Wu Cheng'en (150 1 year-1582) was born in Sheyang Mountain. Han nationality, a native of Shanyang County, Huai 'an Prefecture (now Chuzhou District, Huai 'an City, Jiangsu Province). The Journey to the West, an outstanding novelist in China in Ming Dynasty, is one of the four classical novels of China. Chinese name: Wu Cheng'en alias: Sheyang Shanmin: birthplace of Han nationality: Shanyang County, Huai 'an Prefecture (now Huai 'an City, Jiangsu Province) Date of birth: 150 1 year of death: 1582 Occupation: representative work of novelist: Wu Cheng'en, The Journey to the West, born in a family where a small official was demoted to a small businessman. Father Wu Rui, whose name is Tingqi, sells "Wen Jie Cai Lu". He is a good tan, but he is somewhat unfair. He needs to caress a few angry sighs and feel depressed. " The word is like the middle, and it is called Sheyang Mountain People. Han nationality, a native of Shanyang County, Huai 'an Prefecture (now Chuzhou District, Huai 'an City, Jiangsu Province). The Journey to the West, an outstanding novelist in China in Ming Dynasty, is one of the four classical novels of China. He was born in a poor family where a scholar was reduced to a businessman. Wu Cheng'en was brilliant since he was a child. The Records of Huai 'an Prefecture recorded that he was "Minhui, a learned man, who wrote for poetry." However, his scientific examination was unfavorable, and he didn't make up for the "year-old tribute student" until middle age, and then he lived in Nanjing for a long time and subsidized his family by selling literature. In his later years, due to his poor family, he became a county magistrate in Changxing. Because he didn't like the darkness of officialdom, he quickly resigned angrily and died of poverty. Since childhood, Wu Cheng'en likes reading wild stories and is familiar with ancient myths and folklore. The frustration of the imperial examination hall and the hardships of life deepened his understanding of the feudal imperial examination system and the dark social reality, which prompted him to express his inner dissatisfaction and resentment in the form of strange novels.

He said to himself, "although my title is intellectual monster, I don't know ghosts, but I actually remember the variation of human beings, and I have a lesson." Wu Cheng'en's excellent novel The Journey to the West is based on Xuanzang's experience of learning from the West in the Tang Dynasty. On the basis of the Records of the Western Regions of the Tang Dynasty and the Biography of the Sanzang Master by the Tang Dynasty, it was finally written after sorting out and conceiving. With the help of mythical figures, the work expresses the author's dissatisfaction with reality and his desire to change reality, and reflects the political ideal of the author's desire to establish a kingly country of "monarch, saint and god". The novel reflects all kinds of situations in the real world with the help of the eighty-one difficulties experienced by Tang Priest and his disciples on the way to learn from the scriptures. This novel is bold in imagination and novel in conception. It adopts the modeling method of trinity of man, god and beast, and creates immortal artistic images such as the Monkey King and Pig Bajie. The book is well organized, complicated but not chaotic, with lively language, dialects and proverbs, and full of life. The theme dilutes the original religious color of the story, greatly enriches the realistic content of the work, and has democratic tendency and characteristics of the times. This work is both ironic and humorous. It presents a unique style different from previous stories. The appearance of The Journey to the West opened up a new category of ghost novels. The clever combination of well-meaning satire and bitter satire with serious criticism in the book directly affects the development of satirical novels. The Journey to the West is the peak of romanticism in ancient novels and a masterpiece of romanticism in the history of world literature. Encyclopedia americana thinks it is "a mythical novel with rich contents and brilliant ideas", and Encyclopedia de France says: "The description of the whole story is full of humor and wit, which gives readers strong interest.

"Since19th century, it has been translated into more than ten languages, such as Japanese, English, French, German and Russian, which are popular all over the world. Wu Cheng'en's poems were scattered, and later generations compiled four volumes of Sheyang Survival Draft. "Revelation of Huai 'an House" rated him as "sensitive and wise, full of books, writing for poetry, beautiful and elegant, with the wind of Qin Shaoyou. After the banter, there were several miscellaneous notes, which were famous for a while. " But that was after he died. He created a lot of works in his life, but most of his works were lost because of his poor family and childless. According to records, The Tales of a Lonely Studio Ding Yu Ji has been lost. At present, there are only four volumes of Sheyang survival draft left. It is generally believed that he is the ultimate author of China The Journey to the West, but there are also views that he is not. At present, there is controversy in academic circles (the old legend is Qiu Chuji, a Taoist priest of Quanzhen Sect in Yuan Dynasty). His father, Wu Rui, was born in an official family and started as a small businessman. He is optimistic and open-minded. The statue of Wu Cheng'en pursues the philosophy of happiness, naming his son as a benefactor, which means that he can study as an official, inherit the throne, benefit the people and be a loyal minister in history. When Wu Cheng'en was a child, he was eager to learn and read and recite quickly. He is good at painting, calligraphy, lyrics and music, and he is also proficient in Go. He also likes to collect calligraphy and paintings of celebrities. As a teenager, he was famous in his hometown for his outstanding literary talent and was appreciated by people. He thought he was "as good as picking up a mustard tuber" in the imperial examination. In addition to being diligent and eager to learn, he especially likes to search for anecdotes and read books such as immortals, ghosts, foxes and monkeys. For example, in this colorful mythical world, novels such as "Hundred Strange Records" and "Youyang Miscellanies" or unofficial history have developed a hobby of seeking novelty, and this hobby grows with age, which has a great influence on his The Journey to the West creation.

After the age of 30, the anecdotes he searched have been "hidden in his chest" and he has a creative plan. At the age of 50, I wrote the first ten chapters of The Journey to the West, which was interrupted for many years for some reason. It was not until he resigned in his later years and returned to his hometown that he finally finished The Journey to the West's creation which lasted for seven years. Wu Cheng'en, who entered his youth, is a wild and arrogant young man. Low social status, poverty and hardship made this great genius wild and uninhibited, which attracted a flood of laughter. Gone are the days when he was praised by others. When Wu Cheng'en was about twenty years old, she married a girl from her hometown named Ye. After marriage, she had deep feelings. Although Wu Cheng'en was bohemian, she was virtuous and faithful to her wife. In the ten years of Jiajing, Wu Cheng'en achieved excellent results in the annual examination and scientific research, obtained the qualification of Jinshi, and went to Nanjing to take the provincial examination with friends. However, his talent is not as good as his companion's. He, a famous genius in a village, fell into Sun Shan. The following spring, his father passed away with regret. Wu Cheng'en accepted the lesson of his first failure and studied hard for the next three years, but he still failed in the exam in the autumn of Jiajing 13th year. Wu Cheng'en felt ashamed and resentful, and fell ill this winter. Two defeats after having obtained the provincial examinations, plus the death of his father, dealt a great blow to Wu Cheng'en. In his view, it is not only unreasonable to fail the jury in the exam, but also a shame for parents and grandparents. However, he didn't think that he didn't have the ability to get in, but his fate was not good. He believes that "fame and fortune have their own lives, and it is stupid to have them?" Wu Cheng'en lived a different life, upright and upright.

The reason why he is so talented and tried and tested is probably related to his unwillingness to please Shangguan against his will. He hates corrupt officialdom, doesn't want to go against his heart, and holds a negative attitude towards the dark reality. He wrote in the poem "Jiro's Song of Seeking Mountains": "The disaster of human beings is not for apes and cranes, but for insects. Sitting in the song room with the five ghosts, I didn't see the four murderers in court. Ye Fu was very grateful, but he felt sorry for his kindness. Wear an evil knife on your chest. You can't hate it. Save the moon has a goal to save the Japanese bow. Are there no heroes in the world? Who can make a contribution of forest air for me and let it last for ten thousand years? " It is believed that the reason for the "civil disaster" and the ugliness of social reality is that the rulers are not good at employing people and let the bad guys like "Five Ghosts" and "Four Fierces" take power. He wanted to "make a fortune" and "be king" to turn Gan Kun around, but he was short of talents and ambitious, so he could only sigh generously when the wind came. The hardships of life have brought Wu Cheng'en no less pressure than the failure of scientific research. After his father died, he needed to manage all the expenses at home, but he was unable to support his family, let alone the means to support it. The source of family life, in addition to getting back six dou of rice from the university every month, can only eat the legacy left by my father. Wu Cheng'en, who had tasted the ups and downs of social life, began to think more clearly and deeply about the problems of social life, and used his own poems to fight against unreasonable society. Is Wu Cheng'en's Journey to the West written by Wu Cheng'en? This is a historical unsolved case for hundreds of years. In the 1920s, Hu Shi and Lu Xun demonstrated from the scholars of Qing Dynasty that The Journey to the West was written by Wu Cheng'en, a middle-aged tribute student of Jiajing in Huai 'an.

But judging from the various versions of Journey to the West that can be seen at present, none of them was written by Wu Cheng'en. Recently, Beijing Library Publishing House published a book "Talking about Wu Cheng'en-Revealing the Author's Problem of The Journey to the West", suggesting that the author of The Journey to the West was not Wu Cheng'en, but Li Chunfang, the "Prime Minister of Qing Dynasty" of Ming Jiajing. The idea of textual research is to start with the word "Jiao" in Huayang Teachers College at the beginning of A Journey to the West in Shidetang, compare the changes and development of the stories of adding, deleting and modifying the Biography of Explaining Hubei by Yang Zhi, The Journey to the West and Zhu, demonstrate the writing process of the novel, straighten out the publishing order of these three versions, and combine the thoughts of Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism embodied in them. Wu Cheng'en wrote a poem "To the Foothills of Sok Li", and the stone in the foothills is Li Chunfang's name. Li, a native of Xinghua, Jiangsu Province, was the number one scholar in Jiajing period. He was promoted to Zaifu because of his excellent writing of Qing Ci. When I was a child, I studied in Huayang Cave, Jiangsu, so I was nicknamed "Master Huayang Cave". He was appointed as the Yongle ceremony of the general school. There is a poem by The Journey to the West in the ninety-fifth chapter: "Colorful fragrance, a barren mountain suddenly smells fragrant;" The rainbow flows through the Qinghai River and the Sea for thousands of years, and electricity travels around Changchun and the Tang Dynasty. Flowers and trees are elegant, and wild flowers are moist and fragrant. Ancient elders left behind relics, and now I am glad that Mingjun lost the Jubao Hall. Mr. Shen found that the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh sentences of this poem implied "the old friend stayed behind", and the frontispiece "Huayang Dong Tian Teachers College" meant "making up a journey to the west".

Hu Shi and Lu Xun claimed that Wu Cheng'en was the author of The Journey to the West on the basis of The Records of Huai 'an Prefecture, which will be published tomorrow. The record records that Wu Cheng'en is The Journey to the West, but it doesn't explain why such a book was published. Xianfeng reprinted Huai 'an County Records in Qing Dynasty, and deleted this article. From the poems of three monks in the Tang Dynasty to the commentary and drama of Journey to the West in the Yuan Dynasty, and then to the appearance of hundreds of books in the middle of the Ming Dynasty, the creation of Journey to the West gradually changed from simple and immature folk words to literati, and finally reached a peak of artistic creation and became a model of ghost novel creation. The Journey to the West's research and interpretation has almost never stopped since the publication of "Shidetang Baihui Edition": there are always different opinions about the author, theme and whether the book is written or not. So far, we have found different versions of The Journey to the West, whether in the Ming or Qing Dynasty, or edited by Zhu, or edited by Huayang Teachers College, or written by Qiu Chuji, or simply without the author's name, but none of them are marked with the word "Wu Cheng'en". Thanks to the efforts of two great scholars, Hu Shi and Lu Xun, Wu Cheng'en became an almost unshakable author of The Journey to the West. In the late Republic of China, since the founding of the People's Republic of China, especially after 1980, the research on The Journey to the West's authors has gradually become a hot spot. Some scholars still question Wu Cheng'en's authorship. The reason is that writing Journey to the West has never been mentioned in Wu Cheng'en's poems or friends' words. Secondly, Wu Cheng'en wrote down the fact of The Journey to the West in the Records of Huai 'an Prefecture, which did not indicate that it was romance or official history, but in general, romance and official history were not recorded in local chronicles; Thirdly, The Journey to the West in Wu Cheng'en was classified as a geographical category in the Bibliography of Qianqingtang written by Huang Yuji, a bibliophile in Qing Dynasty.

Therefore, in Wu Cheng'en's introduction, it was suggested that The Journey to the West was written by Qiu Chuji, or by his disciples and descendants. There are also a few mathematicians who believe that The Journey to the West was written by Li Chunfang, the "Prime Minister of Qing Ci" in the Ming Dynasty. However, due to the scarcity and far-fetched arguments, most scholars do not agree with this statement. On the other hand, the argument that Wu Cheng'en is the author of The Journey to the West seems to be more and more convincing. Mainly: First, Wu Cheng'en's personal situation fully conforms to the characteristics of the creators of Journey to the West. Second, it gives a more reasonable and practical explanation to all kinds of questions. Thirdly, the most convincing is the dialect study in The Journey to the West's text. After 1980, there was a breakthrough in this field, which almost irrefutably proved that Wu Cheng'en was the author of The Journey to the West. At the end of 1983, Mr. Zhang pointed out in the article "Is Journey to the West Written by Wu Cheng'en" that during the more than 300 years from the advent of The Journey to the West to the 1920s, all kinds of publications were either edited by Zhu, or only edited by Huayang without the author's name, or written by Qiu Chuji, and none of them recognized Wu Cheng'en's copyright. Hu Shi also said in the preface of The Journey to the West in 192 1 that this work was "written by an unknown novelist after the middle of Ming Dynasty". Later, Mr. Lu Xun argued that Wu Cheng'en said that Hu Shi got the materials copied by Lu Xun, and Textual Research on Journey to the West also held this opinion. But a closer look at their textual research is based on two indirect materials and only one direct material. Indirect materials 1: Wu Yumou (1698- 1773) Records of Yangshan Volume 4: Records of the Apocalypse (referring to Records of the Apocalypse of Huai 'an Mansion) Mr. Lie (referring to Wu Cheng'en) is the first scholar in modern times, and his cloud is "sensitive".

"I don't know why miscellaneous notes and other books were written at the beginning, but I read Huai Xian Wen Mu written by Mr. The Journey to the West. Textual research on The Journey to the West's old name "Certificate" shows that it conforms to the purpose at that time, and Yuan Yu Taoist Garden is orderly, and that this book was written by a real person in Qiu Changchun at the beginning of other countries. And the county ambition refers to the hand of a gentleman. When the apocalypse comes, Mr. Wang is not far away, and his words will be true. Written at the beginning of Changchun, Italy, Mr. Zhi is a popular romance, such as a brief introduction of Chen Shou and Wu Cheng'en in the history of the Three Kingdoms and Luo Guanzhong in the romance. There are many dialects in my hometown in the book, and there are undoubtedly many people who go abroad. Or cloud: There is After Journey to the West, written by Mr. Sheyang. The Journey to the West has been published for nearly 200 years, and the only basis for judging is the publication of official records in Huai 'an tomorrow. His right to speak is actually similar to ours. Indirect material 2: Ruan Kuisheng (1727- 1789) "Tea Guest Talk" Volume 21: According to old books, she said that she was sensitive and intelligent and wrote several kinds of essays for poetry. I'm sorry I didn't notice the title of Miscellaneous Notes, but the book Huaixian Wenmu contains Sheyang's Popular Romance of Journey to the West. It is the beginning of the popularity of this book next season, and people in the alley are happy to talk about it, but this is unheard of. ..... Ming county annals, written by Sheyang, cultivated his ambition not far away. How can he make a name for himself with the novels of secular yuan people? Or Changchun has this record at the beginning, and Sheyang is therefore romantic, extremely illusory and changeable; For example, the left ones include National Records and Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Look at dialect slang again. They are all spoken in the street with rural accent in Huaishang. Women and children in the street understand it, and some don't read it at all, so it is undoubtedly from the hands of people in Huaishang. The only basis for judgment here is still the disclosure records of Huai 'an Prefecture. According to Mr. Lu Xun's analysis, Ruan Kuisheng was actually written according to Volume 4 of Wu Yu's Yang Shanzhi, because it followed the saying that the book mistook "Xing Shan" for "Xing Shan" in Huai 'an Prefecture.

Both Wu and Ruan mentioned Huaishang dialect in their books, but both affirmed that Wu Cheng'en's works were circumstantial evidence after The Journey to the West's novels. However, there has been a great debate in academic circles about dialects in novels. Huang Taihong's Postscript to the Journey to the West in the early Qing Dynasty proves that there are many Jinling dialects in the book. In Qing Dynasty, Wu Cheng'en was also listed as the author by Ding Yan's Preface to the Stone Pavilion and Jiao Xun Drama. However, they are either based on the records of Huai 'an Prefecture or the Tea Party, which means that there is only one basis for granting copyright to Wu Cheng'en. Direct materials: Records of the Apocalypse Huai 'an Prefecture, Volume 19, Records of Arts and Literature, and Huaixian Wenmu: Wu Cheng'en: Sheyang Collection, Volume 4 and Volume 4; Preface to Chunqiu Zhuan; Journey to the west. According to this material, Mr. Zhang demonstrated from both positive and negative aspects. Zheng: The Records of Huai 'an Prefecture did not specify the number of volumes or times of Wu Cheng'en and The Journey to the West, nor did it explain the nature of this article. There are often two works with the same name in history. For example, in the early Qing Dynasty and the Tang Dynasty, there was a collection of Dongjiang banknotes, and in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, there was a novel called "The Legend of Ruyi Jun" ... An Guo, who was about 20 years older than Wu Cheng'en, also wrote The Journey to the West, but it was just a travel note. So it can't be concluded that The Journey to the West in Wu Cheng'en is Journey to the West. On the other hand, Huang Yuji, a famous bibliophile in the early Qing Dynasty, recorded the following geographical categories in eight historical books: Journey to the South by Tang Hezheng, Travel Notes of Siming Mountain by Wu Cheng'en The Journey to the West and Shen, which were first published in The Journey to the West in the 20th year of Wanli (1592) and lasted for more than half a century. It is a well-known book, but Huang Yuji published Wu Cheng'en.

Experts believe that there are always different opinions about the author of The Journey to the West, and most of them deny that it was written by Wu Cheng'en. Others think that The Journey to the West's author was suggested to be Li Chunfang in the past. It is not convincing enough to imply Li Chunfang by a poem in The Journey to the West. This can only be a family opinion. To truly solve the historical mystery of The Journey to the West's author, we need to further explore more first-hand information. Wu Cheng'en is good at painting and calligraphy. However, the imperial examination was unfavorable, and it was not until middle age that he entered the tribute. At the age of 60, he became Changxing County Cheng, but left home because of disagreement with the chief executive. Later, he hired Jing Wang Fu Ji Shan. Wu Cheng'en (1506— 1582), the author of this passage about Wu Cheng'en's family and The Journey to the West, was born in Huai 'an in the middle of Ming Dynasty. Huai 'an was once called Sheyang County in the Han Dynasty, and there was a lake in the southeast of the county called Sheyang Lake, so Wu Cheng'en took Sheyang as his name and often called himself Sheyang lay man. Later generations also called him "Sheyang Mountain Man", probably not his own name. Huai 'an is located in the south of Huaihe River, which was Huaiyin County in Qin and Han Dynasties. The Tang Dynasty was Chuzhou, which was once renamed Huaiyin County, so when he signed his name, there was often the word "Huaiyin" in front. This is the common ethos of literati in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Little is known about Wu Cheng'en's family background at present. Because there is too little information, so far, the only information available is the epitaph of Xian Fubin. Now, based on this epitaph and other materials, I make the following speculation. Wu was born in Lianshui and later moved to Huai 'an.

When did you move to Huai 'an? He didn't say it himself. I guess it should be no later than early next year. There are two reasons: first, from the time point of view, it should be before the early Ming Dynasty. The epitaph of the magistrate says that those who live in Lianshui today should move to Yang Shan. Poor and lonely, I lost my genealogy, so I can't elaborate on it for more than three generations. Great-grandfather taboo tripod; Ancestor taboo inscriptions, Yuyao commandments; Chastity, benevolence and religion are taboo in imperial examinations. The great grandfather, grandfather and emperor mentioned here are all based on the identity of Wu Cheng'en's father Wu Rui. The so-called "more than III" refers to these III's, excluding Wu Cheng'en and his son. If you count them together, it's V .. These five generations of Wu Cheng'en all know it. From his father's great-grandfather Wu Ding, he is "unable to elaborate". Wu Cheng'en was born at the beginning of16th century, more than 30 years after the founding of the Ming Dynasty. According to the usual saying, 3 0 years is a lifetime, and it happened in the early Ming Dynasty from Wu Cheng'en to the last four generations 12 0 years. The meaning of "more than three generations can't be detailed" obviously means that Wu Ding is not the ancestor who moved to Huai, but moved to Huai in a previous life, two or even several generations, just because there is no genealogy, which Wu Cheng'en can't explain clearly. Therefore, Wu Qianhuai was not the night of the early Ming Dynasty. There were frequent wars at the end of Yuan Dynasty, and Huai 'an suffered a particularly serious war disaster. Aboriginal deaths are scattered and the population is sharply reduced. According to Huang Lizhou's Biography of Huai 'an Yang Shijie, as well as Cao Pi's Jin Chengxin in Huai 'an and Yang Qingzhi's Memories of Spring Night, "whoever survives in the early Ming Dynasty stops at seven". "Huai people" probably refers to the residents in the city, and "Qijia" may refer to seven surnames. It is said that these seven surnames are "Xu (Ji), Li, Zhang pian, Mianhe Wang, Wang, Nanmenpan (Yu)" and so on.

In addition, some people say that Wu is one of the seven surnames, but that refers to Wu Jie and later advised by Jinshi, and has nothing to do with Wu Cheng'en. Wu Cheng'en's ancestral home in Huai 'an was not a adherent of Yuan Dynasty, but moved from Lianshui at the end of Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of Ming Dynasty. In the early Ming Dynasty, Ming Taizu implemented the immigration policy in view of the scarcity of residents in Jiangbei. Most of the immigrants who came to Huai were from Jiangnan, mostly rich children or bureaucrats. Today, many Huai 'an people have been handed down from generation to generation, and their hometown is Suzhou in the south of the Yangtze River or somewhere else. Wu Cheng'en's home is north-south, which naturally does not belong to this trend. It should be the migration of bankrupt farmers in the late yuan dynasty and early Ming dynasty.