Why did The Journey to the West become a banned book in Ming Dynasty?

The Journey to the West became banned in the Ming Dynasty because some stories in the book alluded to the rulers of his time. With the growth of age, the expansion of knowledge and the broadening of horizons, people will have another way to reinterpret things. What they thought was right in the past may not be true today. In the past, they could only look at the problem on the surface, but now, they can see some deeper contents of the event. For example, our classic TV series The Journey to the West.

This mythical TV series adapted from the novel has accompanied the growth of our generations. No matter what stage of our life, we will turn this work into reality, and we will have different feelings every time we watch it. We will find that we have a deeper understanding of this matter not only by watching the plot, but also by analyzing the deep meaning behind the plot and knowing more about his story. Everyone has a high opinion of The Journey to the West, so it can become a classic, enduring, but few people know that in the Ming Dynasty, The Journey to the West banned books and was not allowed to spread among the people. We know that the greatness of a novel is not only to make people stop reading it after reading it, but to make them memorable. I can understand the meaning behind it. So is this novel. Behind the myth, there is a trace of social reality. More importantly, many aspects of it reflect the relevant contents of Ming society. How can this not cause panic among those in power?

It was actually bold to read the contents of this book at that time. We know that in this novel, the Monkey King has a very classic story, that is, he dared to challenge the Jade Emperor and caused a lot of trouble on his site. In fact, the Jade Emperor represents the real emperor. If you dare to use force in front of the jade emperor, it will show the idea that you may be rebelled by the plot. How can contemporary rulers not be flustered? And this novel is also full of ridicule for those in power who worship Taoism and like alchemy. When the four of them crossed other countries, the kings in some places did not do well in political affairs and failed to become the supreme power controller of this country. On the contrary, they are fascinated by the teachings of believers, like alchemy, and regard those Taoists as the state religion. He listened to their opinions, and in order to satisfy the wishes of the Taoist priests, he pulled the people out of the quagmire and did many wrong things. In fact, this reflects that Ming Chengzu did not manage state affairs well, but liked to use pills to live forever.

In fact, if we look at the whole novel, we will find that the novel has been full of satire on Ming Taizu, describing a stupid and lazy pig who likes to escape from reality and work. Coincidentally, in our opinion, a person who is not very active has the same surname as the Ming Dynasty. Then how can we not think that this is a satire on Ming Chengzu? So this book looked bold at the time, but it was naturally banned after being explained, so it could not be widely spread.