Life

He was elected to the countryside in the fourth year of Chongzhen (1631). He was very fond of collecting books, so he often found strange books, and the accumulated wealth made him rich, which had not been seen by many people in the world, so he called himself "a thousand volumes of books". Changed the name of his father's library "Meikaan" to "Meizangan". He made an appointment with Huang Zongxi, Liu Cheng and others to copy books. Sun Xu Qiu, whose courtesy name was Zhuyin, was also able to collect books. The books collected by the Xu family and their descendants for four generations are printed with "Xu Zichang Seal", "Xu Yuanfang Seal", "Xu Qiu Private Seal", "Xu Xinyi Seal", "Kuan Yuxuan", "Wanshan Tower" and "Zhuyin" , "Dan Chen", "Gaoyang Kuiyuan Collection", "Soochow", "Jie Yuan", "Beauty in the Sky", "A Night of Reciting Poems in the Oriental White", "Half an Acre of Plum Blossoms", etc. Works

Xu Zichang's legendary works, in addition to the "Water Margin" and "Jupu Ji" that have been handed down from generation to generation, are also recorded in various books including "The Reporter", "Nongzhu Tower", and "Lintong Hui" , "Baihua Pavilion" and "Lingxi Pei" 5 types. The first four types have no authentic copies; "Lingxi Pei" has a copy dating from the fourth year of Tianqi (1624). However, the writing style and writing style are not similar to Xu's works. Xu Zichang also revised Wang Tingna's "Zhongyu Ji" and Xu Sanjie's "Jie Xia Ji" legends, which are still circulated today. The Sanqu he produced remains in the anthology of Ming Dynasty operas. He also wrote 4 volumes of "Chaozhai Shichao", 12 volumes of "Chaozhai Manglu", and 10 volumes of "Pengfubian". He also edited and edited "Taiping Guangji".

"Jupu Ji" is adapted from the Tang Dynasty legendary novel "The Story of Liu Yi". The plot is the same as that of Yuan Shang Zhongxian's "Liu Yi Biography", but it focuses on the dragon girl's repayment, and adds that Liu Yi once was kind to the white turtle, ape and snake, and they also came to repay the kindness, and that Liu Yi once rescued Qiu Boyi, but he The plot of framing Liu Yi in order to seek wealth is used to satirize that ungrateful people are worse than animals. The structure of the whole play is loose and redundant.

"Water Margin" is Xu Zichang's masterpiece. The major events described in the play include Chao Gai and others' robbery of the birthday card, Song Jiang's killing of Yan Poxi, and Liangshan's gathering of righteousness, etc., which are roughly based on the relevant stories in chapters 10 to 22 and 39 to 40 of the novel "Water Margin"; as for Zhang Wenyuan The plots of borrowing tea, Yan Poxi's capture alive, and the separation and reunion of Song and Jiang couples were all made up out of thin air by the author. The play depicts the positive images of Liangshanbo heroes such as Song Jiang, Chao Gai, Wu Yong, Liu Tang, Dai Zong, etc., and praises their behavior of robbing the rich to help the poor, defecting to Liangshan, and ganging up to rebel. At the same time, it exposed and criticized to a certain extent the sinful behavior of the feudal rulers represented by Cai Jing in arbitrarily squeezing the people's wealth and anointing, and Zhang Wenyuan's decadent behavior in pursuing a communist life. The ending of the plot ends with Chao Gai's execution, Song Jiang ascending to Liangshan, and the heroes gathering together, and ends with the growth and reunion of the rebel army in Liangshan. Compared with other Water Margin plays in the Ming and Qing dynasties, which mostly end with recruitment, the ideological level is actually higher. However, the script details the affairs of Song Jiang and Yan Po on one side, and intersperses too many affairs of Chao Gai on the other, causing the plot to be divided into two ends and the main line is not prominent enough. At the same time, there are some vulgar elements in the play, and the music and lyrics also have the disadvantage of favoring parallel people and using allusions. "Water Margin" was more popular in later generations. "Borrowing Tea", "Liu Tang", "Picking Up a Towel", "Previous Lure", "Later Lure", "Kill to Kill", "Catch Alive" and other excerpts are often performed in Kun Opera.