Green plum wine

Author: Zhou Zexiong
Publisher:
Publish Date: April 1, 1999
Features: How should one begin the story of the 24 Histories? If you insist on this question, be prepared to spend 20 years in the "prison of history," because except for "starting from the beginning," there is no other way. If you don’t want to go through so much trouble, you might as well follow your own inclinations and start wherever you like. For example, like me, starting directly with the Three Kingdoms. History is such an ancient figure; you can only try to glimpse its secrets, understand its temperament, and observe its attire, but you can never hope to exhaust its depths. Whether the audience or critics of history (today, of course, there are also a group of "players" of history), though there are differences in wisdom and talent, when faced with the infinite vicissitudes of time and space, they are just like carefree young men who don’t know sorrow. Even if they shake all the willows by the roadside and use all the beautiful words in their language, how can they taste even a tiny bit of its true essence. I will temporarily suppress my unrealistic ambitions and just sit there, foolishly thinking: If history is indeed an old man, then it must be a rich, adaptable, and humorous old man. In his legendary posture of playing the lute and watching flying birds, he himself is full of mixed emotions and intertwined feelings. If this old man also has a hobby of storytelling (he obviously has this hobby), we can make such an assumption: If you love philosophy, he will be very interested in explaining the various doctrines of the pre-Qin philosophers to you and will sneakily tell you that the wisdom in them has only been understood by later generations for three thousand years, misunderstood for half, and ignored for half. If you like literature, of course, he will focus on the Tang Dynasty and then casually mention the dynasties before and after, sometimes full of enthusiasm, his voice like silver bells, and sometimes choked with sobs, tears streaming down his face. If you like tragic stories, he will take a look at you, judge your age and psychological endurance, and then decide whether to start from the chaos of the five barbarian tribes or talk about the story of Yue Fei, or simply steel your heart and start from the Opium War. For modern youth who pursue the avant-garde, he might as well mock them with a few words about the elegance of the scholars of the Wei and Jin periods until they exclaim: "I will no longer pretend to be foolish." If you like to hear some thrilling stories, he will smile and then lead you to the Jiangnan town at the turn of the Ming and Qing dynasties, where there are whole baskets of romantic stories, spread every day by the street vendors who gather to shade from the heat. Want to hear the story of heroes? That’s even simpler. With his magical finger of Guanyin, he flips right to the Three Kingdoms. If we are not overly sentimental, if we are willing to take Albert Camus’s sarcastic words seriously and imagine the countless souls scattered over a thousand years as "a wisp of smoke," we might be more willing to accept my shallow view: the entire Three Kingdoms period was undeniably an era of heroes; the special volume dedicated to this century in the history books was not for any other reason but to give heroes a stage to shine and shock the later generations. According to Luo Guanzhong’s writing, the story of the Three Kingdoms begins with the Yellow Turban Rebellion in 184 AD and ends with the Eastern Wu being conquered by Jin in 280 AD. We find that this century, despite having the highest frequency of wars and the highest density of talent in Chinese history, may have ultimately been in vain, making it almost impossible to judge the value of their actions based on historical principles. Take the famous three major battles as an example: The Battle of Guandu, although it laid the foundation for Cao Cao’s final unification of the northern plains, also sowed the seeds of the country’s fragmentation into three parts. Liu Bei, who narrowly escaped from Cao Cao, became a major obstacle to Cao Cao’s plan to unite the nine states after this battle. Because Cao Cao was fully focused on dealing with Yuan Shao, he had no time to look elsewhere, allowing Sun Ce to seize the precious opportunity to fight across the Jiangdong region, laying the groundwork for his future dominant position. As for the Battle of Red Cliffs between Wei and Wu, while it was an excellent battle example, from the perspective of "the world returning to peace," it was entirely different. If Sun Quan had accepted the proposal of the peace faction, represented by Zhang Zhao, to surrender to Cao Cao, would it not have been more beneficial for peace and stability, and could millions of lives have been saved from suffering? As for the Battle of Yiling between Wu and Shu, it was even more interesting. General Lu Xun of Eastern Wu burned so many Shu soldiers to death, and Liu Bei lost so much face, yet the result was only to establish a mutual non-aggression pact with Eastern Wu. It was truly "if I had known then, why did I do it in the first place." As for Zhuge Liang’s six expeditions to Mount Qi, overall, they were fruitless. Whether it was Zhuge Liang mocking Sima Yi, Zhang He teaching Ma Su a lesson, Jiang Wei and Deng Ai’s confrontation, or their mutual respect with Zhong Hui, the soldiers of Shu and Wei fought over so many mountain peaks, but Zhuge Liang, who died before achieving his goals, only won endless sighs of "the heroes’ tears fill their sleeves." What did this century of heroes in the Three Kingdoms want to tell us? The pages of history suddenly became chaotic in 184 AD, and when they closed again in 280 AD, it was as if nothing had ever happened (the Jin people Xi Zaochi once believed that the Wei dynasty "lacked the virtue of a successor to the throne and the ability to bring order to chaos"). Of course, this is not right, nor is it responsible. That meaningful bend in the river of history did not change the overall direction of the great river flowing eastward, but it did create a different landscape, a different kind of magnanimity. The danger of the Yangtze River lies in the Jingjiang, and the wonder of the ancient nation lies in the Three Kingdoms. Look up at the sky—hasn’t a brilliant constellation of heroes already appeared there? The light it emits is destined to become an eternal topic of conversation and endless entertainment for the Chinese people. The Three Kingdoms era, when the Han Dynasty lost its prey, the feudal lords rose up to chase it, and for a time, "the world was in turmoil, and bandits filled the mountains." The ambitious heroes strode like tigers and wolves, each with their own ambitions. Who were they? This piqued my curiosity. Let’s briefly chat about them first: Dong Zhuo seemed to be an observer, with the heart of a lion and the courage of a wolf, but at first, he had to act like a hungry tiger facing a donkey, waiting before making a move. Yuan Shu was undoubtedly a megalomaniac, full of imperial ambitions, but except for the legacy of the Yuan family’s four generations of three officials and the fertile land of Nanyang he happened to get by chance, the creator had not given him any other talents. Lü Bu was a rustic hero, though he roamed the map of the Three Kingdoms on a red mare with a square-sword, he really didn’t know what he wanted to do, and no one knew where he would move next after winning. He probably didn’t even know himself. What was that loudmouth Gongsun Zan selling again? He worked hard to cut down the Yellow Turbans, fought earnestly against the northern barbarians, and later fought fiercely with Yuan Shao until he killed his wife and children with a sword and burned himself to death with a wild fire. Was that all he was selling? Tao Qian and Liu Biao were just like Han Sui and Ma Teng, mere super low-level local tyrants who were content with dominating their own territories. "Jingsheng (Liu Biao) and his son are like dogs," remember this was the poem of Marshal Ye Jianying from back then, and it was quite reasonable. Yuan Shao might have had a Hamlet-like personality, full of ambitions but indecisive. The difference is that he didn’t have Hamlet’s talent. Xun Yu and Guo Jia were indeed personifications of wisdom, and like Jia Xu, they together formed an indispensable harmony in the symphony of the Three Kingdoms. Of course, Xun and Guo were fundamentally different from Jia Xu, and like Kong Rong and Ni Heng, these two famous "stinky mouths" of the Three Kingdoms were also quite amusing as specific anecdotes of a specific historical period. Sun Quan was wise in self-preservation, content to be his own mountain king. But the land under his rule was clearly not an ordinary mountain fortress, but rather the most fertile land bestowed upon China by the creator. Liu Bei was incredible. Before Zhuge Liang mapped out his strategy for him in Longzhong, he wandered east and west, north and south, almost as if he were swindling. He had never launched a meaningful war of his own (though he had many opportunities to flee), and his actions even made people doubt why he had gotten involved in this chaos of the Three Kingdoms. He came, and without realizing it, he became an emperor and built an empire. The brothers Guan Yu and Zhang Fei, with completely different personalities, had two main similarities: First, both were martially brilliant, "enemies of ten thousand"; second, both died tragically, their heads and bodies separated. Zhao Zilong, with his red-tipped spear, pierced left and right, had a brilliant reputation in the folk, but he was just an outstanding hero, not a great general who dominated the. Zhuge Liang was a genius of the world, but considering his historical destiny of failure, we can only assume that Zhuge Liang’s extraordinary achievements were probably to shape a towering figure of a perfect human for China. As for Cao Cao, based on his personality or appearance, he should not be the white-faced character in Peking Opera. In Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Luo Guanzhong once wrote that Cao Cao, looking at someone’s (Dong Zhao) skin, was suspicious and a little jealous, asking, "How have you managed to keep your face so well?" This shows that Cao Cao’s face was not only a little yellow but might even have been sallow. If the Three Kingdoms era could be a "new form of the Warring States period" as Mr. Huang Renyu said, we might as well imagine Cao Cao as the Qin Emperor Ying Zheng, who had swallowed the world in his heart. His heroic and majestic body was mixed with a few pig oinks; the fleeting spring of that moment in the river of time also had the longest freeze in history. Let’s brew another pot of tea. This is a pot of hero tea. If Chinese history were to lose this strong flavor of tea, it would be so dull! My style is to explore, my attitude is to comment, my privilege is to imagine, my pursuit is to restore, my stance is curiosity, and my means are often unscrupulous. Since the Yuan people Luo Guanzhong has already achieved a historic and unparalleled artistic reputation in this theme, even if others just want to share a piece of the pie, it is nothing but a pipe dream. Therefore, I can only cautiously avoid the themes that Luo Guanzhong has focused on, so as not to expose myself as inferior by being too close to the master. Therefore, I must stand in stark contrast to Luo Guanzhong and tactfully insert myself into areas that interest him less, referring to the special psychology that turns heroes into heroes. I always feel that stereotyping heroes (for example, seeing Zhuge Liang as the embodiment of Eastern wisdom, Guan Yu as the epitome of loyalty and bravery and the representative of the war god, and Cao Cao as a specimen of cunning) may greatly help to increase the popularity and spread of heroes, but in essence, it is no different from robbing the cradle, and we thus miss the true image of heroes, resulting in "this is not the person of the past, but not the person of the past." Heroes are like the breeze at the ear and the moon in the mountains, belonging to the public category and therefore naturally should not be described in words. Heroes are an open-ended topic, encouraging everyone to have their own opinions. Elegance may imagine the moon as a jade rabbit in the palace, but it cannot stop people like me from seeing it as a pitted burn. With the utmost respect, I even dare not guarantee to the readers that I have made this burn. Parodying the opening verse of Luo Guanzhong’s Romance of the Three Kingdoms, I fill in the wrong words as follows:
The flow of time brushes a thousand years,
Disturbing the Three Kingdoms’ dim lamp.
Emerging heroes in shadows:
On the battlefield, flags flutter,
Swords reflect scholars’ light.
Bones deep in the ground hide a divine deer,
But it vanishes in an instant.
Fleeting fame, wasted effort:
Using ancient wisdom,
Performing endless sorrow.
December 30, 1998, in Shanghai