It would be ridiculous to think that the author of A Dream of Red Mansions is Cao Xueqin, the grandson of Jiangning Weaving Cao Yin. Why do you say that? Because there is no Cao Xueqin or Cao Zhan in Cao Yin's genealogy, and there is almost no evidence that Cao Xueqin is a descendant of Cao Yin. Up to now, even the biological father of Cao Xueqin is not clear in the redology circle, so it is not surprising that traditional redologists insist that Cao Xueqin is a descendant of Cao Yin.
Who is Wu? According to records, Wu (June 2 1609, June 21-June 1672, June 23) was born in Meicun, a native of Luqiao, a Taoist, a Han nationality, and a native of Taicang, Jiangsu. Born in the thirty-seventh year of Wanli in the Ming Dynasty, he was a scholar in Chongzhen in the Ming Dynasty (163 1), and once edited by the Hanlin Academy, Zuo Shuzi. In the tenth year of Shunzhi in Qing Dynasty (1653), it was forced to the north by imperial edict. The following year, he was awarded the position of assistant to the secretariat, and later he was promoted to imperial academy to provide drinks. At the end of the thirteenth year of Shunzhi, he asked for leave to go back to the south on the grounds of the funeral of his stepmother, and never returned to his official position. He was a famous poet in the late Ming Dynasty and early Qing Dynasty, and was also called "the Three Masters of Jiang Zuo" with Qian and Gong Dingzi. He was also the pioneer of Loudong Poetry School. He is good at seven-character metrical poems. He first learned "Evergreen Style" and later formed a new poem, which was later called "Meicun Style".
Only adherents of the Ming Dynasty can write it.
In recent years, some people think that the real (original) author of A Dream of Red Mansions is Wu Meicun, and Cao Xueqin is only an important addition and deletion and editor of the first eighty chapters of A Dream of Red Mansions. Experts believe that in A Dream of Red Mansions, some terms such as "Mourning for Hongxuan", "Yi Hong Yuan" and "Dream of Red Mansions" did not come out of thin air. Only the adherents of the Ming Dynasty in the early Qing Dynasty can write it. In fact, adherents of the Ming Dynasty also wrote many anti-Qing poetry articles in the early Qing Dynasty. Cao Xueqin lived in the Yong-gan era with strict outline, and would not have such boldness of vision.
Through the careful study of A Dream of Red Mansions, it is found that the earlier version of A Dream of Red Mansions records: "Wu Yufeng wrote A Dream of Red Mansions; Meixi, Donglukong, titled "Yue Feng Treasures". " "The book" Yue Feng Bao Jian "is a preface written by his brother Tang Cun." Combining the above names, the word "Wu Meicun" appeared. More importantly, compared with Cao Xueqin's difficult life, Wu Meicun, who lived in seclusion for 65,438+00 years, had time to write such a masterpiece.
Previously, it has been suggested in the red circle that the author of A Dream of Red Mansions is someone else, but there has been no conclusion. Fu Bo told reporters that even if the real author is not investigated, there is no doubt that Cao Xueqin is only the organizer of A Dream of Red Mansions. Moreover, when Cao Xueqin arrived, the Cao family had fallen down. With his life experience, it is impossible to write a life scene like the emperor. If you don't live in it, it's hard to describe it with imagination.
Why Wu Meicun?
Perhaps later generations worried that the author would fall into a cruel literary prison for writing A Dream of Red Mansions, so they adopted such a subtle way to hint at the author's name. This practice was quite common at that time. It is worth noting that the life prototypes of many characters and scenes in A Dream of Red Mansions can be found in Wu Meicun's poems. For example, the love legend of the emperor shunzhi and Dong Xiaowan described in Liang Qing's ode to Buddha is very similar to that of Jia Baoyu and Lin Daiyu in A Dream of Red Mansions.
A Dream of Red Mansions has high literary attainments, while Wu Meicun happens to have superb writing skills. At the same time, Wu Meicun's political views are consistent with the theme of A Dream of Red Mansions. According to Wu Meicun's resume, his life was bumpy, and he experienced political struggles in Ming and Qing Dynasties, which sublimated his feelings for the demise of the Ming Dynasty and made him resent the Qing Dynasty. However, due to his taboo, he can only use the hard stone of "mending the sky without mending it" as a metaphor, and reveal an unusual emotional story and political proposition through his girlfriends. Wu Meicun once wrote a poem, "I am an old chicken dog in Chu Huaiwang, and I don't want to go down to earth with the gods", which is a portrayal of incompatible political thoughts. Moreover, Wu Meicun's tombstones of "becoming a monk after death" and "placing huge stones at the grave" also imply the significance of stones in A Dream of Red Mansions.
One more thing, Wu Meicun was a famous painter in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties. Wu Meicun is familiar with the plot description of calligraphy and painting in A Dream of Red Mansions. Moreover, compared with Cao Xueqin's life predicament, Wu Meicun, who has lived in seclusion for ten years, has time to write such a masterpiece.
What did Cao Xueqin do?
If the author is really Wu Meicun, what did Cao Xueqin do? Cao Xueqin was the editor and editor of the first eighty chapters of A Dream of Red Mansions, and died before the last forty chapters could be revised. Cao Xueqin has done a lot of additions and deletions to A Dream of Red Mansions. For example, he deleted (or lost) Poems on the Sweet House, Snow in the Prison Temple to Comfort Baoyu, The Story of Hua Xiren, Wei Sheyuan, Wang Xifeng and know life Brave Man, etc., but only the outline was found in the related words of Zhifu, and Cao Xueqin was mixed in. Therefore, the commentators at the same time saw all the fresh people around them.
There are many details, and we can also see the traces of Cao Xueqin's deletion of the original work. From Chen Geng's comments on A Dream of Red Mansions, it can be found that the original work once wrote that Xifeng had two daughters, the older one was called Qiaojie and the younger one was called Dajie, which clearly showed that Xifeng had two daughters, one was older and the other was younger. Cao Xueqin wanted to add a story that happened around him, so he contacted Granny Liu 42 times for the sake of Xifeng's daughter, rewriting that Xifeng only had one daughter, originally named Sister, and later renamed it "Qiaojieer" according to Granny Liu's opinion. At that time, Cao Xueqin forgot to take care of the front in the addition and deletion, so the words in Chapter 27 and Chapter 29 of Chen Geng's edition didn't change until Qi Ben's time.
But after all, Wu Meicun and Cao Xueqin were separated by decades. Why did it spread widely to Cao Xueqin, causing everyone to think that he was the author? Experts believe that A Dream of Red Mansions may be circulated in a very small circle in the first 70 years after its completion. Mainly there are "obstacles" in it. These "obstacles" involved political taboos at that time, until Cao Xueqin added, deleted, polished and removed obstacles. (Text/Fu Bo and Zhong Changshan)