Shanghai Popular Bookstore Edition of "The Biography of the Hero of Lü Liang"
In the 1940s, there were three chapter novels in the Liberated Areas that reflected the War of Resistance Against Japan. One is Ke Lan's "The Story of the Yang Iron Barrel", one is Kong Jue and Yuan Jing's "Biography of the New Children's Heroes", and the other is the "Biography of the Heroes of Lü Liang" co-authored by Ma Feng and Xi Rong.
"The Biography of the Heroes of Lüliang" was originally only a serial story written in the Jinsui Mass Daily based on the deeds of hundreds of militia heroes in the Jinsui Liberated Area. It was the spring of 1945, and it was serialized 95 times, and the general title was "The Story of the Militia Struggle in Lüliang". It was not until April 1946 that it was renamed "The Biography of Lüliang Heroes" by the Lüliang Culture and Education Publishing House in Jinsui Border District. The book is divided into four volumes, and there is a hint in the "New Book Preview" on the last page of the book: "The Biography of the Hero of Lü Liang has four volumes, and three and four volumes are in the process of typography." In fact, the book only came out to the second volume, and the third and fourth volumes were not published, so the first edition became an unfinished book. On this point, the author explained in the "afterword" of the reprint: "Later, we went to the countryside to participate in the land reform movement, and we did not have time to revise the next one, so it has not been published. Nevertheless, this half of the book is still popular, and many editions have emerged from 1946 to 1947, according to incomplete statistics, there are single books issued by Northeast Bookstore, Shandong Xinhua Bookstore, Taofen Bookstore, Shanghai Popular Bookstore and so on. Today, these monographs are historical relics.
The original editions had several things in common, one was that there was a "preface" written by Ma Feng's father, Zhou Wen, in front of the book. This "preface" was written before his father left the Jinsui Border Region for Chongqing, in which his father not only affirmed the value of the novel, but also told the story of a teacher who used the novel published in the "Jinsui Mass Daily" as a teaching material to educate students, which had a great influence on the students. At the end, after some encouragement to my son, he said, "This is my parting gift." In literary history, the father-son order is rare. Unfortunately, this order was not continued in later versions. From the beginning of its creation, this novel was completed under the guidance of his father, and it is not an exaggeration to say that "The Legend of the Hero of Lü Liang" was co-authored by his father with Ma Feng and Xi Rong. Second, the first volume has 8 lithographed figure embroidery paintings, which are completely imitated in the classical novel model, and there are several illustrations on the inner pages, all of which are by Lectra. Finally, the cover design is mainly based on color picture characters, reflecting the theme of the anti-Japanese struggle of the militia in the Jinsui Border Region.
The novel is written entirely colloquially and begins in a traditional way. After a "quote", the beginning is four poems: "ResistIng Japan and defending the country and protecting the hometown, the militia heroes have strong skills, cooperating with the eight roads to kill the enemy, and the iron barrel shines in the country." "Then there is" four idle words, leading to a story of the people behind enemy lines killing the enemy's defenders... Listen to me from the beginning. "The smell of storytelling is very strong. This is also the art form adopted by the author to cater to the aesthetic tastes of the people in the border area after listening to his father's opinion.
In 1949, the author made major revisions to thirty-seven times, and also made supplementary revisions to the second half. In May of the same year, it was included in the "Chinese Folk Literature and Art Series" by Xinhua Bookstore and published. In his added "Afterword", the author said: "After the publication of the upper part, many comrades gave us valuable opinions ... Recently, we took the time to proofread and revise it again, and compiled it into eighty times now. Finally, the book was brought to a perfect end. However, according to the thirty-seventh time as an example, the change is still quite large. First, four verses of the poem were deleted, and secondly, the tone of the book was changed to written. The biggest change is the retrospective, which has been expanded. For example, the original twelfth time is expanded into twelve and thirteen times. The eighteenth expansion is written as nineteenth and twenty-two times. The twenty-sixth expansion is written as twenty-eight and twenty-nine times. Added one more time. In this way, the first half becomes forty-one times. At the same time, the title has been changed accordingly. The author said that "there was no plan to write a book at that time, nor was there a comprehensive outline ... Therefore, in the portrayal of the character, in the structure of the whole book, and in the development of the story, no effort has been made to think about the study, resulting in many loopholes and defects. "So this revision makes up for the deficiencies mentioned above."
In addition, although the previous edition corrected many contradictions, there are still some leftovers. Like the fifteenth time, Zhou Maodan beat a Japanese soldier who wanted to rape his daughter-in-law, and Meng Erleng hacked a member of the guard to death with an axe, and as a result, both of them were arrested and imprisoned in the maintenance meeting. When Lei Shizhu and Zhou Ugly Child returned to the village, it was already half a day later, and after hearing about this, Lei Shizhu immediately wrote a letter to Lao Wu, the leader of the martial arts team, instructing Zhou Ugly Boy to "be delivered tonight"; at dusk, he also asked Wu Erwa to "go outside the village early tomorrow to pick up the armed workers' team." Then Lei Shizhu himself ran back home. It wasn't until the next morning, when Lei Shizhu was still eating at home, that Kang Mingli rushed to report that the maintenance would escort people to the Japanese, so he went out to the maintenance association to save people. Here, human life is at stake, and things are imminent, but Lei Shizhu is acting in a divergent manner, which is very unreasonable. After being modified, Lei Shizhu immediately went to save people. Moreover, after half of the day, by the next morning, it takes more than a whole night. Now it has been changed to sending letters, receiving armed workers, and rescuing those who have been arrested, all of which are concentrated in one night, which is much more compact. The time, due to the shortening, was advanced, and the sixteenth and seventeenth times followed by it were also advanced accordingly. By the seventeenth time, the armed workers not only rescued people, but also fought a victorious battle, which was warmly welcomed by the masses. "Lao Wu was pulled by the six or seven families to go to dinner, and Aunt Kang was in a hurry, squeezed out of the crowd, grabbed the comrades of the two martial arts teams with two hands, and said as they walked: 'Children, come to my house quickly'" "Aunt Kang squeezed out, she went to Lao Wu, but the facts did deviate. It has now been amended to "two hands to hold Comrade Lao Wu", which is consistent with the original purpose. These are just minor misrepresentations. Larger ones, such as the seventy-second time, said that Hanjiashan is a small market, where the Japanese Kou stronghold is located, there are about ninety households, while Kangjiazhai is a small village, but there are about seventy homes, and the two places are almost equal, which is obviously wrong, the market is naturally larger than the small village. Therefore, changing Hanjiashan to "two hundred households" should be in line with the facts. Finally, it should be said that in the thirty-second time, there is a description of Kang Youfu committing adultery with his eldest daughter-in-law, although there are only a few strokes, but it is ugly. However, here, there may be some scruples and have to be deleted.
The novel has undergone two revisions, from the prototype of the newspaper to the publication of half a book, to the first edition of the whole book, until the revised version, the content is more and more full, and the structure is becoming more and more rigorous. (Ma Rong)