Novel of the Ming Dynasty, this type of novel has two development trends and forms two forms. One form of historical fiction is the historical romance. Take "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" as the representative. The so-called "seven parts fact, three parts fiction" can generally reflect the appearance of this type of novel. The original title of "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" is "Popular Romance of the Three Kingdoms", written by Luo Guanzhong. Judging from the existing historical scripts of the Yuan Dynasty, "Three Points of History" and "Three Kingdoms Pinghua", Pinghua provided the basis for the creation of "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms". Luo Guanzhong consulted official history and widely collected folklore to complete this epic work. The novel describes the rise and fall of the three kingdoms of Wei, Shu and Wu, but what it summarizes is the long-term feudal social life, especially the life of the internal struggle of the feudal ruling class, and has rich historical content. "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" exposes the ugly face and reactionary nature of the feudal ruling class to a certain extent. "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" mainly describes military struggles, but also intersperses political struggles and diplomatic struggles. The struggle experience it summarizes through vivid and vivid life scenes can be used as a reference for future generations. "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" shows a clear ideological tendency of supporting Liu and opposing Cao. This tendency reflects relatively complex ideological content, including the feudal orthodoxy formed in the long-term feudal society, the Confucian thought of "the world belongs to benevolence", and the national consciousness formed under specific historical conditions since the Song and Yuan Dynasties. "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" is good at shaping characters in conflicts and struggles, creating lifelike artistic images such as Cao Cao, Guan Yu, Zhuge Liang, Zhang Fei, etc. "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" is also good at describing wars. There are both magnificent scenes and vivid depictions of character activities. The virtual and the actual are coordinated, the priorities are clear, and the details are appropriate. There were a lot of historical romance novels in the Ming Dynasty. It has been done almost from the Yu and Xia era of ancient legends to the Han, Jin, Tang and Song Dynasties. Comparable authors include "Zhi Zhuan of Other Countries", "Zhi Zhuan of the Complete Han Dynasty", "Popular Romance of Tang Shu Zhi Zhuan", etc. But most of them imitate "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" but their ideological and artistic skills are not high.
Another form of historical fiction is the heroic romance. This form was also developed on the basis of history telling in the Song and Yuan Dynasties. Although they are also based on historical events, they are different from historical romance novels in that they do not focus on the evolution of historical events in one generation, but focus on describing heroic figures. This is what Lu Xun called "telling a story of a moment and focusing more on one person or several people". "People", represented by "Water Margin". "Water Margin" is either written by Shi Naian or co-written by Shi Naian and Luo Guanzhong. It is a novel describing the peasant uprising led by Song Jiang in the late Northern Song Dynasty. The Songjiang Uprising is a real event in history, but the historical records are unknown. "Water Margin" is based on the history and folklore of the Song and Yuan Dynasties, with a large number of additional embellishments and performances, and has more fictional elements than "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms". "Water Margin" describes the entire process of a peasant uprising team from its emergence and development to its recruitment and collapse. The author exposes the crimes of the feudal ruling class with extremely clear love and hate, and warmly praises the noble character and spirit of resistance of the heroes. , truly revealed that "officials forcing people to rebel" is an important social root cause of peasant uprisings. However, after describing the gathering of heroes in Liangshan, the novel also describes the tragic ending of being recruited, conquering Liao, conquering Fangla, and finally falling, showing a relatively complicated ideological contradiction. As the ruling ideology of feudal society, the concept of loyalty to the emperor had a clear influence on "Water Margin". Although its criticism touches the entire dark feudal rule network, the targets of its criticism are mainly corrupt officials and traitors who deceived the emperor. But the tragic ending still reflects the author's exposure and criticism of the treacherous, cruel and evil nature of the feudal ruling class.
The Ming Dynasty also produced many heroic and legendary works, whose ideological and artistic achievements were higher than the historical romance novels produced in the same period. Most of what is written is based on certain historical facts, but the content is mainly taken from folklore, focusing on the description of heroic deeds and the characterization of characters. The more influential one is "Zhi Zhuan of the Northern Song Dynasty" written by Xiong Damu during Wanli Dynasty. It tells the story of the Yang family's resistance to the Khitan in the early Song Dynasty and created many female heroic images. Among them, Mu Guiying, who is especially heroic and heroic, is loved by everyone. . Xiong Damu also wrote "Zhongxing Popular Romance of the Song Dynasty" which describes the story of Yue Fei. Guo Xun's "Biography of the Heroes of the Imperial Ming Dynasty" (one title "Yunhe Qi trace") recounts the historical events of the founding of the Ming Dynasty and focuses on promoting the achievements of Guo Ying, the ancestor of the Guo family. Yuan Yuling's "History of the Sui Dynasty" wrote about Qin Qiong, a hero in troubled times, etc., all of which had a certain influence on the people for a period of time.
There is also a category involving ghosts, gods and monsters, full of bizarre fantasies, obviously influenced by religion to varying degrees. Especially after the middle of the Ming Dynasty, the feudal rulers were extravagant and lustful, while at the same time seeking immortality and Taoism, believing in Buddhism and seeking immortality. 》. "Journey to the West" was also created by literati writers based on the language and folklore of the Song and Yuan Dynasties. The author Wu Chengen has been interested in curious news and strange things since he was a child, and his feelings and understanding of real life are integrated into his creations. "Journey to the West" is full of bold and bizarre fantasies, the plot is vivid, thrilling and fascinating; the language is witty, full of wit and has a unique artistic style. Other novels about gods and demons produced after the mid-Ming Dynasty include "The Romance of the Gods".
There are also secular novels. These novels take social reality as their subject matter and mostly write about family life, and "probably describe some romantic and indulgent things, between joys and sorrows, and describe the hot and cold world" ( Lu Xun's "The Historical Changes of Chinese Novels"), represented by "Jin Ping Mei". The author of "Jin Ping Mei" is unknown. In the 45th year of Wanli Dynasty (1617), the preface of Soochow Nongzhu Ke's "Ci Hua" was written by Lan Ling Xiaoxiaosheng of this department.
The novel uses realistic techniques to give a true and delicate portrayal of the darkness of Ming Dynasty society and the dissolute decadence of the ruling class. There are many characters, reflecting the broad picture of urban life at that time, and many characters are written vividly. The book reflects the sensual and indulgent life of the landlord and bureaucratic class, with many obscene descriptions that are unsightly. "Jin Ping Mei" began to break away from the constraints of historical stories on novel creation, turned to realistic themes, and gave detailed descriptions of ordinary life, which is of great significance in the history of the development of Chinese novels. After "Jin Ping Mei", novels about world affairs showed two tendencies: one is to promote the idea of ??karma in the description of world affairs, such as "Yu Jiao Li" (lost), which is said to have been written by the same author as "Jin Ping Mei" and was written in the late Ming Dynasty. "The Story of Awakening Marriage" written by the Western Zhou Dynasty. The other type evolved into novels about talented men and beautiful women, where they fall in love with each other at first sight and become engaged for life, and then after a series of twists and turns, they end with a happy ending comedy. Thoughts and arts are mostly mediocre and low-level. "Yu Jiao Li", "Hao Qi Zhuan", "Ping Shan Leng Yan", etc., which were written around the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, belong to this category.
The rise of public case novels describing unjust prosecutions in the late Ming Dynasty was a product of social corruption and political darkness in the late Ming Dynasty. The more famous ones include "The Biography of Mr. Hai Gangfeng's Official Cases" by Li Chunfang, "The Romance of Bao Xiaosugong's Official Cases" by Anonymous, and "The Biography of the Official Cases of Mr. Bao Xiaosu" by Yu Xiangdou, etc., which praise the famous upright official Bao in history. Zheng, Hai Rui, Kuang Zhong, etc., to a certain extent, reflected the darkness of social politics and the sharpness of class contradictions at that time. This type of novels generally pursue bizarre plot twists, while most of the characters lack individuality, are relatively rough in art, are often mixed with superstitious descriptions of gods and ghosts, and promote feudal ethics and moral concepts such as loyalty, filial piety, and righteousness.
The Ming Dynasty is also famous for short stories in vernacular, such as "Three Words and Two Pats", which are "Yu Shi Ming Yan" (originally titled "Ancient and Modern Novels") and "Warning World Tong Yan" edited by Feng Menglong during the Tianqi period. " and "Eternal Words to Awaken the World" are collectively called "Three Words". Each episode contains 40 stories. It includes two parts: the Song and Yuan scripts and the Ming Dynasty scripts. In the late Ming Dynasty, Ling Huo imitated the "Three Words" and created "Surprise at the First Moment" and "Surprise at the Second Moment", collectively known as "Er Pai", which are basically scripts created by Ling. Vernacular short stories of the Ming Dynasty reflected a wide range of social life. Among them, the theme of love and marriage occupies an important position, expressing the affirmation of the independent requirements of love and marriage and the criticism of feudal ethics and the concept of family status, such as "Du Shiniang Angered and Sinking the Treasure Box", "Le Xiaoshe Fighting for a Marriage", "Yutang" "It's hard to meet your husband when spring falls" and so on. Chapters such as "Brother Jiang Xing Meets Again in Pearl Shirt" and "Oil Seller Monopolizes Oiran" reflect the citizens' concept of love and marriage. Condemning unlucky men is also an important part of this type of novel. Exposing the sins of the feudal ruling class and the darkness of politics is an important theme of the Ming Dynasty Huabu. The works describing the life and thoughts of craftsmen and small businessmen show the new ideological characteristics of the Ming Dynasty imitation scripts, such as praising the hard work and honesty of small businessmen, the friendship of mutual help and the pursuit of getting rich. This is a manifestation of the strength and activeness of the citizen class in society, and a product of the development of urban commercial economy after the mid-Ming Dynasty. However, there are also a considerable number of imitative scripts in "Three Words" and "Two Pai", which are full of dross such as beautifying the ruling class, promoting feudal ethics, superstition of ghosts and gods, etc. The art of imitating Huaben novels generally maintains the characteristics of Huaben novels, such as strong storytelling, vivid and complete plots, and attention to characterization of characters. But there are also differences: the psychological description and detailed description tend to be rich and delicate, and the length has also increased significantly; but the use of spoken language and the breath of life are obviously inferior to the story novels.
In addition to "Three Words" and "Two Pai", there are more than ten collections of imitative novels written by Mingren, such as "Stone Nods", "Drunk Awakening Stone", "West Lake II Collection", etc. species, achievements are not high. As Lu Xun pointed out: "People in the Ming Dynasty planned to write a novel, which was a series of edicts and admonitions, noisy and seizing the master, and many flattery and honors, and returning to the nurse. Therefore, the form only remains, but the spirit is very different from that of the Song Dynasty." ("History of Chinese Novels") "A Brief Introduction"), but there are also some chapters in which the writing is vivid and the images are vivid. In the description of human feelings and the world, a large number of unreasonable things in feudal social life are presented.
There is relevant background in the article, which is generally dissatisfaction with the real society, resistance to the oppression and exploitation of the feudal ruling class, etc. . .