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

The manuscript written by Wang Wenlong and others was sent directly back to Suzhou. After they stayed in Anyang for less than half a month, the corresponding report in the "Suzhou Xundao" was released.

"Recently, the Oracle Bone Society's excavations in Anyang discovered a pit of oracle bones from the Yin and Shang Dynasties... After rough cleaning, more than 4,000 pieces of tortoise shells, five pieces of ox bones, and more than 30 pieces of ancient characters were found in the pit... This is the Yin Ruins. This is the largest discovery so far in the excavation of oracle bone inscriptions. Scholars from the Oracle Bone Society have analyzed that the style of the oracle bone inscriptions in this pit comes from almost the same period, and there are many characters. From the written content, it can be guessed that the oracle bones in this pit were buried during the period of King Wuding of Shang Dynasty. They may be The history of his royal family."

"The author records the content of one of the oracle bones as follows. This piece is a divination made by King Shang for Queen Fu Hao who is about to give birth to a child. The main idea is: King Shang asked on Jiashen Day: Fu Hao is about to give birth, will she be able to get a boy? After the divination, Interpretation: If you give birth on Ding day, you will have a son. If you give birth on Geng day, it will be more auspicious and you will have a son. Verification: Thirty and one day later, the woman will give birth on Jiayin day, but she will not get a son, but she will give birth to a son. girl."

Wang Wenlong also wrote about the general situation during the Wu Ding period at the end of the report. When Wu Ding was young, he worked with the common people to understand the difficulties of farming. After he came to the throne, he promoted Fu Yue to the prime minister. The monarch and his ministers were harmonious, and the country was stable and governed, creating the "Wu Ding Zhongxing". He is a wise king in the history books.

As soon as Fu Ming was written, modern people could understand it. Even if people at this time had no historical knowledge, they had still read "Mencius", one of the four books. "Fu said it in the edition." Well, this is the capital of Mencius. The virtuous prime minister of the generation who praises you is a saint.

Even the readers of Wu Ding who promoted Fu Shuo directly imagined the background of Youdao Mingjun.

This is the first time that an article on the study of oracle bone inscriptions has quoted the content of oracle bone inscriptions in a long way, because Wang Wenlong found that these inscriptions are very close to life. People in the Shang Dynasty used divination to predict everything they encountered: When my wife is pregnant, will she give birth to a boy or a girl? Can I get any prey from hunting today? When will my mother's illness get better?

The daily life of the Shang royal family can be completely described from the oracles, and unlike the imperial life imagined by the people, the Shang king was more like an emperor elected by the tribes, with far less power than the emperors in the centralized era, even because At that time, the productivity was backward, and some of the issues that the Shang king was worried about seemed quite simple to the people of the Ming Dynasty.

In the past, reports on oracle bone inscriptions focused on how difficult the research on the oracle bone inscriptions was and how difficult the process of protecting cultural relics was. Wang Wenlong’s report is the first to cover the specific contents of the oracle bone inscriptions.

As soon as this report came out, it immediately aroused heated discussion among readers. The newspaper sales exceeded the average by more than 200 copies. It was even turned into a small briefing by the copywriter and sold to Jiangnan.

Many readers were surprised to find that the life of the emperors of the Shang Dynasty turned out to be like this. There were not as many gods and Buddhas as in the Romance of the Gods. Even Wu Ding may not have three palaces, six courtyards, and seventy-two concubines. The Shang king and ordinary people There is no difference between people. What he thinks about is whether his wife can give him a son, and whether there will be good rains as the planting season is approaching...

Many ordinary people nodded when they heard the relevant content on the newsstand and praised: "The emperor of the Shang Dynasty is still in charge of farming, so he is called a good emperor." People at this time would not think that this was Because the power of King Shang was not as great as that of later emperors, he felt that Wu Ding's actions were very close to the people, and he was indeed worthy of being a wise king that would be praised by saints.

There were also many young literati who wrote articles praising Wu Ding using this article from Suzhou Xunbao, and used it to satirize the government. Look at Wu Ding, the king of Shang Dynasty, and look at the current emperor. It’s really like the sky and the earth.

Even half a year later, many novels with Wu Ding as the protagonist began to be sold in the market. These were written by novelists who followed the trend after seeing this report in the "Suzhou Xunbao". The content of the novel is basically absurd. If you can find historical records to read the relevant records, they are considered to be rigorously researched. The most popular novel directly puts Wu Ding and Fu Shuo into the mold of Liu Bei and Zhuge Liang, saying that the Dog Rong invasion was at that time. , Wu Ding Yujia went on a personal expedition, and Fu Shuo made a lot of clever plans and defeated the dog soldiers.

This is pure fabrication. The Wu Ding period was the most powerful stage of the Shang Dynasty. Wu Ding conquered the south and swept the north, greatly expanding the territory of the Shang Dynasty. He also plundered a large amount of property and slaves from surrounding countries. No foreign country dared to invade the Shang Dynasty. .

Moreover, Wu Ding fought Tufang, Tongue and Qiang people. The Quanrong tribe only appeared in the Zhou Dynasty, which was more than five hundred years different from Wu Ding's period. However, these shortcomings did not prevent the people from liking the book at all. "The Romance of Emperor Wu Ding of the First Shang Dynasty Conquered the North" directly became a classic and was adapted into many local operas. The author also left his name in history, and some people even started to build Wu Ding temples. Burning incense and worshiping King Wu Ding of Shang Dynasty.

……

At the same time, in Nanjing, the great historian Jiao Hong was entertaining Fan Runan, who was visiting Nanjing from Ningbo, in his newly built Danyuan Library.

Jiao Hong of Nanjing and Fan Jia of Ningbo are both world-famous bibliophiles.

Before the Jiajing and Wanli years, there were not many book collectors in the Ming Dynasty, because the publishing industry was in decline at that time, and the books on the market were basically only published works of ancients. There were only dozens of new books published every year, so there was really nothing to collect.

The book-collecting trend in the late Ming Dynasty first originated from Li Kaixian of Zhangqiu, followed by Jiao Hong of Jinling. The two were called "Northern Li Nanjiao", but the book-collecting trend had already started before Jiao Hong and Li Kaixian, and that was Fan Runan's grandfather. After Fan Qin resigned, he built a library in Ningbo for his private collection of books.

——The library built by Fan Qin is called Tianyi Pavilion.

Jiao Hong took Fan Runan around his library and said to Fan Runan: "To prevent fire, you need to use walls, and there should be frequent partitions between bookshelves. Some people think that there should be more water tanks, but if there is too much water, there will be tide. In fact, I think the most important thing about fire prevention is to follow strict rules when entering and exiting the library."

"Even if you have to be careful for a thousand days, if such flammable things are exposed to sparks, it will only take half an hour to burn everything stored in your home. Therefore, the first rule of my two libraries is that no fireworks can enter the building. , within fifty steps of the library, the smoker hands over the fire fold and the fire sickle."

"All the books in the building are catalogued. First look at the catalog to find books, then take out the books from the building. Only after walking fifty steps from the building can you hold a lamp to view them. There is no light in the building all year round."

Fan Runan nodded repeatedly after hearing this: "Our Fan family can refer to this rule. I smell the special aroma in Mr. Danyuan's library, so I think it uses more than just common medicinal materials."

"This is my family's unique book-keeping prescription. I learned it from someone in Shandong. It prevents insects and has a refreshing fragrance. It also prevents the pages from turning yellow. It is only sold once a year. It saves a lot of labor compared to common insect-proof prescriptions. , I can make a copy and give it to my friend.”

"Thank you very much," Fan Runan asked Jiao Hong again, "I wonder if Mr. Danyuan has time these days. Can you let me copy the catalog of books in the building?"

"Just ask my son to copy the bibliography. Unfortunately, I am going out these days." (End of Chapter)