The literary giants of the late Ming Dynasty began by copying books

Chapter 21 Yuan Hongdao

The Portuguese colonial empire was the first global colonial empire to emerge in Europe since the Age of Discovery.

Starting from the opening of the Cape of Good Hope waterway, the Portuguese gradually took control of India and the Malacca waterway, opened commercial offices in India and Southeast Asia, opened up Indian colonies, and controlled the Persian Gulf. This was just because the country was too small and could only operate maritime trade without the ability to conduct large-scale trade. It operated colonies, so in recent decades it was finally squeezed out of its position as maritime hegemon by Spain and the Netherlands, who came up later.

But until they died, the Portuguese were still able to occupy Macau and open commercial offices in Japan.

By writing the history of the Portuguese Empire, the early stages of the entire Age of Discovery can be seen at a glance.

Wang Wenlong also plans to add some private information to the book, such as pointing out the upcoming slave trade and the development of the Americas, and insinuating that there are large gold and silver mines that have not yet been developed in the Americas and many places in the world.

It is almost certain that the people of the Ming Dynasty who knew for the first time that there was such a profitable business in the world would be stunned.

There is no need for him to directly comment, the golden sailing success will cause a sensation in the world, and he, Wang Wenlong, will naturally become famous because of this book.

"Seventy years after Sanbao Eunuch's voyage to the West, the Portuguese Vasco da Gama arrived at the coast of India. He saw an important monument left by Sanbao Eunuch's voyage. The inscription demonstrated the magnanimity of the Celestial Empire: Edict of the Empress of Bizhe Many times, the opening of sea lanes relies heavily on benevolence, and people and boats are safe and safe. But the arrival of the Portuguese did not have such blessings. Their boats were very shabby and far from as majestic as the Chinese fleet. However, the Portuguese used The red cross on their sails and the bronze cannon on the ship declared their intentions: unlike the Ming Dynasty, the Portuguese would not hesitate to fire preemptively, and also decided not to leave again..."

Wang Wenlong's brush was writing quickly on the rice paper, and Li Bagin, who was grinding ink for him, was so tired that he was covered in sweat.Wang Wenlong directly adopted the layout method of the original book. At the beginning, he compared Zheng He's voyages to the West and Da Gama's opening of European and Indian shipping routes, thus attracting the curiosity of Ming readers.

Then we go back in time and tell the story of how Portugal began its overseas expansion, attacking Morocco, colonizing Africa, and starting to look for new shipping routes.

Wang Wenlong deliberately described the situation of Portugal, a country that was small and poor before its development, and then analyzed the benefits they obtained after each voyage, thereby telling how much profit was hidden in the great voyages.

Writing this thing is much more difficult than copying a novel. Even though Wang Wenlong greatly accelerated his writing speed in order to ensure smooth writing and using modern Chinese, the choice of many contents in the article still made him write quite slowly.

From morning to evening, Wang Wenlong deleted and revised several times before writing a prologue of more than 5000 words.

Just when Wang Wenlong was taking the original book and deleting it, Yuan Hongdao was curiously taking a novel from Jiao Hong in a library in Nanjing.

Yuan Hongdao is a member of the Hubei Public Security Bureau. Unlike those scholars who failed in the imperial examination and turned to literature, Yuan Hongdao was admitted as a scholar at the age of 16. Later, because of his love for poetry and ancient prose, he organized several literary societies, and his reputation as a talented scholar was widely known in his teens. Jingzhou.

While this guy was writing poems, he also studied eight-part essays and took exams in his spare time. He passed the imperial examination at the age of 21 and the Jinshi exam at the age of 23.

If Li Guangjin, who won the first place in the Fujian National Examination, can be regarded as a child prodigy, Yuan Hongdao's imperial examination talent is probably at the level of Wenquxing.

Two years after becoming a Jinshi, Yuan Hongdao was elected as the magistrate of Wuxian County the year before last. He had a good reputation as a local official. However, he felt that being an official was too busy and rarely had leisure, so he left "Being an official in life is very difficult, but being an official is hard." It is extremely hard, and if I were to be Wu Ling, it would be a million times harder, just like an ox or a horse." He resigned in the second year after taking office.

Now Yuan Hongdao is only 32 years old. After resigning last year, Yuan Hongdao has been visiting scenic spots in the southeast, socializing with his literary friends, and gradually perfecting his literary "spiritual school" ideas.

Jiao Hong, who sat opposite him, was also a big shot. He was from Nanjing. He was the number one scholar in the 17th year of Wanli's reign. He served successively as an editor of the Hanlin Academy and then as a secretary in Nanjing. Jiao Hong's family was not wealthy when he was young, but he loved reading since he was a child. After becoming an official, As conditions improved, his collection of books increased. He became even more obsessed with it when he returned to his hometown of Nanjing to become an official. Now his collection of books fills a building.

Yuan Hongdao took the book "The Scholars" from Jiao Hong's hand and saw that the pages of the book had been rolled by Jiao Hong. He asked curiously: "This book is so beautiful that Brother Jiao can't bear to read it." roll?"

Jiao Hong said: "My dear brother, please don't make fun of me. This is truly an ancient novel. It is not much worse than the "Jin Ping Mei" you lent me last year."

Although Jiao Hong was more than twenty years older than Yuan Hongdao, the two were friends of the same generation.

Yuan Hongdao was surprised and said: "If this is the case, beware of Brother Xie coming to borrow it."

Jiao Hong laughed loudly when he heard this.

He knew that the brother Xie mentioned by Yuan Hongdao was Xie Zhaozhe, and if Wang Wenlong were here, he would definitely sigh that he is another big brother who has been included in the Chinese textbooks of later generations.Xie Zhaozhe was a Jinshi in the 20th year of Wanli, the same year as Jiao Hong, and is now an official in Huzhou.

What Yuan Hongdao and Jiao Hong made fun of was that although Xie Zhaozhe had a good reputation as an official, he had a hobby, that is, he liked books, and he was a bit stubborn.

When Yuan Hongdao resigned from office a few years ago, he got a handwritten copy of "Jin Ping Mei" and borrowed it from Xie Zhaozhe when he visited Huzhou.

Because Xie Zhaozhe liked this book so much but was too embarrassed to show it to others, he planned to copy it himself. However, his copying speed was too slow. Yuan Hongdao was about to leave Hangzhou, so he borrowed the book and refused to return it. Yuan Hongdao wrote several times from Hangzhou to urge him, but Xie Zhaozhe asked someone to send the book to him. He also complained in the letter that he had only copied three-tenths of it.

Yuan Hongdao was afraid that he would borrow this thing again without repaying it, so he was not moved even if he said so. Instead, he told him that Qiu Zhichong, who was also a Jinshi in the 17th year of Wanli, also had a copy of "Jin Ping Mei" there.

Xie Zhaozhe wrote directly to Qiu Zhichong to borrow it, but his writing speed seemed to be a bit slow, and he copied about five-tenths. Qiu Zhichong couldn't stand it anymore, so he asked for the book back again.Xie Zhaozhe had no choice but to hold up his 80.00% copied "Jin Ping Mei" as a treasure.

Jiao Hong said: "Don't make fun of me. This book "The Scholars" describes the strange peaks of human gender. I have read it three times and still can't put it down. My dear brother, you really should have a good time reading it."

Yuan Hongdao knew that Jiao Hong had a good taste in reading, and he became interested after hearing what he said. Yuan Hongdao nodded and sat in front of Jiao Hong's desk to read.

After a while, he became fascinated. Yuan Hongdao gradually stopped paying attention to Jiao Hong talking to him.

Jiao Hong smiled, stopped talking, and picked up the last volume of "The Scholars" to read.

If other readers see the irony and humanity in The Scholars, Yuan Hongdao sees something more profound.

In his eyes, this book is the same as "Jin Ping Mei" in that it focuses its descriptions on urban life and describes real people, and it is more in-depth than "Jin Ping Mei".

In the past two years, Yuan Hongdao has visited friends and exchanges in the south of the Yangtze River. "There is not a day that he does not travel, there is not a day that he does not enjoy, there is not a day that he does not talk to, and there is not a day that he does not have a smooth conversation."

Through his contact and harmony with Jiangnan scholars of various schools at that time, he had developed his own creative idea of ​​"expressing one's own spirit without sticking to conventions".

Yuan Hongdao found it difficult to agree with the mainstream theory in the literary world at this time that "literature must be based on the Qin and Han Dynasties, and poetry must be based on the prosperous Tang Dynasty". He believed that articles must reflect real life and start from the heart.

The "The Scholars"'s eclectic and rational writing that reflected real life naturally made him feel that it suited his own style quite well.

Gradually, as I read the subsequent plot, I saw various Confucian scholars in the book who were dull-minded and rigid in their work while studying eight-part essays. Yuan Hongdao felt that he saw shadows of various characters he had seen in official circles and literary circles.

He even gradually felt that he and the author of "The Scholars" were of the same mind, and he felt that he had met this book at a late date.

While he was fascinated by his reading, Jiao Hong's son hurriedly ran upstairs.

"Dad, Mr. Yuan, it's not good."

The two of them put down their books and saw a newspaper in his hand. Jiao Hong asked, "You're in a hurry! What's going on?"

"Zhongguan Chen Feng captured Jingzhou and Huangzhou's experience."

"What?" Both of them stood up in surprise.

(End of this chapter)