Mao Biquan and Dong Xiaowan

Author: Wang Limin
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-04-01
Features: A pair of enviable celestial lovers, a reunion that won’t happen again in a thousand years, has sparked countless romantic fantasies and passions in later generations. Especially the life-and-death mystery of Dong Xiaowan remains one of the great "unsolved cases" of the early Qing Dynasty. Many believe that Dong Xiaowan’s fate was to be forcibly taken into the imperial palace, and the legend of Dong Xiaowan as the Empress Dowager Dongguo is widely circulated in folk tales. This folk history has even misled some well-read scholars and experts. The story, though three hundred years old, is not distant from me, and the surviving historical records are quite abundant. Let us open the dusty old papers and trace the real life journey of this literary couple, the talented scholar Mao Bixiang and the Qinhuai beauty, from the vivid writings of Mao Bixiang and his contemporaries, and recreate that cultural tragedy. This series of "Literary Lovers" aims to select famous writers and their emotional relationships with women or men from the Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties as the main, using biographical research and literary creation as the primary material, and presenting a nostalgic experience in an accessible way through a biographical style, bringing a couple to life, and recreating a social. The chosen figures were all quite representative of their time. Yuan Zhen’s "Record of the Meeting at the True Hall" (also known as "The Story of Yingying") has a certain real-life prototype and can typically reflect the marital and romantic concepts of Tang Dynasty literati. The story later evolved into the famous "Romance of the West Chamber," vividly showing the evolution of ancient love and affection. Li Qingzhao and Zhao Mingcheng were an exceptionally loving couple in Chinese history. Their love was set against the backdrop of the gradual rise of Neo-Confucianism in Song Dynasty, the sudden change in women’s romantic perspectives, and the great social upheaval between the Northern and Southern Song. Zhao Mengfu was both a renowned literary figure, calligrapher, and painter, as well as a prince of a fallen dynasty. Under the social backdrop of Mongol rule in the Yuan Dynasty, his marital and romantic concepts underwent certain variations, revealing the process of integration between Central Plains culture and foreign culture. Feng Menglong lived in a Ming Dynasty society similar to the modern era, where capitalist elements were beginning to emerge, urban consciousness was awakening, and people pursued sensual pleasures. He paid close attention to women’s themes throughout his life, and his works reflect the views of Ming Dynasty women and romantic concepts. After Hou Huizhen married, Feng Menglong not only wrote poems in her memory repeatedly but also never stepped into brothels again. Mao Bixiang and Dong Xiaowan lived during the transition between the Ming and Qing dynasties, and their love was connected to the great changes of the era. Mao Bixiang’s unique "Recollection Style" love poems for Dong Xiaowan were much admired by later generations. However, such pairs of lovers in ancient times left behind different kinds of materials. Often, one partner’s great success in literary creation made their love story widely known and spread. The other partner in the relationship then became household name. Specifically in this series, Yuan Zhen, Li Qingzhao, Zhao Mengfu, Feng Menglong, and Mao Bixiang left behind a wealth of works and personal life materials, while the other half of the pair had relatively scarce information. Therefore, the series inevitably focused more on one person during the writing process. All these factors are enough to show the tortuous evolution of marital and romantic concepts in ancient China and their diverse manifestations. The series aims to combine popular accessibility with academic rigor. At the same time, this series also offers a new and deeper understanding of the literary creations of specific writers. The authors of the series hope that readers will enjoy history with great interest and gain aesthetic pleasure, thereby benefiting from the establishment of healthy marital and romantic concepts.