It was banned because the president of the highest institution of learning in the Ming Dynasty wrote a proposal.
The New Story of Cutting Lights was written in the 11th year of Hongwu in Ming Dynasty (1378), revised and published in the 19th year of Yongle (142 1), and banned in the 7th year of orthodoxy (1442).
The reason why it was banned was related to the fact that the prince of China at that time, that is, the principal of imperial academy, the highest institution of learning in the Ming Dynasty, served wine. This man's name is Li Shimin. He has just been in office for a few months, but he is very depressed. Why did he go to the lecture hall in high spirits and preach the outline of the four books with passion, so that the students were still dozing off? So he went to the dormitory to communicate at night and asked what books everyone was reading, Spring and Autumn Period or Book of Songs. I didn't expect that the book that students read the most was actually the new words of cutting lights.
Li Shimin was surprised. He knew that this was a novel written by Qu You, a teaching assistant in Guo Zi. I heard that this person received a good education and taught Zuo Zhuan Chun Qiu in imperial academy, but he never read it himself. The headmaster is a little paranoid. During my work in imperial academy, I advocated "being honest and clean", so I can't read novels.
So the headmaster borrowed a book from the students and went home to read it at night. Looking at it, he felt more and more wrong, so he wrote a letter to the emperor overnight and rushed to the palace to report to the emperor the next day. At that time, President Li wrote many things to the emperor, and the emperor was impatient, so he asked the minister of rites to hold a small seminar. Everyone at the meeting thought that Chairman Li had a point, so the first banned novel in the history of China literature came into being.
For this matter, the historical records are as follows:
Recently, there are vulgar Confucianism, which is decorated with rootless words under the pretext of weird things, such as "Cutting Lights and Newspeak", which is not only read by frivolous people in the market, but also taught by Confucian scholars who give up their studies and don't talk about it. If it is not strictly prohibited, heresy will spread and confuse people, and it is not a detail. Ask the Ministry of Rites to write about the internal and external government offices, mention the history of the school and check the official calendar. These books should be banned. Those who have printed books, sold books and collected books should ask questions like the law, so that people can know the right path and not be confused by evil. A letter to the Ministry of Ritual. The words of Hu Ying and others are reasonable and feasible ... The emperor is their proposal.
These articles are completely "fictional" by novelists in order to express specific ideas. In Li Shimin's words, it is "wearing weird things." "Ming History" records Li Shimin's "vigorous spirit and dedication to the world". He couldn't understand why, as a court official, he invented novels, so he could only use "vulgar Confucianism" to denounce them.
In technique: "decorated with rootless words"
Li Shimin also accurately grasped the characteristics of "pruning" in "Cutting Lights". This is actually the unanimous conclusion of the critics at that time. Zhao Yi, the minister in charge of the Ministry of War, and Assistant Minister of the Ministry of Rites all think that "Cutting Lights and Newspeak" is "strange and easy to describe", but they say: "Many people have read the modern facts described by Mr. Wang, molded their feelings and brewed their words, which are so beautiful that the snake twists and turns and flows out. If you suddenly listen to the evidence, punish evil and promote good, and recite it emotionally! "
Because he is good at rhetoric, his works are real and touching. Gui Heng's feeling of reading "Cut the Lamp Mandarin" is "rain or shine, want to cry and dance without tears". However, Li Shimin was conceited by Neo-Confucianism, and advocated "preserving justice and destroying human desires". Naturally, he can't understand the artistic charm of those novels with emotion.
Ideologically: "heresy, the new moon is flourishing."
Neo-Confucianism is the development of traditional Confucianism and became the guiding ideology of the country in the early Ming Dynasty. What Li Shimin appreciates is "a man who is rich in virtue and successful", and advocates that literature and art serve politics. The value of "A New Story of Cutting Lights" is a profound reflection on the traditional Confucian ideal of practical application.
Because it was banned, the mandarin of Lights Out was rarely circulated in China, and many people in China didn't know it. However, Qu You, Li Shimin and others would not have thought that this novel did not lose its charm because it was banned. Later, this banned novel aroused the interest of the people of the Li Dynasty in North Korea and came to Daming to take it. Later, it spread to Japan and Viet Nam, which had a great influence on Asian literature and became a rare case in the history of China literature communication.
At that time, North Korea's Li Dynasty was actively advocating learning Chinese, and Deng Jian Xinhua was just a story of ordinary people, and it was very easy to understand, which made people very moved after reading it, so it became their favorite Chinese textbook. Lin Mao, a scholar in this country, even made a detailed annotation on this novel, namely "Reading Deng Jian Xinhua Sentences", made a detailed analysis of the pronunciation and semantics of some Chinese characters in the novel, and made a very detailed annotation on some rare animals, plants and fruits in the Li Dynasty.
At the beginning, the Korean peninsula only knew poetry and songs, and did not know that there was a novel as a style. Kim Si-soo, a famous writer in Korea's Li Dynasty, imitated Xinhua to create Xinhua in Jin Ao, from which his first novel was born on the Korean Peninsula. Siupu King can grasp the artistic charm of The Story of Cutting Lights, and at the same time, he has first-class literary attainments. He used the Qu You model to carry the cultural relics of the Li Dynasty in Korea, and incorporated his own national culture and independent thinking into his novels, which opened a new chapter in the history of Korean literature.
The influence of "Cutting Lights and Newspeak" on Japanese literature has also experienced the infiltration process from form to content, from appearance to spirit. First, translation, and then creation, from Strange Tales from a Lonely Studio and Jia Maid to Strange Stories of Ancient and Modern English Grass Paper and Poems on a Rain Moon, all have the shadow of "cutting the lights and playing the official role".
However, the spread and acceptance of Cutting Lights in Japan also reflects the aesthetic and cultural differences between China and Japan. Following Qu You's track, Japanese writer Ueda Akinari's thinking went deeper. His White Peak objectively affirmed the rebellious spirit and the "magic way" spirit of abandoning moral considerations, and formed a work with unique Japanese style.
In Vietnam, there are also imitations that have a great influence on his literary works. Ruan Yu, a famous writer, imitated The New Story of Cutting Lights and created Legend. The two writers had cross-national and cross-era exchanges.