Information about Feng Menglong

Feng Menglong (1574- 1646), also known as dragon, male fish, son, alias Long Ziyou, owner of Mohanzhai, slave of Wu Xia's Ci, slave of Gusu's Ci, and history of Qianzhou, used many other pseudonyms. He was born in the second year of Wanli in the late Ming Dynasty. At this time, it was the Renaissance in the western world, echoing it from a distance. In our big eastern country with thousands of years of civilization, there are also many deviant thinkers and artists. Li Zhuowu, Tang Xianzu, Yuan Hongdao and many other literati wrote brilliant chapters in the history of China's thought and literature with their shocking opinions, distinctive personality characteristics and outstanding artistic achievements. Among these people, Feng Menglong made a unique contribution to China literature by creating, collecting, sorting out and editing novels, operas, folk songs, jokes and other popular literature. Wang Longwu of the Tang Dynasty in the Southern Ming Dynasty was two years old, that is, Shunzhi of the Qing Dynasty was three years old, at the age of 73. Around this year, there appeared many successful writers, such as Ling Mengchu (1644), Hou Tongzeng, Huang Daozhou, Wu, Xia, Qi Biaojia, Liu (1645), Ruan Dacheng and Wang Siren (1. A Chinese Renaissance in the embryonic stage of capitalism died under the iron hoof of foreign invasion.

Feng Menglong was born in Changzhou (present-day Suzhou), Wuxian County, Suzhou Prefecture, Nanzhili, with a noble family background. The three brothers of the Feng family are called "Martial Arts Sanfeng". My brother Meng Gui is a painter and my brother Meng Xiong is a student. His works have been passed down to this day. Feng Menglong's own poems don't exist today, but fortunately, his 30 works have been handed down from generation to generation, leaving a group of immortal treasures for our cultural treasure house. In addition to Sanyan, which is widely known, there are many classic works, such as New Biography, Supplementary Biography of Three Demons in Suiping, Think Tank, A Brief History of Ancient and Modern Times, Notes of Taiping Guangji, Love History, The Legend of Mohanzhai, etc.

There are so many works in his life, which are closely related to his own interests and talents as well as his life experiences. In his childhood and youth, like many scholars in feudal society, he devoted himself to reading Confucian classics for imperial examinations. He once recalled in "Fa Fan" in the book "Pointing to the Moon by Phosphorus Classics": "I was educated in my childhood, and everyone asked me, and the secrets of all directions were sparse; After 20 years of painstaking efforts, I have learned more. " Wang Ting, a long-lost friend, said: "For thousands of years, the history of 2 1 century has been turned over." However, his road to the imperial examination was very bumpy. It was not until the third year of Chongzhen (1630) that he was recruited as Gong Sheng at the age of 57. The following year, an exception was made to grant Dantu. In seven years (1634), it was promoted to Shouning County, Fujian Province. I returned to my hometown four years later. In the turbulent situation in the world, I experienced the ravages of Jurchen and died of depression.

Throughout his life, although he had the ambition to govern the country, he did not want to be bound by feudal morality. His admiration for Li Zhuowu, who dared to preach chaos and mislead the people, his hanging out with prostitutes and his love for slang novels ... were all considered dirty, unrestrained and intolerable by Neo-Confucianism. As a result, he had to sink into the lower class for a long time, or work hard to make a living, or as an editor of a bookseller to support his family. Because of this, he not only established his lofty position in the history of China literature, but also established his lofty position in the history of China publishing, which has not been fully studied and understood so far. Without his diligence and knowledge beyond the eyes of his contemporaries, the scripts of the Song and Yuan Dynasties scattered in the Ming Dynasty and the folk songs, operas and operas would all die out, leaving a long trace in the history of literature. Feng Menglong's achievement can be compared with the significance of Confucius deleting the Book of Songs!

From the publishing point of view, these books compiled by Feng Menglong have an important feature, that is, they pay attention to practicality. His works recording historical events at that time were of great news value at that time; His textbook explaining Confucian classics is welcomed by scholars who study imperial examinations. His imitations, novels, novels, plays and folk songs have a larger readership for ordinary people and brought rich profits to booksellers. This makes Feng Menglong's editing work have some characteristics of the publishing industry under the modern market economy. In the book Think Tank, these characteristics are also fully reflected.

Think Tank, A Brief History of Ancient and Modern Times and Love History are another novel trilogy series of Feng Menglong. The purpose of the think tank is to "dispel doubts", the brief history of ancient and modern times is to "cure corruption" and the love history is to "love education", all of which express Feng Menglong's concern for the world. Think tank is one of the most social and political organizations.

And the actual story. He said in "Zhi Xu":

People have wisdom, but there is still water; The earth without water is scorched earth, and people without wisdom are walking dead. Wisdom is used by people, and there is still water flowing on the ground. The terrain is full of water, and the personnel depression is full of wisdom. The forest of success or failure in Zhou Lan can not be ignored.

He wants to sum up the reasons of "success or failure in ancient and modern times", which has far-reaching significance.

Think Tank was first edited in the sixth year of tomorrow's apocalypse (1625). This year, Feng Menglong has reached the age of destiny, still living the life of a library teacher, compiling books for booksellers and solving the problem of cooking without rice. At this time, the traitor Wei Zhongxian was in power, the prefect spy was in the East Factory, and Daxing was unjustly imprisoned. This is one of the darkest periods in China's feudal society. Such books compiled by Feng Menglong have a strong political color, and many chapters denounce the disadvantages of eunuchs in power, which makes people admire Feng's great wisdom and fearless spirit.

Later, this book was supplemented by Feng Menglong, and it was renamed Think Tank Supplement when it was reprinted. Other publications are also called Complete Works of Think Tank, Supplementary Think Tank Supplement, and Extended Think Tank Supplement. , the content is the same as the think tank supplement. The book * * * contains 1238 wisdom stories from the pre-Qin Dynasty to the Ming Dynasty, which are divided into ten parts and twenty-eight volumes. The political stories in Shangshu, Zhi Zhi and Tea Records express Feng's political opinions and diligent attitude towards being an official. "Courage", "skill" and "abstinence from governance" are stories of various political means; The story of Yu Zhi is eloquent and eloquent; "Bing Zhi" is a collection of various military strategies for winning by surprise attack. The wisdom stories of women in the past dynasties in the album "Wisdom in the Boudoir"; Miscellaneous Love collects all kinds of cunning tricks, even all kinds of tricks. Feng Menglong said in the Preface of the Ministry of Miscellaneous Affairs: "Justice is not taken from cunning, but is trapped in cunning; Great wisdom does not take advantage of petty gain, but great wisdom may deceive petty gain. Break its cunning, then the power wins; He who knows little will win. The situation is right, not before, small and complete, not big before? " Point out the cognitive value of these mixed wisdom stories. There are great strategies in politics, military affairs and diplomacy in the book, as well as whimsy in the daily life of small people such as foot soldiers, vagrants, servants, monks, farmers and painters. These stories have merged into a sea of ancient wisdom of the Chinese nation. The classics involved in the book cover almost all the official history before the Ming Dynasty and a large number of notes on unofficial history, which makes this kind of books on wisdom and strategy also have important data value and collating value. Most of the 1000 stories in the book are true and vivid, which is also very beneficial for us to study history today and enhance our national self-confidence and pride. In particular, the book's album "Wisdom in the Boudoir" describes many intelligent, brave and far-sighted women, which makes this book have a distinct anti-feudal people's character in the feudal era of "women without talent are virtue".

Feng Menglong wrote a general statement and a sub-statement in front of each department in the book, and wrote comments and comments after each article. These places are the most concentrated and direct expression of Feng's political attitude, outlook on life, love and hate, and they are all articles and first-hand materials for studying Feng's thoughts. The "Summary of the Four Ku Encyclopedias" said that this book "has occasional comments, but it is extremely thin." This evaluation from the standpoint of feudal orthodoxy is unfair. But there are some superstitious ideas in the book, and there are some words that denigrate ethnic minorities and peasant uprisings. These backward things are not difficult to identify today, so I won't go into details here.

There are many printed editions of Think Tank. The basic edition we used for proofreading this time is called Augmented Think Tank Supplement, and the title is Feng Menglong's Re-editing. Zhang Mingzhou, Ji Shen and Zhang Wocheng read it together. Although it was printed in the early Qing dynasty, compared with other Qing dynasty editions, this edition does not avoid the words "Yi" and "Lu", such as "Lu Tusi" in Xue Juan San, which was changed to "or" Khan ". The words "Yi people", "Yi customs" and "Arbitrary" in the same volume "Gao Gong" were originally changed to "Qi Min", "Folk Custom" and "Ren Min", which proves that this book may be the original edition of the late Ming Dynasty or a copy close to the original edition.