paper to the source of information for our spiritual world, making people eye-catching, contemplative, and imaginative. This is the happiness of all ordinary readers, and the reason why we read these masterpieces over and over again (the most important criterion for Calvino's verification of the classics).
In the review session, teacher Zhang Deqiang interpreted Li Jieren and his work "Backwater Breeze" from the perspective of literary criticism. He first recommended the Complete Works of Li Jieren (Zhong Siyuan participated in the editing of the Epistle Scrolls). The Complete Works of Li Jieren consists of 17 volumes and 20 volumes, including all the Chinese writings of Li Jieren that can be collected so far (including all the novels, essays, miscellaneous works, letters, translations of Li Jieren that can be collected so far, and all the manuscripts of Li Jieren that can be accessed so far), which is the most authoritative material for readers to fully understand Li Jieren.
Teacher Zhang then echoed the literary criticism quoted by Teacher Zhong at the beginning, adding two comments on Li Jieren, one from Xia Zhiqing, the author of "The History of Modern Chinese Novels", who said in a letter to his brother that he had recently (August 1959) read Cao Juren's "Fifty Years of Literature", which said: "Li Jieren wrote three novels "Backwater Breeze", "Before the Storm", "Big Wave", which is said to be far superior to Mao Dun's "Midnight" and other works, and Li Jieren is on Top of Mao Dun. In his opinion, he is probably the largest novelist in modern China. But at this time, the History of Modern Chinese Novels had already been finalized, so it could not be changed anymore.
The other is a literary criticism of Li Jieren, from Qian Liqun, Wen Rumin, Wu Fuhui's "Thirty Years of Modern Chinese Literature", which mentions Li Jieren at the end of the Jingpai novel, praising the anti-feudal nature of the image of Deng Shugu in "Backwaters", but the pen sharpened and criticized: "Li Jieren's long stories, their structure, characters, and language are good, "Before the Storm" and "Big Wave" are not enough to support the grand creative intentions due to insufficient accumulation of life, and it feels dull to read. It shows that the artistic details are too sketchy to be lacking."
Combined with his own reading experience, Teacher Zhang frankly said that "Before the Storm" was not as wonderful as "Backwater Breeze", or it seemed to be relatively hasty, and the plot concept was not precise enough. Why is this happening? From this he found the answer in the book "The Past of Li Jieren: 1925-1952".
In 1925, Li Jieren returned from France to run the Jiale Paper Factory, and for the next 27 years, he mainly worked as an industrialist, writing novels in his spare time. Among them, 1935 was a special period for Li Jieren, after having more than forty years of life accumulation, he wrote the "Great River Trilogy", but in fact he really wrote for less than a year, so it seems that he belongs to the creative experiential writer.
The shadow of Western writers' writing is often revealed in Li Jieren's novels, that is, the narrative of long texts, and for this reason, Teacher Zhang speculates that it is because Li Jieren has not undergone the cultural baptism of the May Fourth poetry circle in 1919. From 1919 to 1924, Li Jie studied in France, which is very similar to the experience of the poet Li Jinfa. Li Jinfa's poems were first published in the Novel Monthly, and his poetic style of "Zhi Hu Zhi Ye" was completely different from the poetic atmosphere of the early May Fourth period, because he did not go through the complete baptism of the vernacular literary movement, which may also be the reason why li Jieren's narrative style of novels was more influenced by French writers.
For example, the beginning of "Backwaters" is the same as the beginning of "Madame Bovary", which is observed from the perspective of an outsider (not the protagonist), and tells the worldly situation in the novel in the tone of an insignificant character, "I", which is very different from the way "Home" and "Midnight" were written in the same era.
The biggest difference between Li Jieren's creation of such a close-to-world love novel and Lu Xun's work is that there is no obvious enlightenment perspective, which is related to the writer's artistic concept, and there is no distinction between good and bad. At the same time, it is also a kind of self-discipline of the writer, he does not feel that he is smarter than the characters in the novel, which is the strength of Li Jieren, and also makes his works have the possibility of being circulated in the world. In Lu Xun's "Medicine", we can feel the author's attitude very directly - a criticism of the numbness of the people at the bottom. But in "Backwater Breeze", Cai Dajie (Deng Shugu) asks Pao Geluo why foreigners can put so much pressure on the imperial court? Li Jieren did not give a clear answer in it, but borrowed Luo's crooked mouth and read an article written in the newspaper to Sister-in-law Cai. Here, as a low-level figure, in the face of the changes of the times, Cai Dajie embodies another popular perspective: people really don't understand, but they have the energy to explore and understand.
Finally, Teacher Zhang specifically mentioned that the relationship between men and women in "Backwater Breeze" is the key to connecting the whole story, and today, in fact, such a story is not unusual, but the reason why people like to read it is that he thinks it is because the things between men and women are written very really. Li Jieren will not deliberately intervene in the novel to make moral judgments, not to make irony, not to characterize people, but to try to reflect a real human world based on the basis of reality. For example, Aunt Deng, who married Cai Xingshun, has eaten and drunk, but envies the prostitute Liu Sanjin who has love, which will be strange to see alone, but combined with Deng Aunt's eager for love, free and warm personality, we will feel that the character's temperament is so real that it can be understood.
"Backwater Breeze" reflects that the bottom world of Chengdu at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century was full of vitality, full of vitality, and was not overly bound by etiquette, which Teacher Zhang believes originated from Li Jieren's real life feelings. When Li Jieren was 21 years old, he was a section chief in Lu County, Sichuan Province, and his uncle (who later became his father-in-law) was the county magistrate at the time, during which time Li Jieren often visited prostitutes, and his uncle was very angry when he found out, and forbade him to have any more contact with prostitutes. This incident came from the mouth of Li Jieren's daughter Li Mei, that is to say, Li Jieren would tell this kind of thing to children in his later years without hesitation, without any shame, which shows that Li Jieren's moral attitude standards are very intriguing, which is a very interesting place.
In response to the sharing of the two teachers, the book friends also enthusiastically raised their own questions:
1. According to Li Jieren's life plan for the novel, is there a "novel world" in the same worldview as "Heavenly Devil Dance"?
Zhong Siyuan: Li Jieren himself did not say the specific relationship between the "Great River Trilogy" and "Heavenly Devil Dance". But readers can have their own reading experience. Li Jieren is a non-partisan person who advocates democratic progress. I think that when he wrote the first edition of the "Great River Trilogy" and "Heavenly Devil Dance", his ideas and concepts were relatively unified. After writing the first edition of the "Great River Trilogy", Li Jieren also wanted to write a fourth novel about the Northern Expedition of the National Revolutionary Army, "Under the Turbulence". At that time, he was already a member of the left literary camp, and he still held a democratic revolutionary stance for the creation of novels that focused on real social conditions. The appearance of "Heavenly Devil Dance" is very timely, but in my opinion, it is strictly not included in the "novel world" constructed by his "Great River Trilogy".
2. What inspiration did "Backwater Breeze" have for dialect writing?
Zhong Siyuan: Li Jieren shows a distinct Sichuan-Western color in dialect writing, but if the dialect and the expression of written language can be combined more mellowly, perhaps the readability of "Backwater Breeze" will be stronger. I think there is a white and subtle place in Mr. Li Jieren's dialect writing, that is, there will be a conflict between the grammatical form of the dialect and the style of translation. For example, he often writes long Sentences that are Europeanized, which is different from the daily speaking style of Sichuanese people, and sometimes it feels protracted to read. In addition, he still has some literary syntax left in his narrative, which makes his language style unable to achieve a higher level of proficiency.
Li Jieren was a writer with a great talent for narrative, but because of his wide range of hobbies and too many career activities in his life, he did spend too little energy on literature. "Backwater Breeze" was written in less than a month, "Before the Storm" and "Big Wave" are just over two years, and they have not been polished by particularly careful language.
Regarding Sichuan dialect writing, there is now a Sichuan post-90s writer Zhou Kai, who is known as a young representative who inherits the mantle of Li Jieren. The dialects in his novel Moss are used more skillfully. Although the overall achievement of this book cannot be compared with "Backwater Breeze", it is believed that it will inspire readers in dialect writing.
3. What is the relationship between Li Jieren and Brother Robe?
Zhong Siyuan: The "Annals of Li Jieren" written by Li Jieren's daughter Li Mei mentions that Li Jieren's son (Li Yuancen) was kidnapped by bandits, and was finally redeemed through the mediation of an influential brother in the middle, and later generations speculated that the brother was one of the prototypes of Luo Crooked Mouth, from which it can be seen that Li Jieren's life experience is very exciting. Workers, peasants, merchants, soldiers, and all social strata, he has contacts, is a very wide range of contacts, very legendary figure. In addition to literature, the multiple identities of Li Jieren and their related experiences also have very rich cultural significance. Although it is regrettable that Li Jieren did not leave more masterpieces in the history of literature, he also wrote a unique book with the richness of his life.
4. Can you ask the two teachers to make a simple comparative analysis of the narrative of "Backwaters" in Chengdu from the perspective of urban literature, with "Midnight" in Shanghai and "Camel Xiangzi" in Beijing?
Zhang Deqiang: I think the most enthusiastic person in these three novels for his city is Li Jieren. From his narrative, we can see the vibrant side of Chengdu. For example, he wrote that Chengdu people have a particularly loud voice, so Chengdu people's eardrums are thicker than others; for example, Han Er's grandmother, a neighbor who depicts Deng Shugu's yearning for Chengdu, said that those who want to eat in Chengdu can eat better than rural people. This kind of small person's point of view is very chengdu city well. At the same time, among these three writers, the one who has the most mastery of geographical orientation is Li Jieren, which reflects the great influence of Li Jieren on Western realist novels. At the beginning of the second chapter of the novel, he will write very clearly in thirty and forty miles, and this also involves the field of literary geography. Lao She's novels also have enthusiasm, but this Beijing flavor is mainly reflected in the language.
Zhong Siyuan: If I were to rank, I think Li Jie would be in the first place, Lao She second, and Mao Dun last. If a city and a writer really want to establish a kind of flesh and blood, the writer must be the living home of the city. He wanted to have a great enthusiasm and a very full understanding of the real life of the people in the city and the specific daily life of all walks of life.
Mr. Mao Dun's main interests are in enlightenment and revolution, and his enthusiasm for life is far less than that of Li Jie and Lao She. However, Lao She is high in heart and full of bookishness, although he is from the bottom of the flag people, he still has a kind of "pride" in the descendants of the Manchu Qing remnants. During the Republic of China period, he was relatively distant from realpolitik, and his communication was mainly in the academic circles and the market. Influenced by regional culture and shaped by his own experience, Li Jieren has shaped his personality, so he presents a personality that is keen on political and public activities. For example, he ran a newspaper, opened a restaurant, taught, ran an industry, had contacts with famous local warlords and middle- and high-ranking Kuomintang officers, and served as the vice mayor of Chengdu after liberation. Because of this rich, multi-level life experience, Li Jieren's connection with Chengdu is even broader and deeper than that of Lao She in Beijing.
Finally, Xu Jinjing, the founder of the Plum Garden Classics Co-reading Group, summarized the salon and shared his three feelings as a regular reader.
1. From the perspective of urban literature, "Backwater Breeze" shows the local customs of Chengdu and the surrounding areas of Chengdu at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, meticulously and accurately records the urban life style of Sichuan, including family lifestyle, worship ceremonies, gender concepts, etc., which is an important first-hand material for people today to study the character status and social and cultural concepts of the chengdu people at that time, and has both urban literary value and urban historical historical value.
2. From the perspective of urban history, Wang Di, a top scholar at home and abroad and son of Chengdu, repeatedly refers to the relevant descriptions of Li Jieren's "Backwaters and Weilan" as the core historical materials in his research on urban history and Chinese social and cultural history.
At the same time, I also notice that there is not yet a major focus on one aspect that scholars have focused on, that is, the scope of influence of the interaction tension between different towns. The Tianhui Town mentioned in "Backwater Breeze" is a suburban county in Chengdu in today's sense, where people have the habit of going to the city center to catch markets and burn incense, which can be seen that the ordinary people at that time had a yearning for life in the center of Chengdu. As early as a hundred years ago, the city of Chengdu radiated its cultural concepts to a diameter of tens or even a hundred miles or so.
From this point of view, if scholars at home and abroad want to do the study of regional economic and social history and regional economic and social and cultural history of the classical paradigm, they can use "Backwaters and Waves" as a reference. As a historical material of urban history, this book still has great development value, which is worth further excavation and in-depth study.
3. From the perspective of the daily life of literature, "Backwater Breeze" seems ordinary and ordinary, telling all about the daily life of the city, without any grand narrative, but in this vision of urban daily life with Chengdu as the radiation center, we can see the relationship between daily life and politics at two levels.
On the one hand, it is the reaction of the daily life of the weak to the mainstream grand narrative of the political history that embodies the rebellious and self-initiative of the weak. At the time of the Gengzi National Revolution and the Boxer Movement, Sichuan, in the hinterland of the motherland, was still able to maintain a daily vitality in the chaos and killing in North China. This also allows us to see that for thousands of years, the daily life of ordinary Chinese citizens has maintained a kind of self-initiative and the resistance of the weak to the war or chaos and control brought about by grand politics.
On the other hand, in the context of the times at that time, although Chengdu was not caught in the chaos of war, it still shared the same political and cultural field discourse in the context of the big era. Whether it is the foreign believers who believe in foreign religions, or the tension embodied in the conflict between them and ordinary citizens, or the state of Cai Dajie's sister-in-law who has surged out of her body and impacted the so-called Confucian ethics of the past, and can freely express her desires and her wild will to life, these can see the great impact of the modernization changes in the late Qing Dynasty on thousands of ordinary people.