Introduction to the work
The book "The Heroine of the Wild River" pioneered the model of two heroes and heroines fighting in the rivers and lakes, and had a profound influence on later generations of martial arts novels. Among them, Jin Yong, the master of martial arts novels, flipped through a few pages when he was young and became obsessed with it. After reading "The Heroine of the Wild River" for several days, I couldn't help but exclaim: "I never thought there was such a beautiful book in the world!" At that time, Jin Yong was only eight years old. This book can be said to be Mr. Jin Yong’s enlightenment on the path to writing martial arts novels. About the author
Gu Mingdao (1897-1944), formerly known as Jingcheng, was a native of Suzhou, Jiangsu Province. He lost his father in his early years and was disabled by knee tuberculosis. Because of his excellent academic performance, he graduated from Zhensheng Middle School and stayed at the school to teach. She started writing novels when she was seventeen. Her first novel was published in the magazine "Brow Language" edited by Xu Xiaotian, under the pseudonym Mei Qiannvshi. In 1922, he participated in the "Star Society" organized by Fan Yanqiao in Suzhou. From 1923 to 1924, he published martial arts novels in "Detective World" magazine. In 1928, when he was returning to Suzhou from Hangzhou, he passed through Shanghai. Yan Duhe, a literary friend of Xingshe, asked him to write a manuscript, which prompted him to write "The Heroine of the Wild River", which became the masterpiece of his life. During the Anti-Japanese War, he moved to Shanghai and wrote patriotic novels such as "National Disaster and Family Feud" and "For Whom I Sacrifice". He also ran his own internship school, which was later closed due to tuberculosis. He wrote more than 50 novels in his life, mainly martial arts and romance, but also social, historical, detective and other works. There are 24 martial arts novels alone, such as "Heroes of the Sea", "Under the Golden Dragon Mountain", "The Grass" "The Legend of Strange Man", "King of Longshan", "Strange Hero", etc., but "The Heroine of Huangjiang" is the most famous. He is forty-eight years old. Before his death, Chunming Bookstore published his autobiographical novel "Flower Rain in the South of the Yangtze River".
Gu Shichang described his creative motivation in the article "Talk about Martial Arts Novels": "Yu likes to write martial arts and adventure stories to enhance the spirit of the Chinese people. He once wrote "Secret Kingdom" in "Detective World" "The King of Pirates" and "The Fighting on the Island" all describe the adventures of our compatriots on the sea; or they resolutely resist foreigners and bring glory to the motherland. I also wrote "Under the Golden Dragon Mountain", which is completely an ideal martial arts. The novel... He also wrote the sequel to "Heroes of the Sea" for a small daily newspaper, taking Zheng Chenggong's uprising at sea as the story and the heroes of the island as the weft... He also tried to write "The Legend of Cao Mang", which took the cession of Taiwan. The Gengzi Rebellion is the background. " Story introduction
After bidding farewell to her fiancé Yue Jianqiu, the chivalrous woman Fang Yuqin went to Huangjiang to report to the retired bodyguard Zhai Hongdao. Unexpectedly, the gangsters of Hongdao's enemy Wang Ming were chasing him. Then, Yuqin chased the gangsters. The beauty of Shuhua, the sister of Lin Yinmin, the richest man in Guazhouqiao, attracted Lin Xinhuai, a younger brother of the clan, to collude with the bully Li Jiu and plot to seize him. Master Yuqin discovered the conspiracy and punished the two. . Yiming saw that Yinmin was loyal and kind-hearted, so he decided to match him up with Hongdao's daughter Qiyun. Yinmin went to Biyunjian to marry Qiyun, but accidentally went to the Fanjia store of his enemy Wang Ming, where he was seen by Li Jiu. Li Jiu encouraged Wang Ming. Killing to vent his hatred, it happened that Jianqiu also threw himself into the shop, Yuqin rushed to help and killed the gangsters, Yuqin protected Yinmin and continued on the road. Wang Ming and others turned to join the Shaoshi Mountain bandit leader Mo Long, whose younger brother Mo Hu coveted Qiyun was beautiful, so they went to Biyun Stream to rob her. Hongdao was injured and lost, so he had to watch his daughter being kidnapped. Jianqiu went to Shaoshi Mountain to detect the thief, and met Mo Hu on the way. He stepped forward to snipe, but was Mo Hu introduces the mechanism of his lair. Mo Long's flirtatious sister Xiuzhen wants to lure Jianqiu to her room for sex. By chance, her concubine Wang Ming arrives and fights with Xiuzhen out of jealousy. Jianqiu takes the opportunity to escape, but ends up with her again. Yuqin, who came to rescue her, was trapped in a trap. The two worked together to break the formation, and the thieves dispersed. Yuqin pursued her, but was plotted by Mo Long and fell from the suspension bridge into an abyss. Fang Yuqin was plotted by Mo Long and fell into an abyss. Fortunately, they were rescued by Yue Jianqiu and escaped from danger. After the defeat, brothers Mo Long and Mo Hu fled in embarrassment. With no way out, they fled to Bawang Village. The owner of the village, Hei Taisui, Zheng Biao, welcomed him happily. The Mo brothers knew that Zheng Biao was lustful, so they surrendered. What he likes is that he highly praises Zhai Qiyun's beauty, and even agrees to kidnap her back, thereby inducing Zheng Biao to help deal with Yuqin. Yuqin, Jianqiu sends Qiyun home, and during the conversation, he plans to arrange a marriage between Lin Yinmin and Qiyun. . On the night of Lin Zhai's wedding, Zheng Biao and the Mo brothers broke into the house and robbed the bride and the jade piano. Jian Qiu chased after the news and killed Mo Long with his sword, but Qi Yun was eventually captured by Zheng Biao. Mo Hu was reborn. A poisonous plan to steal the official seal and blame Jianqiu. Yuqin found out that Mo Hu was hiding in Bawangzhuang and was about to go there with Jianqiu. Unexpectedly, official officials arrived and arrested Jianqiu for stealing the seal. Yuqin broke into Bawangzhuang alone. He was injured by Mo Hu and had no choice but to go to the government to tell the story. The prefect sympathized with Jian Qiu and released him, promising to kill the thieves and save others. Yu Qin and Jian Qiu broke into Bawangzhuang and fought fiercely with Mo Hu and Zheng Biao. Mo Hu was defeated, Zheng Biao lured the two to the Turtle Formation, but they fell into a treacherous plot and fell into the flames... Catalog of works
Foreword (Nanjiang Lin)
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"The Heroine of the Wild River", as one of the representative works of the old school martial arts novels after the "May 4th Movement", has had a certain influence.
Its author, Gu Mingdao, was one of the five major martial arts novelists in the 1930s and a native of Suzhou.
First, he wrote romance novels, such as "Nai
He Tian", "Red in the Snow", "Flowers in the South of the Yangtze River", "Bright Flowers in the Willows", "Autumn Beauty", etc.; later he turned to writing martial arts novels
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Said that he wrote dozens of novels in his life, such as "The Heroine of the Huangjiang River", "The New Biography of the Heroine of the Huangjiang River", "Overseas Struggle for Hegemony", "The Roar of the Tiger and the Roar of the Dragon
Record", "The Battle of the Island" and so on. "The Heroine of the Wild River" is his masterpiece. This book consists of six episodes in one day. After being serialized in "Xinwenbao·Happy Forest", it was published as a single book and reprinted many times. , and later it was made into a movie, turned into a Peking opera and put on the stage, and was very popular.
Gu Mingdao once confessed why he wanted to write martial arts novels. He said: "Yu likes to write martial arts novels and adventure novels,
to strengthen the spirit of the people. He has written "Secret Country", "Pirate King", "Island Battle" in "Detective World" "Jiu" all describe the adventures of our compatriots on the ocean, which were resolutely rejected by outsiders and brought glory to the motherland. "It can be seen that his creative purpose is still clear.
Regardless of whether the patriotism in his martial arts novels is deeply reflected, but in terms of subjective wishes, "strengthening the spirit of the country" and "bringing glory to the country" are the basic themes of his works. This is also commendable.
From the early years of the Republic of China to the 1930s, martial arts novels showed a prosperous situation and entered a new era. A large number of martial arts novel writers and works appeared
. However, on the whole, most of the martial arts novels at that time were "mediocre and cliched", as Mr. Zheng Yimei wrote in his original "Preface" to "The Heroine of the Wild River" It can be summarized as follows: "There are countless books on martial arts, but they may be obscene, redundant, or mediocre. If you want to find something that is exquisite and meaningful, you should be worthy of it." "Especially those absurd and bizarre martial arts novels have a very bad social effect, paralyzing the people and making them escape from reality. Therefore, it is completely deserved to be criticized by revolutionary writers. However, not all martial arts novels can be viewed in this way, and a specific analysis should be conducted.
Martial arts novels are the same as general novel creation. The themes can be ancient and modern, Chinese and foreign, heaven and earth, but what they reflect cannot
be other than the emotions of the era in which the writer lives. Although "The Heroine of the Wild River" did not fundamentally touch upon the rule of the reactionary class at that time
nor did it directly expose the decadence and decline of the ruling class, the chivalrous behavior of the protagonist in the book was only shown in the fight with bandits, robbers, and
The fight between bullies; however, between the lines, readers can still feel the author's dissatisfaction with the reality of the time and a certain degree of patriotism
And through the mouths of his favorite characters , expressing views on social reality. We might as well quote a few paragraphs:
Yuqin: Today's officers and soldiers are as timid as mice. They usually only bully good people and covet military pay.
Jianqiu: Our army is extremely corrupt today! However, foreign aggression is becoming more and more urgent every day. Once something happens to the border defense, we will be devastated.
The division will lose ground and the city will beg for allies.
Yuan Biao: The Manchus have occupied China for more than 200 years. Instead of making China rich, powerful and developed, they have lost troops and territory.
They were defeated at the hands of Bi Yaner. ; The country is getting weaker and weaker, the people are living in hardship, and the wooden clogs of the East are approaching every step of the way, and they are formidable. You can see it with your own eyes
People with lofty ideals lament that China is suffering from the disaster of land and sinking.
These words have not become the plot content of the book. They are obviously the author's use of the topic. At a specific stage of the plot development,
what the author wants to say is said through the mouth of the characters, but , these words were exactly what the broad masses of the people wanted to say at that time, and to a certain extent they expressed the mood of the times when the people were dissatisfied with the reality of corruption. Of course, martial arts novels are obviously stupid and wrong about how to enrich the country and strengthen the people
and save the country through martial arts, and the actions of a few knights to eliminate evil and help good people. This is also true of all martial arts novels
< p> Limitations that cannot be avoided. However, "The Heroine of the Wild River" can express the above lamentation and reveal dissatisfaction with reality, which undoubtedly has a certain positive significance among those martial arts novels that can only lead people to escape from reality.In addition, in general martial arts novels, the plots are deliberately made to be bizarre and absurd for the sake of excitement;
And because they deviate from life, it is inevitable not to copy each other, The similarity of plots makes readers bored, as Gu Zuiyu once pointed out in the preface to the sequel to "Hua Jiang":
The author has no foundation in martial arts, let alone the ability to Observe the world; I just stole the skin of one or two old novels. When I write about a swordsman, I must travel thousands of miles in an instant.
When I write about a thief, I must fly over the walls and exaggerate the carvings and paintings. It is shocking, regardless of whether there is any reason, but only pursues the grotesqueness of the plot, and tailors it. He was poor,
so he came back with demons and ghosts to save him.
These problems pointed out by Mr. Gu show that the creation of martial arts novels at that time took a wrong path. They created a set of formulas and relied on these formulas to create things behind closed doors. Therefore, such martial arts novels were not popular even at that time. "Arajiang
Heroine" also inevitably describes some people's "special powers" and unexpected changes in circumstances; but it does not pursue the bizarre plot
as its purpose. The book's handling of the relationship between several main characters, as well as the intentionally arranged love clue in the structure, make this martial arts novel full of social and human feelings. In addition, the author handles these relationships and clues, in order to avoid adultery
Even the chivalrous behavior of Qin and Jian makes people feel that they have the emotional characteristics of ordinary people. Therefore, it is mainly people
that give people a more intimate feeling. The author also drew on the creative techniques of general modern novels to work hard on shaping the characters
This makes this work a step above ordinary martial arts novels. This is probably one of the reasons why it is so popular.
No matter which dynasty or generation martial arts novels originated from, or the ups and downs of their development, as a
variety of Chinese novels, they have always existed, and Shows the trend of continuous development towards a complete form. To this day, the new martial arts novels developed in Hong Kong and Taiwan in the 1950s are still developing and have a large readership. On the one hand, this is
because of its social and historical reasons. On the other hand, we have to admit that it has its own artistic charm that cannot be ignored.
Of course, we cannot make a general evaluation of martial arts novels because their situations are very complex. However, in the past, we completely dismissed martial arts novels and ignored the positive aspects of some of them, such as certain progressive tendencies in thought, patriotism and sympathy for the oppressed people. wishes, some of the artistic merits are not adequate. On the contrary, martial arts novels
as a branch of Chinese novels, what is its relationship with the development of Chinese novels, what artistic traditions of Chinese novels does it embody, and why does it There are so many readers. Whether it still has any reference significance today is worthy of our study.
First of all, we should give martial arts novels a certain historical status. "The Heroine of the Wild River" was a hit for a while, not without reason
It reflects historical reality to a certain extent. Although the novel is about the Qing Dynasty, the plot of the novel, the relationship between the characters, and the emotions of the characters can help us understand the social reality at that time. Therefore, it is not only for people's recreation and entertainment, as someone said, it also has the function of "stimulating people's morale". Of course, the turbulent development of the Chinese revolution in the late 1920s and early 1930s has brought great changes to Chinese society, and revolutionary literature has also made great progress. develop. Compared with revolutionary literature, the role of martial arts novels is naturally very limited. Many martial arts novels even conflict with the requirements of the revolution in terms of ideological content. However, although works such as "The Heroine of the Wild River" cannot be classified as revolutionary literature, they cannot be simply classified as reactionary feudal dross. Instead, we should see what they contain. Some of the essence of democracy should be appropriately valued.
Secondly, martial arts novels are all based on plot, and "The Heroine of the Wild River" is no exception. If Chinese classical novels have their own tradition, the emphasis on plot is the most prominent manifestation of this tradition. Martial arts novels have exaggerated this tradition, put the plot in the most prominent position, and embarked on a path of abnormal development. The result is that the bizarre plot dilutes the incisiveness of the characters
Stroke. However, this also allows us to see the charm of the plot. When people's various needs for literature and art need to be satisfied in many aspects
, isn't the entertainment brought to people by tense and tortuous plots also has its merits? What's more, the vast number of Chinese readers< /p>
What they accept is traditional Chinese art, and they do not relax the requirements for the plot of their works. If our novel creation today recognizes that
this appreciation requirement has its historical and national objective development inevitability, and can respect this appreciation requirement, it will not
be able to get better results. A large readership? In this sense, some representative martial arts novels, including "The Heroine of the Wild River", still have something worth learning from in terms of artistic form.
Third, the study of martial arts novels must adopt a historicist attitude and conduct objective analysis without simplification. Even those martial arts novels that
have some negative elements in their thinking and have artistic reference significance must be carefully studied to distinguish
their dross from their essence.
In order to achieve this goal, we tried our best to preserve the original appearance of the novel and retained some prefaces to provide readers with a relatively complete research object.
Preface to "The Heroine of the Wild River" (Zheng Yimei)
Gu Mingdao and I are from the same hometown and we know each other very well. His name is Jingcheng, and he is also signed as Hutou Junsheng and Shi Potianjing House Master. After reading these signatures, I always thought that he was a great man with a high profile. Little did he know that he was extremely thin and sick. Bad at practice. He was born in Wuzhong in 1897. His father died early and he had no shelter. He graduated from Yinghua Middle School in Mujia Garden and stayed at the school as a teacher. The salary was low, and he was busy writing
manuscripts. He buried himself in a pile of old papers. Over the past thirty years, he wrote fifty to sixty novels. The most popular one was "The Heroine of the Wild River", which was published in the supplement of "The News". He was originally asked to write a novella. Unexpectedly, after it was published, it became very popular among readers.
Yan Duhe, the editor-in-chief of the newspaper, wrote to Mingdao asking for permission to expand it into a full-length article. Nai first reviewed the story in the middle chapter, and the situation was not developed enough. He spent a lot of effort to make up for this shortcoming. After the entire article is published, it will be printed into a single volume by the bookstore. Sequels and sequels continued
and the sales were very wide. At that time, Shanghai Youlian Film Company was producing movies and the Grand Stage Theater was performing Peking Opera, which really caused a sensation in the society. After that, he planned to compile the story of Wu Sangui and Chen Yuanyuan into a narrative part. At this time, Liu Yazi specialized in the history of the Southern Ming Dynasty and provided him with a lot of information. He wrote "Blood Rain Qiongpa" and published it in the supplement "Spring and Autumn" of "Shenbao". When the Japanese invading army entered the concession,
the novel contained too many passionate words and was ordered to stop publishing, so "Blood Rain Qiongpa" had no choice but to be published.
He took refuge from the Anti-Japanese War and rented a house by the Eight Immortals Bridge in Shanghai. It was too noisy for writing, so he moved to a small alley on Weihaiwei Road,
and wrote many books. The last part is "Flower Rain in the South of the Yangtze River". The protagonist Cheng Jing in the book is poor and self-sufficient, cooking words to cure hunger, and dies of bone disease
Fragmented and dying, this series of narratives are all Master said to himself. By the last few chapters of writing, he was too ill to write, so his dictation was recorded by his disciples, and he finally managed to write it into a book. Chunming Bookstore rushed to print and publish it, and gave him the royalties to meet his medical needs. One day,
I went to visit him. He was lying on his couch, and Hu Xingguan (the nickname of his son Deji) took a copy of "Jiangnan Flower Rain" from the shelf and gave it to me.
And said, "This is the last book." I held back tears to comfort him. After that, he stopped writing, had no income, and his life became even more difficult. A good friend
helped him, and he recorded his deeds one by one in the account book in order to repay him in the future. Nai's illness worsened day by day, so Yan Duhe tried to help him, and
"The News" paid for him to be admitted to the hospital. However, the disease is terminal and the medicine is ineffective. He did not want to waste more money on the newspaper, so he insisted on returning to his apartment, and soon he turned a blind eye. At this time, he still had a little daughter who was about two years old. She was too weak to walk. The family was in a hurry.
He couldn't take care of her. She fell from the stool and died of a cranial fracture. The father and daughter died together, leaving people with A painful memory.