1, A Dream of Red Mansions
A Dream of Red Mansions is a novel with the style of chapters and chapters in ancient China, also known as The Story of the Stone. It is listed as the first of the four classical novels in China, and is generally believed to be written by Cao Xueqin, a writer in the Qing Dynasty.
Based on the rise and fall of Jia, Shi, Wang and Xue, the novel depicts the life of a group of beautiful women in the boudoir from the perspective of Jia Baoyu, a rich son, and shows the true beauty of human nature and tragedy. It can be said that it is an epic work that shows the beauty of women and various social conditions in ancient China from all angles.
The version of A Dream of Red Mansions can be divided into two systems: 120 "cost" and 80 "fat cost". Cheng Ben is printed by Cheng Weiyuan, while Fat Ben is an early manuscript copied and commented by Zhi Yanzhai in different periods. Fat book is the basic book of craft book.
2. Romance of the Three Kingdoms
Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the full name of which is Popular Romance of the Three Kingdoms, is one of the four classical novels in China and the first chapter-by-chapter historical novel in China. The writer is Luo Guanzhong, a novelist in the late Yuan Dynasty and early Ming Dynasty.
There are several versions of the popular Romance of the Three Kingdoms, such as Jiajing Renwu Edition. By the end of the Ming Dynasty and the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, Mao Zonggang had rearranged the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, revised the wording and changed the poems.
The Romance of the Three Kingdoms describes the history of nearly a hundred years from the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty to the beginning of the Western Jin Dynasty, mainly describing the war, telling the story of the warlord melee in the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the political and military struggle between Wei, Shu and Wu, and finally Sima Yan unified the three countries and established the Jin Dynasty.
It reflects the transformation of various social struggles and contradictions during the Three Kingdoms period, summarizes the historical changes of this era, and shapes a group of heroes of the Three Kingdoms.
The book can be roughly divided into five parts: The Yellow turban insurrectionary, Dong Zhuo's rebellion, competing among the heroes, the Three Kingdoms' separation, and the Three Kingdoms' return to Jin. On the vast historical stage, a magnificent war scene was staged. Luo Guanzhong, the author, combines the thirty-six strategies of Sun Tzu's Art of War between the lines, including both the plot and the strategy of Sun Tzu's Art of War.
3. Water Margin
The Water Margin is one of China's four classical novels. It is a chapter-by-chapter novel with the Sung River Uprising as the main story background at the end of the Northern Song Dynasty, and it belongs to a heroic legend in genre. The author or editor is generally regarded as Shi Naian, and most of the existing periodicals have one or two people, Shi Naian and Luo Guanzhong.
The whole book artistically reflects the whole process of Sung River Uprising in the history of China from its occurrence, development to failure by describing the grand story of Liangshan heroes resisting oppression, Liangshan in Shui Bo growing up and being supported by the Song Dynasty, fighting for the Song Dynasty after being supported by the Song Dynasty and finally dying.
It profoundly revealed the social roots of the uprising, enthusiastically praised the uprising heroes' resistance struggle and their social ideals, and specifically revealed the internal historical reasons for the failure of the uprising.
4. Journey to the West
The Journey to the West is the first romantic novel with chapters and sections in ancient China. There are hundreds of The Journey to the West published in Ming Dynasty, and there is no author's signature. Wu et al., a scholar in Qing Dynasty, first proposed that The Journey to the West was written by Wu Cheng'en in Ming Dynasty.
This novel is based on the historical event of "Tang priest learning from the scriptures" and deeply depicts the social reality at that time through the author's artistic processing. The book mainly describes the story that the Monkey King was born, met Tang Priest, Pig Bajie, Friar Sand and Bai Hou, went west to learn Buddhist scriptures, and after 81 difficulties, he finally arrived in the Western Heaven to visit the Tathagata, and finally the five saints realized their dreams.
5. Scholars
The Scholars is a novel of Wu in Qing Dynasty. It was written in the 14th year of Qianlong (1749) or earlier, and it was handed down as a manuscript, which was first engraved in the 8th year of Jiaqing (1803).
The fifty-six chapters of the book depict different expressions of "fame and fortune" by various people in a realistic way. On the one hand, it truly reveals the process and reasons of human nature being corroded, thus profoundly criticizing and mocking the corruption of bureaucracy and the hypocrisy of imperial examinations at that time.
On the one hand, it enthusiastically praised the protection of human nature by a few characters in a self-centered way, thus embodying the author's ideal. The use of vernacular Chinese in the novel is becoming more and more skillful, and the characterization of characters is also quite in-depth and delicate, especially the superb satirical techniques, which makes this book a masterpiece of China's classical satirical literature.