Cao Xueqin's life

Cao Xueqin's real name is Cao Zhan, whose name is Xue Qin, or a native of Pu, West Qin Qin. Why are the three numbers inseparable from the word "Qin"? There is a folklore here. It turned out that when Cao Xueqin lived in Xishan, he made soup with wild celery and cured a teahouse buddy Ma Qing. Since then, his medical reputation has been greatly improved. Later, he cured many people with Chinese herbal medicine. In order to further show his ambition, he specially named himself Xueqin, which means that he would like to be a mountain celery, which can not only satisfy hunger, but also cure diseases and help the poor. Later, he took the names of Qin Pu and Xi Qin, but few people mentioned his name.

Why is the word "snow" before the word "Qin"? Zhou thought it was probably taken from Su Dongpo's poem "Spring Day": "The garden father picks the snow Qin first". Cold snow overwhelmed celery, but celery buds broke through the snow with tenacious vitality to welcome the arrival of spring. Isn't it meaningful?

At the same time, he also has a name of "Meng Ruan". "Ruan" is Ruan Ji, a famous person in Wei and Jin Dynasties, who is famous for his contempt for ethics and willfulness. The name "Meng Ruan" expresses his pursuit of life character, which is indifferent to fame and fortune, vulgar and heavy in temperament.

When Cao Xueqin was born, researchers generally speculated that he was born in Jiangning Weaving Institute in the 54th year of Kangxi (namely 17 15). At this time, the Cao family was not as prosperous as before, but Cao Xueqin caught up with the last prosperous period of the family. Cao Xueqin, whose ancestors were Han Chinese, was taken captive as a white flag by Manchu nobles, became a slave, entered the flag book, and later became a slave of the Qing royal family's internal affairs office. The success of the Cao Shi family began with the ancestor Cao Yanzhen. He entered the customs with the Qing soldiers and made great contributions to the Qing royal family. Cao's son Cao's wife became Kangxi's nanny. In the second year of Kangxi's accession to the throne, Cao was appointed as the first supervisor of Jiangnan weaving, in charge of the cloth and procurement needed by the court, which was an important financial position. When Cao died, Kangxi ordered his son to attack the post office. Cao Yin, Cao Xueqin's grandfather, is known as "a master of the past and the present, but a master of the economy and a master of the arts". His term of office was the heyday of the Cao family. Kangxi made six southern tours, took Jiangnan Weaving Department as his palace five times, and served in Cao Yin for the last four times. After Cao Yin's death, Kangxi ordered his son Cao Yong to attack his position. Two years later, Cao Yong died, and Kangxi ordered Cao, the nephew of Cao Xueqin (probably his father), to adopt him as his son and take up his duties. Until the fifth year of Yongzheng, Cao was convicted for competing for the power and interests of the royal family. (According to Mr. Zhang Shucai's textual research, the Cao family lost more than 2 million taels of silver at that time. Sun San and Cao Jiazu have been weaving in Jiangning for 60 years. Cao Xueqin was born in Nanjing and lived a luxurious life as a teenager. Cao Jia was also a "poet", especially Cao Xueqin's grandfather, who was a famous genius at that time. He presided over the publication of the famous Tang poetry. He can write poems, words and songs, and has works such as "Reading Poems from the Neem Pavilion". At the same time, he is also a famous bibliophile with a collection of tens of thousands of books. Such a family with profound literary accomplishment has prepared excellent cultural and artistic quality for Cao Xueqin's creation of A Dream of Red Mansions.

When Cao Xueqin was thirteen years old, that is, the year after the Cao family was robbed, the whole family moved back to Beijing. I first settled down in seventeen and a half rooms at the mouth of garlic market outside Chongwenmen, Beijing. When I visited this place in the summer of 200, two old people (descendants of Cao family) pointed to an empty house of more than ten square meters and said that Cao Xueqin wrote a dream of red mansions in that house. He may be engaged in religious studies. From the analysis of his friend Duncheng's poems, it is speculated that he did not do rough work in religion, but "wrote strangely" and "talked strangely", and appeared in front of many royal children as a gifted scholar and poet.

Cao Xueqin moved to a deserted village near Xishan in the western suburbs of Beijing at about forty years old. This poem entitled "To Cao Xueqin" is sincere: "Artemisia trails are all old and not beautiful, and the whole family often pays for porridge and wine." The first sentence is about the place of residence, and the second sentence is about the embarrassment of life. From the sporadic records of some of his friends' poems, we can only know that he is versatile, good at painting, likes drinking, and has an indomitable and arrogant attitude towards the dark society. Zhang Yiquan said in a poem entitled "The laity of Fiddle Creek": "I don't envy the favor of violets in soup, but I am ashamed in the garden." It shows that he does not envy Bai (a violet layman) being loved by the emperor with a spoon, nor does he forget the shame left by the painter Yan being called into the palace to paint. It seems that Cao Xueqin, who is good at painting, has the opportunity to climb the lofty branches, but he has given up hope for the gift of the emperor. This arrogant character determines that Cao Xueqin is bound to become poorer and poorer. Cao Xueqin spent ten spring, summer, autumn and winter in a deserted village in the western suburbs of Beijing. Finally, he died of his beloved son, so sad that he became ill. He died in tears before he was 50.