Through vivid artistic description, Water Margin reflects the whole process of peasant uprising in China history: the social roots of the uprising are deeply excavated; Successfully created a group of heroes of the uprising, and through their different resistance paths, showed how the uprising developed from scattered revenge on Mars to a prairie fire; It also specifically revealed the internal reasons for the failure of the uprising. Its ideological content can be roughly summarized as the following four aspects:
(A) focus on exposing the evils of feudal rule and digging up the social roots of peasant uprisings.
Although the Water Margin does not describe class contradictions from the economic aspect, it reveals the feudal ruling class as the opposite of the uprising hero. In the novel, a story about Gao Qiu's "prosperity" and Hui Zong's love for him is written at the beginning of the work to show that "chaos starts from the top". It indicates what kind of tragic situation the broad masses of the people will fall into under the rule of the decadent group represented by this kind of bad king and slave.
Gao Qiu in the works always appears as the representative of the ruling group, which is a black line throughout the book. He used to be a drifter, but he was appreciated by the emperor because he kicked a good balloon. "In less than half a year, he was flattered as an official of the palace master." From then on, he acted according to the situation even more, and he was in cahoots with Cai Jing, Tong Guan and others, running state affairs and doing evil. Most of the officials in the novel are his relatives and friends. There are also "Hui Zong Murong Guifei's younger brother" and Qingzhou Magistrate Murong Yanyan. He "relies on his sister's power to run rampant in Qingzhou, harming good people and bullying friends"; Gao Yanei, the son of Gao Qiu moth, and Gao Lian, his younger brother, rely on the power of Gao Qiu, or "wantonly defile other people's wives and daughters" in Tokyo, or "do whatever they want in Gaotangzhou"; And with the help of Cai Jing's "the grace of Mount Tai, the power of support", I tried to search for money in Daming House and give it to Liang Zhongshu who celebrated her husband's birthday in Tokyo. Works also wrote a number of grassroots corrupt officials, local tyrants and bullies, such as Zhang Dujian, Jiang Menshen, Zhu Chaofeng, Mao Taigong and Ximen Qing. , but also government officials at all levels, servants and all kinds of slaves. This group of rulers and oppressors, large and small, formed a network of dark forces, cruelly squeezing and persecuting people. Under such a realistic background, the vigorous peasant uprising was launched with great momentum.
The novel not only describes the working people who are deeply oppressed by the bottom of society, such as Li Kui jy and Ruan Sanxiong, who rise up and join the uprising team; At the same time, I wrote about people in the upper and middle classes of society and some former feudal camps who joined the rebels because of such persecution. Even the feudal landlord class split, so the hereditary big noble Chai Jin, the door Yang Zhi, and the big landlord Lu Junyi who had harmed the "Dan Shu Tiequan" were involved in the uprising. All these show the darkness of feudal rule and the sharpness of class contradictions at that time.
In the process of these heroes being driven to Liangshan, the image of Lin Chong is of typical significance.
Lin Chong is the commander-in-chief of the 800,000 imperial army in Tokyo, and the word "force" of "forcing Liangshan" is the most prominent in him. He is a hero who is unwilling to be humiliated, and he is angry that "a skill is in the air, but he can't meet a master and sink under a villain." However, the position of coach, generous invitation, comfortable family and beautiful wife, all these conditions have formed his character of being quiet and not daring to resist. Gao Yanei openly molested his wife. Although he was ashamed, he dared not do so because of the great invitation of the ruling class. He just broke up. Later, under the repeated conspiracy of Gao Qiu and his son, he was sent into exile. Although he felt wronged, he still failed to stand up and resist. Even when he was demoted to the army forage field, he wanted to build a house and live a quiet life. However, the enemy did not give in because of his repeated concessions, and even rushed from Tokyo to Cangzhou to murder him. In the case of family ruin and family ruin, he killed his enemy, spit out his long-standing grievances and resolutely embarked on the road of uprising. After going to Liangshan, he made an enemy with Wang Lun, who was jealous of virtue and talent, and opened the way for the development of Liangshan. He had a bloody feud with Gao Taiwei, so he had a clear understanding of the issue of wooing and became a more determined member of the rebel army.
(2) Successfully created the glorious images of many uprising heroes.
The novel fully affirmed the revolutionaries regarded as "thieves" by the feudal ruling class, and enthusiastically praised their strong revolutionary spirit and brilliant ideology and morality. Among these uprising heroes, jy and Lu are outstanding representatives.
Li Kui jy, a poor peasant, fled to Jiangzhou as a small prison for murder. The core of Li Kui's jy character is his strong revolutionary demand and thorough and firm revolutionary spirit. He is a flame of hatred and resistance, a whirlwind that sweeps through decadent and dark forces. He took the initiative to go to Liangshan without any reluctance. When Song Jiang proposed to go to Liangshan, he was the first to respond enthusiastically and shouted, "Go all the way, but if you don't go, just eat my axe and cut it in two!" He has never had any illusions about the ruling class. When Chai Jin was bullied by Yin Tianxi and fantasized about being sued by laws and regulations, he said, "If the laws and regulations still exist, the world will not be chaotic. I just discussed it before. " What the ruling class's legal system, the throne of Emperor DaSong, is not in his eyes. When I first went to Liangshan, I put forward the requirement of "killing Tokyo and taking the bird seat"; When he arrived in Liangshan, he said, "What are you afraid of if you rebel? Classical brother became the emperor of the Song Dynasty, and Song Jiang became the emperor of the Song Dynasty. Mr. Wu became prime minister and Taoist Gong Sun became a Buddhist. We are all generals; I went to Tokyo and took a bird seat. " This thorough and firm revolutionary spirit made Li Kui a staunch opponent of John Woo. When Song Jiang sang the word [Manjianghong] to express his yearning for peace, he "kicked the table and smashed it, shouting' peace, peace, peace!'" ""Later, the court sent Chen Taiwei to woo him, and he tore the imperial edict to pieces. Even after Song Jiang was taken over, he tried to rebel Liangshan many times. Even after his death, Emperor Dasong dreamed that he "picked up an axe and cut it at himself, scared out in a cold sweat".
Li Kui jy has deep feelings for his brother and suffering people, which is another wonderful performance of his heroic character. Song Jiang was put in prison because he "never left" and "will go to jail sooner or later". When Jiangzhou robbed the imperial court to save Song Jiang and Dai Zong, he was the first to jump into the execution ground from the inn and kill the general with bare arms waving an axe. Gaotangzhou saved Chai Jin, who was the first to go down the well alone. He loves Song Jiang most on weekdays, but he overheard the news that Song Jiang robbed the commoners, so he made a scene in Zhongyi Hall and cut down the apricot yellow flag. This shows that in his mind, the interests of the peasant uprising are higher than all personal feelings. In Yishui County, when he tried to kill Gui Li, who was building a road in his name, he suddenly heard that his mother had no one to support him, but he gave him twelve taels of silver as a gift. See what kind of class feelings he has for the suffering people. As a peasant hero, Li Kui JY has his simplicity and innocence, but also has some shortcomings, such as simplicity, recklessness, lack of strategy and narrow revenge thoughts. When we wage war, we often slash and kill. In Sanda Zhujiazhuang, Hu Jiazhuang remained neutral because of Song Jiang's differentiation policy. However, regardless of Li Kui jy, he cut off the top price and killed the youngest son of Hu Taigong, thus undermining the rebel strategy. However, compared with his excellent qualities, these shortcomings are very slight after all, and it is difficult for a peasant hero to completely avoid them.
Lu used to be the magistrate of Weizhou Jinglve Prefecture, and his social status was that of a junior officer. In fact, he has nothing, no family, no industry and no attachments. He has a strong aversion to social oppression and injustice, and actively challenges all kinds of evil forces. "The mord opens a dangerous road, and the monk kills all the rough people", which summarizes this characteristic of his character. He and Kim's father and daughter are strangers, just sympathizing with their experiences. He killed the bully Zheng Tu with three punches, and as a result, he was forced to have nowhere to live, so he had to become a monk. I met Lin Chong by chance in Suoguo Temple, but because I hated Gao Taiwei for framing Lin Chong, he stepped forward and asked Gao Qiu to eat his "three hundred mord", which led to the wild pig forest and shattered Gao Taiwei's plot. In order to save the bullied, he fought against the ruler to the end, never considering personal gain or loss. "Killing people needs blood, saving people needs to be saved" is his creed. There is also a simple and simple side in Lu's character, and sometimes he even behaves recklessly. But the life experience of junior officers gave him some experience in struggle. After killing Zhenkansai, he used feint as a way out, which is the performance of this struggle experience.
Among the heroes from the lower classes, Song Wu is a unique figure. His life experience is full of heroism and legend. He has strong martial arts and strong personality, and has a firm spirit of struggle against evil forces and unjust actions in society. But he has a strong sense of feudal ethics and a strong personal gratitude and resentment. After killing tigers in Jingyanggang, it became the capital of yanggu county and devoted itself to serving the ruling class. My brother was not allowed to complain until he was killed. After killing the murderers Pan Jinlian and Ximen Qing, he turned himself in to the government. On the one hand, it shows that he is strong and upright and doesn't want to get into trouble with others; At the same time, he also expressed some illusions about the government. Jiang Menshen, who was drunk and beaten, certainly had a warm-hearted side, but this was mainly to repay his kindness. After being taken into custody by Zhang Du as a confidant, he was even more impressed with Sean Xiaohui, and even suffered a big loss and almost died. The lesson of blood gradually deepened his understanding of the true face of feudal rulers, and the resistance became more and more fierce. He made a big splash in the Yuanyang building, and all the hatred he had accumulated in his chest for a long time broke out. Finally embarked on the road of unity and uprising, in the long-term struggle in the future, the revolutionary consciousness gradually increased and became one of the heroes who resolutely opposed the woo.
Among the heroes from the lower classes, Ruan Sanxiong, Jie Zhen, Jiebao, Zhang Heng, Zhang Shun, Shi Xiu and Gu Dasao are also very distinctive. They are brave men who are not afraid of lawsuits and the sky. It is they who form the backbone of this rebel team.
(3) The novel vividly describes how the peasant uprising developed from a fragmentary spark of revenge to a prairie fire.
The Water Margin begins with heroes such as Lu, Lin Chong and others fighting against evil forces in society. Although these struggles are colorful, they are only personal resistance and cannot pose a threat to the ruling class. With the needs of the objective struggle situation, the heroes gradually rebelled by individuals and then joined forces to rebel on a small scale, which has formed a powerful uprising team. It can be said that outwitting the class of origin is the bud of the joint struggle, which involves fishermen, poor people, lower-class literati, Taoist priests and landlords. Out of hatred for those in power, in order to get ill-gotten gains, Qi Xin worked together and finally won. Later, they went to Liangshan together. After Qingfeng Village's revenge, more heroes went up the mountain one after another, which further strengthened the power of Liangshan and greatly strengthened the struggle against the ruling class. After Song Jiang went up the mountain, a large family of "doing justice for heaven" was established, and a new situation of armed separatist regime of uprising heroes appeared. Since then, the struggle has been a large-scale struggle between revolutionary armed forces and counter-revolutionary armed forces. Under the unified command, the uprising troops were able to attack and defend, adopted flexible strategies and tactics, constantly attacked the enemy and expanded their power. They successively won a series of brilliant victories, such as three strikes against Zhujiazhuang, stepping over Zengtou City, two victories over Tongguan and three defeats against Gao Qiu, which dealt a heavy blow to the feudal forces and shook the foundation of feudal rule.
Rank is the peak of the development of the uprising. The author enthusiastically praised the bright world of Water Margin and described the social ideal of farmers' "different surnames in all directions":
Eight directions * * * domain, different surnames. Heaven and earth show the essence of evil, and the humanistic environment blends with the beauty of Ling Jie. Meet each other in the morning and evening, and one inch of heart can be the same. Appearance and language, north and south are different; There is no difference between sincerity and loyalty. His people include Di Zi's grandson, rich generals and officials, unscrupulous people, hunters and fishermen, as well as Toure and executioners, all of whom are brothers regardless of rank; And there are brothers and sisters, couples, uncles and uncles, and masters and servants, all of whom have the same feast and joy, regardless of relatives and friends. Or elves, or rough brine, or country parks, or romantic, why not, really understand sexual cohabitation; Or a pen, or a sword, or a Mercedes, or a trick, each has its own strengths. It's really a suit ...
This is the ideal realm pursued by farmers in feudal society. This ideal of political equality and economic egalitarianism is naturally an impossible utopia in feudal society, but it has a great encouraging effect on the anti-feudal struggle of farmers in later generations.
(4) Write the tragic ending of the uprising and reveal the internal causes of the uprising.
The peasant uprising in feudal society was the real motive force of historical development, but it always ended in failure. Investigate its reason, as the great leader Chairman Mao pointed out in the article "China Revolution and China * * * Production Party": "Because there were no new productive forces and new relations of production, no new class forces and no advanced political parties at that time, these peasant uprisings and peasant wars could not be led correctly like all proletarians and * * * Production Party now. In this way, the peasant revolution at that time was always in a state of failure and was always used by landlords and nobles during and after the revolution. The failure of peasant uprising in history can be summarized into three forms: first, it was suppressed by the feudal ruling class; Second, surrender to the feudal ruling class; Third, the uprising leader became the new emperor and established a new dynasty. Of course, these three forms are different in principle and have different influences in history. For example, being suppressed because of heroic resistance cannot be compared with bowing to the ruling class. However, as far as its outcome is concerned, no matter what form it takes, it is a failure. Even the last one, seemingly a victory, was a failure in essence, because it could not change the production relations and political system in feudal society, but only played a role in changing the dynasty. The ending of the rebel army accepting peace in Water Margin is a form of the failure of peasant uprising in history.
Of course, from the specific description of the novel, it is not accidental that the rebel team embarked on the road of enlistment and surrender, but there are profound internal reasons.
What deserves our attention here is that the Liangshan Rebels written in the works are not forced to accept the favor of the ruling class because of despair under the extremely unfavorable situation; On the contrary, they voluntarily surrendered to the ruling class under a series of brilliant victories, including two victories over Tong Guan and three defeats against Gao Qiu. The emergence of this situation is indeed directly related to the thought, position and line of Song Jiang, the leader of the rebel army. It is also closely related to the loyalty thought advocated in the novel and the writer's world outlook.
Awakening has already laid the groundwork in the first 70 stories. With the development of Liangshan revolutionary cause, a large number of ruling class figures were forced to join the uprising ranks one after another for one reason or another. Their participation has played a positive role in strengthening the rebels and developing revolutionary forces; But it makes the social and ideological components of the revolutionary ranks very complicated. This is because most of the purpose of these people going up the mountain is to "temporarily settle in the cottage" and "wait for the future". Their intentions are completely consistent with the desire of Song Jiang, the leader of the rebel army, to "serve the country faithfully" and "hope to woo the country as soon as possible". The line of compromise and surrender represented by Song Jiang naturally appeared in the uprising army. This route is getting stronger and stronger, occupying a dominant position. Although a few lower-class uprising heroes, such as Lu, Liu and Liu, resisted, they failed to reverse the situation because of their weak strength, which led to the tragic end of this vigorous peasant revolution.
According to historical records, Song Jiang's character is "brave", which is quite different from the image of Song Jiang in Water Margin. Song Jiang in the novel is obviously shaped by the author according to his imaginary rebel leader, which makes him a key figure in guiding the rebel army to compromise and surrender.
As the leader of the rebel army, Song Jiang in Water Margin has his own characteristics and strengths: he opposes rape, opposes corrupt officials and sympathizes with people's sufferings. He is called "timely rain" because he is good at "helping the poor and helping others". When the birth class happened, he "saved the classics by blood." Kill Yan Poxi to maintain the relationship with Liangshan. He is shrewd and far-sighted, well versed in the strategy of struggle, and has a wide range of social relations, from bureaucratic landlords to Jianghu heroes, all of whom have deep friendship with him. It is no accident that he can unite most Liangshan heroes closely around him.
However, for a leader of the peasant uprising, these characteristics are not the most important. What is decisive is whether he has a firm class position in the revolutionary struggle. It is on this important issue that Song Jiang has serious problems.
Song Jiang was born in a landlord family. He was originally a small official. He has strong orthodoxy and loyalty to the monarch. From the beginning, when he joined the revolutionary ranks, he was seriously shaken and compromised. In his view, the political darkness is due to the treacherous court official blinding the saints. So he rescued classical and others; On the one hand, they think that they robbed the birth program and killed the public, which is a matter of "destroying the nine families" and "the law is ruthless." He reluctantly went to Liangshan and experienced a very tortuous process. After a big fight in Qingfeng Village, he led a group of heroes to Liangshan. A fake letter from his father's death told him to leave a large number of troops and go back to attend the funeral. He accepted the official divorce. On the way to Jiangzhou, he refused classical rescue from the concept of loyalty and filial piety. It was not until he wrote an anti-poem in Xunyanglou that he was sentenced to death and rescued by Liangshan heroes that he had to go to Liangshan. After going up the mountain, he still "has the right to borrow Shui Bo for temporary refuge" before being pardoned by the court, longing for "sealing his wife and children, leaving a name in history" in the future. He even described the uprising many times as "doing evil", "committing a big crime by mistake" and "going against the sky". From Song Jiang's thoughts and actions, we have a premonition of the historical tragedy of the rebel army.
The author of Water Margin has an ambivalent attitude towards the ending of Song Jiang's pursuit of Wu. Theoretically speaking, he fully affirmed and praised Song Jiang's acceptance, thinking that it was the only correct way, so he repeatedly praised Song Jiang for doing so as "benevolence and righteousness" and "loyalty to the country" and so on. But from the specific description, the work seems to be criticizing the ending of "being recruited". This is not only reflected in the author's repeated description of the struggle against appeasement and surrender. But also wrote all kinds of tragic experiences of the insurgents after they were called up, which made the novel full of tragic atmosphere after seventy times. Objectively tell people that accepting the favor of the feudal ruling class has no good result.
Directly related to the ideological position of Song Jiang, the leader of the Rebel Army, and the author's worldview are the "loyalty" and "righteousness" strongly advocated in his works.
The so-called "loyalty" is the loyalty to the emperor of the Song Dynasty, which has been advertised and promoted in Water Margin. The title of the book is "The Water Margin of Loyalty Hall". The Juyitang in Liangshan was later changed to "Loyalty Hall" by Song Jiang. Song Jiang kept saying: "Today, the emperor is the most holy and wise, but he was only blocked by treacherous officials and was confused for a while." The author also specially arranged a "Nine-Day Xuan Nv Award for Song Jiang". The queen's instructions to Song Jiang have a very important content, which is to ask him to do: "Be loyal to the monarch and help the country and the people." The main reason why the novel accuses Fang La of the uprising is that he stood on his own feet in the imperial court and violated the great relationship of "loyalty". Even before he finally wrote that Song Jiang was poisoned by medicinal liquor, he still wanted to express his loyalty: "I would rather betray my country for the court than be loyal to it." This idea of "loyalty to the monarch" is of course feudal orthodoxy, which has brought great harm to the uprising cause, and finally made the author willing to sacrifice the difficult rebellion cause to accept the "peace" of the emperor. But we should also see that the author's emphasis on the concept of "loyalty" is also inseparable from its specific historical background. Throughout the Song and Yuan Dynasties, the story of Water Margin was spread orally, rewritten by literati, and ethnic contradictions were in the primary position. At that time, the general demand in society was that loyal opposition should invade and oppose surrender. Li Zhuowu, a progressive thinker in Ming Dynasty, has seen this. In the biography of loyalty and righteousness, he said: "Shiluo and Shiluo are both in Yuan Dynasty, and their hearts are in Song Dynasty. Although they were born in the Yuan Dynasty, they were really angry with the Song Dynasty. " The so-called "angry at Song Dynasty" is resentment against the tragic disaster of national subjugation caused by the Song Dynasty rulers' refusal to unite with the rebels from the two rivers to fight against aggression. Therefore, we should also take this historical factor into account when pointing out the great harm of the author's loyalty to the monarch.
Secondly, when it comes to "righteousness". The "righteousness" described in the novel is quite different from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, with new content, which mainly refers to a mutual assistance relationship between the oppressed. "Righteousness" and "injustice" refer to whether to sympathize with and support the oppressed and exploited, and whether to participate in and persist in revolutionary resistance. From a small point of view, Shen is keen on righteousness, jy mistakenly believes people's words, wants to kill Song Jiang, and also talks about justice. On the big side, the seven stars in Dongxi Village get together to seize the ill-gotten wealth on birthdays. The small gathering of heroes in Bailong Temple is a large-scale resistance struggle, while the large gathering of heroes in Liangshan 7 1 time is to effectively crack down on feudal rulers and realize the political goal of "protecting the environment and keeping the people safe for the sky". Of course, the "righteousness" in the novel is sometimes written as a friendship between individuals, without any political principles. This is obvious in Song Wu. In particular, righteousness has been placed under loyalty and filial piety from beginning to end, making righteousness subordinate to loyalty and filial piety. Liang Shanbo's "loyalty hall" means that "loyalty" is above "righteousness". When there is a contradiction between "righteousness" and "filial piety", Song Jiang attaches importance to "filial piety" and ignores "righteousness", which is fully illustrated by Song Jiang's performance after the Qingfeng Village uproar.
As the first novel describing the peasant uprising in the history of China literature, the achievement of Water Margin is the most important. This is manifested in its vivid reflection of the whole process of the occurrence, development and failure of peasant uprisings in the history of China. It vividly depicts the uprising heroes who have been slandered and attacked by the feudal ruling class. However, because the author failed to get rid of the shackles of feudal thought and still maintained the feudal system in some fundamental viewpoints, this determined that he strongly affirmed Song Jiang's "loyalty to the monarch" thought and capitulationism line, which led to the tragic ending of the "acceptance of peace" by the rebels.