Peach Blossom Love at the Bottom of the Fan

[Love Tribulation in Troubled Times·Qinhuai Jinghong] During the Chongzhen period of the late Ming Dynasty, in the shadow of oars and lights on the Qinhuai River, Hou Fangyu, a talented scholar who restored society, and Li Xiangjun, a singer, caught a glimpse of each other. Hou Fangyu presented the fan with a poem titled: "The red tower on the slanted path reflects the sunshine, and the fragrance of the king meets the drunken clouds for the first time." The fragrance of ink on the fan has not dissipated, but little does he know that this palace fan will eventually be soaked with blood and tears, becoming a bloody footnote to a legend. [The traitor sets up a trap and the love fan is covered in dust] Ruan Dacheng, a remnant of the eunuch party, coveted the restoration of Qingliu in the society. Taking advantage of Hou Fangyu's lack of money, he asked someone to send him a generous dowry in order to make friends with him. Li Xiangjun saw through the treacherous plot and threw the pearl back in front of the steps: "Don't teach innocence in troubled times!" Ruan Dacheng held a grudge and secretly laid a net. When Zuo Liangyu moved to Nanjing, Hou Fangyu tried to dissuade him from writing a letter, but he was framed as a treason and forced to flee to Yangzhou overnight. On the eve of departure, Li Xiangjun hid the love fan in his arms: "When you come back, the peach blossoms under the fan will meet again." [Blood Splattered Peach Blossom·Mountains and Rivers Cry Blood] When the Hongguang regime was established in the Southern Ming Dynasty, Ruan Dacheng's power became overwhelming, forcing Li Xiangjun to remarry Caofu Tianyang. Xiang Jun fought to the death and hit his head against the jade pillar. Blood drops splashed on the plain white fan like the first bloom of a red plum. My friend Yang Longyou felt his sincerity and strength, so he dyed the blood stains with blue dots and turned them into a picture of burning peach blossoms. This fan was passed around by artist Su Kunsheng and finally arrived at Hou Fangyu's desk. At this time, the city of Yangzhou was destroyed and Shi Kefa died for his country. Hou Fangyu looked at the blood on his fan and wet his blue shirt with tears. [Qixia Broken Edge·The bottom of the fan is empty] The Qing army went south and the southern capital fell. Hou Fangyu and Li Xiangjun unexpectedly reunited at Baiyun Temple in Qixia Mountain. The two people, who had survived the disaster, held fans and looked at each other, only to see that the peach blossoms on the fans had faded due to the flames of war, leaving only mottled blood stains. Taoist priest Zhang Yaoxing shouted sternly: "The country has been destroyed, where is the family? Why should we love our children!" Hou Fangyu trembled and tried to hold Xiangjun's hand, but he saw her throwing the peach blossom fan into the brazier with tears in her eyes. In the fierce flames, Li Xiangjun turned around and walked into the nunnery. Hou Fangyu staggered to his knees, and her last whisper echoed in his ears: "The peach blossoms under the fan must eventually wither, and there is no romance when the mountains and rivers are broken." [History is as sharp as a knife, and the aftertaste is long] During his ten years in office, Kong Shang collected the relics of the Southern Ming Dynasty and revised his drafts three times, turning this epic poem into a legend, which "uses the emotions of separation and reunion to describe the feelings of rise and fall". The peach blossom fan was not only a token of love between Hou and Li, but also a metaphor for the fate of the Southern Ming Dynasty - the bloody peach blossoms on the fan represent the conspiracy of powerful traitors, the blood of loyal ministers, the tears of the common people, and the literati's sigh for the mountains and rivers of their motherland. For three hundred years, this folding fan soaked in the vicissitudes of history has always been swaying on the opera stage, telling the eternal tragedy of "white bones and green ashes grow Ai Xiao, and the bottom of the peach blossom fan is sent to the Southern Dynasties". Concept: Analysis of the concept of "Peach Blossom Love at the Bottom of the Fan": The universe at the bottom of the fan reflects history. 1. Dual variations of the narrative of family and country and personal destiny. With the love tragedy of Hou Fangyu and Li Xiangjun as the bright line, and the collapse of the small court of the Southern Ming Dynasty as the dark line, an epic pattern of "the rise and fall of the Peach Blossom Fan at the bottom" is constructed. The fan is not only a token of love, but also a witness to history - when Li Xiangjun's blood splattered on the plain fan, what was splashed was not only the loyalty of his daughter's family, but also the blood and tears of the broken mountains and rivers; Hou Fangyu's final submission to Taoist Zhang's disciples was not only a despair of love, but also a metaphor for the collective fate of the scholar-bureaucrats who were helpless. This narrative strategy of "using the emotions of separation and union to write about the feelings of rise and fall" sublimates personal emotions into national memory, giving the play of talented men and beautiful women a "poetic history" character. 2. The dilemma of human nature in the historical cycle. Through the images of powerful traitors such as Ma Shiying and Ruan Dacheng, the eternal proposition of power alienation under the feudal system is revealed. They are both promoters of history and victims of history - Ruan Dacheng's flattery when he presented "Swallow Notes" to please Emperor Hongguang, and his subsequent crazy escape when Yangzhou City was destroyed formed a bitter contrast, exposing the distortion and depravity of human nature under the autocratic system. The chivalrous and bravery of Liu Jingting, Su Kunsheng and other street artists constitute the moral mirror of civil society, guarding the fire of civilization in the torrent of history. This binary structure of the confrontation between good and evil has become a miniature specimen for observing ancient Chinese society. 3. Dialectical unity of artistic fiction and historical reality Kong Shangren followed the creative principle of "the successes and failures of the government, the gathering and dispersion of literati, all based on the time and place, without any pretense", and integrated historical materials such as Hou Fangyu's "The Biography of Li Ji" with artistic imagination. For example, although the plot of "Xiangjun guarding the tower" is not found in the official history, it embodies the collective characteristics of the famous Qinhuai prostitutes with "chivalrous bones and tender hearts"; the tragic scene of Shi Kefa sinking into the river and dying for his country has become a symbol of national integrity after artistic processing. This creative technique of coexistence of fiction and reality makes "The Peach Blossom Fan" transcend the scope of ordinary historical dramas and become a cultural code for interpreting the Ming and Qing dynasties. 4. Tragic Aesthetics and the Awakening of Enlightenment Consciousness The whole play is based on the program of "writing the feeling of rise and fall through the feelings of separation and union", and completes the sublimation of thought through a triple tragic structure: love tragedy (the separation of Hou and Li) → political tragedy (the fall of the Southern Ming Dynasty) → cultural tragedy (the spiritual collapse of the scholar-bureaucrats). When Taoist Zhang angrily rebuked "two idiots, look at where the country is and where the home is", the light of enlightenment that marked the awakening of the literati began to penetrate the fog of history. This creative concept of integrating personal tragedy into a grand historical narrative makes "The Peach Blossom Fan" a milestone in the transformation of Chinese classical opera from an entertainment tool to an ideological carrier. 5. The symbolic meaning of the symbol system 1. The Peach Blossom Fan: It is both a token of love and a pawn in the power game; it is not only the "national destiny map" of the Southern Ming Dynasty, but also the "pillar of shame" for the scholar-bureaucrat class. 2. The Qinhuai River: It is both a gentle and wealthy land, and an ukiyo-e painting of troubled times; it is both a cultural source and a moral quagmire. 3. Qingdeng Ancient Buddha: It is both a refuge from the world and a place of awakening; it is both the end of history and the starting point of civilization. The construction of this multi-layered symbolic system makes "The Peach Blossom Fan" open to interpretation and becomes a cultural prism for readers of different eras to interpret history. Over the past three hundred years, from Kong Shangren's original intention of "borrowing someone else's wine glass to pour the lump in his own chest" to the contemporary audience's thinking on "how individuals deal with themselves in the torrent of history", this legend has always maintained fresh ideological vitality.