The author of Journey to the West introduces 5000 words.

Wu Cheng'en, whose real name is Ruzhong, is from Sheyang Mountain. Huaihai trainer. My ancestral home is Gaodian, Tongcheng, Anhui (now Gaodian, Yutan Township, Zongyang County), and my ancestors lived in Gaodian, Zongyang, so it was called Gaodian Wu. The ancestors of Lianshui (now Jiangsu) people. Father Wu Rui, whose name is Tingqi, sells "Wen Jie Cai Lu". He is a "kind-hearted, good at Tan Zhengshi, but somewhat unfair, and needs to caress a few angry sighs and feel depressed". People who migrated to Huai 'an Prefecture (now Chuzhou District, Huai 'an City, Jiangsu Province) with their ancestors. China, an outstanding novelist in Ming Dynasty, was the author of The Journey to the West, one of Four Great Classical Novels. He was born in poverty, from a scholar 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 about ghosts, but I actually remember the variation of human beings, and I have a lesson." Wu Cheng'en also wrote a collection of short stories such as Yu, but it has been lost, and only a brief introduction can be seen. Whether the author of The Journey to the West is Wu Cheng'en has always been controversial in academic circles. Some scholars believe that the author of The Journey to the West is not Wu Cheng'en, but Li Chunfang, the "Prime Minister of Qing Ci" in Jiajing period of Ming Dynasty. 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", while The French Encyclopedia 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, including Japanese, English, French, German and Russian. Wu Cheng'en's poems were scattered, and later generations compiled four volumes of Sheyang Survival Draft. For the first time, The Journey to the West from Wu Cheng'en was selected for the 21st lesson of the fifth grade Chinese next semester by People's Education Press. "Monkey King Thrice Defeats the Skeleton Demon" was selected into the eighth class of Grade 6 of Jiangsu Education Press.

Wu Cheng'en was smart since he was a child, and he liked to read wild stories and strange novels. "I like the portraits of Wu Cheng'en in Tang Dynasty, such as Niu Zhang Qi and Duan Kegu."

Writing biographies, being good at shaping things and feelings, and writing a book about them every time ",and" old age melts into Huai ",are quite appreciated by officials, celebrities and squires. In the eighth year of Jiajing (1529), Wu Cheng'en went to Longxi Academy founded by Ge Mu, the magistrate of Huai 'an, and was appreciated by Ge Mu. Zhu thought he could "read all the books in the world" and "share half of the painting history with his family". In the twenty-ninth year of Jiajing (1550), he was given a one-year-old tribute student at the age of 40, and went to Beijing to wait for the official, but he was not elected. Six years later, due to the poverty of his mother's hometown, he went to work in other places as Cheng of Changxing County, Zhejiang Province, and often drank with his friend Zhu and delivered food. Finally, because of being falsely accused, she left home two years later. In his later years, he made a living by selling articles. He went to Hangzhou at the age of 67 and lived for about 82 years. The scenery in the evening is very bleak.

"The Apocalypse of Huai 'an" commented that he was "sensitive, wise, widely read, wrote for poetry, elegant and beautiful, and had the style of Qin Shaoyou." After good banter, there are several miscellaneous notes, which are famous for a while. "But that was after his death. 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 a family where a junior official was reduced to a small businessman. He was optimistic, open-minded and pursued the philosophy of happiness. He named his son Cheng En, the word Ruzhong, which means that he can study as an official, inherit the business of emperors, 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 that of his companions. He, a well-known gifted scholar in a village, is notorious in 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.

Little is known about Wu Cheng'en's family background at present. Wu Cheng'en, whose ancestral home is Gaodian in Tongcheng, Anhui (now Gaodian in Yutan Township, Zongyang County), is called Gaodian Wu. Wu Cheng'en and Wu are brothers of the same family. They are famous for their academic achievements and political voices. Worship the tribute officer, Lu Nantong sentenced; Co-supervising this proposal with Gong, and daring to speak out, caused a shock. Wu Cheng'en moved from Gaodian, Tongcheng, Anhui Province to Huai 'an Prefecture with his ancestors. Contemporary with Wu Cheng'en, Wu Shifeng, also known as the Apocalypse, made friends with Ren Xia and made many handsome men and beautiful women, which were also recommended by celebrities. 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, Cao Pi's Record of Belief in Huaicheng Today and Yang Qingzhi's Legacy of Spring Night, "there were only seven Huai people in the early Ming Dynasty". "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.

What occupation did Wu Cheng'en engage in after his ancestors moved to Huai River? It is not mentioned in Xian Fubin's epitaph. At that time, some people transferred to Huai 'an were recruited into An Wei, Dahewei and Kuanhewei hospitals in Huai 'an. Have a plenty of business, engaged in commercial activities; There are also some people who were settled by their ancestors in Huaishang as officials; Some people are engaged in medicine, such as Pan Jia and Lu Jia. There are still many people who practice Confucianism, eat by reading and being an official, and so on. Wu Cheng'en's family is not a soldier, nor a descendant of a big official, nor is it like Confucianism from the beginning. According to Xian Fubin's Epitaph, Wu Cheng'en's family produced two generations of scholars: great-grandfather Wu Ming taught in Yuyao County, Zhejiang Province, and grandfather Zhen Wu taught in Renhe County, Zhejiang Province (now Hangzhou City) (volume 9 of Shanyang County Records of Tongzhi and volume 102 of Hangzhou Prefecture Records of Guangxu are all instructions). Discipline and discipline are cold officials with low salaries. Being far away from home, their wives and children often can't get together. When Wu Cheng'en's father Wu Rui was four years old, his mother Liang Shi took him to Renhe to reunite with his family. A few months after the reunion, something unfortunate happened: my father, Wu Cheng'en's grandfather, Wu died of illness. Liang had no choice but to take the four-year-old orphan back to Huai 'an. Because two generations of his family are running "poor Confucianism", they have no savings and no other income, so their family is getting poorer and poorer. Because he is poor and has no relatives and friends to help him, Wu Rui can't go to school when he grows up. He started studying sociology several years later than other children. Because there is no money to give Melissa Zhou a gift, Melissa Zhou doesn't teach Wu Rui very much. However, Wu Rui is very clever. He listened carefully to what Mr. Wang told others. He actually studied all the classes, and he did well. Wu Rui's cleverness touched Mr. She Xue, won his praise and recommended him to continue studying in rural schools. But it didn't work out because of the difficulties of the Wu family. Mrs. Liang said bitterly, "Wu finished it in the second year. If so, I am very helpless! " First, Mrs. Liang cried, then Wu Rui also cried, and both mother and son began to cry. We don't know what we did after dropping out of school, but when he was twenty, he married the daughter of the Xu family, a small businessman, and became a family. Buddhists have sold small commodities such as lace and thread for generations, so Wu Rui inherited his family's industry and became a small businessman sitting in a shop. From this record, we can see some family background of Wu Cheng'en. The so-called "Xiuwen II" probably refers to debt-ridden great-grandfather Wu Ming and grandfather Zhen Wu. Further pondering this sentence, it seems that Wu's Confucianism is only two generations, and his predecessors are not scholars. Wu Zushang is neither a Confucian scholar, nor a military commander, nor an official. Besides, they are either engaged in agriculture or business. Comparing the two, I think it may be more like running a small business when his family first moved to Huai. There are two reasons.

Wu Cheng'en has no real estate income.

Some people say that after Wu moved to the Huaihe River, he once lived in an irrigation canal and engaged in agricultural production. Based on the fact that Wu Cheng'en was buried here after his death, they called it "Fairy Dragon". This evidence is insufficient. "Dragon" means cemetery, and "dragon head" means ancestral grave, which doesn't mean how much land his family has there. People in the city can't be buried in the city when they are dead. Burying in the country is inevitable. It is normal to buy a piece of land in the country as a cemetery. Of course, the Wu family bought this property from the beginning, so there is no need to buy it again. But I don't think it's possible. The Wu family moved from Lianshui. If he had been a landlord and a rich man, he wouldn't have given up his original land and left his home to land again. If he is a bankrupt farmer, he has no money to buy land in Huai 'an countryside. At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, people migrated from Jiangnan to Jiangbei because Jiangbei was vast and sparsely populated. The purpose of mobilizing wealthy Jiangnan people to reclaim land in Jiangbei was to develop Jiangbei. At that time, it was driven away by administrative means, and there is still a saying that "Hongwu drove away" among Huai' an farmers. The economic situation of Lianshui in the early Ming Dynasty will not be better than that of Huai 'an, and the Wu family has never been "driven away" because of their money. On the other hand, if the Wu family had a certain property, after the death of Zhen Wu, an Oracle, the Wu family would not be so poor. Wu Cheng'en's father couldn't afford to go to school, and he didn't go to school for several years. Went to social studies, had no money to give gifts to her husband, and was discriminated against; Finally, I dropped out of school. According to my guess, his family has no real estate at all, and his ancestors were not farmers at all after they moved to Huaihe River.

At that time, the river was under the Huaihe River (then also called the Yellow River). After the Yellow River captured the Huaihe River, the lower reaches of the Huaihe River in this area were also the lower reaches of the Yellow River. ), the canal is in the west, and the river is between the two rivers, which is a commercial port. At that time, there were many businessmen and people from all over the world, and most of them lived here. These people gradually entered Yang Shan's nationality. After his family moved to the Huaihe River, they settled down under the river in the market where every family did business. Therefore, it is natural for him to engage in some small businesses to make a living. Judging from the surrounding environment under the river, it is true: Datong Lane, Nailhu Lane, Zhang Fen Lane and Appraisal Street surround his home. The residents in these alleys basically run the businesses listed in the name of the alley. When their business was in surplus and their living conditions improved, they made some progress in the direction of being an official, and made some achievements, resulting in two generations of academic palaces (although Zhen Wu was born in Gong Sheng, he may have to pay a little money, but this just proves that his family has both scholars and a small surplus in economy). At this time, his family abandoned the business that was not commensurate with the status of an official (although it was a dirty little official), and the source of life depended entirely on the meager salary of learning. If this road goes wrong, there will be trouble. Sure enough, Zhen Wu is dead and has no official salary. The life of the whole family is in an imminent crisis, and even Wu Shuo is difficult to go to school. If it is a bureaucratic landlord family, such problems will not arise. It is conceivable that the Wu family has no real estate and lives a hard life. At this time, forced by life, the scholarly children of the "second generation of Xiuwen" dropped out of school, got a shop and started a small business, and suddenly returned to the status of a small businessman. For the Wu family, it is natural and unobtrusive for future generations to pick up the occupations that their ancestors operated and get familiar with them.

Wu Cheng'en described his family's situation as "poor and lonely". "Poverty and loneliness" is the main feature of his family background. The so-called "poverty" mainly refers to economic difficulties. As I said before, his family is really not rich, and sometimes it is quite difficult. In addition, it may also mean that fate is not very good. For generations, twists and turns have been underdeveloped, and it is unlucky to be an official and make a fortune. I have been a junior official for two generations. Instead of rising, I returned to my original position and got into trouble. The so-called "loneliness" probably means that the population is not prosperous, and several generations are single-handedly, and the population is weak and small. The Wu family is in trouble and no one supports him. Wu Cheng'en's father was blackmailed by the government and petty officials, and no one was fair to him. All these clearly show how "poor and lonely" his family is. There is no one in the family who can make a lot of money as his political or economic backer. I'm afraid there are very few brothers and uncles in his family, and there is no record of other people in his family yet. There are indications that his family may be passed down from generation to generation. The Journey to the West, Wu Cheng'en

Wu Cheng'en's kinship has nothing to show off. Ancestral relatives, Wu Cheng'en didn't speak, probably praise is not enough. Grandma Liang's family is not clear. She is probably from Huai 'an. At that time, Liang's family in Huai 'an didn't show off, and his great-uncle knew nothing about it. Neither my ancestors nor my aunt recorded it, so it is impossible to talk about it. The first mother, Xu, is the daughter of a businessman, and the biological mother, Zhang, knows nothing about anyone. I haven't even seen a word about my uncle's house and my aunt's house, or there is no aunt at all. The situation of Wu Cheng'en's relatives above the level of parents is simply a mystery.

Some people like to praise two relatives of Wu Cheng'en's own generation: one is the brother-in-law Shen family, and the other is the brother-in-law Ye family. They are descendants of Shen Yi and Ye Qi respectively. Shen Yi and Ye Qi were the ministers of the southern and northern governments in Jingtai and Hongzhi years respectively, and they were both important figures in Huai 'an. But Wu Cheng'en's brother-in-law and wife are probably just the two ethnic groups, not the direct descendants of the two ministers. But in the end, it is still a relationship between relatives and friends, and it has something to do with it. Now let's look at these two relatives.

Let's talk about my brother-in-law Shenyang first. "Epitaph of Xianfubin" says: "Mrs. Xu gave birth to a daughter and became a woman, suitable for Shenshan County." So Wu Cheng'en's brother-in-law is called Shen Shan. How do you know that Shen Shan and Shen Yi belong to his family? This is reflected in the epitaph written by Wu Cheng'en's grandson Du Qiu, the son of Shen Shan's daughter, for his parents. The epitaph says. "When it comes to Huai County, the most popular thing is that the family of Shangshu is also the first; My mother is a man, and I know her granddaughter. " This epitaph says that the grandmother is "Mrs Wu" and "Sheyang Wu Gong, mother uncle". Therefore, her mother Shen Shi is Wu Cheng'en's niece and Wu Chengjia's daughter, "Mrs. Wu". Therefore, Wu Cheng'en's brother-in-law Shen Shan was immediately called "the home of the first minister of Shen Gong". At that time, Shen Yi was the only Shangshu in Huai 'an, so Shen Shan was a member of Shen Yi. In addition, Du Qiu's middle cousin is clearly recorded in Shen Yi's genealogy, while Shen Shi's genealogy also records Du Qiu as an important relative. These are all confirmations.

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