1. The Tang Dynasty was the first stage. This is a period from historical facts to texts. Master Xuanzang was born in the early Tang Dynasty. His common surname was Chen and Yi, and his legal name was Xuanzang. He was born in Luozhou.

2. The late Tang Dynasty and the Five Dynasties are the second stage, which is the period when historical materials are transformed into myths. It is vulgar to complete its transformation from realism to myth. Buddhism prevailed in the Tang Dynasty, and proverbs became common in Buddhist temples. The earliest existing popular material about this matter is Tang Sanzang's Poems of Learning from the Scriptures carved in the Southern Song Dynasty.

3. The Yuan Dynasty to the early Ming Dynasty is the third stage. This is the period when myth turned into folk literature. There are two zaju in The Journey to the West. One was written by Wu Changling in the Yuan Dynasty, and the other was thirty percent off six books, which was mostly considered by Yang Jingxian in the early Ming Dynasty.

4. The middle and late Ming Dynasty was the fourth stage, which produced Zhang Hui's novel The Journey to the West. As mentioned above, before the novel came into being, the storyline and character types had been roughly formed. No matter how this story is written, it is impossible to get rid of its influence, and artistic creation can only be perfunctory within this basic framework.

5. The Qing Dynasty is the fifth stage, which is the only period in The Journey to the West's creative process. Although there have been some research work, most of them are general and lack of positivism.

I hope the above information is helpful to you.