"Yan Danzi" research: The thorn Qin is not a personal vendetta

Ding Yuqiu/Wen "Yan Danzi" is a miscellaneous historical work that vividly describes the beginning and end of the incident in jing ke stabbing the king of Qin in the last year of the Warring States. As a work in the early stage of the development of Chinese novels, "Yan Danzi" with its magnificent historical background, generous and tragic emotional tone, tortuous and diverse narrative methods, distinctive character images and gorgeous and elegant language styles, presents a different scene different from the rough and old outlines of early classical novels, and has an important position in the history of Chinese novels, which The Ming Dynasty Hu Yinglin called "the ancestor of ancient and modern novels".

The book "Yan Danzi", "Hanshu Yiwenzhi" is not contained, the earliest written in the "Sui Shu Jingbi Zhi" novel category, not written, "New Book of Tang Yiwenzhi" and "Old Tang Shu • Jingshu Zhi" are titled "Yan Prince written", and there have been few copies since then. This edition was compiled by the Siku Guanchen from the Yongle Canon, and Sun Xingyan's manuscript was proofread and engraved before it has been circulated to this day. Due to various reasons such as its long age, lack of circulation, lack of literature, etc., the compilers and authors of "Yan Danzi" are not very clear, which has also become a hot topic of attention and discussion in the academic circles, and has achieved many valuable research results. However, the current research is basically a single paper, around a certain issue related collusion and analysis, or to examine the authenticity, or to examine the time of writing, or to discuss the relationship with the "History of Jingke", or to analyze artistic achievements, there has not yet been a comprehensive and systematic academic work, Professor Ye Gang's book "Research" (hereinafter referred to as "Research") is filling this gap. As the first monograph on the study of "Yan Danzi" so far, the book is problem-oriented, rooted in the text, combined with historical materials and documentary evidence, around the relationship between "Yan Danzi" and "History of Jingke", "Warring States Policy • Yan Prince Dan Quality in Qin", text reading, book writing problems, literary achievements, the status of novel history and other aspects of the systematic study, rich and informative materials, accurate and unique vision, profound and penetrating arguments, the study of "Yan Danzi" has taken a big step forward, and can also be used as a model for the study of early novels It has great enlightenment significance for current and future research.

Study of "Yan Danzi"

Ye Gang / Author

Zhonghua Bookstore

November 2021

"Research" has a strong sense of problems, the five chapters and fifteen sections of the whole text are under the guidance of the problem, step by step, in the process of constantly raising questions, analyzing problems, solving problems, the various academic issues related to "Yan Danzi" are explained very clearly and thoroughly. Looking at the whole book, it can be divided into three levels of "problems": First, the four most important "big problems" in the study of "Yan Danzi", namely, the relationship with the "History" and the "Warring States Policy", the problem of writing books, the problem of literature, and the problem of evaluation. These four questions are both the starting point and the final destination, playing a unifying role, they are relatively independent, but they are interconnected, and the answers to the previous question often directly or indirectly affect the conclusions of the latter questions, which can be called the four pillars behind the "Study". The second is the "medium problem" derived from the four main issues, which are the steps and processes for the author to analyze and solve the "big problem", such as decomposing the relationship between "Yan Danzi", "Shi Ji Jing Ke Biography", and "Warring States Policy And Yan Prince Dan Quality in Qin" into three sub-questions: whether the "History of Jing Ke Biography" was created by Tai Shi Gong or compiled, what is the relationship between the Jing Ke Qin story contained in the Warring States Policy and the "History of History", and what is the relationship between "Yan Danzi" and these two historical texts; after reviewing various theories, the problem of the completion of the book is summarized as "Han Zhi". The problem of no load and the order of the writing of "Yan Danzi" and "Shi Ji"; the problem of dissecting literary issues into three aspects: the theme of thought, character image, and artistic style; and the problem of evaluative division into the starting point of Chinese novel history and the concept and standard of ancient Chinese "novel", thus accurately and concretely evaluating the position of "Yan Danzi" in the history of novels. The third is to gradually promote the process of analyzing the "medium problems" of various small issues, which are the source of motivation for the "Research" to continuously make breakthroughs in stages. Taking the first chapter as an example, starting from the paragraph "Taishi Gongyue" at the end of the "History of Jingke", three small questions arise: the choice between the two details of Tianyou Prince Dan and the assassination of the King of Qin, whether the biographical material comes from oral material or something else, and whether the author of the biography is Sima Tan or Sima Qian. On this basis, the sources of materials for the "Records of History", the methods of revision, and the compilation of the "Biography of Jing Ke", the sources of materials for Liu Xiang's editing of the "Warring States Policy", and whether Zeng Gong had changed or added to Liu Xiang's compilation when he re-proofread the "Warring States Policy". By cracking down on these minor issues one by one, it was finally concluded that the "History of Jingke" was compiled by Taishi Gong, and there was no causal relationship between the three texts, and the similarities in the texts were due to the same or similar "source materials" on which they were based. This pattern of continuous analysis and progressive writing of problems at all levels makes the final conclusion come to fruition and has a strong persuasive force.

"Research" attaches great importance to textual materials, always based on the text to expand the discussion, analyze the topic, draw conclusions, and at the same time is good at looking at the problem with a holistic and overall perspective, so as to avoid the accident and one-sidedness of inference, and enhance the reliability of the conclusion. First, sensing that the comparative analysis of the paragraphs and locality of the three texts by previous generations may hurt the accuracy of the conclusions, the "Research" uses two sections to compare and interpret the "Yandanzi" and the "Historical Record" and the "Warring States Policy" in the whole text, and presents it in the form of a table, so that the similarities and differences between the three texts are clear at a glance. The author also made a very detailed interpretation of the comparative content of each part, and at the same time used the title of the main figures in the statistics and the identity of the martial artist as an auxiliary and supplementary, revealing the deeper and more essential connotation behind the text expression. For example, Prince Dan asked Qi Wu about this plot in a letter, the "History" did not contain it, and the "Warring States Policy" was carried by a sentence, but "Yan Danzi" was described in 245 words, and this detailed description actually contained the four levels of content of Prince Dan's letter writing, the pain of humiliation, the strategy of revenge, and the lament that the country would be destroyed, which not only promoted the development of the plot, but also enriched the character image, but also laid the theme of revenge, showing the unique personality of "Yan Danzi" as a novel that is completely different from the traditional historian's record. Second, comparing the text similarity between "Yan Danzi" and the "Zhuge Liang Tongue Battle Group Confucianism" of the forty-third time of the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", it reveals the far-reaching influence of "Yan Danzi" on later novels, and highly evaluates its historical status of novels. Third, the author speculates that the author of "Yan Danzi" or Zou Yang of the early Han Dynasty, with the text content of the three works of "The Book of the King of Shangliang in Prison", "Jiu Fu" and "The Book of the King of Shangwu" as the center of the argument, through the analysis of the content of the text, the meaning of the text, the form of language expression and other aspects, found that Zou Yang not only knew the story of Jing Ke's thorn Qin, but also mentioned in the work the names and details of the persons mentioned in the work are completely consistent with the "Yan Danzi", and the literary meaning, language structure, and language expression of his works are similar to "Yan Danzi". On this basis, the connection between Zou Yang and Yan Danzi is strengthened from the analysis of the purpose of the "Han Zhi", the environment of the times, Zou Yang's life experience, and personality characteristics, which proves the possibility and rationality of Zou Yang's compilation of "Yan Danzi". This inference is one of the important achievements of the "Study", and it is also a new point of view that has not been developed before, and the author looks for various evidences in the text, and makes a detailed analysis, relying on words and arguments, and is by no means a rootless statement imagined out of thin air. Although this discovery is not conclusive, it can undoubtedly be used as a reference to lead the study of the problem of the writing of Yan Danzi to a broader situation.

The "Research" makes prudent and rigorous arguments, adopts a wide range of theories of various schools, and analyzes them one by one, never making false judgments, or refuting views through material analysis, or making a unique opportunity on the basis of each statement, or further revealing the connotation of certain statements. First of all, on the issue of the time when "Yan Danzi" was written, there have always been many theories, and the author has listed in detail various theories such as the Warring States Theory, the Qin and Han Theory, the Eastern Han Theory, and the Tang Dynasty Theory, and believes that the materials of the various schools of argument are relatively concentrated, and the differences in views come from the huge differences in the understanding of the materials. Therefore, the "Study" starts from the key materials and mainly refutes the Eastern Han theory and the Previous Tang Theory. Through the text comparison between "On Heng" and Zou Yang's "Book of the King of Shangliang in Prison", it is pointed out that the object of debate in "On Heng" is likely to be Zou Yang in the early Han Dynasty, thus putting forward the view that "Yan Danzi" was written in the early Han Dynasty. Secondly, there are roughly two diametrically opposed views on the evaluation of the Jingke Assassination of Qin and the Yan Danzi in previous dynasties: one faction negates the historical value of this event, suspects that Prince Dan drove the assassins only to avenge his own personal vendetta, and then believes that Jingke and others are just a bunch of stupid and reckless people, and the value of the Qin incident and the significance of the existence of Jingke and others have been completely denied and dissolved; the other faction affirms the justice of Prince Dan, Jingke, and others for the sake of the country, and believes that the assassination of Qin is not out of personal vendetta, but a public vendetta and national vendetta under the fact of the Six Kingdoms of Qin.

The "Research" analyzes the theme intention of "Yan Danzi", clearly points out that the act of hedging Qin is out of the justice of the group, which is in line with heavenly human feelings, and further shows that this theme is based on the concept of revenge of Ramology. In addition, with regard to the issue of the occurrence period of Chinese novels, predecessors have put forward five main views of the Tang Dynasty, Wei and Jin, Han Dynasty, Warring States, and Pre-Qin, and the "Research" is not limited to the previous theory, and the upper and lower limits of the occurrence period of the novel are set as the Warring States Period and the end of the Western Han Dynasty, reflecting a diachronic and developmental view of the novel.

In addition, the indulgent and undisperforming form of the "Study", the examination mode that pays attention to the combination of macroscopic and microscopic, the rational arrangement of the structure, the careful sorting out of historical works, the detailed analysis of a large number of anon texts, the meticulous compilation of the whole text, and the abundant literary tone, sincere emotions, and rational reflections flowing between the lines are impressive.

In summary, as the latest research result of the early Chinese novel " Yan Danzi " , "Research" comprehensively explores the academic issues that have always surrounded "Yan Danzi" with scientific research methods, grand academic vision and solid literature evidence, which is not only of great benefit to the follow-up research of "Yan Danzi", but also provides a model for the study of early Chinese novels, and its academic value has its own public opinion.

(The author is a doctoral candidate in the College of Literature, Capital Normal University)