What excellent novels were there in the middle of Qing Dynasty?
The novels in Qing Dynasty have a wide audience and are always prosperous. In the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties, there appeared a large number of novels about talented people and beautiful women, which is also the continuation of novels in the late Ming Dynasty. But there are no excellent works, just some routine and entertaining reading materials. Some historical legendary novels, such as Water Margin and Yue Biography, are more influenced by orthodox consciousness. By the middle of Qing Dynasty, following the realistic tradition of Jin Ping Mei Hua Ci, two masterpieces in the history of China's novels, The Scholars and A Dream of Red Mansions, finally appeared, which were great achievements of Qing literature. The Scholars sharply criticized the feudal imperial examination system and deeply analyzed the soul of intellectuals in feudal society. Its artistic technique of "harmony but difference, softness with rigidity" makes it a symbolic work of China's classical satirical novels. A Dream of Red Mansions reveals the historical fate of the inevitable decline of the feudal ruling class and feudal society through the love tragedy between Jia Baoyu and Lin Daiyu and the story of the rise and fall of the Jia family. In art, the profound understanding and detailed description of the complexity of human nature in these two novels have reached an unprecedented height.