Appreciation of the dramas and important works of the Ming Dynasty

At the end of the Yuan Dynasty, southern opera was developed, and famous works such as "Pipa Record" and "Baiyue Pavilion" appeared, and gradually formed a new form of opera - legend. After the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, the feudal social order was temporarily stabilized, class contradictions and ethnic contradictions tended to ease, and Cheng Zhu Lixue's thought was deeply rooted in the hearts of the people due to the vigorous advocacy of the rulers and the implementation of the eight-strand soil system. There have also been a large number of works embellishing life and promoting feudal morality in the drama world, and Zhu Youyi's "Chengzhai Lefu" and Qiu Jun's "Wulun Quanbi" represent this creative tendency. Until the middle of the Ming Dynasty, due to the economic prosperity of the southeast coastal cities, the contradictions between the emerging citizen class and the increasingly decadent Ming Dynasty became increasingly acute, the Northern Li Da and the SoutheastErn Wokou repeatedly invaded, and the crises inside and outside the country were serious; stirred by the atmosphere of the new era, the creation of opera also broke through the situation of long-term silence, and produced far-reaching writers' works, such as Liang Chenyu's "Huan Sha Ji", the anonymous "Ming Feng Ji", Tang Xianzu's "Peony Pavilion", etc., which became a period of prosperity in China's legendary drama creation. The creation of miscellaneous dramas has also made new achievements, kang hai's "Zhongshan Wolf" and Xu Wei's "Four Voices Ape", which have a particularly far-reaching impact.

The first section of the drama from the beginning of the Ming Dynasty to the middle of the Ming Dynasty

There were many miscellaneous playwrights in the early Ming Dynasty, and according to the "Taihe Zhengyin Spectrum", there were sixteen people such as Liu Dongsheng, Wang Ziyi, and Jia Zhongming. However, in addition to Yang Jingyan's "Journey to the West" miscellaneous drama that wrote the story of the Three Tibetan Masters taking the scriptures, which had an impact on the later mythological novel "Journey to the West", other writers rarely directly reflected reality or described major historical events, that is, the love dramas they wrote the most, such as Liu Dongsheng's "Jiaohong Ji", Wang Ziyi's "Mistakenly Entering Taoyuan", Jia Zhongming's "Iron Abduction Li Du Golden Boy and Jade Girl", and most of them did not get rid of the clichés such as the fall of the golden child and the jade girl and the guidance of the Taibai Venus. As for the famous Zhu Youyi (1379-1439) "Chengzhai Lefu", it is even less desirable to embellish the lives of the rich and aristocratic with a large number of operas of immortal birthday celebration and beauty flower appreciation. Zhu Quan (1378-1449), the king of Ningxian, wrote the Taihe Zhengyin Spectrum and Jia Zhongming's Continuation of the Book of Recorded Ghosts, which were of great value for the study of Yuan and early Ming miscellaneous dramas. From the appearance of the "Pipa Book", the tendency to promote feudal morality became more and more serious, and in the Chenghua period (1465-1487), Qiu Jun, who was known as a famous scholar of science, wrote "The Record of Wulun Quanbei", which fictionalized the encounter between Wu Lunquan, the Wu Lunbei brothers and his family, showing how the characters in the play acted in accordance with the feudal moral dogma. Many of the lyrics in the play are full of feudal preaching, and the four [Golden Character Classics] in the third out are even written in the sentences of the Analects. In the first play of the Wulun Sachet, Shao Can claimed to be "marking the purple sachet because of the continuation of the new biography of wulun", which can be said to be a copy of the "Wulun Quanbi". In addition, for example, the "Feng Jing Sanyuan Record" writes that Feng Shang accumulated "yin virtue", touched God, and gave birth to a son Lianzhong Sanyuan; "ShangRui Sanyuan" wrote that Qin Xuemei kept the festival and caressed the orphans, and when he grew up, even the zhongsanyuan was also a work that promoted feudal morality and beautified bureaucratic landlords.

In order to make the drama better serve the feudal ruling class, the Ming Dynasty law on the one hand prohibited the appearance of the empress dowager and the sages on the stage to maintain the "dignity" of these feudal idols; on the other hand, it encouraged those who "dressed up as gods and immortals and righteous husbands and wives, filial piety and grandsons" to promote cause and effect superstition and feudal moral concepts for them ("Daming Law: Prohibition of Miscellaneous Drama Laws"). Hou Jun has a period of freedom in the "Final Opening" of the "Five Lun Complete Preparations".

These three principles and five luns are available to everyone and everyone has them. It is only in the world that man is drawn by the materialistic desire, and his selfish intentions are obscured, so there are those who are unfilial for the son, and those who are unfaithful for the subjects... It is the sages who come out and make the scriptures, all of whom study and read, who make poetry books, who teach people to sing and recite, all of which are nothing more than persuading the people of the world to learn the truth of the Five Luns. However, the scriptures are on reason, not as good as poetry and chanting temperament, and it is easy to move people's hearts. I have seen the old gentleman of ancient times, and every time he said, "The poetry of the ancients is now the song of man." ...... In recent times, the north and south dramas have been made, and although they are not ancient ceremonies, everyone can see them, they can understand, especially easy to move people's hearts, make people dance with their hands, and they are not conscious. But what he did was mostly obscene, focusing on style and resentment, not only was it not enough to impress people's hearts, but he corrupted the customs. ...... Recently, Caizi newly compiled this drama text, called "Five Lun Complete Preparation", which is temperamental and righteous, and Gaiyin is easily known to those who are touched by it. Move the performance, so that the world for the son to see the filial piety, for the subject to see the loyal ... Although it is a false statement, it is the principle of universal principles.

This passage is the inheritance and development of the clever theory of "not caring about the weathering, even if it is in vain", and more comprehensively embodies the view that the feudal ruling class at that time wanted to use drama to serve them. As the feudal economy continued to develop in the early Ming Dynasty, class contradictions were temporarily eased, which was also conducive to the formation and expansion of this dramatic view. In this way, from the beginning of the Ming Dynasty to the middle of the century, for more than a hundred years, the drama world has been flooded with a countercurrent of "taking Shiwen as the southern song", (Note: Xu Wei's "Narrative of southern words": "Taking Shiwen as the southern song, there was no such thing as the beginning of the late Yuan Dynasty, and its drawbacks originated from the "Sachet Record"). Shiwen refers to the eight strands of the text that should be examined at that time, and it stipulates that only the sages can speak on behalf of the sages, and the author is not allowed to have his own ideas. Opera creation, like poetry and novels, has been in a state of sluggishness for a long time. While the early Ming Dynasty drama scene was flooded with the countercurrent of "taking Shiwen as the southern song", works that inherited the excellent traditions of the previous generation of opera, such as "Nanxi Xiang" and "Youyu Ji" adapted by the Ming Dynasty, "Ancient City Record", "Caolu Record" and "Golden Sable Record" depicting the stories of historical heroes, and "Wooden Comb Records" depicting the story of Water Margin, are still popular in the folk. Most of these popular folk operas have clear love and hatred, simple language, and far-reaching stage influence. Together with Tang legends, Song and Yuan dialects, as well as novels such as Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Water Margin, they provide rich themes and artistic references for the turn and prosperity of opera creation after the middle of the Ming Dynasty.

From the beginning of the Ming Dynasty to the middle of the Ming Dynasty, after a relatively long period of stability, the development of handicrafts and commercial economies in major cities in China, especially in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River and the southeast coastal areas, and the growth of the citizen class not only provided sufficient material conditions for the prosperity of the opera industry in the middle of the Ming Dynasty; the leftist thought of Wang Xue that emerged after the middle of the Ming Dynasty also broke the long-term rule of Cheng Zhu Lixue and removed ideological obstacles for the production of some dramas with progressive ideological tendencies. The ruling class of the Ming Dynasty vigorously promoted the "Pipa Record", but the Wang Xue leftist thinker Li Yan believed that the achievements of the "West Chamber" and "Baiyue Pavilion" were above the "Pipa Record". The story of Zhuo Wenjun's night running to Sima Xiangru, as yan is called in the Yuanren miscellaneous drama, has been devalued in the "Record of broken kilns" (see the twenty-first play), and in the "Sachet Record", it is said that she "has not been left behind for a thousand years" (see the thirty-sixth out), while Li Zhen praised her as a "good choice and good match". These ideas, which were regarded as "heretical" by the ruling class, directly promoted the emergence of some operas with anti-feudal ideological tendencies after the middle of the Ming Dynasty.

The more accomplished opera writers who appeared in the middle of the Ming Dynasty included Kang Hai, Wang Jiusi, Li Kaixian, etc., all of whom were figures who were squeezed out of the ruling clique, thus gaining some understanding of the decadence of the ruling clique.

Wang Jiusi (1468-1551) was a native of Yanxian County, Shaanxi. Kang Hai (1475-1540) was a native of Wugong County, Shaanxi. They were all Hongzhi Zhongjin soldiers, who were relieved of their official duties and returned to their hometowns in the early years of Zhengde. Wang Jiusi's "Du Fu YouChun" miscellaneous drama, writing that Du Fu traveled to Qujiang after the Anshi Chaos, scolded Li Linfu for "being jealous of Xian's ability and ruining the Chao Gang", revealing the author's dissatisfaction with the ruling minister at that time. Compared with the operas of the early Ming Dynasty that sang and danced for the princes and nobles, it has gone a step forward; but the Du Fu in the work is actually the embodiment of the author, and it is far from expressing the spiritual outlook of this great poet. Kang Hai's "Zhongshan Wolf" miscellaneous drama is said to have been written to satirize Li Mengyang (see Volume V of the Compendium of Qu Hai's General Catalogue). The work writes that Mr. Dongguo risked his life to hide the Zhongshan wolf that was shot by Zhao Jianzi in the book bag and evaded Zhao Jianzi's search; but after the Zhongshan wolf came out of the bag, he said that Mr. Dongguo was pretending to save the word, but in fact he wanted to kill it, and even the words that Mr. Dongguo defended him in front of Zhao Jianzi became his guilt. This profoundly exposes the nature of the wolf, no matter how compassionate you are for it, it will always eat people. The work also writes that after Mr. Dongguo was threatened by the wolf, when the old man of the staff tricked it into the book bag to kill it, he moved his compassion and said: "Although it is a burden, I can't bear to kill it." This is a pungent satire on the warmth of this nerd, and it also has a certain educational significance today. The whole play is compact, and the language is natural and fluent. The open speech of wolves, old apricots and old cows is realistic, making the work have a fairy tale meaning, which is rare in classical opera.

Li Kaixian (1502-1568), also spelled Bohua, was a native of Zhangqiu County, Shandong, who served as the Shaoqing of Taichang Temple, but later resigned himself because he was dissatisfied with the government. He loved songwriting all his life, and now has "The Book of the Sword". The Book of the Sword writes that the Northern Song Dynasty forbade the head of the northern Song Dynasty to write about the impeachment of the traitorous ministers Tong Guan and Gao Li, who was framed by Gao Li in the name of borrowing the sword, forced to Liangshan, and finally still recruited an and reunited with his wife Zhang Zhenniang, who was persecuted by Gao Yanei. Through the struggle between Lin Chong and Gao Li, the legend reflects the contradictions within the ruling clique at that time, and at the same time expresses the author's dissatisfaction with realpolitik. His writing of Lin Chong's two Shangshu and Zhang Zhenniang beating drums for her husband has no basis in the Water Margin story. It is more like the later description of Yang Jiaoshan and his wife in the "Ming Feng". "Water Margin" writes that Lin Chong, who did not want to rebel against the dynasty at all, finally went to the road of resolute resistance. Establish the image of a reckless hero and profoundly expose the sharp contradictions within the ruling clique. The Book of the Sword writes that Lin Chong was persecuted to the end, had illusions about the slaves of the Song Dynasty, and finally was commanded to be loyal and filial to both, which made this reckless hero's character a scholar. However, this work appeared in the period when legends such as "Wulun Quanbei" and "Wulun Sachet" were popular, and the content had a certain degree of reality and the lyrics were relatively clear, unlike the works of some literati at that time, which excessively pursued beauty, so it still had a certain positive impact on the drama creation at that time. In the play, "Night Run" is a song field singing work, and the following two pieces of music more truly express the mood of a person who has been hit hard in the ruling clique and forced to flee.

According to the blood and tears of Longquan, he sprinkled his robe, and hated Tianya's body. Concentrate on throwing water margins, looking back at the Heavenly Dynasty, hurrying to escape, Gu Bu's loyalty and filial piety.

--[Double Tone, New Water Order]

The night is long, and the night break knocks on the door. Looking at the moon from afar, the darkness is heavy, and the suburbs are in a hurry. The light body is not afraid of the road, and the heart is busy only afraid of people's alarm. Scattered soul dissipation, scattered soul dissipation, sigh red dust mistakenly Wuling young.

--[Zhuma Listen]

Later, the opera composer Chen Youjiao during the Wanli Dynasty adapted the "Book of the Sword" into "Lingbao Sword", restored the original appearance of "Water Margin" in the part that Lin Chong was falsely accused of, retained the plot and some lyrics of the original record, such as Zhenniang's drumming and singing, Jin'er's marriage, etc., and added ironic plots such as Song Huizong taking the prostitute Li Shishi to Banzai Mountain, and Li Kui sitting in Shouzhang County to judge the case, which is indeed higher than the original record, although the ending still cannot get rid of the cliché of Zhao'an being sealed.

The second section is the rise of the Kun Cavity and the Huan Sha Ji and ming feng ji

The popular opera singing chambers before and after the middle of the Ming Dynasty had a great influence on the Yiyang Cavity and the Kun Cavity. Yiyang cavity originated from Yiyang, Jiangxi, originally popular in the hinterland of northern Ganbei, southern Anhui and other hinterlands, compared to the Haiyan cavity and Kun cavity produced in areas with high industrial and commercial development, it is more rugged and full of folk atmosphere. Yiyang Cavity is mainly accompanied by percussion instruments such as gongs and drums, and there are rolling singing and helpers, which are adapted to the needs of its performance in the square. Compared with other singing voices, yiyang cavity is also the most widely spread in the region.

Kunlu was founded in the first year, and Shuojian at the end of the Yuan and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty was an opera musician who processed and improved the Kun cavity. (Note: Wei Liangfu's "Introduction to the Southern Words" records: "The Yuan Dynasty had a strong man, although thirty miles away from Kunshan, Juzidun, proficient in southern ci", "good at the Ao of Southern Qu, the country was called Kunshan cavity at the beginning of the country". The Kunshan area of Suzhou was the center of industrial and commercial economic development in the southeast coastal area of the Ming Dynasty, and the opera performance was the most prosperous, which made it possible for the opera singing voice that was originally popular in the Kunshan area to absorb the strengths of other singing voices to enrich itself. Wei Liangfu of Kunshan was another important reformer of Kunshan. The Kun Cavity of the Economic Wei Reform concentrated on the characteristics of the Southern Qu Qing and gentleness, while preserving some of the northern Qu's passionate and generous vocal cavity. Its accompaniment instruments use both pipes and strings such as pipa and yueqin, which are richer than those of Yiyang and Haiyan. Therefore, after the popularity of Kun Cavity, except for yiyang cavity, most other singing chambers cannot compete with it. However, at the beginning, Kunlu had the weakness of being more feminine, and in the process of development, because it was more suitable for the "hall drama" of your family's surname, it gradually separated from the lives of the vast number of people in art and moved towards the road of elegance.

Liang Chenyu's "Huan Sha Ji" is a legendary play that was first sung with the Kun Cavity improved by Wei Liangfu, and played a great role in the spread of the Kun Cavity. Liang Zi Bolong (1510?-1580?), a native of Kunshan, was generous and generous in his life, and was good at qu, and his footprints were all over WuChu, and the name of the section was not satisfactory. "Huan Sha Ji" performs the rise and fall of Wu and Yue through the tragic dramas of Xi Shi and Fan Stupid. Because the memorial of their love is a wisp of raccoon yarn, it got its name. The work celebrates Fan Li and Xi Shi, who sacrificed their personal interests for the national interest. When Fan Li said that he had failed to fulfill his covenant with Xi Shi because he was detained in the state of Wu, Xi Shi said: "The honorable officials are detained, and the concubines are fully known, but the state affairs are extremely large, and the in-laws are extremely small, and it is a small number of women, and there are expectations for all surnames." Later, when Fan Li asked Xi Shi to enter Wu, When Xi Shi hesitated, Fan Li said: "If you can drift forward, then the country can exist, and my body can also be protected, and there will be a period later, but I do not know." If we cling to it, the kingdom will perish, and my body will perish, and though we will marry and marry, little lady, I and you will be the ghosts of the ditch together, so why should we ask for the joy of a hundred years?" This clearly puts the national interest above the happiness of personal love through the dramatic plot, which is rare in its previous operas. The work praises the unity of the Yue monarchs and their perseverance in recovering the country in more space, and criticizes the arrogance and corruption of the Wu monarchs and subjects, which eventually led to the destruction of the country. In the middle of the Ming Dynasty, when the Wokou repeatedly invaded the southeast coastal areas and the situation in the country was in jeopardy, these ideas expressed in the works had a certain practical educational significance. The work depicts Fan Ligong retiring from the five lakes and boating with Xi Shi, which has its negative side; but it also shows that Fan Li and Xi Shi love the motherland and always keep a sober mind for the rulers, attach importance to love with common ideals and get rid of one-sided chastity, which blows a fresh breath to the Ming opera circle that preached foolishness and filial piety. The work does not describe enough of the spirit of Yue Wang's gouge of lying down and tasting courage and anger, and excessive rendering of Yue Wang's taste of dung, Fan Li's plot, and Xi Shi's beauty plan is a great weakness in ideological content. As for the superstitious plots such as Wu Wang's dream and Gongsun Sheng's xiansheng, as well as the fatalistic view that Fan Lixishi was a golden boy and a jade girl, it also showed the common negative factors in the creation of opera at that time.

The Ming Feng Ji is said to have been written by Wang Shizhen (see Jiao Xun's "Drama Theory"), but there is no confirmation. The work depicts the struggle between the courtiers led by Xia Yan and Yang Jisheng and yan Song's father and son, shaping the image of a series of loyal subjects, while exposing the decay and cruelty of the authoritarian politics at that time, which has a certain combat significance. Most of the character stories in the works are based on historical facts not far from the time. In order to highlight the mental outlook of the characters and strengthen the effect of the stage performance, some necessary fiction was made at the same time. For example, when Yang Jisheng repaired Ben's impeachment of Song, the ghosts of his ancestors appeared under the lamp and tried to stop him from going to Ben, but he was still not dissuaded, which was borrowed from the legend when Jiang Qin impeached Liu Jin. Another example is that Yang's wife Zhang Shi was originally asked to die by Shangshu Daifu, and Yang only hanged herself at home after death, and the author wrote that she wanted to be generous to her husband in the legal field, and finally used her dead husband Mingzhi to impeach Yan Song's father and son. These effective artistic treatments have better shaped the image of loyal and martyr women, so that the two plays of "Repairing in Front of the Lamp" and "Couples' Death Festival" have been staged for a long time. The works write about yan song's father and son's monopoly on bribery, disaster to the country and the people, Zhao Wenhua and Yan Maoqing's inflammatory cushions, and have more moving depictions, especially "Yan Song Qingshou", "Duanyang Tour Appreciation", "Wenhua Sacrifice to the Sea" and other scenes. Determined by the political content of the work, the form also breaks through the habitual set of clutching sorrow and joy throughout the play. The positive characters in the play are generally more pedantic, and their method of struggle is in addition to the upper part. This is a true reflection of the spiritual outlook of the scholar created by the eight-strand soil system, and at the same time, it reveals the writer's own fantasies about the Ming Dynasty, and attributes the final settlement of the contradiction to the "wisdom" of the Jiajing Emperor.

The common shortcomings of the art of these two works are: "The characters are numerous, the structure is loose, and the language is sculpted, which affects the vividness and vividness of the character image." The latter point, "Ming Feng Ji" is more serious.

The third section shen jing and wu jiang faction

After the middle of the Ming Dynasty, due to the prosperity of opera creation, different genres of opera appeared. Among them, the Wujiang sect represented by Shen Jing and the Linchuan school formed under the influence of Tang Xianzu were the more influential.

Shen Jing (1553-1610), Zi Boying, Ning'an, a native of Wujiang, Jiangsu. He was a mid-level scholar in his twenties and served as an official at Guanglu Temple. Because of the attack on the fraud case in the field of science, he abandoned his official position and returned to his hometown in his prime, raised a drama team at home, listened to plays, wrote and wrote songs, and lived a life that he called "word hidden". He studied the rhythm of music in his lifetime, and made a certain contribution to the collation of the rhythm of the Kun Cavity. There are seventeen kinds of legends written, and there are seven or eight kinds of existing ones, such as "The Book of Red Ferns", "The Book of Righteous Heroes", and "The Book of Bo Xiao".

Shen Jing once said: "How to get the lyricist to do it, the singer to keep the voice, everyone carefully talk about the rhythm." (See "Bo Xiao Ji" with engraving "On Mr. ZiYin") After the ming dynasty when the literati were becoming more and more legendary and their works were often out of tune, it was of positive significance for him to put forward such a proposition. In order to make the composer comply, he also formulated the "Thirteen Tunes of the Southern Nine Palaces". He also believes that "preferring to harmonize the law and not to work, and reading it without forming a sentence and praising the beginning of the harmony is the craftsmanship in the song", which overemphasizes the importance of the rhythm. The Wujiang sect represented by Shen Jing not only attaches importance to musical rhythm, but also has its common characteristics. This is first manifested in the propagation of feudal ethics. In addition to works such as the Ten Filial Pieties and the Book of Strange Verses, which directly promote loyalty and filial piety, other legends also express their feudal moral views everywhere. Lü Tiancheng, an important writer of the Wujiang School, said that Shen Jing's operas "have their destiny and intentions are all masters of the world", which just illustrates this point. Because they had been ostracized within the ruling clique and were dissatisfied with the most corrupt faction in the ruling clique, they could also criticize the traitors for power in their works, sympathize with the ostracized scholars, and praise some people who were righteous and trustworthy. The second is to promote fatalistic ideas, which are often expressed through dreams, in addition to the usual techniques such as judging by the gods or the guidance of immortal officials, such as the "Interpretation of Dreams" of the "Book of Righteous Heroes" and the "Interpretation of Dreams" of the "Book of Falling". In terms of artistic techniques, one is to use a thing related to the people in the play, such as the red reed of "Red Fern" and the sword of "Buried Sword", etc. to arrange the guanmu, rather than starting from the objective emotional cushion and character personality to start the plot. The second is to pursue some boring jokes that lack the content of life, and sometimes borrow the foot color in the play to joke, such as in "The Book of Righteous Heroes" when the official government interrogated the princess, the queen mother pulled that first dressed as Ximen Qing and Wu Dalang, and then dressed as soap Li and Yu Ge's net and ugly two characters and said: "Ximen Qing is made by him, and Wu Dalang does not die and moves the play." "This undermines the seriousness that theatrical art should have. Sometimes it is clever in words, such as embedding word name and song brand name in the song, using the rest body and clutch body; and using a lengthy Zen-style answer in the confession. This ideological tendency and artistic technique was also expressed in the opera writers before the Wujiang school, but the Wujiang school was more concentrated. The language of the Wujiang school's opera is relatively shallow, and it has initially changed the style of the lily from the "Wulun Xiangbao" to the "YuheJi"; however, due to the excessive restraint of the writers and the lack of realistic content of the works, most of their language is not clear and vivid, and often flat and tasteless.

Shen Jing's "Red Reed" was most recommended by the composers Xu Fuzuo and Wang Jide at that time, and the skill was derived from the Tang legend "The Biography of Zheng Dexuan", and the students Zheng Dexuan, Cui Xizhou and the daughters of the salt merchant Wei Chuyun and Zeng Liyu met in a boat stop at Dongting Lake, and gave each other red aroam, red silk, red note, etc., and went to become a couple. Compared with the "Book of Pisces" and "Peach Rune" that he later wrote, there are some new contents. However, the author arranges the fate of the characters in the play through the Dongting Dragon King, and promotes the feudal superstitious idea of life and death and helplessness. The excessive coincidence of the purpose of the guan, as well as the use of set sentences, rhymes, clutches, after the break and other styles of music, also shows the common style of the Wujiang school. "Righteous Chivalry" is a work that he himself is dissatisfied with, because the story of Playing Wu Song is the most widely circulated. In the works, Wu Song often lamented that Jun En had not been repaid, and after being forced to liangshan, he still looked forward to Zhao'an day and night, which was an image fabricated according to his idea of "famous generals out of Heng Mao". Compared with the image of Chao Gai, Liu Tang and other reckless heroes in Xu Chao's "Water Margin" at the same time, it is much inferior. The author also fictionalized Ye Ziying, who was a guest at Chai Jin's house, he and Chai Jin suffered instead of cooperating with the heroes of Liangshan, and when Song Jiang sent him the travel expenses, he said: "You Hugh will bait the talents of Jin Bao, I did not come today for profit." This clearly exposed his hostility to the cause of the Liangshan uprising. "Bo Xiao Ji" includes ten small plays, of which "Qixian Cheng" writes about the troubles of local officials and gentlemen, "False Monk" exposes the viciousness of monks, and "Thief Saves People" writes about the brothers of Jieyi fighting for money and killing, which has a certain realistic content. But the author's understanding only stays on the surface of things, and he writes these plays only for the sake of humor, so it is impossible to write profoundly and movingly.

Wujiang writers still include Gu Dadian, Lü Tiancheng, Bu Shichen, Ye Xianzu, Shen Zijin, etc., and most of their legends have not been circulated. Among the current works, Shen Zijin's "Wanghu Pavilion" is a comedy with more realistic content, and the stage influence is also relatively large.

The fourth section of Xu Wei and the post-Ming dynasty miscellaneous drama

From the long-silent miscellaneous drama creation since the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, to the middle of the year, there have also been changes, there have been more satirical works of reality, the earlier Wang Jiusi and Kang Hai have played a pioneering role, and the subsequent Xu Wei has achieved even more.

Xu Wei (1521-1593), also known as Qingteng and Tianchi, was a native of Jiangshanyin (present-day Shaoxing County). He was a genius who failed to succeed in his studies, and in his prime he served as a secretary under hu Zongxian, the governor of Zhejiang, and made a surprise plan to break the Wokou. After Hu was killed, he also fell for life. He and Li Zhuowu were both precursors of the progressive ideas of the late Ming Dynasty, with a bold and uninhibited personality, and hated the dignitaries and secular scribes. He was good at many aspects of artistic talent, and in his later years he lived by selling calligraphy and paintings, but it was impossible for the bureaucrats to ask him for a word. He was regarded as an incomprehensible madman by the ruling class at that time; but after his death, stories about him were widely circulated in Zhejiang folklore.

Xu Wei's "Four Voices of apes" includes four miscellaneous dramas: "Yuyang Lane", "Female Mulan", "Female Zhuangyuan" and "Cuixiang Dream". "Yuyang Alley" once again beats the drum and scolds Cao Cao's ghost on the Yan Luo Temple by You Heng, exposing the vicious hypocrisy of these powerful courtiers, killing people with knives, indulging in wine, until death, and at the same time expressing the author's passion like a fiery fire.

He opened a feast there, taught me to beat the drum according to the board, just as I borrowed the hammer to beat it, and then attacked him with the drum. I scolded a sentence of sharp flying sword, and this drum sounded thunderbolts to roll the sand. Cao Cao, this skin is the shell on your body, this hammer is the ribs under your elbow; this nail hole is the hair in your heart socket, this staff is the fangs on your mouth; the two ends of the Meng always beat you to wear the pippi, and for a while you can't pay you a big loss. And count from the beginning, wash your ears and listen to us.

--[Mixed River Dragon]

When Cao Cao argued that he had also ordered the three states to be sought and returned, You Heng scolded:

You fiercely ask for the merits for your own family, so that the three states are worth anything! A few sesame seeds went to the big vat, the hungry cat cried for a while, the hungry eagle spared half of the liver and intestines hanging, and the ferocious slaughter put a moment of pig and sheep leave. Who are you going to coax now? It's not okay to change the essential oil slippery.

--[Parasitic grass]

These songs are really like the words of the predecessors, "like a furious dragon carrying rain, leaping into the Xiao hanjian", and played a decisive role in many writers who used Shiwen and Xiaoli as operas at that time.

"Female Mulan" plays Mulan's surrogate father to join the army, for the national merit. "Female Zhuangyuan" plays Huang Chuntao, who dresses as a man, obtains the title, and shows amazing talent when trying cases. "Skirt companion, stand up to the heavens, say what a man"; "who belongs to the good things in the world, not in men but in women". These ideas revealed in the work are a peach war against the feudal society that favors sons over daughters. However, Xu Wei, who lived four hundred years ago, could not find a real way out for women, so Mulan and Chuntao could only recover their daughters and return to the boudoir in the end.

The story of Red Lotus and Liu Cui in "Jade Zen Master" is pinched and co-said, with the superstitious idea of reincarnation and cause and effect, but also to a certain extent, it exposes the deceit and self-deception of the officialdom and the Buddhist gate, and retaliates against each other. His "GeDai Xiao" miscellaneous drama (the title of "Tiger Lin Chong and the Resident Scholar") writes that Monk Li stole Monk Zhang's hat, but let Monk Zhang take the blame for adultery; the grandmother of the governor set fire in the back hall because of "jealousy", and the common people lit lamps to put out the fire, but they were punished, which is a farce with serious content. It is characterized by the emergence of various social phases that are reversed and black and white through absurd plots, caricatured character portraits and humorous language, especially exposing the corruption of Buddhism and the darkness of the officialdom.

Xu Wei's miscellaneous dramas, like his paintings and calligraphy, fully express his wild and uninhibited character and cynical rebellious spirit. Through the atmosphere of comedy and farce, the content of showing grief and indignation has reached the realm of "laughter and anger at cracks, and the mourning of long songs is worse than crying", which is the stylistic characteristic of his miscellaneous dramas. The romantic spirit of his works greatly impacted the habits of Chen Chen Xiangyin in the creation of opera at that time, and at the same time had a significant influence on the later romantic opera writer Tang Xianzu.

At the same time as Xu Wei or later, opera writers also wrote many miscellaneous plays, some of which borrowed the leisurely life of the literati in history to express their leisure and leisure, such as Xu Chao's "Lanting Hui" and "Chibi Tour". Some write the love stories of literati in history, such as Wang Daokun's "Far Mountain Drama" and "Luoshui Sorrow". These works also occasionally reveal the author's dissatisfaction with reality, but mainly show the feudal literati's pursuit of Song leisure and pleasure. Due to the lack of realism and the importance of the tablet and the excessive elegance of the language, they are generally not suitable for stage performances, but only become things that the literati appreciate. At this time, Xu Fuzuo's "One Article of Money" wrote that a millionaire Lu Zhi picked up a piece of money on the road, but did not know how to deal with it, and finally decided to buy a large amount of sesame seeds, but also to eat in the mountains and forests, profoundly exposing the greed and miserliness of the exploiting class. Wang Heng's "Yulun Robe" writes that Wang Tui impersonated Wang Wei, and because of the recommendation of King Qi and the Ninth Princess, he almost deceived Yuanyuan and exposed the dirty inside story of the science field. His "True Puppet" creates the image of Du Yan, a worldly old man who has always maintained a sober mind through the vicissitudes of the eunuch sea, and through his dramatic activities, reflects the snobbery and official customs. Ye Xianzu's "Curse Seat" depicts the factional struggle of the feudal dynasty through the rise and fall of the foreign relatives of the Han Wu Emperor Shi Tian and Dou and the borrowing of wine by the shufu. Although these works also contain elements of feudal superstition, such as Lu Zhi's final incarnation by Shakya, Wang Wei's reincarnation as Han Wei, etc., the strong irony of reality is their main content.