Guess the title of "A Dream of Red Mansions"

——(1) About "The Story of the Stone"

The writer Er Erhe wrote "Twenty" for Mr. Cai Dongfan In the preface of "Five Histories Romance Series", there is a classic saying: "A good literary work has no class character." This is indeed the case for China's four major classical literary works. Both the emperor and the people liked it, and they still like it until today with the development of modern high technology. National leaders, entrepreneurs, migrant workers, migrant workers, students and ordinary people still like it. But "Dream of Red Mansions" is different from the first three novels; its main feature is that it has many mysteries and is difficult to solve, which is one of the reasons that attracts readers the most. Most of today's writers and film and television works like to create "suspense". This vocabulary does not exist in past literary works and creations. Today's "suspense" is developed from the "dreams, cases, and mysteries" in past novels. The word "dream" in "A Dream of Red Mansions" means "mystery". My grandma's family is Manchu, and my grandma's family is Han. Most of the Han people in southern Liaoning were "following the flag" during the Manchu Qing rule, that is, they were the surrendered tribes at that time. Every summer evening, families often gather under the big tree after dinner, and the elderly begin to tell stories or "Po Men'er" (also called Po Men'er) to the children. This statement is rarely heard nowadays. The word "dream" in "A Dream of Red Mansions" means "mystery". The title itself is a big mystery. Many readers (I would say most readers) have overlooked the solution to this great mystery. What makes the author even more regretful (if the author can live to this day) is that people did not pay attention to the other four book titles he proposed - "The Story of the Stone", "The Record of the Love Monk", "Feng Yue Bao Jian", "Jinling Ten" The evolutionary relationship between "Er Chai" and "A Dream of Red Mansions".

Why does a book have so many titles? What kind of connection do they have with "Dream of Red Mansions"? Are these titles worth discussing? I think it is necessary! The fascinating thing about "Dream of Red Mansions" is that all the "mysteries" in his articles are developed and created closely around the central theme of imperial power politics, making it difficult for readers to decipher. Most of the riddles, riddle poems, riddle pairs and stories are anecdotes and secret histories of the royal gardens of different dynasties. The Jia family is the condensed version of the royal families of different dynasties. Interpreted according to the theme of imperial power politics, her stories cannot be coherent; but they are all displayed and developed around the theme. Below we will explain them one by one in order of book titles.

(1) About "The Story of the Stone"

When friends have not confirmed that the theme of "A Dream of Red Mansions" is imperial power politics, they saw the words that appeared in the first chapter of "A Dream of Red Mansions" The other four titles are definitely dismissive. How can "The Story of the Stone" be equal to "A Dream of Red Mansions"? If the content of the 80-chapter "The Story of the Stone" is basically similar to the 120-chapter "A Dream of Red Mansions", why is there such a big difference in the title of the book? But if we take imperial power politics as the theme, we can clearly analyze the actual meaning of the title of "The Story of the Stone".

The first chapter of "A Dream of Red Mansions" begins with a mythical story about stones - Nuwa patching up the sky. He felt ashamed of his own incompetence and begged a passing monk to turn himself into a piece of jade the size of a fan pendant and carry it into the world of mortals. This begins a series of stories about Jia Baoyu's birth and the Jia family.

After the story of "these romantic evil ghosts" was completed, several lives and calamities passed, and the psychic jade recovered and returned to the foot of Qinggeng Peak on Wuji Cliff in Dahuang Mountain. At this time, "the handwriting on the stone is clear, compiling the calendar." ------ There is another verse at the end: "If you don't have talent to mend the sky, you will waste your years in the world of mortals; this is about the past and the future, who can remember it?" A legend? '"

This mythical story very vaguely leads to the theme of the book: and this Qijue verse is also a riddle. Let’s start with the story.

Nuwa is the maker of the Dingtian Stone and can also be said to be their mother. Before China's slave society - the era of primitive communism, the leaders of each tribe were women. Later, due to the development of productive forces and changes in production relations, the matriarchal society gradually turned into a patriarchal society. Men became the leaders of the tribe.

From Xia, Shang, and Zhou to Qin Shihuang's unification of the six countries of the Central Plains, history pushed China's slave society into a feudal monarchy. The one who rules the world is the emperor (mainly men). By the time the Manchus (the Jurchens were changed to Manchus during Huang Taiji's reign, and Nuwa symbolized the Manchus here) occupied Beijing and unified the Central Plains, China's feudal society had spanned more than 1,800 years (210 BC ——A.D. 1644). In this long time and space tunnel, the Central Plains sometimes fell apart and sometimes unified. Peasant uprisings, natural disasters, palace coups, border conquests, warlord melees, etc. are all regarded as "collapse of the sky". When an uprising is suppressed, a new dynasty is established, natural disasters disappear, a coup ends, a battle is won, a new emperor is crowned, etc., people regard it as "repairing the sky." To use the dialogue between Leng Zixing and Jia Yucun, these are called "tribulation and luck".

For the Manchu dynasty that had just unified the Central Plains, the two emperors Shunzhi and Kangxi (who actually fought against Jiangnan and the west for more than 40 years) understood the meaning of "collapsing the sky" and "repairing the sky" very well. Stake. It boils down to the consolidation and construction of imperial power politics. In addition to mastering the political power of one's own generation, what is more important is to pass the political power, that is, the "heaven" intact from generation to generation; the country of the Qing Dynasty will always be intact. This was the idea of ??the emperor in the early Qing Dynasty, and it was also the idea of ??the Kaiyuan and Founding Emperors of every dynasty in history. The dialogue between Mr. Ning Rong and the Fairy Jing Huan in the fifth chapter of "A Dream of Red Mansions" illustrates this truth:

"My family has been famous and rich for hundreds of years since the founding of the country. The fate is finally over and cannot be undone. Although we have many descendants, there is no one who can succeed me. However, my grandson Baoyu has a perverse temperament and eccentric temperament. Although he is smart and smart, he has little hope of success, but our family's fortune is not good. In the end, I am afraid that no one will introduce the correct rules. "------"

In order to inherit the imperial power forever, emperors of all dynasties ordered their subordinates to summarize the experiences and experiences of the previous dynasty's rule and downfall. lesson. Therefore, China's feudal dynasty has left behind a collection of twenty-five histories of imperial rule over the course of a thousand years; it is also called official history and has almost no chronology. So is "The Story of the Stone" a variation of these historical records? no! This is most likely the author's imagination and figment. It is impossible for him to be carved on the big stone of Qinggeng Peak. You can think about "A Dream of Red Mansions" itself. This million-word novel is carved on a big stone. What a huge project it is! Even if someone has the confidence of Yu Gong, it will be difficult to find such a huge stone wall! I do hope that with this huge stone record, the research on "Dream of Red Mansions" will not be delayed to this day. It seems that this is completely a fairy tale.

Then how do we understand the title of the mythical book "The Story of the Stone"? There are two aspects to solving the mystery of this stone. One is the emperor's jade seal; it represents the existence of an emperor, the existence of a dynasty, and the existence of imperial rule. On the other hand is the emperor's mausoleum; it records the "merits" of a king, the "merits" of a dynasty, and the "merits" of imperial rule. Understanding these two aspects can open up our thinking.

Because "A Dream of Red Mansions" is a mystery book, Yuxi is not publicly revealed in the whole book. Only in Chapter 109, before her death, Jia Mu gave a piece of Han jade that she had kept at the bottom of the box for more than 60 years to her grandson Jia Baoyu. This is actually a scene of the succession of an "emperor". Jia Baoyu in the book was in a state of mental sluggishness and crazy behavior at this time. Because Lin Daiyu was dead, his psychic gem was also lost. The psychic jade is the incarnation of stone in the book; and in the context of solving puzzles, it is a metaphor for the jade seals of past emperors. Jade Seal is the theme riddle of the whole book. It appears in the fifty-one chapters of "Xue Xiaomei's newly compiled nostalgic poems"; the first poem "Chibi Nostalgic Nostalgia" is the riddle of the Jade Seal. Because we will have a special introduction in the future unraveling of the mystery, we will temporarily put aside the cracking of the jade seal and focus on the emperor's inscriptions.

Except for the big stone with "clear handwriting and a compilation of the calendar", the book "A Dream of Red Mansions" does not directly mention the tombstone of any emperor (there is a lt in Chapter 51; Guangling Nostalgia gt; it is Sui Yang the emperor's tomb).

This caused Taoist Kongkong to ask Big Stone a question: Which dynasty and generation did the story you recorded come from? To be more specific, which emperor is it? Shitou's answer was very interesting:

"Why should my teacher be so crazy! I think the dynasties that have always been unofficial are just borrowing the names and colors of 'Han' and 'Tang'. They are nothing like what I have recorded on this stone. Don't use this trick." , only based on their own circumstances, but it is fresh and unique. -------The joys and sorrows, the ups and downs, all follow the traces, and I dare not dig into it a little, so as to lose the truth. --"

This answer is actually a hint to us readers, when reading this book, do not limit yourself to specific dynasties and specific emperors. The "Jia family" is actually a "fake family"; it can also be said to be the "real family" (Zhen family). The second mansion of "Ning Rong" is the gathering of many royal families. The writing on my big stone is also a combination of many emperors' inscriptions. Therefore, "the prototypes of historical stories solved by the real and fake (Zhen Jia) families are all real stories of the royal family, but they are not coherent.

No one has read the original version of "The Story of the Stone" Rather than saying that this book actually exists, it is better to say that it is a figment of the author's story to attract readers. It would be better to say that it is a false name. The riddles of the whole novel are self-explanatory. Like Yuxi, the book does not directly talk about the tomb and inscriptions of a certain emperor, but there are poems, riddles, and controversies about the tomb that we mentioned earlier. Qijue verse:

"If you don't have talent, you can mend the sky, and you will spend so many years in the world of mortals;

This is a matter of past and future, who will remember it to write a legend? "

This is a double-bottomed riddle. When the emperor was alive, it was a jade seal; after the emperor died, it can be said to be a mausoleum. Both are stones. In the first chapter of "Song of Immortals" In the poem, there is a poem about "a pile of grass disappears in the deserted grave". In the 22nd chapter, Jia Tanchun's riddle:

"The Qingming decoration is most appropriate when the children are facing up at the steps<. /p>

Once the hairspring is broken, it becomes powerless. Don’t blame the east wind for separation. "

A poem and a riddle combine to form a tomb and a mausoleum. In the riddle sentence of Chapter 51 and the debate among the gold hairpins, the tombs of five ancient people appeared one after another. The fourth The first riddle is borrowed from Han Xin's tomb; the title of the poem is "Huaiyin Nostalgic"; the fifth riddle is borrowed from the tomb of Emperor Yang of Sui Dynasty; the seventh riddle is borrowed from Wang Zhaojun's tomb; the poem's title is. It is "Green Tomb Nostalgia". The eighth riddle is borrowed from Yang Guifei's tomb; the title of the poem is "Mawei Nostalgia", which caused controversy among the ladies and raised the question of the authenticity of Guan Gong's tomb. Only Yang Guang was the emperor, and the others were not emperors or empresses. However, the reputations of these people were closely related to imperial power politics; their inscriptions all had special stories of the rise and fall of the royal family, and the glory and disgrace of the emperor.

When it comes to stone stele, it is easy for people to think of the creation and development of this thing. Stone stele is developed from boundary posts and horse-tying posts. Because it is related to the region and mileage, it is often placed on the roadside and in front of the house. According to Sima Qian's "Historical Records", after the Qin Dynasty unified the Central Plains, King Yingzheng of Qin believed in the unification of the Qin State. Great achievements are indispensable in history, so he proclaimed himself the "First Emperor" and called himself "I", and ordered craftsmen to carve this huge record of his merits on a large stone wall to show to future generations. It is said that the stone tablet was destroyed by the later rebels and emperors. The only existing stone carvings are those left by him when he went to Mount Tai to pray for Zen and when he went to the East China Sea (now the Yantai area of ??Shandong Province) to search for medicine (also on a tour).

The two words "crazy" mean that the author is persuading readers not to be too crazy; the other is that the author is "crazy" from the reader's perspective. No matter who is crazy (actually we readers are crazy, we have not solved the mystery book nearly three hundred years ago), I think the author has been reminding us: reading and learning are like doing things, and they cannot be too rigid and rigid. It’s too dogmatic and should be more flexible. In order to illustrate this problem, the author provides us with a dialogue at the end of the last chapter of "Dream of Red Mansions", which is also an important condition for solving the mystery. Let’s read it carefully a few more times together.

"Kongkong Taoist firmly remembered this statement, and I don’t know how many lives and calamities passed. Sure enough, there was a Mourning Red Pavilion, where I saw Mr. Cao Xueqin reading ancient history. (Friends, please pay attention. This "ancient history"). Taoist Kongkong then showed the story of Jia Yucun and then showed him "The Story of Stone". Mr. "------" I say you are empty, but it turns out that your stomach is really empty. It is a "false talk in a village", but there are no contradictions and contradictions. I am happy to have wine and food with my two or three comrades, under the rain and evening lights under the window, and eliminate loneliness, and there is no need for adults to read the questions. handed down from generation to generation. If you are searching for the root of things like this, you are carving a boat to seek a sword, and the glue pillars and drums are playing harp. "After hearing this, Taoist Kongkong looked up to the sky and laughed, threw down the manuscript and floated away. As he walked, he said: "It is really perfunctory and ridiculous! Not only the author doesn't know it, but the copyist doesn't know it, and the readers don't know it either. It's just a game of pen and ink, Tao Qing's adaptability! "When later generations saw this legend, they also wrote four verses, which were the origin of the author's words:

When it comes to the bitterness, the absurdity becomes more tragic. The origin is the same dream, no matter what. Laughing at the idiots of the world!"

What should be noted in this paragraph is the "ancient history" read by Cao Xueqin and the "copy" thrown down by Taoist Kong Kong. Everything they touched were books. At the beginning of this article, we mentioned the Twenty-Five Histories of China (the last one is the "Manuscript of the History of the Qing Dynasty", written by Zhao Erxun and others after the Revolution of 1911. When studying "A Dream of Red Mansions" we can refer to the political affairs of the middle period of Emperor Qianlong. Mainly It should be based on the twenty-four histories before it). At the same time, it also mentioned the efforts of emperors to compile history in order to consolidate their political power and summarize the experience of previous dynasties (in fact, most of them were the efforts of politicians and historians around the emperor). Look at it this way, every fallen dynasty is the beginning of a new dynasty. It can also be said to be the beginning. For the Manchu and Qing dynasties, each of the Twenty-Four Histories was the beginning of the history of the Qing Dynasty. The beginning of the Twenty-Four Histories is "Historical Records" written by Sima Qian. Combining the analysis of the title of "The Story of the Stone" and adding a method to solve the puzzle of "A Dream of Red Mansions" - homophones of different words, we can understand "The Story of the Stone" as "The Story of the Shitou" or "The Story of the Beginning". This is my personal understanding of the first title of "A Dream of Red Mansions", "The Story of the Stone".