Luo Guanzhong

Luo Guanzhong

Luo Guanzhong (about 1330-1400), a famous book with the name of Guanzhong, is a novelist in the late Yuan Dynasty and the early Ming Dynasty, and the author of the popular romance of the Three Kingdoms. Other major works are novels: biography of Sui and Tang Dynasties, romance of the history of the Five Dynasties of the Tang Dynasty, biography of the three Suiping demons, water margin and popular romance of the Three Kingdoms (Romance of the Three Kingdoms for short), which is Luo Guanzhong's masterpiece and has a far-reaching influence on later literary creation. In addition to the novel creation, there is also the Zaju "Song Taizu dragon and tiger meeting".

Life experience

Living in Jiangnan

During the reign of emperor Renzong of Yuan Dynasty, Luo Guanzhong's father was a silk merchant. In the middle of Yuan Dynasty, as the trauma of the war of exterminating Song Dynasty gradually subsided, the economic and cultural focus of society began to shift from the north to the south. Hangzhou, the former capital of the Southern Song Dynasty, not only became a prosperous city with a large population and developed commerce, but also became an important center for the development of drama performance and "speaking" art. Therefore, many northern intellectuals and scholars, such as Guan Hanqing and Zheng Guangzu, have moved to Hangzhou. As a novelist and dramatist, Luo Guanzhong is bound to be influenced by this social trend and become one of these writers who moved to the south. From the age of 7, he studied four books and five classics in a private school. When she was 14 years old, her mother died, so she dropped out of school and went to Suzhou and Hangzhou with her father to do business. But Luo Guanzhong was not interested in business. With his father's consent, he went to Cixi to study with Zhao Baofeng, a famous scholar at that time. Luo Guanzhong is called "scattered people in Lake and sea", which means roaming the rivers and lakes and wandering the world. About 1345-1355, he came to Hangzhou. Many speaking artists speak books here, and some dramatists also act here. Luo Guanzhong and like-minded people are friends. In addition, he loved folk literature very much. When he arrived here, he naturally didn't want to leave.

The king of ambition

In 1356, Luo Guanzhong bid farewell to Zhao Baofeng. Luo Guanzhong, the "king of ambition", went to the Zhang Shicheng shogunate of the peasant uprising army as a guest. Zhang Shicheng was a hero of the Yuan Dynasty. The next year, at the suggestion of Luo Guanzhong, Zhang Shicheng defeated Kang maocai, a subordinate of Zhu Yuanzhang. In the same year, Zhang Shicheng's younger brother was defeated and captured by the Yuan Dynasty. After the fall of the Yuan Dynasty, Zhang Shicheng was greedy for pleasure. In the 23rd year of Zhizheng reign, Zhang Shicheng saw the decline of the Yuan Dynasty and became king again. Many of his staff, including Luo Guanzhong, suggested a postponement, but it was not adopted. After Liu Liang, Lu Yuan and others left, Luo Guanzhong lost confidence in Zhang Shicheng and returned to his hometown Taiyuan. In September 1363, Luo Guanzhong left Zhang Shicheng and went north again. In the 26th year of Zhizheng, Luo Guanzhong returned to Hangzhou. The popular romance of the Three Kingdoms should be written after that year. At this time, he was in his fifties, had a mature view of history and life, and was fully qualified to create the popular romance of the Three Kingdoms. By 1370 A.D., Luo Guanzhong had written twelve volumes, and the number of volumes after that was four years later.

During Luo Guanzhong's writing the popular romance of the Three Kingdoms, Shi Naian moved from Suzhou to Xinghua and died in the third year of Hongwu. In memory of his master Shi Naian, Luo Guanzhong decided to process and supplement Shi's outlaws of the marsh after completing the popular romance of the Three Kingdoms. It was completed between the 4th and 10th year of Hongwu. While processing and supplementing the outlaws of the marsh, Luo Guanzhong continued to create a series of historical works.

Writing books in anger

At the end of the Yuan Dynasty, the world was in chaos, and many heroes emerged together. Wang Qi, a man of the Ming Dynasty, said in the collection of history of barnyard grass that he was "a man who wants to be king but meets Allah", that is to say, when he saw that the world would inevitably fall into the hands of Zhu Yuanzhang, he had to fade out of the world. Soon, Luo Guanzhong traveled far to the south of the Yangtze River and lived in the area of Jiangsu and Zhejiang. He expressed his ambition of "king of pictures" in novels. The king of the picture failed and wrote the book angrily.

However, it may be just a legend. Because Gu Ling's volume four Ba Shui Hu Tu in Ta Ying Yuan Ji of Qing dynasty recorded "Zhang Shicheng, the guest overlord of Luo Guanzhong", which is not in line with the image of "the king with ambition". Although there are contradictions in these two records, it is enough to show that Luo Guanzhong wanted to make a difference in the end of the Yuan Dynasty, and the "vivid history" was only a helpless choice after his failure in reality.

After the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang, in order to consolidate his position, ordered all provinces to test for three years. Because he had been the enemy of Zhu Yuanzhang, Luo Guanzhong had to give up the chance for scholars to enter the officialdom. In the 14th year of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty, Luo Guanzhong wrote the biography of Sansui Pingyao (20 copies). After that, he wrote the biography of the history of the Tang Dynasty and the Five Dynasties and the biography of the Sui and Tang Dynasties.

Some experts believe that the early experience of "the king of ambition" and his special mood in his later years are the key to Luo Guanzhong's preference for political and historical novels and his artistic success in this kind of novels. One is to write the romance of the Three Kingdoms with the story of the Three Kingdoms as the theme, and the other is to use the story of Liangshan heroes with the quality of history and hero legend, the water margin (the popular saying, for example, the history of Chinese literature agrees with the statement that Shi Naian was the original writer and Luo Guanzhong was the editor).

After creating these works, Luo Guanzhong is already in his sixties. In order to publish these works, he came to Fujian from Hangzhou around the 13th year of Hongwu, because Jianyang was one of the publishing centers in Fujian at that time. However, Luo Guanzhong failed to achieve this goal. Luo Guanzhong's creative ability is multifaceted. He has written Yuefu argot and drama, but mainly novels. As for his novels, the West Lake Tour chronicle says that he "compiled dozens of novels", and it is also said that he wrote the romance of the seventeen histories. In addition to the popular romance of the Three Kingdoms, there are also biographies of the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the romance of the history of the Five Dynasties of the Tang Dynasty, and the legend of the three Suiping demons, which were also written together with Shi Naian.

Among these works, popular romance of the Three Kingdoms has the highest achievement. The book describes the complicated political and military struggles during the Three Kingdoms period in a grand structure, starting from the Huangjin uprising and finally the unification of the Western Jin Dynasty. The works denounce the cruelty and ugliness of the rulers, reflect the suffering of the people in the turbulent times and their yearning for the pure and bright politics and benevolent monarch, and embody the distinct tendency of "supporting Liu and opposing Cao". The language of the popular romance of the Three Kingdoms is simple, clear and vivid. It combines history and literature naturally, has realistic description, and is full of romantic legend. Luo Guanzhong's popular romance of the Three Kingdoms is the earliest edition published in Jiajing, and the most popular edition is the revised edition of Mao Lun and Mao Zonggang in Qing Dynasty. In addition to the creation of novels, Jia Zhongming's sequel to the book of recording ghosts said that he was "very fresh in the anecdote of Yuefu". His existing opera works include the Zaju of the dragon and tiger meeting of Zhao Taizu. The basic idea of Zaju is similar to the popular romance of the Three Kingdoms, which describes the intimate relationship between the monarch and the minister, and hopes to end the tragic situation caused by the fierce competition for hegemony through "three principles and five principles".

From 1385 to 1388, Luo Guanzhong lived for 70 years and died in Luling (now Ji'an, Jiangxi Province), the hometown of Song Dynasty national hero Wen Tianxiang.

Main works

Script: Song Taizu dragon and tiger wind and cloud meeting, Zhongzheng filial son's serial admonition, Sanping Zhang's crying for the dead.

Novels: biography of Sui and Tang Dynasties, romance of the history of the Five Dynasties, biography of the three Suiping demons, PINK MAKEUP building, complete biography of the water margin, romance of the Three Kingdoms, etc.

Characteristics of literature

Luo Guanzhong is known as the originator of Chinese Chapter novels. His chapter novels are characterized by chapter by chapter narration and chapter by chapter heading. Each story is relatively independent and the paragraphs are neat, but they are linked back and forth and connected from beginning to end, forming a unified whole. And it has been divided into volumes and headings, and the text of the catalogue is also very particular. Now we can see the earliest Jiajing Renwu (1522) edition of the popular romance of the Three Kingdoms. The title of each chapter is a single sentence with seven characters. He and Shi Naian co-author of the "outlaws of the marsh" every title is a double sentence, roughly dual. In addition to the division of chapters, his chapter novels also preserve the system of beginning with opening poems and ending with closing poems. The text often begins with "saying" and ends at the critical moment of the plot. It uses a formula of "if you want to know what will happen, listen to the next passage and decompose". In the middle, it uses poems and songs to describe the scene or praise the characters.

While his chapter novels have been shaped in system, they are becoming more and more mature in artistic expression. The literary features of his works are as follows: the process of writing the book has changed from collective compilation to individual originality; the creative consciousness has changed from historical romance and allegory to facing reality and paying attention to life; the theme of his works has changed from focusing on national affairs such as the rise and fall of war to focusing on daily life and family trivia; the characters described have changed from extraordinary heroes to ordinary people; the creation of his works has also changed Luo Guanzhong's novels have made great achievements in the history of Chinese novels, for example, from his outstanding characteristic character to his depiction of characters with multi-color and dynamic brushwork; from the linear flow of plot structure to the network of intersection; from the semi literate to colloquial and dialectal language; and so on. This also laid a solid foundation for the vernacular short stories in the middle and late Ming Dynasty to flourish and develop more exquisitely.

Luo Guanzhong is a writer with special contribution in the history of Chinese literature. Many of his novels are based on the theme of troubled times. There are only seven divided times in Chinese history, and Luo Guanzhong wrote three of them. In addition to the romance of the Three Kingdoms, it is said that there are biographies of Sui and Tang Dynasties and the romance of the history of the Five Dynasties

Chinese PinYin : Luo Guan Zhong