Wu Cheng'en's ancestors were from Lianshui. In the epitaph he wrote for his father, although he can clearly explain the situation from him to the Five Dynasties, he did not explain the time of moving to Huai. It is speculated that his family moved to Huai 'an before V, that is, in the early Ming Dynasty. At the end of Yuan Dynasty, due to frequent wars, the indigenous population of Huai 'an decreased sharply. According to Cao Pi's Records of Belief in Huaicheng, there are only seven existing families who believe in Huaicheng, including Pan, Liu, Yang, Wu, Li and Wang Guan. Ming Taizu implements the immigration policy, and most of the immigrants who come to Huai are from the south of the Yangtze River, and most of them are rich families or military officers. The Wu Cheng'en family moved from the north to the south. If it does not belong to this trend, it may be the flow of bankrupt farmers.
After the Wu family moved to Fucheng, they settled under the river and their business was booming. At first, I could do a little business, and later, I was a Confucian. There were two generations who made a living as a small official by studying: my great-grandfather Wu Ming was a tutor in Yuyao County, Zhejiang Province; Grandfather Zhen Wu was a thief in Renhe County (now Hangzhou), Zhejiang Province. Lecturing and teaching Chongqing are academic officials with meager salaries. Being far away from home, their wives and children often can't get together. When Wu Cheng'en's father, Wu Rui, was four years old, his mother, Liang Shi, took him to Renhe, where the husband and wife reunited with their mother and enjoyed family happiness. A few months after Liang's mother and son arrived in Renhe, something unfortunate happened: Wu Zairen and Fu died of illness. Liang was helpless and had to take the four-year-old orphan back to the standard. Because two generations of his family are running "poor Confucianism", they have no savings and no real estate income, so their family is getting poorer and poorer. Because he was poor and had no relatives and friends to support him, Wu Rui couldn't go to school when he was old enough. He started studying sociology several years later than other children. Mr. Melissa Zhou stopped teaching Wu Rui because he had no money to buy a present for Mr. Melissa Zhou. However, Wu Rui is very clever, listening in, and actually doing well in school. Although Wu Rui's cleverness was appreciated by her husband, she eventually dropped out of school because of poverty. After dropping out of school, he married Xu, the daughter of a small businessman, and began to run a colorful business with his father-in-law.
Wu Rui gave birth to a child very late, and Wu Cheng'en was not born until he was forty-one. This year was the first year of the Ming Dynasty (AD 1506), which happened to be the first year of Dai's accession to the throne. The new emperor practices, thanks the world, and all parties accept it. Therefore, Wu Rui immediately gave him a good name: Thanksgiving. He hopes to return to Confucianism when he grows up and do something for the country and the country.
Wu Cheng'en was smart and open-minded since he was a child. According to records, he was born different. When he was just one year old, he painted with mud on the wall, and there was nothing wrong with it. "You can even draw flying swans. As he grows older, his talent becomes more and more obvious. He can "read a few lines", "know how to craft and read a lot of books". At the same time, he has a wide range of interests. He loves to write lyrics and songs, and his works are exquisite. Later, he chose Huajian Collection and Caotang Poetry to form a new flower collection. He loves painting, and people in the landscape are evil. "The audience thought he was a good hand." He stopped painting as an adult, so he didn't see his paintings handed down. However, judging from his work "Preface to the Portrait of Li", he is very knowledgeable and knowledgeable about painting theory. Wu Cheng'en is also proficient in Weiqi. He once wrote Weiqi songs for the then national players Bao Jingyuan and Li Fu, and skillfully combined the layout of Weiqi with history and military war stories, with vivid images. When he narrated the game between The Journey to the West's tenth emperor Taizong and Wei Zhi, he also made a "rotten Jing Ke" and commented on the strategies and tactics such as belly angle and secret breaking. Wu Cheng'en is also good at calligraphy, and his calligraphy artists studied in Shinan and Ou Yangxun. There is an interesting coincidence here: it is said that Ou Yangxun looks like a monkey. Sun Chang Wuji laughed at him and said, "You can't bury your shoulders. Who painted this macaque on the pavilion?" Later generations attached "Biography of General White Ape in Bujiang". It is said that Liang will take Ouyang Ge south, and his wife was photographed by an ape demon in Changle. When Ouyang Yi killed the ape's wife, her wife was pregnant with a white ape. The next son, Ou Yangxun, is an ape who is good at writing and looks very beautiful. Wu Cheng'en is an expert on the Monkey King. I wonder if he got some inspiration from this story. Wu Cheng'en's calligraphy was quite famous at that time, and there were many stone tablets in his hometown. When he was an official in Changxing, he wrote three stone tablets. Wu Cheng'en also likes to collect Fa Tie's paintings and calligraphy. Li Yong, a famous calligrapher in the Tang Dynasty, collected the Boluo Tree Monument. The Borneo tree mentioned in this inscription originated in India, and it is said that Sakyamuni died under this tree. This was originally a story related to Buddhism. There are many references to "Baluoshuangshu" in The Journey to the West, which shows that this old rubbings have a certain influence on his creation of The Journey to the West.
Wu Cheng'en loves poetry, calligraphy and music, and is good at piano, chess, calligraphy and painting. To "years old, that is, to be civilized in Huai." Therefore, he was quite appreciated by the court, celebrities and squires. In August of the fifteenth year of Zheng De (A.D. 15 19), Cai Ang went home for the first time, gave a banquet to entertain guests and showed off his hometown. At that time, some dignitaries were proud to be invited to dinner, even if they met and chatted. /kloc-Wu Cheng'en, 0/5 years old, is quick and resourceful. He was immediately appreciated by Cai Hanlin, a flower explorer, and was regarded as a distinguished guest. How many people envy him at one time! Twenty years later, Wu Cheng'en still remembers this incident vividly. At that time, Bao Yingzhu, known as one of the "Four Masters of Jinling" and "Top Ten Talents", met Wu Cheng'en and "loved him as his own son, saying that you can read books all over the world and share half of them with pictures and history hidden at home." Therefore, Wu Cheng'en's knowledge is advancing with each passing day, and he is famous for his talent. At that time, he stabbed a knife in the cottage. "People who ask questions will always be each other." Wu Cheng'en often writes articles for the government and gentry, and often travels in Nanjing and Suzhou. He and Zhu Rifan became close friends and kept singing. Appreciated by Wang Chong, he exchanged letters and notes many times. He also sang on the Shihu Lake with Wen Zhiming and boarded the Jinshan Temple with his friends. Poetry at that time was full of elegance and excitement, full of fantasies about the future.
Wu Cheng'en is so talented and famous that even the inspectors and messengers are "unbelievable" and think that he "looks like picking up a mustard ear". In principle, he is in science (such as? The road should be smooth sailing. However, the opposite is true. He is extremely dissatisfied with the examination field. How many times did he take the exam, and he couldn't even get a juren? It was not until Jiajing was forty-five years old in twenty-nine years that he was admitted to Gong Sheng, who was one year old. This phenomenon fully shows the decadent social system and political darkness at that time.
The cruel fact that he was not satisfied with the imperial examination and was full of knowledge and skills that could not be delivered to the royal family gave Wu Cheng'en a merciless blow and made him feel depressed and confused. Plus, he was born in poverty, so he was looked down upon everywhere. Wu Cheng'en's father is an honest businessman. He has always been subjected to oppression and extortion by the government and small officials, preferring to be bullied and oppressed rather than arguing with others. Therefore, they are called "idiots". When Wu Cheng'en was playing in the market as a child, he was often called "the son of Wu". This planted the seeds of resentment and resistance in his young mind. He has long been determined to study hard, grow up to be an official, honor his ancestors and change his family. Reality shattered his dream, so he had to study for himself and hated writing books to vent his anger.
Wu Cheng'en began to write his masterpiece The Journey to the West when he was in his prime. Journey to the West is a ghost novel. To create such a novel, you must master a lot of fairy tales and writing skills, and Wu Cheng'en just has this condition. Wu Cheng'en's father, a simple gentleman, took his only son to wander around the jungle of the ancient temple in the suburbs, often wandering in it. Sometimes, I will tell Wu Cheng'en beautiful and magical folk stories while looking at clay sculptures and murals painted in red and green, such as the story of the helpless Guishan Mountain, the Longwo Temple, the Buddha statue of sandalwood in longxing temple, the hell of the Ten Kings Hall, the Taoist in the Laojun Hall and the Raytheon in the Thunder Temple, which makes Wu Cheng'en have the habit of listening to anecdotes since he was a child. This habit enabled him to collect a lot of mythological materials later, so that he created one hundred novels with 800,000 words and became a treasure in the world literary world. In the Preface, he said, "I was a strange man when I was young. When I was in the boy scout club, every time I stole the history of the city, I was afraid to show it to my father and teacher, so I sought privacy. Compared with long, good and beneficial, the smell is amazing, strong and full of music. I like the biographies of Niu Zhang Qi and Duan Kegu, and I am good at writing things and feelings. Every time I want to write a book about it. " This shows that he has collected a lot of anecdotes since he was 30 years old, and he has plans to imitate creation. After writing, Yu once said, "cover up the strange and seek redundancy, but seek the strange without redundancy." In other words, it is the story of the monster that drives him to write, not that he searches for the story of the monster before writing; He has entered a free kingdom where writing fairy tales is easy, balanced and convenient.
Wu Cheng'en has many advantages in creating The Journey to the West. The story of Tang Priest's pilgrimage to the West is an ancient theme, which has been gradually introduced into speech and drama since the Five Dynasties. In the era of Wu Cheng'en, people can read the comments on Journey to the West, hear artists tell such stories, and see artists perform such plays, which are all good materials. However, these scripts, plays and stories are very simple, with Gu Zhuo language, and their artistry is not high. Wu Cheng'en did not simply use it, but recreated it. "Using the legend of the Tang Dynasty to reverse the verdict, and using the way of taking the world at that time to describe irony exaggeratedly" completely changed the story. Because Wu Cheng'en's temperament is "good comedy", although he talks about superb and changing things, every word is mixed with explanations, which makes the gods and demons have the charm of the world, and with the taste of cynicism, he mocks and satirizes all the "supreme" gods and buddhas such as Yan Jun, Dragon King, Jade Emperor and Tathagata. The fifth time, the heavenly soldiers will arrest the Monkey King, but Sun openly ignored him and said, "If you have wine today, you will be drunk tomorrow, so don't care about right and wrong in front of the door." "Poetry wine, today's music, when will Mo Wen achieve fame?" This is a reflection of Wu Cheng'en's own reluctance to fame and fortune.
Wu Cheng'en didn't finish writing The Journey to the West at that time, but only wrote the first ten times. In the twenty-ninth year of Jiajing, he was recommended as a tribute student and went to Beijing as an official, thus interrupting his writing. But this part of his works was copied, printed by booksellers and circulated in the sea.
In the spring of the 29th year of Jiajing, Wu Cheng'en should pay tribute to Beijing and live in Beijing for half a year. Instead of seeking an official position, he was assigned to study in imperial academy. He saw two things in Beijing: first, in August, Anda soldiers surrounded Beijing, and he personally experienced a battle to defend Beijing; Second, Zhang Kan, a friend of Huai 'an, was dismissed by the court because of Ding Rukui's suggestion. Seeing that the social politics was so dark at that time, he expressed the feeling that "the gull heart would rather go home after tasting the origin of human flavor", so he hurried home that autumn.
After returning to Huai 'an, he spent half his time studying in imperial academy and half his time going back and forth to his hometown in Huai 'an. During this period, his beloved son Mao Feng was unfortunately separated. Since then, he never had a son, so he took his cousin Du Qiu, carefully studied and trained him, and later became a scholar and an assistant minister of an official. In the thirty-eighth year of Jiajing, he spent a summer compiling a Collection of Selected Words, that is, A New Collection of Flowers, and now the Shanghai Library still collects the remnants of this book. Forty years after Jiajing, he married his second wife, Niu Shi. Wu Cheng'en did nothing in imperial academy, but drank wine and wrote poems with He, He, Wen Peng, Wen Jia, Huang Jishui and Zhu Rifan.
In the winter of Jiajing forty-three years, at the urging of Li Chunfang, a good friend of the official assistant minister, Wu Cheng'en went to Beijing for the second time, hoping to be appointed as an official and let his life settle down. At this time, he was nearly sixty years old. Because of the embarrassment of life and the fact that his mother is still alive, he had to go to Beijing at the instigation of his mother and the invitation of his friends. However, it still didn't go well. I stayed in Beijing for one year, and in the third year and forty-five years of Jiajing, I got the post of Changxing County Cheng. Although the official is not big and far from home, I finally became an official and took office happily. Because his name has long been known, many people know his writing style. As soon as I arrived in Hangzhou, I was invited by the boss and the gentry to grab the knife and write the preface, inscription and folio. When he arrived in Changxing, people envied his calligraphy and asked him to write three inscriptions in one day. These three inscriptions and stone carvings still exist in the world today. At this stage, his personal poems are also many. But soon, because of disagreement with his boss, he left his job and returned to Huai. Then, he was elected as the "King of Beijing Miji Mountain" and may be an official for a while. Since then, he has been at home, continuing to write his The Journey to the West.
It was during this period that The Journey to the West finalized the manuscript.
When Baihuiben Journey to the West came out, it was immediately welcomed by people. At that time, people were watching (? ) is one of the four fantastic books in Ming Dynasty, and was later listed as one of China's ancient novels Four Great Classical Novels. Since it came into being, other novels about The Journey to the West have been immediately dwarfed and lost their value of existence. However, Journey to the West has gradually occupied a dominant position. The main characters in the book, such as the Monkey King and Pig Bajie, are vivid and lovely. The Monkey King's image, in particular, has always been regarded as the representative of a brave and tenacious hero who dares to despise difficulties and struggle. It has been circulating for hundreds of years and is almost known to women and children. Unfortunately, for various reasons, all versions of Journey to the West at that time were not signed by Wu Cheng'en, so I didn't know for a long time that the real author of this book was him. His copyright was robbed by Taoist Qiu Chuji in the early Yuan Dynasty for no reason. It was not until after the May 4th Movement that Mr. Lu Xun corrected this problem. Now, with a large number of foreign language translations in The Journey to the West, Wu Cheng'en's name has spread all over the world.
Wu Cheng'en's literary talent is various, among which the most famous achievement is the novel The Journey to the West, and all other aspects are eclipsed. In fact, Wu Cheng'en's artistic attainments in poetry are also profound. His poems are fresh and lovely, full of strong people's nature, such as "A Boat Trip": "Egrets are separated by the breeze, and the trees reflect the sunset. When there are clouds in the front village, there will be rain. I lean against the boat window to see the hanging dragon. " How fresh and meaningful! The poem "Summer" says: "The beauty of Gaotang can't help the summer heat, and the ice fragrance dreams of autumn rain; I don't know that cold weather is good for me. " This is the wish of the working people. The famous song of Erlang Soushan Map is even more popular. Wu Cheng'en's poems come from his own mind, not archaizing people, breaking through the fog of the seven sons that enveloped the literary world at that time, and being unique and not simple. Banquets in the Qing Dynasty juxtaposed him with He Bing and Zhang Yushan, known as the foot of Huai 'an in the Ming Dynasty, and "Xie Hua's wonderful show has its own name". Chen compared him with Huai people Lu Jia, Mei Cheng, Kuang Heng, Chen Lin, Bao Zhao, Zhao Wei and Zhang Lei, calling him a "successor".
In A.D. 1582, that is, the ten years of Wanli in Ming Dynasty, Wu Cheng'en was old and sickly, and died at his home in Huai 'an at the age of 77. He was buried in the ancestral home of Shili Irrigation Canal (now Bauer Village, Madian Township) south of Huai 'an. 1982 On the occasion of the 400th anniversary of Wu Cheng'en's death, the Huai 'an County People's Government allocated funds to rebuild his mausoleum, welcomed experts and scholars from all over the country who studied The Journey to the West, and held the first The Journey to the West academic seminar in his hometown of Huai 'an.