Originally known, Wu Dalang in Liaoning University of Technology was "less than five feet tall, with an ugly and ridiculous mind", "short stature and wretched personality" and "three points like a human being and seven points like a ghost". No wonder such an ugly appearance will attract the disgust of beautiful wife Pan Jinlian!
Is the real Wu Dalang in history really like this? Of course not.
Wu Dalang, formerly known as Wu Zhi, was born in a poor family after his parents died at an early age. Now his grave has been dug up. According to expert appraisal, Wu Zhi was at least 1.8 meters tall before his death. He is not only a "golden mouth and jade words", but also a burly, tall and powerful man! And according to his genealogy, Wu Dalang was not an unlicensed vendor selling baked wheat cakes along the street at all, but a scholar who studied hard at a cold window. In his twenties, he was admitted to the Jinshi examination and made a county magistrate to benefit one party. During his tenure, his official voice was clear and he was deeply loved by the people. His life experience, even in modern times, is an inspirational legend!
Wu Zhi changed a poor family with his own efforts and married Pan Jinlian, who had known two of a kind since childhood. Then how can his story be distorted into the eternal mystery of an ugly peddler who married Mei Jiao Niang but was poisoned by arsenic? In the final analysis, this incident was caused by Wu Dalang's carelessness in making friends.
Wu Zhi has a little boy named Huang Tang. Huang Tang was born in poverty and often depended on Wu Dalang for food and drink. Later, the Huang family caught fire and the only house was destroyed by the fire. Homeless Huang Tang remembered Wu Dalang, who became a county magistrate, and took the initiative to come to the door, hoping that Wu Dalang would give him some money to build a house.
Wu Dalang supported Huang Tang verbally, but kept his mouth shut about funding him in Gai Lou. So Huang Tang was very angry and secretly hated Wu Dalang for being stingy. He actually gave birth to the idea of revenge, so he spread rumors everywhere and spoke ill of Wu Zhi. When Ximen Qing, a local hooligan, heard these rumors, he also took the opportunity to embellish them and accused Pan Jinlian of having a problem with himself.
Ancient traffic was underdeveloped. When Huang Tang went home to spread rumors, nearly a month had passed. When he got home, he found that Wu Zhi had sent someone to repair the house, which made him extremely ashamed, but the damage to Wu Dalang's reputation was irreparable. As a result, rumors spread widely and reached Shi Naian's ears. Without distinguishing between true and false, it was written as Water Margin. So, many years later, the author's descendants apologized to Wu Dalang and Pan Jinlian!