The main focus is debunking rumors. The female lead has little plot involvement, and the sky screen is a plot device.
(Maybe a female lead with little plot involvement is normal for sky screen stories. My female lead’s plot involvement is in a state of Schrodinger’s cat.)
Paragraph comments are open, but don’t forget to bookmark!
Give the know-it-alls fewer opportunities to scold the author, fewer and fewer.
“Yuan Zhen, courtesy name Weizhi, was a renowned politician and writer of the mid-Tang. Together with his close friend Bai Juyi, he led the New Yuefu Movement. He was as famous as Bai Juyi, and was one of the most popular poets of his time.”
“But posterity remembers him for supposedly seducing and abandoning his cousin, securing his first marriage by currying favor with the powerful, and his rumored affairs with Xue Tao and Liu Caichun, two of the four great female poets of the mid-Tang.”
Yuan Zhen, then a Collation Office Clerk: What cousin? Which cousin? Wasn’t I married to Maozhi because my father-in-law chose me for her? Did I even know Xue Tao from Shu? And who is this Liu Caichun?
Bai Juyi, then a Collation Office Clerk: Weizhi had such a colorful love life? How come I’ve never heard about it?
“Likewise, his close friend Bai Juyi is portrayed in later works as having written a poem that drove Guan Panpan to suicide, keeping courtesans in his old age and then abandoning them, and showing no respect for his elderly wife. He, too, has left a glorious mark on the history of Chinese rumors.”
Bai Juyi, then a Collation Office Clerk: Could it be that I’ll lose my good name in old age? The history of rumors... Why do later generations have nothing better to do than make this stuff up?
Yuan Zhen, then a Collation Office Clerk: Letian and I have both been harmed by rumors. If I ever become a censor, I shall speak out and remonstrate fearlessly. I will not believe rumors, and I will make the court a place of integrity.
“Add to that the mama’s boy Lu You, who supposedly abandoned his cousin, and the scumbag Su Shi, who supposedly traded his pregnant concubine for a horse, and we have the four great victims of romantic rumors in Chinese literary history.”
Lu You at the Old Study Retreat: Me and my cousin? Does that sort of “and” in The Tale of Yingying mean I was writing about myself? And what does any of this have to do with my mother?
Su Shi in Huizhou: What do you mean, I traded a pregnant concubine for a horse? I’m not that morally depraved! How could later generations believe something so outrageous?
“Next, let’s talk about historical rumors.”
Here’s a rumor collection, gathering rumors mentioned by readers and ones the author has thought of:
Wu Zetian, who supposedly killed her daughter and had her bones crushed
Ying Fusu, supposedly benevolent and fond of Confucianism
The supposed love triangle between Cao Pi, Cao Zhi, and Zhen Mi
Zhao Guangyi, rumored to be both licentious and vicious
The shame of the Jingkang Incident, supposedly falling from a female corpse
Wei Zheng’s tomb toppled by Li Shimin
The “Dihua” siblings, supposedly endowed with cheat abilities
Sima Qian’s Records of the Grand Historian, supposedly all made-up stories
Emperor Hongwu’s enduring love for Empress Ma
The tale of Wan Guifei causing miscarriages, supposedly all during Chenghua’s reign
Judy and Fang Xiaoru’s ten-family execution
Li Shimin taking the former crown prince’s consort
(The rumors about Sima Qian include supposedly hating Wei Qing and Huo Qubing, showing favoritism toward Xiang Yu, and lacking the integrity of a historian. They’re hard to work into the story, so I’ve included them separately here.)
Given the limits of time and energy, I may not be able to cover every rumor. I’ll focus on the more influential ones that have been less thoroughly debunked. I’m posting this list first, so anyone interested can look them up and see what rebuttals are available.
If you think of any rumors, feel free to mention them in the comments. If you spot anything I’ve gotten wrong, please say so in the comments too. This story is meant to debunk rumors, so I can’t go spreading new ones in the process.
Finally,
I’m responsible for the OOC. The historical figures get all the glory.
The author is a perfectionist about this story, so if you see a chapter locked again, it’s probably because I’ve gone back to tweak it. I hope I can live up to everyone’s affection and write an even better story.
All classical Chinese in the sky screen segments can be skipped without affecting your understanding.
One last thing: this is just a novel, meant to be entertaining and to help you pick up a bit of historical knowledge over tea. It isn’t an academic monograph, and it does have an element of entertainment. If you want to read scholarly works, you can check out the papers and books cited in the author’s notes. I’m sure their authors, like this author, would welcome further research!
Theme: Start by dispelling rumors yourself
Things that are not in the "Old Book of Tang" can be clearly remembered in the "New Book of Tang" hundreds of years ago. Whoever doesn't praise him says NB, the time machine allowed him to study it in advance.
It suddenly occurred to me that Zhao Guangyi demoted his son Zhao Yuanzuo to a commoner and wanted to be assigned to Junzhou, and severed the father-son relationship with him, just because he locked the servants and concubines in the palace and set fire to the palace. Then the other princes and officials cried and begged for help, and wrote letters one after another to let Zhao Yuanzuo stay in Kaifeng without being assigned. When Zhao Heng succeeded to the throne, he immediately restored Zhao Yuanzuo's clan status and was crowned king again. In the eyes of this group of people, servants and concubines are not human beings at all, and being burned alive by their "master" is nothing. Instead, Zhao Guangyi, who wanted to punish his son for his "servant", was judged to be cruel and mean in this incident.
If Wu Zetian really killed her daughter, and it could be recorded and known, then why did no one say anything about it when she was fighting against Wu Zetian? Even her political opponents did not use this to criticize her. Instead, after a hundred years of death, she suddenly seemed to have her face directly pressed against the crib and saw the whole process.
I feel like this is just a pornographic book, and then I randomly talk about some famous people.
Huang Yao, the mother who created human beings, will be angry no matter who she is, she is so shameless
Probably because some of Jeff's rumors have been deeply rooted in people's hearts and history, so it is difficult to tell the truth from the false. However, I really didn't expect that there were still people who regarded the abandonment as Wang Anshi's fault. I thought it was a well-known thing for the old party to abandon the land. Even if Er Su, who we have a literary filter, seems to have supported the abandonment, Su Che seems to be a leader of the old party. Before I learned about it, this was something I had never thought of. After all, Su Xun had written "On the Six Kingdoms", so how could his son actually support abandoning the land?
Feng Menglong is pretty good. When you look at the author, Feng Menglong, most people know that he is just a novelist. He is not a rumored writer with slight modifications like Spring and Autumn's style of writing. Instead, he is bold and bold, and you can tell at a glance what type of novel he is writing. For example, Kong Rong was humble and friendly, and Zhu Yunwen did not let me bear the name of Uncle Killer. There are other records that can be clearly falsified by mirroring each other. It is more difficult to refute rumors than Feng Menglong, who is famous for making up stories, but there is still evidence to follow. What is really difficult to refute is Chunqiu's writing style. Everything is true, the details are subtle but correct, and praise and criticism bring big problems. If this becomes isolated evidence, how can we overturn it?
I know these rumors about Su Shi [Xingxingyan], but these are actually rumors about Shen Kuo! I have always felt that Shen Kuo was an all-rounder with poor personal qualities but great abilities.
At that time, Wu Zetian had not been enfeoffed, and it was still Changsun Wuji who had the final say. If any rumors about the death of the princess really leaked out, would Changsun Wuji and his group let this opportunity pass? Li Zhi deposed the king and queen in order to regain the imperial power, so why did he need to sacrifice another princess to strengthen the confidence of the deposed queen?
Can you block the guy who uses fantasy novels as official history? His words are messy and long. It makes people wonder if this guy deliberately fills the comment area with things that are unreliable at first glance, just to make people who read the comment area to check the reputation of the article think that the rumor refuting in the text is also nonsense.