An article you see is not necessarily written by the author who signed under the title. This point has existed in ancient and modern China and abroad. As for why this phenomenon occurs, the reasons for this are various.
Ba Jin's last text is a preface to Cao Yu's collection of posthumous essays, The Unfinished Words. At that time, Ba Jin was lying on a hospital bed, unable to hold a pen, so he was ghostwritten by his daughter Li Xiaolin. Despite his intermittent remarks, Vince has always been coherent: "Lying in a hospital bed, I often think of family treasures. More than 60 years of the past are vividly remembered. The South House of No. 14, Sanzhamen Avenue, Beiping, the story begins here. "Ba Lao is because of physical reasons, his daughter only entered for him, the text and spirit are still Ba Jin's own." When Mr. Qian Zhongshu was a teenager, he wrote letters to people on behalf of his father, first dictated by his father, and then directly ghostwritten. Qian Mu's preface to Qian Jibo's "Introduction to Chinese Studies" is a ghostwriting work written by Mr. Qian Zhongshu in one go.
Jin Yong's "Tianlong Babu" must be familiar to everyone, and at that time, "Tianlong Babu" was serialized in newspapers. And just when the "Tianlong Eight Parts" was about to end, Jin Yong had to go to Europe because of the incident, but the serialization in the newspaper could not be interrupted. So Jin Yong went to Ni Kuang to write for him. Jin Yong traveled to Europe and returned to Hong Kong, and Ni Kuang had written more than 60,000 words on his behalf. As soon as they met, Ni Kuang said, "Jin Yong, I'm sorry, I blinded Ah Zi's eyes." It turned out that Ni Kuang hated Ah Zi in the Eight Parts of the Heavenly Dragon, so in a fit of anger, he deliberately blinded her eyes. When Jin Yong heard this, he cried and laughed, and his face was full of helpless expressions. Next, Jin Yong himself dived down and finished the "Eight Parts of the Heavenly Dragon". As for Ah Zi's blindness, Jin Yong also made a unique treatment.
In the last year of the Warring States period, Lü Buwei was given the title of Chancellor of the State of Qin and monopolized the government for many years. But Lü Buwei was not satisfied with this, he also wanted to be like Confucius, so he let his three thousand disciples co-write a "Lü Shi Chunqiu", and then signed his own name. He also ordered his disciples to copy out the full text, paste it on the city wall, and post a notice: Whoever can change a word in the book will be rewarded with a thousand taels of gold. Soon after the notice was posted, tens of thousands of people rushed to read it. The idiom "a thousand words" has since emerged.
Wang Bo, the head of the Four Masters of the Early Tang Dynasty, a "Preface to the Tengwang Pavilion", the literary style is soaring. Therefore, he asked his surrogate writer to be in the city, and the "Biography of Tang Caizi" said that his family's income from the pen was "golden and full of accumulation". In contrast, Wei Zhaodu, the prime minister of the late Tang Dynasty, was born from a famous and prestigious family. In his early years, when he drafted official documents, he was confined to his inability to learn well, asked for someone to write for it, and later became prime minister, where he was ridiculed by the eunuch Tian Lingzi: "In Zhongshu, he opened a shop to sell officials, and Ju Hanlin borrowed someone to take the pen."
Su Shi entered the priesthood in the second year of Jiayou's examination, relying on a "Treatise on the Reward of Loyalty and Thickness". Some people think that this article is simply not something that Su Shi in his early 20s could complete. The reason is that the style of writing is old and the discussion is profound, and it is impossible to come from the hands of a young man. In addition, the article says: "When Yao is time, Gao Tao is a soldier." Will kill, Gao Tao said: 'Kill the third. Yao Yue: "Yu No. 3." Therefore, the world fears the strength of the law enforcement of Gao Tao, and Le Yao uses the leniency of punishment. Later, Mei Yaochen, who was one of the examiners, asked him: Where did you get this allusion? Su Shi was so dazed that he didn't know it at all, so he had to say that he had made it up himself. Some people believe that the real author of the "Theory of Rewarding Loyalty and Thickness" is his father Su Xun. The matter is inconclusive for the time being.
The Ming Dynasty's traitor Yan Song was notorious, and the Jiajing Emperor at that time was obsessed with the art of immortality, keen to use green words to pray to the heavens, eager to become immortals. And Yan Song, who is good at speculation, almost desperately wants to write green words, but he can't write well. Fortunately, Yan Song had a filial and intelligent son, Yan Shifan, who helped his father ghostwrite and write several beautiful green words, which was quite pleasing to Jiajing. As a result, Yan Song was awarded the position of first assistant minister of the cabinet, and since then, his power has been tilted to the opposition for more than 20 years, and people at the time ridiculed him as the "Prime Minister of Qingzi".
In his lifetime, Qianlong wrote no less than 43,000 poems, and the royal literati such as Shen Deqian had many ghostwriters. In his later years, when Shen Delu was compiling his own anthologies, he included those masterpieces. When this matter reached the emperor's ears, it was inevitable that he would become angry and ashamed. Although Shen has become an ancient man, he cannot be guilty of sin, and he cannot be spared when he dies! Of course, to serve his monument, to cut his coffin, to kill his corpse, that is called a miserable. Not only was he very accomplished in writing poetry (many of his Jialetang Poetry Collection was written on qianlong's order), but his calligraphy was also good. The imperial poetry plaque of the Hall of Reverence in the Forbidden City in Beijing, according to research, was ghostwritten by Hezhen.
In his later years, because of his great fame, Fu Shan visited and asked for words. He was overwhelmed, so he had to find someone to ghostwrite, and there were two ghostwriters, one was his son Fu Mei, and the other was his nephew Fu Ren. At that time, it seemed no secret that Fu Shan's works had ghostwriting, but in general, everyone only knew that Fu Mei was a ghostwriter. Later, his nephew Fu Ren died early, and Fu Shan was deeply saddened and regretted. Fu Shan wrote in a note: "In the past three or two years, the author of Dai Wu has really produced more nephews and nephews, and people have written books of the true self. But the know-it-all, the nephew-in-law, often works for me. Pathetic! Ren Jing gave me a year to go. Every time you receive a stroke of the pen, the heart is sore, how to redeem this little Ruan also? ”
Qu Qiubai wrote 12 essays for Lu Xun, some of which were written based on Lu Xun's opinions, and some of which were written after exchanging opinions with Lu Xun. Lu Xun was very recognized and appreciative of Qu Qiubai's essays.
In 1906, Gao Xu published "Shi Dakai's Testament Poems", of which 20 poems were written by Gao Xu under the guise of Shi Dakai's name. Because Gao Xu did not know the life of Shi Dakai and did not have much research on the history of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, there were many loopholes in the pseudo-poems. For example, when there was infighting in Tianjing, Shi Dakai was only 26 years old, but in the pseudo-poem, it is said that "in a cup of wine, the white blade is set in the temple, the old man is self-righteous, who expects Ding to be chaotic." "26-year-old Shi Dakai has become an old man. In addition, Hong Xiuquan died after Shi Dakai, but the pseudo-poem has the poem "Crying Heavenly King Was Destroyed", which has become the joke of posterity.
Western scholars humorously said: "Ghostwriting is not the oldest profession of mankind, but it has a long history far beyond what you and I can imagine." Three thousand years ago, cuneiform script appeared in Mesopotamia, and ghostwriting came into being. Most of the major religious texts are "speaking for the sages" by later generations. Socrates' ideas have been passed down to this day, and his lofty foot, Plato's inexhaustible ghostwriting, should be remembered as the first credit.
In fact, ghostwriting is good or bad, and there are merits and deeds, not the right and wrong of ghostwriting itself, but the right and wrong between people and things.