Top Ten Forbidden Books in Ancient History of China
The feudal level in ancient China was unimaginable. The main manifestations were the famous burning of books and trapping scholars, women's foot binding, men's braids, etc. When it comes to banned books in ancient China, then everyone must think of "Jin Ping Mei" first. However, if you only know this banned book, you are really too ignorant. Let's join us to unlock the ten banned books that have appeared in China's history.
"National Beauty and Tianxiang"-author Wu Jingsuo, a great writer of the Ming Dynasty. This book was written by Wu Jingsuo of the Ming Dynasty. It was banned during the Wanli Year of the Ming Dynasty. The reason was that this book fully showed what the master of incense stealer did to the public, and did not shy away from the various "details" of the crimes contained therein. The protagonist in the book is a beautiful young woman. She cheats in her daily work every day. Sometimes she steals one, sometimes she steals several at the same time. Everyone imagines it.
"Treasure Mirror of Taste of Flowers"-The background of this novel by the author Chen Sen is during the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty. Although officials were strictly prohibited in the Qing Dynasty, there were policies and countermeasures. In order to avoid the ban, high-ranking officials and famous local governments recruited actors to drink banquets every time. Danjiao was called "Xianggong". In fact, he was a male actor he had found and treated them like a prostitute's plaything, which means that this is actually a book depicting "same-sex"!
The book takes the spiritual love between Mei Ziyu and male actress Du Qinyan as the main line of the story. It treats homosexuality with an equal idea and may even make people feel that love has nothing to do with gender. In the eyes of modern people, the central idea of this book is quite open, but it shows all kinds of ugliness in the world and is lifelike, so it was banned!
"Spring Dream in the Red Chamber"-The author is unknown. This book is actually a bit wronged. Compared with other basics, the style is quite elegant. Unfortunately, the characters used by the author are all from "Dream of the Red Chamber". Once this book was published, it was boycotted by all literati. This matter was a sensation at that time."Dream of the Red Chamber" was created during the Qianlong period and had a large number of fans."Spring Dream in the Red Chamber" was undoubtedly a blasphemy and insult to the original work. Amid the wave of boycotts, It stopped quickly. In addition, there is another movie in Hong Kong with this name.
"Jian Deng Xin Hua"-Author Qu You, a novelist of the Ming Dynasty, wrote "Jian Deng Xin Hua" about the great social turmoil in the late Yuan and early Ming Dynasty, which destroyed and distorted the erotic lives of men and women in the middle and lower levels of society. In addition to copying the bizarre and hidden distortions of ordinary men and women, people and ghosts fell in love, and "intercourse is like the human world" also became one of the main reasons for being banned. At that time, the book was banned mainly because the principal of the Imperial College, the highest institution of the Ming Dynasty, exposed the existence of the book. The principal strictly adhered to his knowledge and inevitably felt that it was inappropriate to see his students reading such books, so he informed the emperor to ban it.
"Vinegar Gourd"-The author, a writer in the Ming Dynasty, is full of sexual affairs between men and women. The plot is simple and crude, and the characters 'personalities and psychological descriptions are very few. The whole story is full of various elements such as cheating, perverted, grotesque, and violence. Especially the large number of extramarital descriptions are shocking. They are full of a large number of romantic relationships between men and women that have no sense of integrity and loss of morality, making it difficult for people to separate them. It is a true record of the phenomenon of "extramarital love" in the early stages of China society.
"Flying Flowers and Beautiful Thoughts"-The author, a native of Qiaoyunshan Mountain in the Qing Dynasty (his original name was Liu Zhang), is different from ordinary novel authors. He has been a member of the imperial court and served as a county magistrate. He is well-informed and knows the people's sentiments well. The customs written in this book are mostly lascivious and are a "sidestream" model of novels about talented scholars and beautiful women. The reason why this book was banned was not because of its low style, but because its content involved the selection of beautiful girls in the south of the Yangtze River, causing random mating between men and women, and even incest among the people. All of them were taboo by the court, so it was repeatedly banned.
"Curtain Flower Shadow"--Qing Dynasty novelist Ding Yaoxing
This book is actually a sequel to the famous "Jin Ping Mei". It not only carries forward the "spirit" of the previous work, but also has a novel sexual pattern imagination than "Jin Ping Mei". The book is not only full of a lot of vulgar scene descriptions, but also includes lesbian plots. Not only that, Mr. Ding also gave a long description of the abuse of women during the Jin Dynasty's invasion of Yangzhou. This was naturally unforgivable for Kangxi, who promoted the "Manchu and Han Family". Mr. Ding was not only banned from books, but also imprisoned. Great prison. The Internet is not a place outside the law. Writing books is risky, and writing words must be cautious.
The author of "Jade Louchun" is unknown. This book is a replica of the infamous "The Yanshi of Wushan" in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Most of it is a horrific scene of discrimination and abuse of women in feudal society. It completely unabashedly depicts the humble status of women in the feudal period, and has been listed as a banned book since the Qing Dynasty.
"Empty Fantasy"-This book by the owner of Wu Gang is a famous love novel written during the Daoguang period of the Qing Dynasty. It despised the values and views on love of the world and frequently changed lovers to demonstrate the so-called value of love. The main plot consists of "undivided" sexual fantasies created by the envy of ugly men, so it is a matter of course that it is banned!
"Nine-tailed Turtle"-author Shu Liushan
The author of this book is Shu Liushanfang. Like his name, his style is also very elegant. In addition to the "vulgar" descriptions that should have, the book expresses a lot of darkness and corruption in the late Qing society. It is a critical novel, which is the main reason why it was banned.
From "Cutting the Lantern Xinhua" in the Zhengde period of the Ming Dynasty to "Nine-Tailed Turtle" in the Tongzhi period, all books have very explicit descriptions of certain scenes. It can be said that the style is very low and it is simply "three vulgar". However, if you think that these books are banned because of this, you are very wrong.
Why do you say that? Because almost all ancient novels contained descriptions in these aspects, including famous works such as "Water Margin" and "Dream of the Red Chamber", which were all just needed by readers. As Guo Degang said, people who previously said cross talk would tell many dirty jokes. Because the audience of cross talk was ordinary people, and the common people liked to listen to it. If you went to talk about the Four Books and Five Classics, you would starve to death within a few days. The same is true for novels. There are three main reasons why these banned books were banned in the Ming and Qing Dynasties.
The first is that the commodity economy was developed, which gave rise to a class of citizens. These people more or less knew Braille and wanted to find some entertainment activities in their spare time, which provided a market for novel creation. The second is the improvement of printing technology. Bi Sheng invented movable type printing technology in the Song Dynasty. At that time, clay movable type was used, and the printing cost was very high. Even serious books could not be printed. There was no time to print novels. By the middle and late Ming Dynasty, copper movable type began to be used in the printing industry. This provides technical support for the blowout phenomenon of the novel.
The third is the development of the publishing industry. During the Ming Dynasty, many professional publishing houses were produced.