One hundred and twenty stories of A Dream of Red Mansions have been handed down from generation to generation, and there are dozens so far. From Tenghua Pavilion and Sanrang Hall in Qing Dynasty to Dongguan Pavilion and Shuangqing Fairy Pavilion; From East Asia Library and Dada Bookstore before liberation to New Culture Bookstore, World Bookstore and Universal Library; From People's Literature Publishing House and Writers Publishing House in the early days of liberation to Tianjin Ancient Books Publishing House, Qilu Bookstore, Zhejiang Literature and Art Publishing House, as well as the republished editions published by universities and provinces, it can be described as numerous and spectacular. However, although these versions are slightly different, they are not beyond the scope of Cheng Hegao, and the ending of the book is the same.
So, what is the ending of Cao Xueqin's original Dream of Red Mansions? What is Cao Xueqin's creativity? Let's try to make an analysis. 、
First, a hypothetical ending.
The ancestor of A Dream of Red Mansions edited by Cheng and Gao is a book printed twice by Cheng Weiyuan and others in the 56th year of Qianlong in Qing Dynasty (1792) and the 57th year of Qianlong (1793), which is called Cheng Gaoben for short. The former is called Cheng Jiaben by Mr. Hu Shi, and the latter is called Cheng Yiben.
Later, influenced by the criticism of A Dream of Red Mansions by Zhi Yanzhai and others, there appeared the double-clear fairy official edition criticized by the flower protector (Wang Xilian), the Miao Fuxuan edition criticized by Taiping Idler (Zhang Xinzhi), and the "three comments" and "eight comments" published by Wang Xilian, Zhang Xinzhi and Yao Xie. By the end of the Qing Dynasty, criticism of A Dream of Red Mansions began to prevail, and a large number of printed copies appeared. Because of this, A Dream of Red Mansions was widely circulated. However, these well-known Dream of Red Mansions are all based on Cheng and Gao Ben.
Cheng Jia should still belong to the fat department. Because the characters in the first eighty chapters are mainly fat, they are basically similar to Xu Jiaben and Chen Geng Ben. The last forty chapters are Cao Xueqin's draft, and Cheng Weiyuan and Gao E compiled them according to the draft. Comparing Cheng Yiben and Cheng Jiaben, there is a great difference. After textual research, the book has changed nearly 20 thousand words. The first eighty chapters changed nearly fifteen thousand words, and the last forty chapters changed nearly five thousand words. This is by no means like what Cheng Weiyuan said in A Preface to Cheng Yiben: "After this episode, all the original texts are carefully examined and correct ..." This kind of "proofreading", "reading", "changing" and "fixing" is so drastic that it not only changes the plot of the book, but also changes the structural arrangement of the book, regardless of the ending in the fat text.
In order to prove that Cheng Gaoben is Cao Xueqin's original work, Cheng Weiyuan solemnly stated in the preface of Cheng Jiaben: "... but the original catalogue 120 volumes, only 80 volumes have been collected today. In other words, there are all of them, and the reviews are still only 80 volumes, which is quite regrettable for readers. So there are 120 volumes in the book. Isn't there a complete treasure? Therefore, in order to collect these books, all collectors and even old paper piles attach great importance to them, and only accumulated more than 20 volumes in a few years. One day, I accidentally got more than ten volumes on the drum bag, so I bought them at a big price. I looked at it happily and found that it was still a tenon, but it was out of control. It's a good idea to supplement details for friends, make up for each other's shortcomings, and copy and reprint them all for the benefit of the public. The book "Stone" is the beginning of success! " How credible! If you only look at this preface and don't look at the great changes in the whole book, this "Cheng Gaoben" seems to be the original work of Cao Xueqin! However, it is this preface that tells a big lie and has lied to us for nearly a hundred years! Cheng and Gao's proofreading books are deeply loved by readers because of their neat handwriting and binding, especially the complete story. Every original printed matter actually sold dozens of gold! The copyright should also be sold for two taels. Later, due to the emergence of critical circles, especially Wang Xilian's comments on A Dream of Red Mansions, Cheng Gaoben was in full swing and swept the world. It's really a situation of "gossiping about a dream of red mansions and reading poems for nothing". Take A Dream of Red Mansions edited by Wang Xilian as an example. It has monopolized the dream of red mansions market for more than 80 years, and with the comments on the dream of red mansions appearing one after another, it has monopolized it for nearly 120 years! It was not until the publication of Qi Xu Ben that the pattern of "cost-sharing" was broken.
Although A Dream of Red Mansions compiled by Cheng and Gao played a certain historical role in the popularization and spread of A Dream of Red Mansions, it went against Cao Xueqin's original intention, changed the structural arrangement of the book and invented a happy ending. This is a big problem that must be corrected and discussed clearly.
Second, the ending of A Dream of Red Mansions is Jia's "death" and Xue's "death".
The ending of Cheng and Gao collation is not the ending of Cao Xueqin's original arrangement. The answer can be found in the book.
Cao Xueqin deliberately chose surnames for the four families and carefully arranged the sequence of the four surnames in order to predict the ending of A Dream of Red Mansions for readers.
The surnames of the four families in A Dream of Red Mansions are concentrated in the "official protection symbol" in the fourth chapter. This "official protector" is very important
In the general approval before the fourth chapter of Qi Xu Ben, the approver specially reminded readers: "Please pay attention to protecting the official position, show the sorrow of the world with a pen, the author shares my tears, and Yanshan is still a monk." Why does the approver want readers to pay special attention to this "official protector"? Why is this "official protector" so important? What's the special significance of it? This cannot but be thought-provoking.
Let's see how the book explains "official protection symbols".
In a Dream of Red Mansions, Jia and Hulu monk arbitrarily sentenced Hulu. Jia Yucun, who had just been appointed as the Tianfu magistrate by Jia Jia, was about to give an order to arrest a group of murderers such as Xue Pan, but the door standing next to him repeatedly winked and refused to give an order. Jia Yucun thought there must be a reason, so he stopped issuing visas and called the door of the secret room to ask why. The door did not answer, but asked, "Since the master was lucky enough to be in this province, didn't he copy an' official protection symbol'?" Yucun asked quickly, "What is official protection? I have no idea. " The door said, "That's not bad! Even if you don't know this, how can you do it in the long run? Now everyone who is a local official has a private list with the names and surnames of the most powerful, wealthy and expensive squire in our government, which is natural in all provinces. If you don't know, you will not only be an official, but also lose your life if you violate such a family law for a while. Therefore, it was dubbed "official protection".
The disciples handed it to Jia Yucun's "official protector" and said, "These are the proverbs and word-of-mouth of famous local clans, and their word-of-mouth is clearly arranged. The following are marked with ancestral titles and rooms. ...
Jia is real, the golden horse in the hall.
Epang Palace, 300 Li, can't live in Jinling Yishi.
In good years and heavy snow, pearls are as gold as iron.
The East China Sea lacks a white jade bed, and the Dragon King came to invite King Jinling ... "(omitted)
When Jia Yucun saw this, the author stopped at "Master Wang is coming to worship", which tells us that there are still many families in this "official protection", but it is enough to write here. There are four families in a dream of red mansions. And "writing" ranks in the top four. Isn't it clear how prominent these four families are, how "the most powerful" and how "extremely rich"? These four families are Jia, Shi, Xue and Wang.
Here, the author lists the order of the four schools in Jiaxu edition, because only this earliest copy of A Dream of Red Mansions is arranged in this way. The ranking of other fat books is different from that of Jiaxu. Neither the surname was changed, nor other surnames were inserted in the middle of surnames, but the order of "writing clearly" changed. The order of Jia's four families is,, and Wang Jia, while the order of these four families in other fat books is,, Wang Jia and Xue Jia. Third and fourth, Xue and Wang exchanged places. The book particularly emphasizes that "its word-of-mouth arrangement is clearly written". The so-called "typesetting" is a purposeful and standard arrangement. Whether to ask the authors to imagine the purpose or to arrange it according to their economic situation and status. Therefore, this arrangement order is very important and must not be chaotic. But why did it change in other fat books?
Jia refers to the abbreviation of "Re-evaluation of Zhi Yanzhai's Jia Xu Copy". Because at the first time, "a piece of nonsense, a bitter tear, Dou Yun author crazy, who can explain the taste." After the last meeting, there was a saying, "Reading comments and knowing what to say lent JOE, still using stone records", hence the name. Of course, Xu Jianian refers to the copy time of the original, not the copy time of this book. Copy Jia is the earliest and closest version of Fat Book discovered so far. As the famous redologists Hu Wenbin and Zhou Lei pointed out: "The ancestor of this book may be the edited version of Zhi Yanzhai, which is close to the original." Mr. Zhou, a famous redology scholar, once pointed out: "Jiaxu is the source of redology." For this reason, the information and clues provided in Jiaxu should be the most credible. There are many extremely important texts in Jiaxuben, which are not found in other fat books. For example, there are more than 400 words in front of the book than other fat books. As well as the fat batches that other fat books don't have, all these have formed the unique characteristics of Jiaxu, which shows its special important position in the fat book system.
The unique order of the four families in Jia's fourth edition has unveiled the mystery of the true ending of A Dream of Red Mansions for us. This is the homonym of Jia's "death" and Xue's "death" in the book. This is the real ending of A Dream of Red Mansions. This is precisely what Cao Xueqin carefully designed and arranged to reveal the ending of A Dream of Red Mansions.
Cao Xueqin, who used to use homophonic Chinese characters to name, set events and hide his true intentions, arranged many similar riddles for readers in A Dream of Red Mansions. For example, when introducing a place name in Gusu City, he wrote: "There is a Shili Street outside Nagato, and there is a Renqing Lane in the street ..." Zhi Yanzhai approved by Renqing Lane: "Let's talk about human feelings again". Renqing Lane is actually a pedestrian lane. Next to the sentence "living in my hometown for the official surname Zhen", the "fee" is called "waste", and Zhen Fei is really "waste" Next to the word "true Yin Shi", it was criticized as "only one girl has a baby's name to win in a row", which was criticized as "it's a pity to be English". As for the names of the four young ladies, they are all homophonic, and the approvers all have comments: Yuan Chun: vilen, Yingchun: Ye Ying, Tanye, and Chunxi: Ye. That means "should sigh". Another example is Zhang's Zhang, Zhang's Fiction, Zhang's Disaster, Jiao Xing's Luck and Zhang's Custom, etc.
The surnames of the four families are written down as Jia, Shi, Xue and Wang, but they are read as Jia's death and Xue's death. The text of the book particularly emphasizes: "Its word-of-mouth is clearly written." In the general approval before the reunification, readers were specially reminded to "pay attention" to this "official protection symbol". All this tells us that this "official protection symbol" is really too important! There is a "profound meaning", otherwise there is no need to emphasize and adjust it so seriously!
Cao Xueqin is not only a great writer, but also a great language master. His use of words and sentences in the whole book, especially the production of poems, words, songs and fu, has reached the point of perfection. To this end, Zhi Yanzhai once approved: "This book cannot be changed." This tells us that Cao Xueqin's choice of surnames for the four families is by no means arbitrary and playful. Another example in the book is Cao Xueqin's random surname, that is, on Baoyu's sixty-second birthday, he went to "Li, Zhao, Zhang and Wang's four wet nurses' homes for a while". The four surnames here are all random. Because these four words are insignificant, you can give it any surname you want. Here is nothing more than changing the first two surnames and the last two surnames of the four common surnames: Zhang, Wang, Li and Zhao. However, Cao Xueqin chose Jia, Shi, Xue and Wang as the surnames of the four major families, but did not choose any surnames such as "Zhao, Qian, Sun, Li" or "Zhang, Wang, Li and Zhao", which in itself shows that the four surnames Cao Xueqin chose are meaningful. It seems simple, but it does have profound meaning. If they change their position at will, the result will be quite different from the author's original intention.
Cao Xueqin's "Four Families" are prominent families in the south of the Yangtze River. These four families are all related, "one loss and one harm, one glory and one glory." The relationship between them is not only in-laws, but also a political interest group. As long as one of them has money, others will follow suit; If one family collapses, others will inevitably collapse. Unity, honor and disgrace and * * *, the four families are such an unbreakable whole.
If we carefully analyze the original work, we will find that the so-called four families described in A Dream of Red Mansions are not focused on the four families, but only two, namely Jia and Xue. The two families, Shi and Wang, are just foil, two surnames specially chosen to show the ending of A Dream of Red Mansions. Jia and Xue are two families, one is a famous official and the other is a wealthy businessman. The novel begins with these two families. By describing the love tragedy between Jia Baoyu and Lin Daiyu and the marriage tragedy between Jia Baoyu and Xue Baochai, Cao Xueqin emphasized the process and reasons of the gradual decline of Jia and Xue, especially Jia Fu, and then revealed the inevitable trend of the gradual decline of feudal society. Jia Jia and Xue Jia are the core of the four families. Only their "death" and "death" are the most representative, can we express the greatest anti-feudal theme of A Dream of Red Mansions more appropriately.
The protagonists in the book are Jia Baoyu, the grandson of Jia Fu, Lin Daiyu, the granddaughter of Jia Fu, Qian Jin, the young lady of Xue Fu, and Xue Baochai, the wife of Jia Baoyu. The activities of these three main characters are also limited to Jia and Xue. As Wang Xilian, the owner of flower protection, approved: "Although the Stone Story is about the ups and downs of the Jia family, it is actually written for Baoyu, Daiyu and Baochai." In particular, Jiafu and Daguan Garden are the main places for the main characters in the book, which is of course the focus of the book.
As for the Xue family, as Wang Xilian praised, "Stone" is about the gains and losses of two families in Rong Ning. Because Xue Baochai is Baoyu's match, she has closer family ties and the same fate, so she also describes Xue's family affairs in detail. "Visible xue family's position in the four families is self-evident.
Aside from the Jia family, let's look at how the Xue family is described in the book.
The first mention of Xue family in the book is the third time:
When Mrs. Wang and Xi Feng were sharing Jinling letters, Mrs. Wang's brother and sister-in-law sent two daughters-in-law to speak. "。 Although Daiyu doesn't know why, Tanchun and others all know. It's about Aunt Xue's son and cousin Xue Pan, who lives in Jinling and kills people with wealth. Now he should be tried under the Tianfu case. Now my mother's uncle Wang Ziteng has got the message. She sent someone to tell her that she is here, hoping to summon her intention to go to Beijing. "
Xue Jia's appearance is such an imposing manner! The words "relying on wealth to dominate" are like writing the financial status and hegemony of the Xue family. This is really a genius.
The fourth time, I wrote the paragraph where Aunt Xue led Xue Baochai, Xue Pan and Lian Win to Beijing, and described the Xue family in detail: "Besides, I bought Lian Win and killed Feng Yuan's Xue Gongzi. He is also a native of Jinling, with a scholarly family. It's just that this Xue Gongzi lost his father when he was young, and my widowed mother pitied him as an orphan, so I indulged a little, which led to the boss's nothing. And there are millions of money at home, and now I am leading the internal money to purchase miscellaneous materials ... "And I listed the relatives and contacts of the Xue family in detail, and the description of the Xue family reached eight or nine pages during this time. If you count the words about the Xue family in Jia Yucun's judgment, it will be even more. It can be seen how important the Xue family is in the book.
From the third time, since Jia Baoyu and his sister lived in the Grand View Garden, and Xue Baochai also lived in the Grand View Garden, all activities were held in Jia's house.
If we compare the status of historians Wang, Wang, Wang and Wang in the book, we can better explain this problem.
Look at the historian first:
From the historian's marriage to the Jia family, the representative figures of the historian are only two nephews: Zhong and Hou Shiyi. Both of them are Shi Xiangyun's uncles, and Shi Xiangyun's parents have long passed away. Throughout the book, there is no introduction to the specific situation of historians at all. Whenever it is necessary to introduce historians or historians' brothers, most of them are brushed aside. For example, Jia Jing 1 1 birthday, Qin Keqing 14 funeral, Baoyu, Xifeng and other 25 major events did not appear at all, but only mentioned their names in the list of givers. Although there are many descriptions of Shi Xiangyun in the book, these descriptions are all about Shi Xiangyun's activities in the Jia family, such as peony lying drunk and writing poems with Lin Daiyu.
There are even fewer references to the Wangs in the book. The Wangs have two brothers, Wang Ziteng and Wang Zisheng. As noted under Wang Ziteng in A Dream of Red Mansions Dictionary: "This character has always been mentioned in profile, but never appeared formally".
Obviously, among the four families of Jia, Shi, Xue and Wang, Jia and Xue are the focus of the whole book and the core of the four families. Jiafu is the core of the four families. The core of the four families declined, and the four families naturally declined. This is also the real meaning of "a loss is a loss". Cao Xueqin's carefully selected surnames and carefully "written" order for the four families are not clear enough! Historians and Wangs deliberately chose them because the author took a fancy to their homophones: "death" and "death", and used them to cover up the fate of Jia and Xue, also to reveal the true ending of A Dream of Red Mansions.
This conclusion can also be confirmed from fat books and fat batch of words.
Third, how does the fat commentary reveal the ending of A Dream of Red Mansions?
The fat edition, the early copy of A Dream of Red Mansions, was criticized by Zhi Yanzhai and others. The text and criticism of these manuscripts have clearly revealed the ending of A Dream of Red Mansions.
Look at Jia Hou's poem: "How hard life is, the banquet is over." Sorrow and joy are similar, and ancient and modern dreams are ridiculous ... "The words' final dispersion' and' same illusion' in the poem are all endings! As for "good songs" and "good songs", this is also the meaning.
The second time, Leng Zixing told the present situation of Guo Rongfu in Jia Yucun, saying, "Now Guo Rongfu and Guo Rongfu have become sparse, not as before." There is a critical sentence next to this sentence: "Remember this sentence clearly. It can be seen that Fu Rong in the book is the end of the world. " In Jia Yucun, I asked, "How can I get rid of it?" Next to the sentence, there is a critical sentence: "The author's original intention is to write only the last days, that is, the last days of the Jia family." The text uses two words "sparse" and the fat batch also uses two "last days" as a batch. The previous one wrote: "Fu Rong is the last time." The latter wrote: "This is the end of the Jia family." Since the whole Jia family has reached the "Tianya", why did Cheng and Gao's collating books show the ending of "prospering the country with family business" and "?
Another example is the poem in the general approval before the fourth time: "Please focus on protecting the official symbol and tell the world that you are worried about writing. The author shares my tears, and Yanshan is still innocent. " This poem not only reminds readers to pay special attention to this "official protection symbol", but also tells us the ending of A Dream of Red Mansions: "Yanshan is empty." Who is Duke Dou of Yanshan? As the Dictionary of a Dream of Red Mansions explains: "The Duke of Yanshan is Dou Yujun. In the last week of the Northern and Southern Dynasties, Yuyang people ... A week later, officials were too tired to be young, and doctors were told ... The last sentence of Yanshan Dou was compared with the ancestor of the author Cao Xueqin. " This solution is very accurate. Cao Jia, or Jia Jia in A Dream of Red Mansions, has the same fate as Dou Jia. Gong Dou family business as big as this will eventually lead to "nothing"! This is also the ending of A Dream of Red Mansions.
For example, in the last song of the fifth Dream of Red Mansions, "At the end, every bird casts its own shadow:
The official's family business is dying, and his wealth, gold and silver are gone ... just like eating birds and throwing them into the forest, the land is so clean. "After the Song Dynasty, there was a fat comment:" I also looked after the Hulu Temple and scattered with the trees. "This is clear enough. The Jia family, headed by four big families, only has "the white land is really clean". Where did you get "Revival of Family Business" and "Gui Lan Qifang"!
The thirteenth time, Wang Xifeng dreamed that Qin Keqing said to her, "Our family has been prosperous for a hundred years. If one day we are extremely happy and accept the saying that "the tree falls apart", won't we be called a family of poets and calligraphers all our lives? ..... "Qin Keqing said this passage, which is not a possible ending, but a real reality. Because in this passage, there is an eyebrow criticism from Yan Zhai: "The words of the fallen tree are still in my ears today, only thirty-five years have passed. If you are injured, you would rather not kill! " If this didn't happen, why did Zhi Yanzhai "hurt" or "would rather kill"!
Article 23: "Just arrived at the front of the hall" has a chubby criticism: "Wonderful, this is Feng's place to sweep away snow and pick up jade, and it is not chaotic at all." Wang Xifeng, who is usually the housekeeper of Jia family, also reluctantly picked up a broom to sweep the snow. How could this happen if Jia's family hadn't lost control!
Under the sentence "xiren always has nothing to eat", there is a critical sentence: "Make it clear how delicate Baoyu was when he was a child. Leave this sentence dozens of times after the lower body,' it's sour in the cold winter and broken in the snowy night.' Seeing it in other places can warn future generations to be overjoyed and sigh. "This is the specific plot of the prison temple before the end of this book. It is conceivable how bleak and sour it will be!
On the 24th, there was a criticism: "Huaxi Ren started and ended. I only saw five or six manuscripts such as Baoyu's "Comfort in the Prison Hall", which were lost by the borrower once. I sighed and Ding was deformed. "
On the 26th, there was a criticism: "There were a lot of words written by Xue Qian in the prison temple, but unfortunately I lost them without a manuscript, and I sighed."
Chapter 27 also has a fat criticism: "This batch was written by the previous batch,' Is the evil handmaid a responder of Hongyi, so I drove her away ... After the' Winter Night', there was no copy of the prison hall in this department, so there was a batch. "
……
With regard to the plot of the prison temple, repeated comments and hints indicate that the plot of the prison temple must be the most important content in the last dozens of books. This is precisely the plot carefully designed and arranged by Cao Xueqin, to show that Jia was devastated after his property was stolen, and he had fallen to the point where it was beyond measure. In the twenty-seventh criticism, it was specifically pointed out that it was "after plagiarism". All this has clearly told us that after the Jia family was robbed, family members have been detained or temporarily staying in prison temples, living a miserable life of hunger and cold, and there is no ability or opportunity to "revitalize the family business". This is the real ending of A Dream of Red Mansions that Cao Xueqin wants to show readers.
The fat version of the text and criticism have clearly explained to us the ending of A Dream of Red Mansions, which is written in the same way and completely different from that written in the high version. Jia died and Xue died, and the four families headed by Jia and Xue completely declined, which is the real ending of A Dream of Red Mansions.
To sum up, it is intended to show that Jia, the only manuscript that shows the ending of A Dream of Red Mansions by ranking the surnames of four families, occupies a very important position in the fat book system and is also the closest manuscript to Cao Xueqin's original work. Therefore, such naming and sorting have profound meanings. Cao Xueqin, the author, "read for ten years, added and deleted five times", exhausted his pen and ink, worked hard and cried into this book, which was a "sly pen" deliberately set for future generations to make it clear. But somehow, due to a clerical error or other reasons, the ranking order of the four families in other fat books was changed. It is precisely because of this that we should attach great importance to studying the hidden mystery here. Otherwise, Cao Xueqin's painstaking efforts in naming and sorting the four major families will lose its due role and charm.