Ming Dynasty Past (130) Without this great master, there would be no Wu Cheng'en's "Journey to the West"

"Journey to the West" we have all read, and even I believe that some friends have read it no less than several times, this book is undoubtedly a masterpiece, and the countless wonderful bridges in it are even more popular, such as "the Great Haunting of the Heavenly Palace", "Three Dozen White Bone Essences", "The Great War of the Red Child", "Entering the Daughter's Country", "Subduing the Bull Demon King", etc., but hundreds of years ago, the author of this book was not famous, and even he did not have many people in his life, and the so-called "Journey to the West Shi Er Biography" (the original name of Journey to the West) was only unpopular and rejected by the officials. A work banned by the imperial court (which will be analyzed later).

Wu Cheng'en, died in 1582, that is, the tenth year of the Wanli Calendar, it is a coincidence, this and Zhang Ju died in the same year, it seems that The heavens still uphold their hobbies - do not like talents, but to be precise, wu Cheng'en at that time can be compared with Zhang Juzheng by 18,000 miles, whether in terms of fame, talent, strategy, and wisdom, he is not as good, but not as good as it does not mean that it is completely inferior, such as in the area of imagination, Zhang Juzheng and him are not in the same grade at all.

Speaking of Wu Cheng'en's story, then we must not go all the way forward, Wanli... Jiajing... Longqing... Zhengde... Koji... Yes, it's Koji.

Thirteen years after Hongzhi, a baby boy came to Shanyang County (now Huai'an City, Jiangsu) with a cry, the baby's father was called Wu Rui, his ancestors were merchants for generations, and when he arrived here, he was naturally passed down as a businessman, at that time, the living conditions of merchants have gradually improved (after the Yongle years), and Wu Rui is even more successful, making a lot of money through business (the specific work is unknown), but in Brother Wu's heart, doing business can only make small profits, and those who repay the society and the country are simply too far away. However, he was old and did not have the energy to engage in any more examinations, so he could only pin all his hopes on this newborn son and name him Cheng'en.

Shangcheng Huang'en, Shimozawa Limin, Wu Cheng'en, boldly set out in the direction of entering the capital and entering the shi, father believes, you will not live up to my expectations, be a loyal subject who has left a name in history. In fact, for a long time in his life, Wu Cheng'en has been striving and working hard towards this goal, but unfortunately, some people are not born to be officials, but people do not necessarily have to be officials to have a career, for this, I believe that everyone must have a deep understanding (such as Li Shizhen).

Wu Cheng'en's child is a little different, because the first book that other children read after birth is nothing more than a collection of essays such as "Etiquette" and "University", and the first book he read, called "Youyang Miscellaneous Tricks (zǔ)", which all stems from his father's heart of forgiveness, why is it said to be generous? So allow me to give you a brief introduction to this book.

"Chieftain Yang Miscellaneous Tricks", this is a ghost novel written by the Tang Dynasty literary scholar Duan Chengshi, which has a variety of plants and animals evolving monsters, through the author's vivid writing techniques, these monsters are given to people's movements, forms, looks one by one, in addition, there are various tricks, illusions, tomb robberies, prophecies and other secrets, it is worth noting that this book is a bit similar to the Qing Dynasty's Liaozhai Zhiyi, but it can be much more terrifying than Liaozhai Zhiyi, I will list the topics for you to know, such as what is the "ghost hand under the bed", "Thieves eat human legs", "human faces on arms"...

I'm sorry, in order to prevent nightmares, I really can't read it, I can't imagine how the young Wu Cheng'en read the whole book, more curious, why his father gave him this book, but I carefully consider the background at that time - the old society of feudal superstition, I can figure it out. But this should not be ah, in that context at that time, reading books to become an official is the only way out, you do not read what four books and five classics, what can you do by reading these books? It turned out that in order to make him not have too much study pressure, Wu Cheng'en's father took out the "Youyang Miscellaneous Tricks" that he had collected outside and gave it to Wu Cheng'en, hoping that he could take this opportunity to rest and relax, and had to admit that in that social background, Wu Rui could have this kind of ideological awareness, which is really very rare, so I said that his heart is very lenient.

Not only that, whenever Wu Cheng'en slept, his father would tell him a small story of folk gods and demons, that is to say, when we were young, when our minds were full of three piglets, this brother's mind was what kind of tree demons, eagle monsters, ape spirits and other ghosts and charms.

Wu Cheng'en is very lucky, because others want to see these things can not see, or the family does not allow, or do not have this condition, as far as the time is concerned, the mythological story is undoubtedly an extremely fresh thing, which is the same as when we did not like to read the "Three Character Classic" when we were young, like to see Ultraman is a truth, after all, the "Three Character Classic" is boring and difficult to understand, Ultraman is fresh and good-looking, but we all have the conditions to see Ultraman now, but at that time, only Wu Cheng'en had the conditions to read "Youyang Miscellaneous Tricks".

Of course, "Youyang Miscellaneous Tricks" must only be regarded as Wu Cheng'en's enlightenment books, but it completely opened up Wu Cheng'en's mythological world, and after reading "Youyang Miscellaneous Tricks", Brother Wu bought what "Shan Hai Jing", "Xuan Wei Lu", "Du Yi Zhi" and other books were digested. As the saying goes, enlightenment comes from life, and the enlightenment that life brings to Wu Cheng'en is this kind of fanciful story, but Wu Rui would never have thought that these things he instilled in his son actually affected his entire life.

Whenever I come home from school, the other students are either fighting bugs, or writing books and paintings, only Wu Cheng'en has repeatedly run to the fortune teller to spend money to buy two folk anecdotes, of course, Brother Cheng'en is also interested in writing calligraphy and painting, what to write? The answer is self-evident - writing mythical stories, painting demons and ghosts, anyway, it has nothing to do with the imperial examination.

Well, this Wu brother is completely caught in the pit of "mythology".

But don't you say, this really gave Wu Cheng'en a name, at the age of ten, he had the privilege of contacting another book - "Tai Tang Sanzang Sutra Poetry", which is the prototype of "Journey to the West", but also its book of enlightenment blueprint, Sun Wukong's prototype was born in this book, in which the monkey walker escorted the three Tibetan masters to the west to obtain the Buddhist scriptures The difficult story deeply infected Wu Cheng'en, for this reason, he also went to specifically check the relevant books, such as the historical book "Records of the Tang Dynasty" that originally recorded Xuanzang's sutras. And later Xuanzang's disciples adapted the "Biography of the Three Tibetan Masters of the Great Ci'en Monastery of the Great Tang Dynasty" according to this, compared with the original historical books, this book has some mythological colors, such as what "lion king robbed the woman", "the western female country does not give birth to a man", etc., in short, the story of the adventure of the high monk Xuanzang all the way to the west brought Great spiritual shock to Wu Cheng'en, but he also suffered from one thing - it was not pleasant to see! Although the story is wonderful, it is really not enough to see!

What if I can't see enough? I couldn't go back to the Tang Dynasty to communicate with Master Xuanzang in person, so after racking my brains, Wu Cheng'en had a bold idea - why don't you let me continue to write him down!

"Journey to the West" has officially begun to put forward the process, but the first Journey to the West is not called Journey to the West, nor is it called "Journey to the West", but called "Yu Dingzhi", the world view of this book is not so grand, but Wu Cheng'en simply added his own imagination, recounted the story of Xuanzang's sutra, for example, there is a wuzhi qi in the book, the so-called unsupported Qi, is a water monster in the "Classic of Mountains and Seas", shaped like an ape, then I believe everyone understands, it turns out that Wu Cheng'en moved the water monkey wuzhi qi to "Journey to the West" There was also a Wu general, this is a monster in the "Xuan Monster Record", with a pig's head, the rest of the part is a human body, understand, this old brother is the Pig Eight Commandments, but unfortunately, the sand monk and the white dragon horse have not yet been able to appear at this time.

In addition to eating and resting, Wu Cheng'en instilled all his hard work in this book, even in class, Brother Wu was still thinking bitterly about the structure of the book, sometimes Wu Rui saw that Wu Cheng'en still had the lights on late at night, thinking that he was working hard and was very happy, but he did not know that this son had already gone into the fire, at that time, if he only put his mind on these things, it must be ridiculed and looked down upon by everyone, can you make money writing these? Can it be famous? And how to become an official?

This is indeed true, writing a mythical story, what good future can there be, this is nothing more than some biased text that has no practical utility, who cares?

Fortunately, some people still pay attention to Wu Cheng'en's creative talent.

He is the author of the biography of Xi Nanqi

As a child, I loved to hear about the strange scriptures

Heaven is great in any reciprocal retribution

I don't want to waste my work