There is a story "Ye Sheng" in the Chinese classic "Liaozhai Zhiyi", which can be said to be the finishing touch in the whole novel. The story is roughly like this: it is said that there is a Xiucai surnamed Ye in Huaiyang, Henan, and the words of the article are second to none at the time, but they have never been able to pass the examination. Later, Ding Chenghe, the county commander, admired Ye Sheng's talent and let him study at the official palace.
When it came time to open the examination, Ye Sheng won the first place in the examination. Ding Gong had great hopes for Ye Sheng's future and did not want to fail in the township test. Ye Sheng felt that he had failed to live up to Ding Gong's expectations, and after that, his body was emaciated and dull like a puppet. Ding Gong sympathized with him and asked him to take him north with him when he entered Beijing at the end of his term of office. Ye Sheng was grateful and never came out.
Later, because Ding Gong was dismissed from his official post for offending his superiors, he wrote to Ye Sheng, hoping that he would return to his hometown with him and continue to obtain meritorious titles. Ye Sheng did not reply due to his serious illness. Ding Gong could not bear to leave alone, and stayed in Huaiyang for several days to wait.
A few days later, he overheard the janitor informing Ye Sheng that he was coming. Ding Gong was overjoyed, so he returned to his hometown with Ye Sheng and asked his son to worship Ye Sheng as his teacher. Ding Gong's son was born intelligent, coupled with Ye Sheng's careful counseling, all the way to Qingyun to enter the jinshi, was given the post of head of the ministry. When Ding Gongzi took office, he took his mentor Ye Sheng with him and sent him to study in the Taixue Guozi Prison, and when Ye Sheng took the Shuntianfu Township Examination, he finally passed the examination.
When Ye Sheng returned home, he actually frightened his wife like ashes. The wife stood in the distance and said that he had been dead for a long time, and that his coffin had not yet been buried due to the poverty of his family and the young age of his son. After Ye Sheng heard this, he couldn't help but feel sad. When he entered the house and saw that his coffin was really still parked there, he threw himself on the ground and disappeared. The wife only saw Ye Sheng's clothes, hats, shoes and socks fall off the ground, and she sadly picked up the clothes on the ground and cried sadly.
When Ding Gongzi heard about it, he immediately ran in a carriage to Ye Sheng's spiritual hall to worship; he paid for the funeral to repair the tomb and buried Ye Sheng with a funeral ceremony. He also sent a lot of money to Ye Sheng's son, and asked him a teacher to teach him to read. Later, Ding Gongzi recommended to the envoys, so that Ye Sheng's son entered the county school the following year and became a Xiucai.
"Ye Sheng" is an excellent work on the subject of the imperial examination in "Liaozhai Zhiyi". The plot of the novel twists and turns, ups and downs, contains profound ideological and cultural significance in a short period of time, and truly reproduces the living conditions of readers since the Ming and Qing dynasties. With a more dignified brushstroke, the novel goes deep into Ye Sheng's tried and tested painful mind.
Although Ye Sheng was "endowed with words in the article, the crown was at that time", he was trapped in the famous field for a long time, and it was not easy to meet his confidant Ding Chenghe, although he tried to win the championship in advance, but the township test failed, which was overshadowed by his already very painful soul, and he was ashamed of his confidant, and finally he was in pain and died of pain. The above vivid description of the novel has a poignant artistic appeal.
The background of the protagonist of this novel is the true portrayal of the life of the author Pu Songling, Who was born in a declining landlord family, and when he became an adult, his family had long declined and his life was very poor. All his life, he was keen on meritorious service and was obsessed with the examination, but in addition to the fact that when he was nineteen years old, he had successively passed the three first places in the county, prefecture, and Dao, and made up for the doctoral disciples, he had suffered repeated setbacks and had been depressed since then.
He taught for forty years, and only at the age of seventy-one did he come to the aid of the tribute, make up for the year, and die four years later. The ups and downs of his life enabled him to have a certain understanding of the darkness of politics and the shortcomings of the imperial examination at that time, and the poverty of life enabled him to have a certain understanding and understanding of the life and thoughts of the broad masses of working people.
The content of the novel and the thoughts and feelings of the characters are rooted in Pu Songling's own life experience and profound life experience. Every word of the novel is full of the author's sorrow and bitterness, and it is a very painfully written blood and tears.
The reason why the novel wants to show Ye Sheng's talent and learning so vividly and tortuously is that the author cleverly borrowed Ye Sheng's article to show that he did not meet with talent, and borrowed Ye Sheng's family as a metaphor to refer to his miserable situation in the field house. Borrowing Ye Shengzhong to spit out the resentment that had accumulated in his chest cavity since the Geng period. Writing about Ye Sheng's encounter with his own skin pain is precisely the emotional factor of this sad and touching article.
As Feng Zhenluan, a famous literary critic of the Qing Dynasty, said when commenting on this article: "This article is the "Liaozhai" self-made short biography, so it is painful to say. ”
As for why Pu Songling wrote Ye Sheng's hometown in Huaiyang, there may be many speculations about this, perhaps because there are too many talents in Huaiyang who have fallen into the Sun Mountains and Huai Cai, which makes the author deeply regret; perhaps it is because the foreign celebrities who are officials in Huaiyang are brilliant and dazzling, which makes the author envious; perhaps because Huaiyang, a city with outstanding people and Zhong Lingyuxiu, makes the author unable to go there and yearn for it...
All in all, in the editor's opinion, in any case, Pu Songling will not choose a place he does not like for the elaborate autobiographical story, so when Pu Songling wrote the story of "Ye Sheng", it is also obvious that there is an unusual fate with Huaiyang, as for what makes him and Huaiyang, it remains to be examined and examined.
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Written/Edited/Genko