Mr. Hu Shi, a famous scholar in modern times, once said at the beginning of his article "The Biography of Wu Jingzi": "Our first great literary hero in Anhui is not Fang Bao, not Liu Daxun, nor Yao Nai, but Wu Jingzi of Quanjiao County. Of course, Wu Jingzi is not only the first great writer in Anhui, but also one of the greatest novelists in China and even the world.
In order to let people have a deeper understanding of the author of this long satirical novel of the Qing Dynasty, this article will describe in detail this great Qing Dynasty novelist from the following four aspects.
1. Born into a family of powerful eunuchs
In 1701, Wu Jingzi was born into a family of powerful eunuchs in Quanjiao County, Anhui Province. The Wu clan of Quanjiao was not only the first local magnate, but also in the whole of Anhui Province at that time, and its fame was also very loud.
Wu Jingzi's heir apparent, Wu Linqi, was the only son in the family and was a member of the imperial examination system who was sent from a local tribute to the state sub-prison. In the Qing Dynasty system, it was initially set once every six years, and Qianlongzhong was changed to a one-election for every unitary, that is, once every twelve years, and the preferred one was used by Xiaojing officials and the second election was used for teaching), and the highest position was Ganyu County Teaching, which was roughly equivalent to the current director of the county education bureau.
Wu Jingzi's grandfather Wu Dan was the eldest son of the family, although he was only a prisoner, but with the influence and financial resources of the family, his career was not bad, and Wu Dan's highest official position was Zhou Tongzhi, the deputy post of Zhizhou, and the official rank was Congliupin, roughly equivalent to the current county-level city vice mayor.
Wu Jingzi's great-grandfather Wu Guozhi 's imperial examination rank was very high, and in the fifteenth year of Qing Shunzhi (1658 AD), he won the third place in the first rank (Tanhua) in the temple examination, and was awarded the Hanlin Academy to edit (from Wupin), which was deeply respected by the Shunzhi Emperor, and this year was only 43 years after Wu Jingzi was born.
After that, Wu Guo's career was smooth sailing, and he twice served as the chief examiner of the Fujian Township Examination, with protégés all over the world; the highest position was Guozi Supervisor Siye and Admiral Shuntian Xuezheng. Although these positions of Wu Guozheng were not of high rank on the surface, they were powerful and honorable, like the viceroy Shuntian Xuezheng, although they had no rank, but they were the ministers of the imperial court, the highest officials of a province, and their status was the same as that of the inspector (正二品).
Wu Jingzi's great-grandfather's generation is the generation of the full rise of the Wu clan of Quanjiao. Wu Guo had five brothers, four of whom passed the jinshi examination. Wu Guolong's twin brother Wu Guolong was even more powerful, Wu Guolong himself was born as a jinshi, and he had five sons (two jinshi and three talents), of which Wu Fu was the eye of the Kangxi Thirty Years (1691 AD), once serving as the chief examiner of the Guangxi Township Examination, and in 1706 AD, he was also appointed as the examiner of the Hui examination, and the official was the Hanlin Bachelor (正三品). Wu Fu's grandson Wu Tan (a cousin 5 years older than Wu Jingzi) was also a jinshi, which means that during Wu Jingzi's childhood, the lineage of his uncle Wu Fu reached the peak of the family.
In the "History of Ru Lin", the Du family is said to be "one door three Dingjia, three generations and six shangshu", and its prototype is Wu Jingzi's family "one door and two Dingjia, two generations of six jinshi". Even in Wu Jingzi's generation, although it is not as brilliant as that of his great-grandfather and grandfather,but with the wealth accumulation and reputation of several generations of the Wu family, Wu Jingzi can inherit a huge amount of real estate and land property as soon as he is born, all of which is enough to make him live an extremely superior life and enjoy the glory of the world.
Second, the road to the imperial examination is extremely arduous
Wu Jingzi was born in such a rich family, and since he was a child, he has inherited Wu Linqi and has since become the eldest son and grandson of the family, which has attracted the attention of his family. According to the "Anhui Tongzhi Manuscript Wu Jingzi Biography", "Jingzi was born with a difference, read and memorized; slightly longer, supplemented the disciples of the official." ”
That is to say, Wu Jingzi has been brilliant since he was a child, and he can recite it after reading books, just like a prodigy. In 1705, at the age of 5, he entered a private school, began to study with his father Wu Linqi at the age of 14, and Wu Jingzi successfully passed the Xiucai examination at the age of 18.
In the process of obtaining xiucai, Wu Jingzi can be described as smooth sailing, with his talent and learning, it seems that the road to the imperial examination will be very smooth in the future, however, fate is joking with this talent everywhere. In 1723, the 23-year-old Wu Jingzi went to Anqing for the first time to participate in the township examination, and he went away with confidence, but returned home. In 1726, he went to Anqing again to participate in the township examination, but the result was still unsuccessful.
The first two failed township test experiences still had a very big impact on Wu Jingzi, and his behavior style has changed greatly, but the third township test experience has given him a serious blow.
In 1729 BC, wu Jingzi's third township examination in his life was coming, when Wu Jingzi was already 29 years old, about to enter the year of establishment, and was looking forward to this scientific examination. Before this township examination, Li Fengyi, the viceroy of Anhui Xuezheng, also presided over a preliminary examination, and in this preliminary examination, Li Fengyi's comment to Wu Jingzi was "the article is a good person and a big monster."
"The article is very good" refers to the fact that the article written by Wu Jingzi is still very good, and Li Xuezheng expresses his appreciation; while "people's strangeness" refers to the rumors that Wu Jingzi often made many false remarks about the eight shares of the imperial examination after drinking. However, Li Xuezheng still admired Wu Jingzi's talent very much, so he took him as the first place in the preliminary examination.
Although Li Xuezheng criticized Wu Jingzi in this preliminary examination, his listing at the top of the list gave Wu Jingzi great comfort. For the next township test, Wu Jingzi, who is full of confidence, believes that this move should be a matter of ten to nine, after all, he still has real talent.
As the township examination approached in August, Wu Jingzi and his cousins Wu Tan, Jin Yu and several other friends began to go straight to Anqing, at this time Li Xuezheng's three-year term of office had expired and he had returned to Beijing to resume his life. The newly appointed governor of Anhui Xuezheng is Wang Lansheng, and after taking office, he still has some understanding of the things that were pre-tested last time. Under the auspices of the chief examiner personally appointed by the Yongzheng Emperor, the Anhui Township Examination began in 1729.
In the face of township test questions such as "Born to Know, Shangye" and "Micro is Long", Wu Jingzi carefully conceived and played with pleasure, and felt that the article was still very well written, better than the pre-test. The talents who also took the same exam also believed that the first place in the pre-examination had the reason for not winning the township examination. However, the reality is incomparably cruel, and Wu Jingzi once again fell off the list in this township test.
Not only did Wu Jingzi fall on the list, but several friends such as cousin Wu Tan and Jin Yu also fell off the list in this township test, but some of the children of the Sun family in the same county were on the list. This time, the name of Sun Shan gave Wu Jingzi a fierce blow, and he had seriously injured his heart. Since then, Wu Jingzi has fallen into deep doubts about the imperial examination system of the Qing Dynasty, and has also expressed great disgust with the imperial examination system.
Wu Jingzi's last attempt at entering the imperial examination was in 1736 AD. In the first year of Qianlong, the newly succeeded Qianlong Emperor, in order to show the image of the Taiping Dynasty and inherit the long-cherished wishes of the previous emperors, decided to open the "Erudite Hongzi Branch". The governors and inspectors of various places recommended talents to the imperial court, and the emperor personally held examinations in the capital and selected them on the basis of merit.
After taking the local examination, Zhao Guolin, the governor of Anhui, felt that Wu Jingzi was indeed talented, so he recommended him to the imperial court. However, this time, Wu Jingzi was unable to participate in the court examination held in Beijing due to illness, and naturally had no chance of being admitted.
This time, in the Erudite Hongzi Keting Examination personally held by the Qianlong Emperor of the Bohol Temple, there were as many as one hundred and seventy-six participants, plus the follow-up arrivals of the second year's supplementary examination, and the total number of the two times was nearly three hundred, and only nineteen people were admitted. None of the three people recommended by Zhao Guolin, the governor of Anhui, were hired, nor were Wu Jingzi's cousin Wu Tan and his friend Cheng Yanzuo, who took the court examination this time.
After this erudite hongxue, Wu Jingzi, who was already 36 years old, was completely broken with the Qing Dynasty's imperial examination system. From then until his death, Wu Jingzi refused all examinations related to the imperial examination, and he had completely lost interest in the examination of the imperial examination. Around this time, Wu Jingzi began to devote himself to the creation of his famous satirical novel "The History of Ru Lin".
Third, wantonly squander huge amounts of family property
In 1723, his father Wu Linqi died, and in the process of bearing the great grief of his father's death, coupled with the dissatisfaction of the failure of the previous township examination, Wu Jingzi began to squander the family inheritance. Because he was neither engaged in production nor an official, Wu Jingzi could only rely on his father's inheritance to maintain a luxurious literati life.
By 1729, after failing again after participating in the third township examination, Wu Jingzi, who was even more distressed and helpless, began to sell the family's land property. Wu Jingzi's well-connected cousin Wu Tan wrote in "Thirty First Works for Minxuan": "Last year, when the land was sold and the house is sold, the elders murmured bitterly." In 1730, Wu Jingzi began to sell the property of the clan.
According to the "Anhui Tongzhi Manuscript Wu Jingzi Biography", "The father's ancestral inheritance has more than 20,000 gold, he is not accustomed to governing life, sexual rejuvenation, when he is poor, he gives back, he returns with the scribes, drinks and songs and calls for poverty day and night, and he is exhausted in a few years." After the death of his parents, Wu Jingzi, who was already 23 years old, became the head of the family, and no one restrained his life anymore.
After Wu Jingzi inherited the family's more than 20,000 taels of silver (during the Qianlong period, an ordinary person only needed a dozen taels of silver to maintain a year's daily life), he was not good at taking care of the family property, and he himself belonged to the kind of person with a very bold personality, and it was a large amount of money to interact with those literati friends. Singing and dancing wine costs money, and often gives a lot of money to the poor. In this way, within a few years, the family flowers were gone.
In a series of processes of selling the family's inheritance, Wu Jingzi and other members of the family have many conflicts over the family property. Because many of Wu Jingzi's inheritance of these inheritances are the properties laid down by great-grandparents and grandchildren, the great-grandfather has three sons, plus the houses of the five brothers of the great-grandparents are connected, and by the time of Wu Jingzi's generation, so much has passed, and many industries themselves lack obvious boundaries.
Therefore, in the process of Wu Jingzi's wanton sale of ancestral property, there will inevitably be many contradictions, but in the process of separating the family property with the clan, Wu Jingzi is obviously on the weak side.
In 1731, Wu Jingzi's dispute with his clan intensified, so he simply sold the remaining family property in Quanjiao, took his wife and family to live in Nanjing, and completely cut off contact with the clan. After moving to Nanjing, Wu Jingzi made friends with a group of literati and scholars from Jiangnan, often talked about poetry and drank, and gathered a group of sages in Nanjing to build a pantheon and sacrifice more than 230 people, including Wu Taibo. By around 1740 AD, the family property was exhausted, and the life of the Wu family was already very difficult.
Fourth, spend the rest of your life in poverty
According to the "Biography of Wu Jingzi of Quanjiao County", "Su is not accustomed to governing life, and he is forty years old and runs out of production." Around 1740 AD, the huge family inheritance inherited by Wu Jingzi had long been spent, and he was neither engaged in production nor an official, so the Wu family, who had no source of income, still had a very difficult time.
In times of difficult life, Wu Jingzi often took out his bottom book to sell, and exchanged some money to buy rice and wine. After all, he was also a literati, the son of an official eunuch, and among the friends he made was not only a group of literati and scholars with no meritorious name, but also a group of serving officials who were born into men and soldiers. Many of these friends often support the wu family's livelihood. It was also under such conditions that around 1749 AD, Wu Jingzi completed his book "The History of Rulin".
In his later years, although Wu Jingzi no longer participated in any imperial examinations or sought any career, it is rare that he never stopped his son from taking the meritorious examination. In 1751, the Qianlong Emperor toured the south again, and after arriving in Nanjing, he held a summoning examination as usual, and Wu Jingzi himself was already disgusted with these things, but he did not prevent his eldest son Wu Xuan from taking the examination.
This time, the Qianlong Emperor personally summoned the examination, and Wu Xuan successfully passed the examination, because Wu Xuan himself was a xiucai, so he was given the status of a person and awarded the position of secretary of the cabinet, and the official rank was congqipin, in charge of writing, recording, translating, and writing. However, Wu Xi was after all a small Beijing official, and the official salary was very low, so although the poor and destitute situation of the Wu family had eased, it had not completely changed.
In 1754, at the age of 54, Wu Jingzi died in Yangzhou, thus ending his legendary life. It is worth mentioning that Wu Jingzi's two sons still have some achievements in their careers. The eldest son, Wu Xun (字荀叔), was promoted in 1770 to Tongzhi (正五品, equivalent to the current vice mayor of a prefecture-level city) in Ningwu Province, Shanxi. The second son, Wu Xuan (字蘅叔), was a native of Puning County (正七品, equivalent to the current county magistrate).
Author: Rain Lane, this article is published with the author's permission. Welcome to my headline number: Read less about the Red Chamber and tell you a different story of famous books.