Text | Li Jihong
Li Jihong, male, born in 1962. A native of Anshan, Liaoning. He currently lives in Shenyang. Graduated from college. I have been a teacher for six years. He has worked in a foreign-funded company for 30 years. Retire now. Since 2022, he has been researching "Dream of Red Mansions" and has published more than 300 articles about "Dream of Red Mansions".
There is an eyebrow criticism in the thirteenth chapter of "Fat Yan Zhai Re-evaluation of the Stone Record" (Jiazhu Ben): "You don't have to read it, you want to fall into tears when you see these two sentences! Red experts have researched the person who signed this criticism "Meixi", and the statements are different, and they are inconsistent. Now let's talk about my analysis of the signature "Meixi".
1. Historical background.
At the end of the Ming Dynasty and the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, the "Meixi Li Family" in Wangdian Town, Xiushui County, Jiaxing City (now Xiuzhou District) was a famous family in the Ming and Qing dynasties. Li Nan's descendant, Li Mingling, had five sons, the eldest son Li Xiu, the second son Li Ijiao, the third son Li Chenchang, the fourth son Li Zaixin, and the fifth son Li Weijun.
Among them, the three brothers Li Ijiao, Li Chenchang, and Li Weijun were officials in the same dynasty. The second son, Li Ijiao (1652-1710), was a son Li Zongwei and a granddaughter Li Tan. The third son, Li Chenchang (1657-1716): the word Shixia, the forty-second year of Kangxi Jinshi, the fifty-third year of Kangxi served as the imperial history of the two Huai patrols;
It is recorded that it is "delicately decorated and famous, is a wide farm, and has a lot of voices, and its appearance is very strange, commonly known as a frontal python, with a long face and a nose, and a pawn, greed is exposed, and punishment is given to his son Zongren" (1).
Li Chen often has four sons, Li Zongxin, Li Zongzhi, Li Zongren (Zi Qiansan), and Li Zongchao (Zi Kun Si). The fifth son, Li Weijun (1662-1728), was promoted to the governor of Zhili in the first year of Yongzheng, and was promoted to the governor of Zhili in the second year of Yongzheng, and was promoted to the rank of secretary of the military department, and controlled the officials below the commander.
This illustrious family has the glory of "two dynasties and four jinshi", and is one of the "four major families" written by Cao Xueqin, and six or seven members of the "Meixi Li family" were written into "Dream of Red Mansions" by Cao Xueqin.
In July of the 51st year of Kangxi, Cao Xueqin's grandfather Cao Yin died of illness in Yangzhou, and it was Cao Yin who was on duty to patrol the salt imperial history of the two Huai, so Kangxi ordered Li Xu to take over to Kangxi 53 years. Then Li Chenchang took over from Li Xu and served as the two Huai patrol salt imperial history. This is the prototype of Lin Ruhai in the book.
"Li Xu's Memoir" (2) records that on June 12, the 55th year of Kangxi's reign, Li Xu sent a letter to Kangxi, the content of which was: ordered to secretly investigate Li Chenchang's ethics (3), and the result of the secret investigation was "In Chen Chang's original poor family, there are now four or five thousand acres of good land, dozens of market houses, and three pawnshops, all of which are their capital, but it is unknown how much capital they have." ....... But the family is rich. A great change in ethics is like a holy oracle". In July of the 55th year of Kangxi, Li Chen Chang died in Yangzhou to patrol the salt imperial history.
According to the "Xubai Zhai Ruler Note Note" (Zhang Shucai, Fan Zhibin's note on page 526 "Keeping the Road with the North"), Li Chen Chang is two years younger than Li Xu, and the two are Lanpu brothers. In December of the 55th year of Kangxi, there was a reply letter from Li Xu to Li Weijun, which roughly read: Li Weijun entrusted Li Xu to raise his nephew, and Li Xu said that he would do his best. Quoting part of the original text: "The elder brother sees the trust of Xiao Ruan, and the liver and sausage of the fool are the same, and he is good at the whole thing." This entrusted "Xiao Ruan" inference is one of the prototypes of Li Chenchang's second son, Li Zongzhi, Xue Pan (the specific inference will not be discussed here).
2. The characters in "Dream of Red Mansions" related to "Meixi Li Family": Lin Ruhai, Jia Min, Lin Daiyu, Xue Baochai, Xue Baoqin, Xue Pan, Xue Ke, etc.
1, Lin Daiyu, Lin Ruhai. It is said in the book that this Lin Ruhai's surname is Lin Minghai, and the word list is like the sea, [Jiazhu Ben Side Batch: Gai Yun Xuehai Wenlin Ye. Always secretly write Daiyu. ] The previous sentence "Gaiyun Xuehai Wenlin also" This is "plain writing", Lin Hai Xueyuan and Xuehai Wenlin are easy for ordinary people to think of, this is not dark writing.
Let's start with Lin Daiyu's judgment in the fifth chapter of the book, the original text: "I saw four dead trees (Qi Xuben and Mengfu Ben) painted on the first page, and a jade belt hung on the wood. There was another pile of snow, and there was a golden hairpin under the snow. There are also four sentences: Regrettable shutdown [Mengshuang clamp annotation: Le Yang wife], pitiful Yongxu [this sentence Xue]. The jade belt hangs in the forest, and the golden hairpin is buried in the snow [Jiazhu Ben side batch: The meaning is far-reaching, and it is not the meaning of the place. This sentence is a combination of Lin Daiyu and Xue Baochai. This is Cao Xueqin's writing of dividing a prototype into two characters in the book.
The criticism of Fat Yan Zhai explains, "According to Daiyu, Baochai, just like delicate flowers, like delicate willows, each extremely wonderful, but the world's human nature is different from sweet and bitter." "Gengchen's forty-second batch of books," although there are two hairpins and jade names, people are one, and this magic pen is also. "The twelve songs of "Dream of Red Mansions" "Vain Eyebrows" are also a combination of hairpin and dai (many people misread "Vain Eyebrows"). This is a kind of --- "symmetry" in Cao Xueqin's writing style.
So how to explain the above sentence? "It's a pity to stop the morality, but the pity is talented" means that this person has both ability and political integrity. "Four dead trees (4), with a jade belt hanging on the wood", this is the word "Linlin" in the pictograph, and it is the name of the prototype of the hairpin and Dai. Only in the painting before the fifth sentence does the author use the homonym of a word to represent the person to whom it is pointed. The word "snow" in "golden hairpin buried in the snow" refers to "Xue". At first glance, this does not have any "far-reaching implications".
Since the previous sentence "hanging in the forest with a jade belt" alludes to the person's name, then the latter sentence should allude to the person's surname. "Xue Lin" was originally a compound surname (quoted from the "Dictionary of Chinese Surnames"), which shows that Hai Dai is a person. So what is the person's real last name?
Xue Baochai's alias in the poetry society is "Lu Wujun". The two dictionaries of "Wu" are from Wang Jia's "Collected Memories, Five, Former Han Dynasty, I", which says: The emperor's breath and the cool room, Mrs. Li gave the emperor the fragrance of the Wu. The emperor was startled, and the fragrance was still on the pillow, and it did not stop for months. Emperor Mi thought about it, and never saw him again. Weeping and negotiating the banquet, and then changing the cool room to the "dream room". Does this count as the author's allusion to Lu Wujun-Baochai-surname Li? The reason why Lin Daiyu is surnamed "Lin" is because her parents are both surnamed Li and their names are "Linlin". The parents' surname and their own name together have six "wood" characters, so Cao Xueqin changed her surname to "Lin" in the book for "Li Linlin".
Also, the ancestor of the surname "Xue" is "Xi Zhong", a native of Xiashi. And Li Chenchang, the word "Shixia", is it related? I wonder if the author has this deep meaning. Fat Yan Zhai's criticism: Does "far-reaching meaning" point to this meaning?
In this way, Lin Daiyu and Xue Baochai share a common prototype of Li Chenchang's descendant, called Li Linlin. Yan Zhai thinks that the author's meaning is too profound, so Yun: "The meaning is far-reaching". It is true that the author does not want the reader to understand this meaning. Therefore, "four dead trees" was later changed to "two dead trees", telling the reader that this judgment refers to "Xue Lin".
2, as mentioned above, Li Linlin's mother is also surnamed Li - the prototype of Jia Min
Li Linlin's mother was the granddaughter of Li Yuegui, the political historian of Jiangxi, and the niece of Cao Yin's wife, Li. In an essay by Zhu Yizun, a scholar in the early Qing Dynasty, "Epitaph on the Tomb of Dr. Guanglu and the Political Envoy of Jiangxi Province to Participate in the Politics of Li Gong" (5), Li Yuegui had two sons: Li Wenhuan and Li Wenbing, and five daughters, the third of whom was married to Cao Yin.
Li Yuegui also has four granddaughters, three of whom are married to the Cao family, and the other is married to Li Chenchang's eldest son, Li Zongxin, who is Li Linlin's parents. The book says: "She is the youngest of the four sisters" and "she is a sister of Madame Wang's mother." The Li Yuegui family is also one of the "four families" in "Dream of Red Mansions" (discussed separately).
3, "Dream of Red Mansions" said that Xue Baochai's cousin Xue Baoqin married Mei Hanlin. This is the author's use of the rhetorical technique of "borrowing". The term "plum blossom" is used to refer to "Coats".
In ancient times, the literati regarded "plum blossoms" and "Gaoshi" as one; (Ming) Qiu Shizhou's "Gaoshi Appreciating Plum Blossoms", Yuan Anonymous "Viewing Plum Blossoms", Zhang Daqian's "Plum Blossom Gaoshi", Ming Gao Qi's "Nine Plum Blossoms": "The snow is full of forests, and the beauties under the moon and the forest are beautiful" and so on. That is to say, the author uses "Mei" to refer to "Coats". He was Gao Shiqi, a famous literati in the Kangxi period, and his son Gao Yu (edited by the Hanlin Academy), and the author "Meihua" borrowed the "Gao Shi" in Gao Shiqi's name.
According to the book "The Wang Family of Jiaxing in the Ming and Qing Dynasties", Li Tan, the granddaughter of Li Zongwei and the daughter of Li Zongwei, married Gao Heng, the grandson of Gao Shiqi. said that she was the only woman in the Li family to be included in the "Jiaxing Mansion Chronicles". Li Tan has his own collection of poems "Shengxiang Happy Zhai Manuscript". Based on this, it is inferred that this is the prototype of Xue Baoqin.
Li Linlin and Li Tan are indeed cousins, and Baochai and Baoqin are also cousins in the book. Baoqin's image in the book is a "talented girl", and her poetry is no less than that of hairpin and dai. The "kite" flown by Baoqin is a "big red bat" kite, and "bat" means happiness. The reason why the author did not write Xue Baoqin into the official book of "The Twelve Hairpins of Jinling" in the Bo Ming Division is because her life is very good and not a "thin life"; second, because she is not from the Cao and Li families, that is, she is not from the "Jia Mansion" in "A Dream of Red Mansions". Some people say: Miaoyu is not from Jiafu either! How did she enter the official book of "The Twelve Hairpins of Jinling"? In fact, Miaoyu is the authentic person of "Jiafu", and she is Li Ding's daughter. I won't expand on it here.
4, let's talk about Xue Pan and Xue Ke. The names of these two men are relatively rare. The author must have given them such a name for a reason. As mentioned earlier, Li Weijun entrusted his nephew (there is an allusion to "Xiao Ruan" representing his nephew) --- Li Chenchang's son --- to Li Xu, and inferred that this "Xiao Ruan" was Xue Pan. How so?
I analyze it from another angle. When introducing Li Chenchang in the previous article, he said: "Its appearance is very strange, commonly known as a frontal python, with a numb face and a nose" (6) that is, Li Chenchang's face is covered with pockmarks or markings, just like python lines. Python pattern, dragon pattern and tadpole pattern all refer to the stripes and patterns on silk fabrics, and also refer to the zou text or patterns on the human body. This doesn't necessarily mean that the looks of these two brothers are inherited from their father. The author only hints here that the brothers and Li Chen often have an inheritance relationship. Xue Pan, the table word "Wenqi" (Gengchen Ben), and later changed to "Wenlong" (Jiazhuben), which also implies that Xue Pan's "Pan" character refers to "Dragon Wen".
5. Regarding Li Zongzhi, Li Xu's reply to Li Weijun mentioned "Xiao Ruan" and the so-called "Qu Tu Shanquan" in the reply letter mentioned above. It is inferred that "Xiao Ruan" refers to Xue Pan, and the key is the four characters "Qutu Shanquan". So what happened to "Xiao Ruan" -- Li Zongzhi -- that made Li Xu use "Qu Tu Shanquan" --- find ways to --- protect "Xiao Ruan"? I think it may be like Xue Pan in "A Dream of Red Mansions" who has a "human homicide case" and has become a "black household" who needs to hide in Li Xu's house and use Li Xu's power to "Qu Tu Shanquan".
6. Li Zongchao (1706--?) (7) Zi Kun Si, No. Banana Window, Gong Poems and Ancient Words, You Jing Yin Rhythm. In the eighty-six chapters of the book, it is written that Lin Daiyu understands music and can read piano scores. Did the author write Li Zongchao's "You Jing Yin Rhythm" into the book through Lin Daiyu? During the Qing Dynasty, there were very few people who knew music and rhythm. When Li Chenchang died, Li Zongchao was only 11 years old, and his eldest brother was like a father, according to the book, Baochai (Li Linlin) was 1-2 years older than Baoyu (Xueqin), and 3-4 years younger than Zongchao's uncle. It is conceivable that when Uncle Zongchao was learning piano scores, Li Linlin must have also learned.
7. Li Zongxin, a well-known painter in the Qing Dynasty, is good at painting flowers, birds, and figures, and his crochet is very fine and vulgar. Li Zongxin's paintings can now be seen on the Internet. It is speculated that this person is Li Linlin's father. In the book, "fat criticism" (Meixi) is used many times as a metaphor for the author's writing technique. In the forty-second chapter, the author writes about how to paint, which shows that he was influenced by his painter father.
The author wrote the "paintings, poems, and pianos" of the three brothers Li Zongxin, Li Zongren, and Li Zongchao into the book with the talents of the three sisters, Baochai, Daiyu, and Baoqin.
8. Add a little more information about Li Chenchang. "Dream of Red Mansions" wrote, "Aunt Lin was not there on the third day of September." "Li Xu's Twists" records that Li Chenchang died in August of the 55th year of Kangxi. In "Dream of Red Mansions", the author does not write casually when he writes about the year, month and day with a specific time. Moreover, the author uses the time of life and death to reverse, and the death in the book represents life. (This question will not be expanded here)
The third day of the ninth month is the birthday of the five plague gods. Zhao Gongming was the god of plague first, and then corrected the god of wealth. Li Chenchang is the "God of Wealth" for the Cao and Li families.
Kangxi-Shang said (8): The two Huai salt classes were originally sparse, and Cao Yin and Li Xu were ordered to manage for ten years, and this ten years have been full, Cao Yin and Li Xu owe money and grain year by year, totaling more than 180,000 taels, and if the salt affairs are managed by Cao Yin's sons Cao Hao and Li Xu, they will be in arrears as before. This cannot be managed. First of all, the governor Ge Lixuan said that if he wanted to participate in Cao Yin and Li Xu, he owed three million taels of silver to the two Huai salt taxes, and I stopped it. Where Chay owes no more than three million taels of salt and silver, it is true that he is short of more than one hundred and eighty thousand taels. Since Jian used Li Chen Chang as his envoy, many of the debts have been compensated, and the property of Cao Yin and Li Xu can be preserved, and the merchants have been spared death. The previous imperial historians also knew that they owed money and food. In addition, the two Huaiyun envoys should get 70,000 taels of silver a year, and Li Chen often exempted this silver shell for one year and stopped taking 5,000 taels of silver, so the merchants and others were all convinced.
quoting Kangxi's words, it shows two things: 1. Li Chenchang, as Li Xu's successor, made up for the 1.8 million taels of arrears for the Cao and Li families; 2. Li Chenchang even donated the 70,000 taels he deserved, which shows his great wealth and power, and his gray income. It also shows the importance of the position of "Patrolling Salt Imperial History" to the Cao and Li families.
In the seventy-second chapter of "Dream of Red Mansions", Jia Lian said: "..... It's good to make a fortune of three or two million silver. (Gengchen Ben). I think Cao Xueqin was still young at the time, and he couldn't figure out whether his grandfather Cao Yin and Li Xu owed 3 million taels as Ge Li said, or 1.8 million taels as Kangxi said, anyway, Li Chen often made up for the Cao and Li families. He just listened to the story told by "Stone" (Li Ding), so he blurred it and wrote it into the book.
Does this mean that Li Chenchang died because Li Xu truthfully reported the "investigation report" to Kangxi and "fell on fire" until he fell ill?
8, Li Weijun. He married the maid of Mrs. Nian Qianyao as his wife; he was the governor of Zhili in the first year of Yongzheng and the official of the feudal territory; and he was given the title of "secretary of the military department." It is written in the book: Jia Yucun is the "Great Sima". His "central annoyance" (pay attention to the taste of the word "central annoyance" in the book) Lin Ruhai (Li Chenchang) wrote a letter to his eldest brother Jia Zheng ("Brother Lanpu" - Li Xu) for his future. He also wrote Jia Yucun's "Gourd Monk Judging the Gourd Case" and saved Xue Pan. Isn't it a bit similar to the correspondence between these stories and the inside and outside of the book? Perhaps this is the image material of Jia Yucun.
There are many cases in which the archetypal characters in "Dream of Red Mansions" use their names to refer to their own identity, surname or ancestral hometown. Such as: Cao Yin's signature: Qianshan Cao Yin Ziqing. Qianshan is now located in Anshan City, Liaoning Province, the tourist attraction "Qianshan". Li Xu's signature: Donghai Laisong Li Xu, with "Donghai" alluding to the "surname Jiang", Li Xu's original surname was Jiang. I think that "Donglukong Meixi" (a later monograph on the meaning of this sentence) is both "Meixi Li family" - alluding to the hometown of Cao Xueqin's wife, Li Linlin. The comment signed "Meixi" quoted at the beginning of the article is inferred to be the signature of Cao Xueqin's wife, Li Linlin. There are still a few criticisms of Meixi in "Dream of Red Mansions", but they are not signed, and they will be discussed separately in the future.
(1) Quoted from: "Jiaxing Zhengchun and Culture" 2022-1-29. Author: Fu Guoxing. Another: According to the Sina blog "Xiushui Li Qingtian Follow-up", Li Zongren is the third son of Li Chenchang; He was born on the fourth day of the second month of the 35th year of Kangxi and died on the 17th day of the seventh month of the year of Wuyin, the year of Qianlong. The eldest son Li Zongxin should have been imprisoned on behalf of his father, and according to the "History of Poetry of Qing Painters", Li Zongxin was a well-known painter in the Qing Dynasty.
(2) Chung Hwa Book Company
(3) Li Xu's Recital, p. 196.
(4) Quoted from the Mongol version, the other manuscripts are "two dead trees", the difference of which is discussed separately.
(5) Dream of Red Mansions Journal, 2002, Vol. 4. Hu Yu wrote "Cao Xueqin's grandmother Li's family history new examination".
(6) Through the editor of "Jiaxing Zhengchun and Culture", I wanted to find the author Fu Guoxing himself to understand the source of Li Chenchang's appearance "his appearance is very strange, commonly known as a frontal python, with a long face and a numb nose", but I couldn't find it.
(7) "Knowledge Network" and "Research on the Early Qing Dynasty Poet Li Liangnian" Author: Wu Dingwei
(8) The source of this text is not very accurate, it seems to be on the "Kangxi Living Record" on "HowNet".
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