Chapter 46: 045 A Survey of Classical Prose

Zhao Han had a rough grasp of the broad contours of Ming literary development, because his specialist-course teacher had sketched them out once.

Over nearly three hundred years, the Great Ming experienced three literary archaist movements.

At this moment, the second archaist movement had long since ended, while the third was still in its embryonic stirrings.

Between these two archaist waves lay the rise and fall of Romantic literature.

During the Wanli period, the court was corrupt and society seethed with contradictions. The printing of A Book to Burn (Li Zhi), laden with heterodox thought, laid the cornerstone for the Romantic literary current.

Immediately after, the Three Yuan of Gong'an burst onto the scene, popular literature blossomed in a hundred flowers, and the most brilliant chapter of Ming literature was turned.

The popular literature of that time fell into three types: the Gong'an school, erotic fiction, and satire.

The Ming dynasty's vast ocean of erotica was mostly produced in this period.

Two of the Three Yuan of Gong'an died. The sole survivor, Yuan Zhongdao, suddenly turned to self-negation and self-revision. He abandoned the return-to-antiquity path (true feeling and genuine nature) and veered sharply toward the archaist faction (grandiloquent, ornate, and artificial). The Romantic literary current came to an abrupt halt.

Out of this, the Jingling school was born.

The Jingling school, while absorbing the Gong'an school's doctrine of innate spirit, simultaneously stressed the formal prosody and rules of classical poetry.

These two proved very difficult to reconcile, with the result that late-Ming poetry became saturated with ghostly melancholy and spectral whimsy, striving for obscurity, bizarrerie, strange characters, and precarious rhymes — it had already walked entirely into a deviant path.

Prose was no different. The scholars delighted in studying Qin and Han ancient prose, yet did not absorb its essence. Instead, they grew infatuated with obscurity and bizarrerie, and were especially fond of using rare characters.

The early Chongzhen years were a time of dearth, the age when the Great Ming's literary vitality was at its most withered!

…

The boat moored at Shitang Town. Fei Yinghuan, holding the Anthology of Prose by the Eight Great Masters of the Tang and Song, had already lost all interest in visiting his friend and wished only to stay aboard and continue reading.

"Young master, we have arrived," Wei Jianxiong reminded him.

Fei Yinghuan had no choice but to walk ashore with the book in his hands, wandering and savoring the true delight of ancient prose, his mind full of "If in the morning I hear the Dao, in the evening I may die content."

Zhao Han followed behind. Gazing at the bustling dock, he was momentarily dumbstruck, thinking: Just how many super-sized towns does Yanshan County have?

Shitang Town — the largest papermaking center in the entire Ming dynasty!

This single town produced over ten million sheets of paper a year, of which more than three hundred thousand sheets of memorial paper were tribute goods, used exclusively as memorial-writing paper for court officials.

The papermaking workers in the town alone numbered over ten thousand, yet at this time the entire registered population of Yanshan County was only a little over ten thousand.

They arrived at a grand mansion outside the town. After presenting a name card, the gatekeeper immediately led them to the reception hall.

"Brother Dazhao, what wind has blown you here?" Fei Zhaojia came out into the courtyard to greet them.

Fei Yinghuan said, "My son is taking the child-student examination; I stopped by to visit you along the way."

Fei Zhaojia was a clan cousin of Fei Yinghuan, but not from the main Henglin lineage; the generation characters of the two branches did not even match.

The Shitang Fei clan was also quite powerful, mainly engaged in the papermaking business. Fei Zhaojia's family kept over a thousand papermaking workers.

After exchanging a few pleasantries, Fei Yinghuan could not wait any longer and said, "Worthy cousin, take a look at this book."

Fei Zhaojia also had considerable literary reputation, but unfortunately was only a xiucai. He glanced at the cover and shook his head. "I have read this book. It is of little help for the examination essays."

Fei Yinghuan thought it over, nodded, and said, "That is indeed true."

By the late Ming, the examination system had developed to the point where every sentence of the Four Books and Five Classics had been tested over and over again; it was fundamentally impossible to write anything new.

The only recourse was to pursue strangeness single-mindedly; the stranger the essay, the more it caught the examiner's eye.

If a rare character could be used, one resolutely refused to write the common one.

If a character had multiple written forms, one deliberately chose the most complex to write.

The Eight Great Masters of the Tang and Song, by contrast, all wrote with true feeling and genuine nature; their word choice and sentence construction were relatively straightforward. This style was very difficult to imitate. Without profound foundational skill, without rich life experience, one's writing easily turned out mediocre and shallow.

For examination essays, mediocrity was most to be feared. By the late Ming, the scholars simply stopped reading the Eight Great Masters altogether.

To be precise, the Eight Great Masters of the Tang and Song had been eliminated by the examination system…

Suddenly, Fei Yinghuan shook his head again and said, "That is so for the provincial examination, but not necessarily for the metropolitan examination."

"Perhaps," Fei Zhaojia said with a bitter smile. "I have not even passed the provincial examination; I dare not imitate the Eight Great Masters."

Of the entire examination sequence, the provincial examination could be called the most difficult, and in Zhejiang and Jiangxi it was harder still!

If a Zhejiang or Jiangxi candidate, lacking transcendent talent and learning, wrote the provincial examination in the style of the Eight Great Masters, it was undoubtedly courting death.

The national metropolitan examination was different; there was no need to strive deliberately for strangeness and novelty. An essay that explained its argument clearly was a good essay.

Fei Yinghuan stood with his hands clasped behind his back. "I shall immerse myself in the study of the Eight Great Masters, and two years hence go to the capital to sit the examination!"

"I wish you may have your name inscribed on the golden roster," Fei Zhaojia said with a cupped-hand salute and a smile.

…

Let us turn to Xu Ying, who walked out of the examination hall when it was already afternoon.

Magistrate Feng was not present at the time. The private secretary had taken a great liking to Xu Ying, but could not decide on admission on his own authority; he only said he would certainly help recommend him.

He should have passed. The county examination was not difficult, and passing it was of little real use; the truly hard ones were the prefectural examination and the circuit examination (that is, the academy examination).

Passing the prefectural examination made one a child student.

Passing the circuit examination made one a xiucai.

Outside the examination hall, Xu Ying could not find his young companions, so he set off walking home along the Yanshan River, estimating he would not arrive until the middle of the night.

As he walked, he replayed his essay in his mind, and the more Xu Ying thought, the more excited he grew.

His opening exposition for the "The Master said" topic had been: The words of the sage, the transforming teachings of a thousand ages — the noble man cultivates himself, orders the state, and brings peace to all under heaven.

After reading it, the private secretary had asked with delight, "How many years have you been receiving instruction?"

Xu Ying answered honestly, "This boy's family is poor; I began my schooling rather late, only two years ago, and have not yet finished studying the Mencius. By good fortune, both of today's topics came from the Analects."

"Only two years of literacy, and you can already produce an essay of this quality?" The private secretary was increasingly astonished.

Xu Ying, both proud and bashful, replied, "My mother knows some characters. Before I began formal schooling, I could already write over two hundred characters."

Seeing Xu Ying's shabby dress, the private secretary could not help recalling his own childhood. He praised and encouraged him: "Study diligently, and do not disappoint your esteemed mother's hopes. With your intelligence and talent, you will surely one day ascend to the grand secretariat and serve as a minister."

"Sir, you flatter me too much," Xu Ying said, his heart feeling as though it had been filled with honey.

The private secretary watched Xu Ying leave the examination hall and could not help shaking his head with a sigh. The examinations did not depend on talent and learning alone. He himself had once been famed as a child prodigy, yet after wasting half a lifetime he was still only a xiucai, while a blockhead like Feng Xun had become a county magistrate.

Bounding cheerfully along the riverbank, Xu Ying dreamed of seeing his name on the golden list of successful candidates, then building a grand house for his parents to enjoy their old age.

As he walked on, Xu Ying grew anxious again, gazing thoughtfully at the rice shoots along the way.

From the start of spring until now, there had been no proper rain; today's exam day had only brought a few drifting drops, not even enough to soak one's clothes through.

Fortunately the heavy snows of winter had melted and replenished the moisture, or else this spring's shoots could never have held out.

He hoped a few spring rains would come. If the drought persisted another month, his family probably would not be able to pay the rent again this year.

A youth from a poor family always had more on his mind — not like Fei Ruhe, who knew only how to play and make merry.

……

After two days staying with the Fei clan at Shitang, Fei Yinghuan finally took a boat home.

Pointing at the countless papermaking workshops below the hill, Zhao Han asked, "Young master, are our family's paper workshops this large too?"

"Still calling me young master, and not 'father'?" Fei Yinghuan asked with a smile.

Zhao Han said, "Respect lies in the heart, not on the lips."

"Slippery," Fei Yinghuan said, laughing. "Our family's paper workshops are nowhere near as flourishing as the ones here at Shitang. Altogether we have only two or three hundred workers — how can we compare to Shitang's workshops, which casually employ several hundred or even a thousand? And the paper quality is poor; we cannot produce tribute-grade memorial paper. We have sent people to steal the craft several times but never managed to learn it."

The paper-mill workers were all hired laborers, also called hired slaves, their indenture contracts held in the employer's hands. Even if you wanted to spend money to poach them, you could not.

Moreover, the Shitang memorial-paper process was complex: from gathering raw materials to producing and selling the finished paper, the production cycle lasted a full year. Poaching workers and stealing the craft were neither of them easy matters.

"Father, the wine is here." Jiupo came over cradling a wine jug.

Fei Yinghuan took the jug and drank straight from the spout, then after a swig said, "Was your late father truly a juren?"

Zhao Han answered, "Absolutely true."

"He was not from some great clan?" Fei Yinghuan asked suspiciously.

"Just an ordinary Confucian household," Zhao Han said.

Growing more bewildered, Fei Yinghuan asked, "Apart from the Eight Great Masters and Lord Fan Wenzheng, whose essays have you studied?"

Zhao Han answered ambiguously, "I have studied many, but I cannot recall them clearly, nor can I recite them."

"Bring paper and brush!" Fei Yinghuan suddenly called.

Qinxin and Jiandan immediately came forward bearing the four treasures of the study.

Fei Yinghuan said, "Whatever fine essays you have read, write out a list of them."

Zhao Han thought carefully for a moment, could not be bothered to rack his brains further, and simply wrote out from memory the table of contents of Guwen Guanzhi.

He had certainly forgotten some of the essays, but he probably remembered half — after all, he was only writing the titles, not transcribing the full texts from memory.

Fei Yinghuan leaned over to watch. The first entries were all pre-Qin essays, most of which he had read — eccentric and contrary as it was, Fei Yinghuan did not read the prose of the Eight Great Masters of the Tang and Song, yet was thoroughly familiar with pre-Qin ancient prose.

As Zhao Han wrote on, Fei Yinghuan suddenly said, "Skip the Qin and Han ancient prose; those I have studied seriously. Start from the Wei, Jin, and Six Dynasties."

Zhao Han immediately began a new line, and Fei Yinghuan watched with considerable anticipation.

"Memorial Expressing My Feelings" — read it.

"Preface to the Orchid Pavilion Collection" — read it.

"The Return" — read it.

He wrote all the way to "Proclamation on North Mountain," and of the dozen-odd essays that followed, Fei Yinghuan found he knew only one or two.

Du Mu's "Rhapsody on the Epang Palace" — so famous an essay, yet Fei Yinghuan had never even heard of it!

Du Mu was not a man of the High Tang.

The Archaist school mostly despised the Late Tang (the Late Tang school excepted); they seldom read even Late Tang poetry, let alone Late Tang ancient prose.

Zhao Han simply kept his head down and wrote, and in the blink of an eye had written over a hundred titles. He had forgotten most of the content, but he remembered a great many of the essay titles — he would just toss them to Fei Yinghuan to peruse at leisure.

Fei Yinghuan's expression grew more and more horrified; he shifted his gaze from the paper to Zhao Han as if observing some kind of monster.

A child who had read so many essays — how could he possibly come from an ordinary Confucian household?

The Ming dynasty, after all, had no Guwen Guanzhi.

Fei Ruhe, Fei Chun, Qinxin, Jiandan, and Jiupo, standing to the side, were all utterly dumbfounded — they had read practically none of them.

Big brother is awesome!

(End of chapter)