ebookland Chapter 561 The allegorical interpretation school is an endless field of knowledge.
Chapter 561 The allegorical interpretation school is an endless field of knowledge.
If you only read the novel, the scene of Daiyu burying flowers is too sad. Apart from the incident of sending palace flowers, Daiyu did not actually suffer any major grievances in the open, which leads many people to think that Daiyu was super sensitive and pessimistic.
But where does sorrow come from without reason? The author must have projected his own sorrow onto Daiyu. Many seemingly inexplicable plot points in *Dream of the Red Chamber* are designed to make readers ponder the reasons behind them.
The Lin Daiyu in *Dream of the Red Chamber* is definitely not about romantic love; those song lyrics cannot be contained within the realm of romantic love.
If it were merely a story about the love and decline of a wealthy and powerful family, why would it use such tragic phrases as "mountains of white bones, names forgotten"? This clearly expresses the sorrow of a nation's demise due to forced hair-shaving and clothing reforms.
This story is a mix of fact and fiction, highlighting its flaws and shortcomings. Lin Daiyu represents the Chongzhen Emperor, while Xue Baochai represents the Qing Dynasty. The Qing Dynasty ultimately followed in the footsteps of the Ming Dynasty, as Xue Baochai was eventually buried in the snow. To paraphrase a great man's words, "The land is so beautiful, attracting countless heroes to bow down."
Baochai's words are a subtle allusion to Emperor Chongzhen's rival, Huang Taiji. Both died around the same time, and Huang Taiji was buried in the Northeast. This corresponds to Baochai's exile to Ningguta in the Guiyou edition of the novel, where she died in the snow in the Northeast!
"The emperor has the appearance of emerging from the Zhen trigram and moving towards the Li trigram, while the ministers have the merit of mending the sky and bathing the sun." — From the Ming Dynasty children's primer "Youxue Qionglin".
The fact that *Dream of the Red Chamber* opens with the story of Nuwa mending the sky makes it quite obvious. Qi Xu wrote in his preface, "Those who eagerly carve paper leaves to obtain it, how few are they compared to those who open the book and awaken to its meaning!"
The phrase "one who awakens upon opening the book" refers to someone who, upon seeing the image of mending the sky, immediately thinks of the phrase "the minister has the merit of mending the sky and bathing the sun." This is a coded message from the author to the reader.
Anyway, gossip (recent unofficial histories of the Qing Dynasty) doesn't qualify as a literary masterpiece.
Mourning the fall of the Ming Dynasty and exposing the mistakes of the Manchus
It could also be a historical cycle.
Ultimately, the Lament for Fallen Flowers is about mountains of white bones, people forgetting their names, and mistaking a foreign land for their homeland.
"For me, the gossip about Hong Xuanye directly answered a question that had been bothering me for many years: why did Zhen Baoyu have so many scenes?"
Logically, if the book were merely hinting that Lin Daiyu might have mistakenly shed tears, it could have been mentioned casually and left unsaid. However, the book repeatedly uses various characters' perspectives to remind the reader of one thing: the Jia family in the capital has a fake Baoyu, while the Zhen family in Jiangnan has a real Baoyu. It's too bizarre.
"The index school is not limited to affirming any particular version or author, because the foundation of the index school is that "this Dream of the Red Chamber was written by Ming loyalists, historians of the fallen dynasty, and literary masters together," and that it is a legacy and history that reveals the failures of the Qing dynasty and mourns the fall of the Ming dynasty.
The foremost of the Four Great Classical Novels and the pinnacle of Chinese classical literature could not simply be a history of aristocratic decline or the author's personal life. Nor could it be merely a love story between a man and a woman.
Why write it in the form of a novel? Because it's the only way to preserve true history.
The rampant literary inquisitions of the Qing Dynasty meant that writing anything sensitive could result in the execution of nine generations of one's family. The only way to conceal the truth was to change names, genders, eras, narrative styles, and employ satire and metaphors—all techniques used to bury it within the "dreams of women in their chambers." A village of falsehoods, a place where the truth is hidden.
"Actually, just by looking at the timing of Daiyu burying the flowers, plus the line 'Last night I dreamt of the red pavilion, tonight I sing of the watery kingdom!', one can see that the allegorical interpretation school is correct. Unfortunately, there are too many people and too many motives trying to conceal and distort these things! So in the internet age, because of the convenience of information and knowledge search, coupled with the analysis of a group of talented people, it instantly became widely known and accepted! How lamentable and hateful!"
"I used to think 'The Burial of Flowers' was a young girl's spring sorrow, but now many people analyze that it was inspired by the Yangzhou Massacre. During that period, Han people were massacred one after another. Suddenly I understand that kind of pain. Why is it that just burying flowers can evoke such extreme sorrow? Burying flowers... burying China... At that time, they probably didn't even know if Han civilization could continue to be passed down. [crying emoji] It's really heartbreaking. [crying emoji]"
"In Gao E's continuation of the story, Daiyu says she can't cough up phlegm and burns all her poems before she leaves. This is also an implication, isn't it? Everyone says he's adding a dog's tail to a sable coat, but perhaps he had his reasons."
"What makes me cry the most is that Dream of the Red Chamber avoided the literary inquisition of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, wanted to leave behind evidence to reveal Han culture, and told future generations why the Ming Dynasty fell and how shameful the Qing Dynasty was, subtly telling future generations this history."
Only now do we understand these things, and then we go on to understand the Ming history that the Qing Dynasty altered. It is only after hundreds of years that we have finally solved the riddles of the author of Dream of the Red Chamber.
The events that have occurred over these centuries have fulfilled the author's hidden anxieties. This dedication has indeed successfully traversed four hundred years of time, allowing later generations to witness it. [crying emoji]
"The Story of the Stone, the Manchus shaved their heads, so if you remove the heads from The Story of the Stone, it becomes the Records of the Grand Historian [crash]."
"From the perspective of the Ming dynasty loyalists, they had no way of predicting the future. They may have really imagined the future hundreds of years later, when China was still under the rule of the Manchus. Because of the forced hair-shaving and clothing-changing policies and the literary inquisition, people had forgotten who their ancestors were, what clothes they wore, what script they spoke, and what kind of cultural customs they had."
It was inevitable that they would write such a book with such grief and despair. Fortunately, hundreds of years later, we have restored China, restored our clothing and customs, and those who wrote this book can rest in peace now.
"The snow at Huxin Pavilion has fallen for three hundred years, from 1644 to 1912. The Han people finally restored their country. Zhang Huangyan, did you see that at West Lake?"
"The opening lines of *Dream of the Red Chamber* state 'Full of absurd words,' and I believe the word 'full' has a double meaning, referring to the Manchu Qing dynasty's absurd rewriting of Ming history. This is why the author wrote *Dream of the Red Chamber* to expose the true history. Due to the literary inquisition, he was forced to employ 'hidden truths and preserved falsehoods,' essentially telling readers to seek hidden meanings, otherwise their efforts would be wasted. It's heartbreaking to think about, hence the 'a handful of bitter tears.' Everyone says the author is foolish, but who understands the true meaning?! Who can understand? The author desperately wanted readers to understand the true story behind the hidden meanings!"
"When I read Dream of the Red Chamber in middle school, I couldn't understand how such a story about love and romance could be included among the Four Great Classical Novels."
Later, I saw that Liu Xinwu's interpretation of Dream of the Red Chamber seemed a bit far-fetched, forcibly linking it to the Cao family. It's like when you're in school and you're solving a math problem, even if you don't know how to do it, you can still tell that the answer isn't correct.
Having read this interpretation now, it's like a sudden enlightenment! A complete awakening! It's like waking from a dream, a moment of clarity, a complete understanding, and finally, a feeling of peace and contentment! [Facepalm][Facepalm][Facepalm]
Suddenly I understood why the seemingly tender love stories in books were so heartbreaking and despairing! Tears flowed like blood! Now I understand it was a history of national ruin and the brutal slaughter of Chinese civilization! [Thank you][Thank you][Thank you][Thank you]
Han Dynasty, Romance of the Three Kingdoms
Journey to the West (Tang Dynasty)
Song Dynasty Water Margin
Ming Dynasty Dream of the Red Chamber
Corresponding to the four most representative dynasties of China
"Three hundred and sixty days a year, the wind and frost relentlessly assail. Mountains of white bones, names forgotten. Last night, a dream of a magnificent mansion; tonight, a lament for a watery land. [Tears][Tears][Tears]"
"It suddenly occurred to me that if the War of Resistance against Japan had not succeeded and China had truly perished, perhaps a new Dream of the Red Chamber would have been created, for example, Qian Mu might have written an outline of Chinese history."
"Don't let endless tears of longing fall like red beans."
Don't let the flowers wither and fall, filling the sky; let them fly with you to the ends of the earth!
Dream of the Red Chamber: Yesterday's dream of a vermilion mansion, today's lament for a watery land!
People's Republic of China: Yesterday the water kingdom rested, today the motherland prospers!
As soon as the Indexists' remarks were uttered on the sky, the entire city fell silent. The women who had been comforting their children now couldn't even bear the baby's cries.
Even in the usually bustling teahouse "Shufangzhai," the storytelling area was now so quiet you could hear a pin drop.
The storyteller forgot his gavel and, along with the audience, stared wide-eyed at the sky outside the window.
Under the canopy, no one dared to utter a sound, whether they had read Dream of the Red Chamber or not.
Later, a bookworm found his privately kept copy of Dream of the Red Chamber, read it over and over again, pondered deeply, and suddenly realized: "Daiyu's previous life was the 'Crimson Pearl Fairy Herb' by the Three Lives Stone on the banks of the Western Spirit River!"
Note the character '朱' (Zhu), which means crimson or red, the very color of the Ming Dynasty's imperial surname '朱' (Zhu)!
The precious herb is delicate and needs to be irrigated with sweet dew, just as when Emperor Chongzhen ascended the throne, the Ming Dynasty was already in turmoil and in dire need of salvation!
Xue Baochai comes from Jinling. Does the "Jin" here refer to the "Later Jin" established by Huang Taiji? The Xue family was a "powerful force in Jinling," implying that the Later Jin was a formidable enemy of the Ming Dynasty in the northeast.
Baochai was born with a "heat toxin" that needed to be suppressed with "Cold Fragrance Pills," which could be a metaphor for the fierceness and aggressiveness of the Jurchen people as a people from beyond the Great Wall...
The people next to him practically popped their eyes out: "Dude, you're really brave!"
Those soldiers were still on patrol, and you dared to make such wild guesses and say them so brazenly? Aren't you afraid of being executed along with your entire family?!
…………
What was the Qing emperor doing at this moment?
Emperor Kangxi stood with his hands behind his back in the courtyard, the moonlight and the light from the sky casting shifting shadows on his face. Of course, even so, the scene wasn't particularly pleasing to the eye.
He appeared calm on the surface, but in reality, his heart was in turmoil, a complete mess.
Just a few days ago, I was falsely accused of being Han Chinese, and before I could even clarify, Tianmu is talking about the Qing Dynasty. What did our Great Qing Dynasty do to offend later generations so much that they have to mock us like this? (Later generations will think: You deserve it.)
Although what this "sky curtain" said was absurd, it subtly touched his most sensitive nerve—the distinction between Manchu and Han, and the old stories of the Ming Dynasty.
Is this merely the delusion of a later eccentric, or... is Heaven using a novel to warn us about something?
He dared not think too much about it; the most urgent task was to silence the gossip and ban that damn book.
We must also find out who the author of this book is, and that person must be arrested and severely tortured.
Cao Xueqin or Cao Xueqins: I only write Cao Xueqin in my books. You don't actually think my name is Cao Xueqin, do you?
You want to capture me alive? Sure, come on then!
I'm not a coward either. Ever since I wrote this banned book, I've had no intention of living. I'm always prepared for the risk of being discovered.
At worst, I'll join the White Lotus Rebellion or the Anti-Qing Restoration Movement!