Zigong is known as the "salt capital of a thousand years". Li Jingrui, a writer who went out from here, spent four years to create a 340,000-word long historical novel "Shen Yu Tang", which was recently published, outlining a picture of the Sichuan Dayan merchant family in the Beiyang period.
Li Jingrui has wanted to write a story of a Zigong salt merchant for many years, and every year when he returns home, he always has to go to various old sites to walk around, "History and reality have a strange fusion in these places, when the wangye temple funded by the salt merchants is still a place for citizens to drink tea and play cards, Longfeng Mountain is on one side, Puxi River is on the other side, and in one hundred and fifty years it will be swirled around in a bowl of tea soup for five yuan a bowl." One year, when he went to the Shenhai well, which had been chiseled in Daoguang for fifteen years, the salt boiling workshop was covered in white fog, and two workers moved a rattan chair and sat next to a huge iron pot to brush their mobile phones. The more I look at these places, the more I am fascinated: everything that once flourished has declined, but there is still something left, melting into the flesh and blood of the city. History is not a tombstone made of words, history is a Puxi River, we go down the river, know the way, it is possible to see the way. ”
When interviewing Leshan writer Zhou Kai not long ago, when mentioning the theme of writing Sichuan history, he solemnly recommended "Shen Yu Tang". The author of the book, Li Jingrui, born in Zigong, Sichuan, graduated from the Department of Journalism of Nanjing University, worked as a legal journalist for eight years, and now writes professionally. He has published short story collections "Northern Avenue", "Small Town: Twelve Lives", novels "Small Town Girl", "Tiny Destiny", etc., and the second One-Way Street Bookstore Literary Awards Young Writer of the Year.
A few days ago, Li Jingrui was interviewed by Red Star News and talked about the story behind the creation of "Shen Yu Tang".
Li Jingrui
Focus on Zigong, salt industry, revolution and post-revolution, family, individual choices
"The day the little emperor abdicated, it was the twenty-fifth day of the lunar month." This is the first sentence of the opening chapter of "Shen Yu Tang". The whole story begins with Puyi's abdication and ends with Puyi being expelled from the Forbidden City.
According to Li Jingrui, the hometown of Zigong in this story is pseudonymized as Zicheng, Zigong is the combined name of the artesian well and the gongjing, the well is brine, the brine can be boiled salt, since the Eastern Han Dynasty, here has been lined with cranes, salt wells everywhere. In 1853, due to the Taiping Army's capture of Nanjing, the two Huaiyan Road was interrupted, and the Xianfeng Emperor ordered the household department to issue a document "Sichuan And Guangdong salt into Chu, both merchants are allowed to sell their own fish", for "Sichuan salt Jichu", from then until the abdication of the Qing Emperor, the Zigong salt merchants once changed from rich to huge wealth, and now look at the salt merchant mansion of that year, you can still feel the glory of the old days, but who can think of it at that time, this is the empire and their last sunset.
As Li Jingrui's first novel, she chose to write about the historical theme of salt merchants in the Beiyang period. "Because I'm a Zigong native, Zigong has always been a salt-producing place, and my interest in the history of the salt industry has lasted for many years. After the Xinhai Revolution, warlords fought each other, and the salt tax was an important source of military spending at that time, and Zigong became a place of contention for all parties. Compared with the revolution itself, I am more interested in the story of the 'post-revolutionary' republican dissolution, which grew out slowly, mixing the elements of my greatest interest: Zigong, the salt industry, the revolution and the post-revolution, the family, the individual choice. ”
In the past few years, Li Jingrui has been consciously looking at various ruins from a hundred years ago, such as salt wells, docks, guild halls, salt merchants' former residences, etc., hoping that he can sink into the scenes of his own story.
Before writing, Li Jingrui read a lot of materials. The materials are roughly divided into several parts, one part is a local history, the other part is a scholar's monograph, and the other part is a memoir written by people at that time, such as Gu Weijun's diary, the records of students during the "May Fourth" period, and so on. But after I started writing, because I was afraid of being led by the data, I didn't read a lot anymore, but looked it up when I wrote about an event.
Among the large number of materials she inquired about the salt industry in the Republic of China, there is a humble pamphlet that a hundred years ago, a zigong salt merchant family with a rich side, after several ups and downs of revolution, scuffles and salt well business, more than two dozen men in the clan were addicted to opium, and they could not afford to live forever, so that they died. That picture was for a long time the end of her imaginary novel, accompanied by Wang Guowei's self-sinking in Kunming Lake in 1927, leaving his last words: "Fifty years, only one death is owed; after this life, there is no more humiliation."
I hope that my hometown Zigong can always nourish my writing
In Li Jingrui's reading experience, no matter what the theme of an excellent historical novel, it must occupy at least two of the three items of good language, good story, and good characters, and the long novels that have three items at the same time are very, very few, Chinese novels she can think of are "Dream of the Red Chamber", "Blossoming Flowers", and "Flower Cavity".
Li Jingrui liked the literature of the Republic of China, but her favorite Zhang Ailing and Shen Congwen among the writers of the Republic of China mainly focused on writing short and medium stories. She believes that Shen Congwen's "Long River" is very moving, but it is a pity that it was not finished. Zhang Hateshui's world love novels she loves to read, but as a pure literary work, it does lack some dimensions and ambitions.
In the initial idea, "Shen Yu Tang" would be a "Zhang Hate Water Style" family story, but gradually, the story itself gave birth to branches, the characters were dissatisfied with the setting, wanted to go further, and eventually it became a tale of two cities, Beijing and Zicheng, times and individuals, eternity and change, huge and small.
Li Jingrui said that the biggest difficulty in creating a long story of 340,000 words lies in confidence, because after thirty years of age, the most expensive thing is always time, and in writing, I will constantly wonder whether it is worth putting so much time on this work. Halfway through writing, she stopped writing for almost a year, then continued to write, thinking that she would never be able to finish the book, and finally finished it with great joy, which for her was the most mixed experience of mental torture and spiritual achievement in the ten years of writing.
She said, doing my best, without regrets, "give me another four years, I should not be able to rewrite a book like this, that heart and enthusiasm is gone, I am glad that when I have a real passion, I cling to it and finish this book." 」 A book has its own destiny, and it is also choosing its own readers, and it has put so much effort into it, of course, I hope it can go further, but for me, it is also necessary to leave it behind and continue to move forward. ”
Recently, Li Jingrui was re-reading "Congwen Autobiography" and some scattered short stories, she said, Shen Congwen actually left Xiangxi very early, but his hometown has nourished his writing all his life, even if he wrote those urban theme novels, and even later wrote clothing utensils, that kind of water-like flow of words have never dried up, "I hope my hometown can also be like this."
A historical novel that starves the reader
There are many detailed descriptions of food in "Shen Yu Tang", from fireside beef, watercress crucian carp, brown sugar pot helmet to butter hot pot, so that the characters are also alive in the land of Sichuan.
So many Sichuan delicacies are added to the book, and the readers are all drooling. Why do you like to write about food? Li Jingrui replied that there was no special reason. "Many readers have asked me this question, why do I like to write about food so much, and I have seriously thought about it. At first, I thought that I did not think twice, did not know moderation, and was determined to restrain this in future texts. But before re-reading "A Brief History of Tractors in Ukraine", there are three full pages listing what food was in my mother's storage room. Life is a desert at every level, and food becomes the only thing they can hold on to. The writers I like seem to like to write about food, Cao Xueqin, Wang Zengqi, Zhang Ailing, and even Jin Yong, which is a personal hobby, and the description of food in "Shen Yu Tang" is actually not so much, but I do like to read and write idle writing in long novels. ”
Let's take a look at the Sichuan cuisine written by the author.
She writes about the daily routine above the salt well:
The autumn color is getting darker, the ginkgo biloba on both sides of the Zixi creek is dyed golden, the leaves are withered, floating on the water, the fire in the salt stove room is burning, the workers are naked, and the soy milk is lit into the salt pot, so that the salt brine clarifies the debris and solidifies into crystals. At nightfall, the saltworkers each formed a ball and surrounded a pot of boiled beef, each of whom could eat three large bowls of white rice. The salt field feeds grass with cattle in summer, grain grass in winter, and liters of beans every day, which cannot be served before being sent to the soup pot shop for slaughter, the meat slices are extremely thin, and they are cooked in boiling oil, the soup is bright red, heavy and spicy, semi-bright and half dark, the aroma of green pepper is scattered, and the sulfur smell of natural gas in the stove room is covered.
Kawachi has a penchant for beef, and the complexity of beef practices is enough to amaze other cuisines. Fireside beef, which was born in Yanjing, is a traditional dish of Zigong. The book mentions:
He got up early in the morning, told the people around him to retreat, burned the rainwater in the pot with a charcoal stove, soaked a pot of incense slices, laid out a plate of beef with the unique fire edge of the city, and then sat on a rattan chair under the plane tree in the courtyard and read two volumes of Liang Rengong.
At that time, the sky was extremely bright, there was a small pond in the courtyard, planted with pink purple water lilies, and swollen-eyed goldfish hid under the dark green lotus leaves, as if afraid of this scorching autumn day. There was a layer of white sesame seeds on the side of the fire, and Yu Lixin picked them up one by one and sprinkled them into the water to see those goldfish hesitate to surface and grab food, and then timidly sink back. The fire-edged beef was as thin as paper, sprinkled with good cooked oil, and had always been Yu Lixin's favorite snack, but that day he ate a slice and put it down, only to feel that there was a smelly grease that even the incense slices could not offset.
The family banquet is indispensable to the watercress crucian carp, and miss Yu Jiasan loves to be full of golden fish eggs:
Iron grates and black charcoal were readily available, and several people built a fire in the yard, hob the fish body, smeared with coarse salt, and finally sprinkled two handfuls of sea pepper noodles when they were almost ripe. There are eight fish today, each weighing three or two, and at this time it is the crucian carp that swings its seeds, and the strips have a swollen and round belly, and Ling Zhi said: "The fish eggs are all given to me... Brother Song, give me the fish eggs out, sprinkle more pepper noodles and pepper noodles, I will mix and eat. ”
Sweet brown sugar snacks are also the favorite of the three misses, summer cold cake, winter pot helmet: the taste of the brown sugar cold cake can not say how, but the stall owner is willing to draw cold well water, the cold cake in the water, covered with thick quilts, so that no matter how hot outside, the cold cake entrance still has ice, so that since the hour, I don't know how much to eat every year... Walking on this road again, it is a very cold time, the woman who sells cold cakes in the summer is wrapped in cotton jackets, shrinking her hands and feet to sell ten yuan a brown sugar pot helmet under the tree, the pot helmet and the cold cake, are hidden under the thick quilt, when taken out, it is still hot enough to shake her hands, it needs to be wrapped in yellow paper, torn apart and eaten little by little.
Hot pot is not less: Zicheng also likes to eat butter hot pot, and specially hot water, En pu thought of the crisp belly, goose intestines refreshing, suddenly hungry, sat down after ordering, and ordered two pots of sake, the owner first filled a large plate of beef, in the iron pot smeared with wild duck oil slightly fried, until the beef showed caramel, and then poured into the incense soy sauce, and then waited for the soup to boil, which added mushroom tofu and spring shoots, slowly stewed. Japanese beef is not like Zicheng, and can only be eaten after death, and it is almost digested in the mouth, and no other seasoning is required. Zhao Wu treated them politely, but the things were not half a point, but personally cooked and prepared the ingredients, invited the two to eat a mao belly hot pot, the base was fried by butter, the hot was the whole table of beef underwater, hairy belly, yellow throat, hundred leaves, beef urn, beef intestine with oil, ox tail stew bottom, hair belly slices are extremely thin, only three or four times have been micro-rolled, a bite full of crispness.
Red Star News reporter Chen Mou
Edited by Li Xueli
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