Text: Lu Wu
"Journey to the West" as one of the four masterpieces of classical China, since its inception countless readers, the book shows a colorful world of gods and demons, the deeper side, is to depict the social reality at that time, Mr. Lu Xun also had an evaluation of "Journey to the West": satire and ridicule is taken from the world at that time, to be extravagant description, perhaps this is one of the reasons for the long-term prosperity of "Journey to the West".
Wu Cheng'en lived in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, and the social situation in this period has changed greatly from the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the degree of corruption of the ruling class has been deepening, various contradictions have been intensifying, and social chaos has frequently emerged. Wu Cheng'en, who lived in this period, did not have any ambitions in his career, and the highest position was only a Ji Shan of the Jing Dynasty Palace, but he was still a Confucian student, and those Confucian feelings of family and country still existed. In the face of these ugly phenomena, the heart is more than enough and the strength is insufficient, and the only thing that can be done is to write them into the novel.
Figure 1 Wu Cheng'en (1506 – c. 1583), also spelled Ruzhong, was a native of Sheyang Mountain
01 The Heavenly Palace to the Ming Dynasty
Before Wu Cheng'en's version of Journey to the West came out, there was never a depiction of the Heavenly Palace in the previous version of Journey to the West.
As we all know, the book "Journey to the West" has a very wide range of religious aspects, and the Tang monks and disciples are actually the product of the direct conflict between the two religions of Buddhism and Taoism, and although the ideological systems of the Buddha, Tao, and Confucianism are different, they all have one thing in common, that is, the existence of "heaven". The "heaven" of Buddhism is the Western Heaven Elysium, and in the Journey to the West, it is also the destination of the Tang monks and disciples, the Lingshan Daleiyin Temple. The Buddhist "heaven" design is relatively clear, the various orders are orderly, with the Buddha as the center, and the outer layer is a few bodhisattvas, and then there are many arhats, and the outermost is the role of Lux and the like.
Figure 2 Stills of the CCTV version of "Journey to the West"
At the beginning of the founding of Taoism, Lao Tzu was called Daode Tianzun, ranking first, and later there were Yuan Shi Tianzun and Lingbao Tianzun, and the ranking changed again, and the later changes were even greater. What exactly does the Taoist "heaven" look like? The various schools of taoism are also diverse, and there has never been a definite routine.
The Confucian "heaven" has always been certain, that is, the imperial court is heaven, the emperor is the son of heaven, emphasizing that the fate of the monarch is granted by heaven, and any human subject must obey the son of heaven, that is, the so-called "bending the people and stretching out the king", and any covetousness and rebellion against him has become a violation of the mandate of heaven, and will be punished by heaven.
In "Journey to the West", Wu Cheng'en described a world of heavenly palaces with clear distinctions between dignity and inferiority, with the South Heavenly Gate, the Lingxiao Hall, all kinds of rare treasures, and a strictly ordered immortal system, which is based on the Jade Emperor as the core, and various star kings, generals, and marshals have become courtiers.
CCTV version of "Journey to the West" in the Jade Emperor stills
The model of this Heavenly Palace is actually a copy of the Ming Dynasty. In the human world, the emperor sat on the dragon chair of the main hall, high above, in the center of power, and in the hall was the civil and military generals of the imperial court, under the leadership of the first assistant, they discussed the state of the country, and finally reported the results to the emperor. In the heavens, all this has not changed at all, the role of Taibai Venus is like the first assistant in the Ming Court, nothing matters everywhere, and the most the Jade Emperor does is to say "Yi Qing played".
The situation of the Jade Emperor is actually the situation of many emperors in the late Ming Dynasty, the feudal system of the Ming Dynasty has been extremely complete, the role of the emperor in this system is getting smaller and smaller, even to the point of dispensability, just like the Wanli Emperor, more than ten years without the dynasty, the country is still operating normally, it is no wonder that the Jade Emperor can only repeat "yiqing played" over and over again.
Figure 4 Centralization of power in the Ming Dynasty
02 Bhikkhu King to Emperor Jiajing
In the seventy-eighth episode of Journey to the West, the four Tang monks and disciples passed through the bhikkhu kingdom and found that the bhikkhu king was dazed, addicted to the beauty of fox spirits, seriously ill, and dying of succumbs. Listening to the rumors of the White Deer Spirit and asking for the heart and liver of 1111 children to be medicated, Sun Wukong cast a spell to save the children. Later, he had to dig up the heart and liver of Tang Monk, and Goku cleverly used a clever trick to force the White Deer Spirit to show its true appearance, which was taken back by the Birthday Star, and the Fox Spirit was killed by the Pig Eight Precepts and a rake.
This is one of the many stories in "Journey to the West", and it is also one of the nine human kingdoms written by Wu Cheng'en, although digging up the hearts and livers of one thousand eleven hundred and eleven children to make medicine will not happen in the real world, but similar things Wu Cheng'en has experienced.
The bhikkhu king was based on Emperor Mingjiajing. Many emperors of the Ming Dynasty, especially several emperors in the later period, have not been very reliable, either indulging in lust, or sounding dogs and horses, or not doing the right thing, and the Jiajing Emperor is one of them. The Jiajing Emperor reigned for a total of forty-five years, and in the early stages, he was also diligent in government affairs, and the governance of the country was also orderly, creating a situation in Which Jiajing Zhongxing was created. However, in the later period, he gradually lost his enterprising spirit and became more and more corrupt, and successively favored the Daoist priests Shao Yuanjie and Tao Zhongwen, and most of the time he hid in the harem with the Daoist priests to cultivate immortality, in fact, in the name of seeking immortality, he did indulgent things.
Figure 5 Jiajing Emperor, Zhu Houxi (16 September 1507 – 23 January 1567)
Among the emperors of the Ming Dynasty, the Jiajing Emperor was also ranked first, and his concubines were the most numerous. In the book "Wan Liye Zhi Zhi", it is recorded that the Jiajing Emperor took a variety of drugs in order to indulge in lust, including real cake (the blood clot in the mouth of the newborn baby when he was not crying), red lead (the end of the medicine refined by the girl's first menstruation), Qiu Shi (the powder refined by the boy's urination), and the Hundred Flowers Medicine Wine. According to the book, in order to obtain red lead, between the thirty-first and thirty-fourth years of Jiajing, Jiajing ordered people to select nearly five hundred girls aged eight to fourteen from the people, and these girls either became palace women or died miserably.
Today, these things seem to be ridiculous, but living in Wu Cheng'en's time, all this is real, and there is no difference between the Jiajing Emperor using a girl's first menstrual period to refine red lead and the bhikkhu king using one thousand eleven hundred and eleven children's hearts and livers to make medicine primers.
Wu Cheng'en's former residence is located in Hexia Ancient Town, Huai'an District, Huai'an City, Jiangsu Province
03 Anandaye's demand for bribes was inflicted on the Ming dynasty official Feng Lu
In the ninety-eighth time of the Journey to the West, the Tang monks and disciples finally arrived at the Lingshan Mountain, but they encountered trouble, and the two Venerables of Anang Jiaye, who were guarding the Tibetan Scripture Cabinet, openly asked the Tang monks for benefits, and it is recorded in the book that Ah Dao and Jia Ye led the Tang monks to read through the names of the scriptures and said to the Tang monks: "When the holy monks come here, what kind of people sent us?" Take it out and preach the Scriptures with you. ”
Many people may be surprised that Lingshan is the pure land of Buddhism, a place of purity. Moreover, Buddhism believes that fame and fortune are all over the clouds, the so-called life does not bring, death does not bring, so people do not have to be too greedy, too greedy, but in this place there will be such a blatant phenomenon of bribery.
In fact, this scene in the book is a kind of irony of Wu Cheng'en's bribery in the Ming Dynasty officialdom, and it is a reflection of real life.
Figure 7 Officials of the Ming Dynasty
In several major dynasties in Chinese history, the Ming Dynasty officials had the lowest number of salaries, and many low-level officials had difficulty subsistence on official salaries, while high-ranking officials could not rely on official salaries to maintain their luxurious lives. In particular, although the Beijing officials have great power, they do not have much way to get much extra money, and most of their income comes from gifts from local officials. And where do magistrates get their money from? In addition to the black money extorted from the people, there are also gray incomes, such as the so-called "fire and silver", which is a lot of income.
As a result, the Beijing officials used the power in their hands to extend their hands to the local officials, and the local officials paid bribes to the Beijing officials in order to facilitate their work, sending roasting fees in winter and cooling fees in the summer, and slowly formed a routine. Ananda Ya is like a small official in the capital with small authority, and what he does every day is to use official business to ask foreign officials or rich businessmen who come to Beijing to pay some ice and charcoal, so that the official atmosphere will deteriorate day by day.
These were the realities of the time, and the imperial court knew this kind of custom very well but was not ready to change it, so Wu Cheng'en had to write these phenomena into the book and replace these officials with Anang Jiaye, and this kind of institutional problem would obviously not be changed for a while and a half.
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