In the author's hometown, when people see a person crying very sad and sad, they often say that he "cries like Li Sanniang."
Who is Li Sanniang? She is a character in the opera of the same name, and many dramas have this play, such as commentary, Yu opera, Chao opera, tin opera, Huai opera, flower drum drama, and so on. If you want to trace the origin, the "Li Sanniang" of these dramas comes from "The White Rabbit", one of the four major southern operas.
"The Tale of the White Rabbit" tells us such a tortuous and legendary story: during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, wars were frequent, and the young horse herder Liu Zhiyuan entered the Li family in Jinyang (present-day central Shanxi) as his son-in-law, and his wife Li Sanniang cared for this husband who was frustrated for a while with her clever vision, kind disposition and tenacious will.
However, as soon as Li Sanniang's father died, Liu Zhiyuan was immediately bullied by the Li family's brother and sister-in-law and forced to defect to the army, and since then Li Sanniang has fallen into the abyss of pain.
She did not want to obey her brother-in-law's orders to remarry, so she was inhumanly abused. On the night of childbirth, the third lady was alone in the mill to bite off the umbilical cord and give birth to a son.
The fierce brother and sister-in-law took advantage of her coma to throw the baby into the fish pond, fortunately, she was secretly rescued by Dou Gong, and the third lady tearfully named the child "Biting Navel Lang", and then hung the jade rabbit left by her husband on the child, and Dou Gong took the baby to find Liu Zhiyuan in the military.
The child traveled thousands of miles and finally reached Liu Zhiyuan's hands. At that time, when the two armies were fighting, Liu Zhiyuan could not leave the front position, so he entrusted someone to visit The Third Niang, and the brother and sister-in-law panicked and said that the Third Niang had remarried and left.
Sixteen years later, on a stormy day, Li Sanniang stumbled upon a white rabbit with arrow wounds at the edge of the well, and then met a young general Liu Chengyou who came to hunt.
When the mother and son meet, although each does not know the identity of the other, there seems to be telepathy in the underworld.
When Liu Zhiyuan (who was already a marshal at this time) learned the news, it was tantamount to a thunderbolt on a sunny day, because he was discouraged and had already married Yue Shi, who was suffering and sharing.
Liu Chengyou could not face all this, and Liu Zhiyuan was full of sorrow and joy, and there was no way out, but fortunately, Yue Shi, who knew the great righteousness, was moved by Li Sanniang's spirit and asked her husband to welcome Sanniang back with the highest etiquette.
On the night of the snow and wind, Liu Zhiyuan and Li Sanniang met in the mill, and the family who had gone through hardships finally came together along their different life paths.
In the play, Li Sanniang and Liu Zhiyuan talked about a love affair with two feelings and unforgettable hearts, and after 16 years of suffering, they finally came to reunite with their husband and son who thought about it day and night, and the audience believed that their family had lived a happy and happy life like a prince and princess in a fairy tale.
However, the real Li Sanniang in history only has the middle of the opera story, with neither good memories nor a bright ending.
According to the records of the "New History of the Five Dynasties," the combination of Liu Zhiyuan and Li Sanniang is likely not the romance of love at first sight played in the play, but a hot unrequited love affair with a burning stick.
At that time, Liu Zhiyuan was already thirty-eight years old, a small soldier, at most a squad leader, and Li Sanniang was a rich family of twenty-nine years old, and the history books only said that the man met the woman, fell in love with her, and was bent on marrying back to the military camp to take possession of herself, and did not mention the woman's reaction, but we can think that a beautiful young lady is very difficult to see a pawn who is already a half-old man, which can basically be confirmed from the subsequent incidents of courtship being rejected, taking advantage of the night to rob relatives, etc. It seems that the gun not only came out of power, but also produced a wife.
In this way, Li Sanniang was snatched into the military camp and became Liu Zhiyuan's "Lady Of TheBan", and gave birth to a son for him, named "Biting Navel Lang" and the big name Liu Chengyou. Soon, Liu Zhiyuan went to the front line and left Li Sanniang's mother and son in her hometown.
Sixteen years later, Liu Zhiyuan, who had already been crowned king and general, took Li Sanniang and made her Lady of Wei Guo, but the story was far from over.
In 947, Liu Zhiyuan took advantage of the Khitan attack on the Later Jin Dynasty from the south, established himself as emperor, with the state name "Han" (historically known as The Later Han), made Li Sanniang empress, and Liu Chengyou the crown prince, and soon took control of the original Later Jin rule and drove out the Khitan army.
Unfortunately, Liu Zhiyuan died less than a year after claiming the title of emperor from the south to the north, so Liu Chengyou succeeded to the throne as emperor, and Li Sanniang naturally became the empress dowager.
In 950, the Hidden Emperor Liu Chengyou, instigated by his favorite ministers Guo Yunming and Li Ye, killed the envoy Yang Ying and Shi Hongzhao, the envoy of the regent Yang Yinghe, and then prepared to kill Guo Wei, the privy councillor of Zhenshou Yidu.
Empress Li advised several times, but Emperor Yin did not listen, and finally forced Guo Wei to oppose Han, led troops to attack Kaifeng, killed Emperor Yin, and later Han perished. It was the shortest-lived dynasty in Chinese history and lasted less than four years.
Because Empress Li opposed the killing of Guo Wei, Guo Wei honored her as Empress Dowager Zhaoren and raised her in the harem.
After the death of her father and the death of her son, Li Sanniang was miserable and miserable alone in the cold and desolate harem of the foreign dynasty, looking for it, and inevitably suffered from the white-eyed and black hands of the powerful villains, and a few years later, the ill-fated and exhausted Li Sanniang died as the empress dowager (because Guo Wei had died at this time, and Zhou Shizong Chai Rong succeeded to the throne), at the age of forty-two.
Born in 913, Li Sanniang died of illness in 954, and she never went out of the city to change the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms of the Great King Banner, and she experienced the short-lived dynasties of Later Liang, Later Tang, Later Jin, Later Han, and Later Five, and almost all the emperors in five generations.
Although Li Sanniang eventually became the empress, empress dowager, and empress dowager that women in the world envied, she must have been longing for the life of the common people in the life of husband and wife, love and filial piety, family reunion, and peace and security.