What are China's masterpieces?

There are Romance of the Three Kingdoms, The Water Margin, The Journey to the West, A Dream of Red Mansions, Flowers in a Mirror, Jin Ping Mei and so on.

1, Romance of the Three Kingdoms

Romance of the Three Kingdoms, one of China's classical Four Great Classical Novels, is China's first chapter-by-chapter historical romance novel. Its full name is Popular Romance of the Three Kingdoms (also known as Romance of the Three Kingdoms), written by Luo Guanzhong, a famous novelist in the late Yuan Dynasty and early Ming Dynasty.

There are several versions of the popular Romance of the Three Kingdoms, such as Jiajing Renwu Edition. By the end of the Ming Dynasty and the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, Mao Zonggang had rearranged the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, revised the wording and changed the poems.

The Romance of the Three Kingdoms describes the history of nearly a hundred years from the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty to the beginning of the Western Jin Dynasty, mainly describing the war, telling the story of the warlord melee in the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the political and military struggle between Wei, Shu and Wu, and finally Sima Yan unified the three countries and established the Jin Dynasty. It reflects the transformation of various social struggles and contradictions during the Three Kingdoms period, summarizes the historical changes of this era, and shapes a group of heroes of the Three Kingdoms.

The book can be roughly divided into five parts: The Yellow turban insurrectionary, Dong Zhuo's rebellion, competing among the heroes, the Three Kingdoms' separation, and the Three Kingdoms' return to Jin. On the vast historical stage, a magnificent war scene was staged. Luo Guanzhong, the author, combines the thirty-six strategies of Sun Tzu's Art of War between the lines, including both the plot and the strategy of Sun Tzu's Art of War.

Romance of the Three Kingdoms is the first novel, the first historical novel and the first literati novel in the history of China literature.

2. Water Margin

The Water Margin is one of China's four classical novels. It is a chapter-by-chapter novel with the Sung River Uprising as the main story background at the end of the Northern Song Dynasty, and it belongs to a heroic legend in genre. The author or editor is generally regarded as Shi Naian, and most of the existing periodicals have one or two people, Shi Naian and Luo Guanzhong.

The book describes the grand story that Liangshan heroes resisted oppression, and Shui Bo Liangshan grew stronger and surrendered to the court. After surrendering to the court, they suppressed tian hu, Wang Qing, Fang La and other political forces against the Song government, which eventually led to tragic failure.

It artistically reflects the whole process of the Sung River Uprising from its occurrence, development to failure in China history, profoundly reveals the social roots of the uprising, enthusiastically praises the uprising heroes' resistance struggle and social ideals, and specifically reveals the internal historical reasons for the failure of the uprising.

After the publication of Water Margin, it had a great impact on the society and became a model of China's novel creation in later generations. The Water Margin is one of the earliest Zhang Hui vernacular novels in the history of China, which is widely circulated and well known. At the same time, it is also one of the works with epic characteristics in China literature, which has a far-reaching impact on narrative literature in China and even East Asia.

3. Journey to the West

The Journey to the West is the first romantic novel with chapters and sections in ancient China. There are hundreds of The Journey to the West published in Ming Dynasty, and there is no author's signature. Wu et al., a scholar in Qing Dynasty, first proposed that The Journey to the West was written by Wu Cheng'en in Ming Dynasty.

This novel is based on the historical event of "Tang priest learning from the scriptures" and deeply depicts the social reality at that time through the author's artistic processing. The book mainly describes the story of the Monkey King's encounter with Tang Priest, Pig Bajie, Friar Sand after his birth, and his disturbance to the Heaven Palace. He went west to learn from the scriptures, demonized all the way, and after eighty-one difficulties, he finally arrived in the Western Heaven to meet the Tathagata Buddha, and finally the Five Saints died.

Since its publication, The Journey to the West has been widely circulated among the people, and various versions have emerged one after another. There are six editions in Ming Dynasty, seven editions and manuscripts in Qing Dynasty, and thirteen lost editions have been recorded in ancient books.

After the Opium War, a large number of China's classical literary works were translated into western languages, and The Journey to the West gradually spread to Europe and America, and was translated into English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, sign language, Swahili, Russian, Czech, Romanian, Polish, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese. Chinese and foreign scholars have published many research papers and monographs, which have given high evaluation to this novel.

The Journey to the West is a classic of China's ghost novels, reaching the peak of ancient romance novels, and is called the four classical novels of China together with The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, The Water Margin and A Dream of Red Mansions.

4. A Dream of Red Mansions

A Dream of Red Mansions is a novel with the style of chapters and chapters in ancient China, also known as The Story of the Stone. It is listed as the first of the four classical novels in China, and is generally believed to be written by Cao Xueqin, a writer in the Qing Dynasty.

Based on the rise and fall of Jia, Shi, Wang and Xue, the novel depicts the life of a group of beautiful women in the boudoir from the perspective of Jia Baoyu, a rich son, and shows the true beauty and tragedy of human nature. It can be said that it is an epic that shows the beauty of women from all angles.

The version of A Dream of Red Mansions can be divided into two systems: 120 "cost" and 80 "fat cost". Cheng Ben is printed by Cheng Weiyuan, while Fat Ben is an early manuscript copied and commented by Zhi Yanzhai in different periods. Fat book is the basic book of craft book. The first 80 chapters of this new edition of popular reading are examined according to the fat version, and the last 40 chapters are examined according to the course version, with the signature "Cao Xueqin, anonymous sequel, Cheng Weiyuan, finishing".

A Dream of Red Mansions is an earthly novel with world influence. It is recognized as the pinnacle of China's classical novels, an encyclopedia of feudal society in China and a master of traditional culture.

The novel encourages itself with the theme of "talking about love and recording things", only follows its logic, gets rid of the old conventions, is fresh and unique, and has achieved extraordinary artistic achievements. The special brushwork of "the truth is hidden and the village tells lies" has opened the brains of later readers and speculated for a long time. Later generations formed an outstanding school-redology around the study of reading A Dream of Red Mansions.

5, "Mirror Flower Edge"

Jing Hua Yuan is a novel by Li Ruzhen, a scholar in Qing Dynasty. The first half of the novel tells the story of Tang Ao, Duo Jiugong and others who traveled overseas by boat, including their experiences and history in countries such as daughter country, scholar country and intestine-less country.

The second half tells the story of Wu Zetian's selection of talented women in the imperial examination, Tang Xiaoshan, born of Baihua Fairy, and hundreds of talented women born of other flower fairies, who made a difference in the DPRK. His magical and humorous creative technique is a classic, and a colorful picture of the sky wheel is beautifully outlined.

Jing Hua Yuan is also a novel about women's issues.

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