Chivalrous case-solving novels in Song and Yuan Dynasties

With the prosperity of commodity economy and the growth of citizen class, the "talking" industry is booming. In the Southern Song Dynasty, there were four kinds of "talking": novels, telling classics, acting history and telling mud stories, and novels were divided into eight categories: ghosts, smoke powder, legends, case-solving, dramas, sticks, witches and immortals.

There were 65,438+065,438+0 titles about chivalry in Ye Luo's Drunken Man Tan at the end of the Song Dynasty, but now there are only "Judao", "Ten Dragon Taotie Monk" (that is, "Wan Xiu's Mother Hates the Mountain Pavilion") and "Gongbang" and "Yang Wen's Biography to Stop the Tiger". The latter told Yang that his wife had been robbed and taken back, and there was no obvious chivalry. The former is a story about thieves and gluttonous monks, and ten dragons are wonderful. Among them, Yin Zong, the dutiful son, saved a weak girl and was killed by thieves. This can be said to contain more chivalrous elements; But it is more important to highlight Yin Zong's filial piety to his mother. In addition, Shi Hong, Zhao Longhu and Chen Junhui (8) are also the handwriting of Song people. It is also written in the work that Guo Wei attacked and killed the Shang Swallow who bullied the goodness, but it was only slightly involved. Its main purpose was to show the hero's unusual heroism before he got rich, rather than to describe chivalrous behavior. In a word, there are few stories about Song people's "giant knives" and "shoulder poles" today, and there is nothing unique in describing chivalry.

China's popular novels flourished in the Ming Dynasty. Many the legend of heroes and historical romances have stories of heroes doing heroic things. Among them, the most prominent is the Water Margin written by Shi Naian at the end of Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of Ming Dynasty on the basis of the long-term widespread spread of the water margin story and related scripts and dramas, which has a great influence on the creation of novels and operas in China in later generations and has a far-reaching influence.

From the chivalrous novels of the Ming Dynasty, it can be seen (1) that the "righteousness" of ancient chivalrous men and the "righteousness" of assassins have been completely integrated. That is to say, the ancient Assassin's Creed of "repaying kindness" and "dying for a confidant" has become an inseparable flesh and blood of the chivalrous people who save lives and help others. (2) Individual heroic deeds gradually converge into a collective rebellion against the government. (3) The righteousness of a friend is more important than the loyalty of a gentleman. (4) "learn martial arts and taste the emperor's home. "Just because the traitors are in power, temporarily send someone to track to the mountains. -The ultimate wish of Jianghu heroes is to "return to God", gain "fame and fortune" and "seal his wife's shadow". The second point mentioned above is probably related to the social background of novel creation in the late Yuan Dynasty and the peasant uprising in the late Ming Dynasty. Other viewpoints mainly reflect the ideology of the civil class, which has been growing since the Song Dynasty but far from becoming an independent class.

There were some fragmentary case-solving stories before the Sui Dynasty, such as "Ba Huang's Judgment" in Ying Shao's Custom Yi Tong in the Eastern Han Dynasty, "Filial Piety in the East China Sea" and "Killing Brother in the Later Zhou Dynasty" in Jin Gan Bao's Sou, and "Shi Hong's Killing" in Yan Zhitui's Killing Record in the Northern Qi Dynasty. But these are only recorded as general historical stories, or simply "flaunting ghosts and gods and praising the supernatural", which can not be regarded as conscious literary creation.

In the Tang Dynasty, with the prosperity of the whole culture, literature and art, case-solving novels also flourished. For example, Zhang Kun's Notes, Niu Su's Moon Hee, Kang Pian's Notes on Opera, and Gao Yanxiu's Queshi all recorded many case-solving stories. These works are either ornaments of official cases or records of interesting (or strange) rumors of solving crimes. The writing is very simple. Generally speaking, there are many unjust prisons that exaggerate the intelligence of competent officials in solving crimes and show the cases of stupid officials, and a few people praise the indomitable spirit of the victims (revenge). This is a manifestation of intellectuals' mentality of "helping the poor" and "securing the country" at that time.

At the end of the Song Dynasty, Ye Luo's "Talk about Drunken Weng" contains examples of "an affair case" and "a flower to judge a case". The former is only one article, but it is described in detail, with facts, confessions and judgments. The confessions of both men and women are quite long parallel prose. The following 15 pieces, because the focus is "Foil" 9, so the reason is very simple, only a few words; Every case has a judgment record, or a poem or a word, which is full of humor. In addition, there are many scripts that can be generally recognized as "case-solving" in the Song and Yuan Dynasties, such as Cui Ning's Wrong Cutting, Monk's Slips, Qizi Notes, Three Misunderstandings of Bodies in Baolong, Counting Golden Eels, Song Sigong's Killing Soul, Cao Boming's Misfinding Stolen Goods, etc. The similarities between these novels are as follows: First, they all belong to common cases of adultery, theft and murder for money. Second, pay attention to the life of litigants, especially the process of criminals committing crimes; The unjust, false and misjudged cases mainly depend on the resistance of the victims or the exposure of insiders. The official only tries according to the complaint and does not write about its case-solving activities. Third, or expose the fainting of officials, arbitrarily folding prisons, and ignoring human lives; Or show the mediocrity of officials, do not investigate the merits, and only rely on intercession to judge cases. Few works praise the divine judgment of the local officials like the appearance of Bao Long Tu San. This reflects the dark political corruption and social unrest in the Southern Song Dynasty and Yuan Dynasty, and the fact that civil crimes increased under the stimulation of commodity economy, and also shows the citizens' ideological and artistic interests at that time.