What was Tang Bohu like in ancient times?

Since the publication of Feng Menglong's novel "Married with a Smile", due to the rendering of folk artists and operas, the story of Tang Bohu lighting Qiuxiang has been widely circulated among the people, and Tang Bohu has also become a household name in China. In folklore, Tang Bohu became a rich man with many wives. In fact, this greatly distorts the true colors of Tang Bohu. In the history of Tang Bohu, there is no legendary affair, and life is poor and bumpy.

When Tang Bohu was a teenager, he was good at poetry and writing. At the age of 14 or 15, Tang Bohu studied under the famous painter Zhou Dongcun, and his painting skills became more and more exquisite. A few years later, Tang Bohu's landscapes, figures, ladies and flowers and birds were outstanding. He, together with the famous literati painters Zhu Zhishan, Wen Zhiming and Xu Zhenqing, was also called "four gifted scholars in Wuzhong". Just as Tang Bohu was full of ambition and determined to make a difference, misfortune came quietly. My father died of a stroke, and my mother died with my father because she was too sad. Soon, when his wife gave birth to a child, she had a fever after delivery and passed away quietly. And the baby died with his mother three days after birth. Relatives died one after another, which was a great blow to Tang Bohu. He wrote in Answer to Wen Zhiming: "I don't care about being old today. Things are wrong, things are wrong, and it is sad. This is also a kind of fate ... There are many misfortunes, parents and wives are looking for each other, dying, losing their cars repeatedly, and their mouths are hoarse." But later, with the encouragement of friends Zhu Zhishan and Wen Zhiming, Tang Bohu picked up the ancient prose and studied hard. "When the name is not obvious, the heart is immortal, and then read the article." As a result, after Tang Bohu passed the provincial examination, "Xie Yuangong" became famous in Nanjing for a while. Unfortunately, the good times did not last long. Tang Bohu was implicated in the imperial examination fraud case, and the imperial examination was closed and the road to fame and fortune was cut off. Later, she married Shen nine niang, a prostitute, and they hit it off. Since then, Tang Bohu has also devoted himself to painting and made a living by selling paintings in poverty. In the fourth year of Zheng De in Ming Dynasty (AD 1509), Tang Bohu built Taohuawu in the north of Suzhou. He claimed to be the owner of Taohuawu, and once wrote "Song of Taohuaan": "In Taohuawu, there are Taohuaan fairies; Peach Fairy breeds peach trees and picks them for drinks ... "Tang Bohu lived in Taohuawu for the rest of his life, and his major works of art were also created here. Tang Bohu had a rough life and lived in poverty and misery in his later years, at the age of 54.

Since Tang Bohu didn't marry Chou-heung, where did the story of Tang Bohu playing Chou-heung come from? Does Chou-heung really exist in history?

The embryonic form of Tang Bohu's story of igniting Chou-heung first appeared in the note novels of Ming Dynasty. In his Ear Talk, the novelist of the Ming Dynasty described the story of another Suzhou genius, Chen Dianqiu Xiang, which is exactly the same: "Yuan's young man is charming and charming, and he wants to climb the tiger hill with a guest and see the official with a servant girl. Let people trace back to the source, down and out, begging for books and leaving two sons to wait on them. Naturally, the second son's handwriting was amazing, and both the father and the teacher were frightened and didn't know what that yuan was. I wanted to get married and come back, but my second son refused. He said, "You are the only one in the room". You said,' Chou-heung can do it if necessary.' I met a maid before. The second son was married to white parents. When Yuan got married, the maid said,' Haven't you seen Tiger Hill?' Say, "Nature!" Yue: "If you are a noble son, why are you so humble?" Say,' You used to laugh at me, but you can't forget your feelings! When this story came to Feng Menglong in the late Ming Dynasty, it became the smiling marriage of Shi Jing Tong Yan Tang Jieyuan. The earliest story about Tang Bohu in traditional Chinese opera is Meng Chengshun's zaju "Laughing Before Flowers" in the late Ming Dynasty. Later, people thought it was not enough to "laugh it off", so it developed from "laugh it off" to "San Xiao", and Wang Zai's tanci and outstanding zaju appeared. After Qianlong and Jiaqing, Suzhou Pingtan artists often sang Tanci, such as The Marriage of San Xiao, The New Edition of San Xiao, Eight Beautiful Pictures of San Xiao, The Edge of Laughter and so on. By the end of the Qing Dynasty, the folk began to spread the ballad "Nine Beautiful Pictures", and it was said that Tang Bohu had married nine beautiful wives.

Qiu Xiang, the heroine of the story, is also a real person. At that time, there was indeed a woman named Chou-heung in Tang Bohu, who was a minor celebrity, but she was not a handmaid of a large family, but a famous prostitute in the romantic field in Jinling, Du Nan. Chou-heung, whose real name is Lin Nuer and whose real name is Jin Lan, is Chou-heung. She was proficient in piano, chess, calligraphy and painting, and was known as "Wuzhong talented woman" at that time. Chou-heung was forced to fall into a brothel in her early years. After she got married, some regulars came to see her. Not only did she not agree, but she also drew a picture called "New Willow Map" on the fan, with a poem saying: "In the past, Zhang Taiwu danced with a thin waist and let you climb branches. Today, it is written by Dan Qing, and the east wind cannot be shaken again. " According to the History of Painting in Ming Dynasty, "Chou-heung studied painting in Shi Tingzhi, and Wang Yuan and his son were the clearest." Flowers of war also records that Chou-heung studied painting with painter Shen Zhou. Shen Zhou was a famous painter in Ming Dynasty. He once painted a picture of Danqing for Chou-heung and wrote a sentence. Chou-heung lived in the same era as Tang Bohu, but according to research, Chou-heung was born in the first year of Jingtai in Ming Dynasty (A.D. 1450), 20 years older than Tang Bohu. When Tang Bohu 16 years old made her debut, it was difficult to have feelings with Chou-heung on the Qinhuai River in Jinling. Tang Bohu lit autumn fragrance only because later generations attached some love affairs of talented people and beautiful women to them.

Why did a love story like "Chen Gongzi lit Chou-heung" turn into a story of "Tong Bohu lit Chou-heung"? This may be because Tang Bohu was born in the Ming Dynasty and his ancestral home was Suzhou, and he was a famous genius. The prototype of this story, Chen, was also a Suzhou native and gifted scholar in the Ming Dynasty. The identities of the two people are basically the same, and there is indeed Chou-heung in Tang Bohu. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, Feng Menglong wrote the story of "Tang Bohu Lighting Autumn Fragrance".