Flower in the Sea of Evil
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A Flower in a Sinful Sea
A Flower in a Sinful Sea (Chinese: 孽海花, Hanyu Pinyin: Nièhǎihuā, Wade-Giles:, Nieh-hai hua) is a novel by Jin Tianhe (also known as Jin Songcen) and Zeng Pu (also written as Tseng P'u). The work is a roman à clef.[1] The work was partially translated to English by Rafe de Crespigny and Liu Ts'un-yan in 1982. It was also translated to French. Contents [hide] 1 Title 2 Plot 3 Development 4 Purpose and style 5 Characters 6 Analysis 7 Translations 8 References 9 Notes 10 Further reading Title[edit] The nie (C: 孽, P: niè, W: nieh) refers to retributions. The hua (C: 花, P: huā, W: hua) for "flower" is a polysemy as it can also refer to "woman". In addition the word sounds similar to hua (T: 華, S: 华, P: huá, W: hua), meaning China.[2] The title has also been translated as Flower in a Sea of Sin, Flower in the Sea of Retribution, Flower in the World of Retribution, Flower in a Sea of Karma, Flower in the Sea of Evil or A Flower in an Ocean of Sin. Plot[edit] In the earlier versions of the novel by Jin Tianhe, Sai Jinhua, a courtesan, travels to the west with her husband, a scholar. They meet Russian anarchists and the novel describes the history of the Russian anarchist movement.[3] In the revised version by Zeng Pu, the prolog describes an "Island of Happy Slaves" attached to the city of Shanghai that has a population of ignorant people who party and have savageness. This is sinking into the ocean, but island's residents die without realizing that the lack of air is killing them. Milena Doleželová-Velingerová, the author of "Chapter 38: Fiction from the End of the Empire to the Beginning of the Republic (1897-1916)", wrote that "the prolog foretells the theme of the whole novel by a synecdoche".[2] In the main story, Jin Wenqing breaks a promise to marry someone, and this leads to the woman committing suicide. Twenty years later, Jin Wenqing, a high official enjoying a luxurious life, gets into a relationship Fu Caiyun, a sing-song girl. However Fu Caiyun is in fact an image of the woman who had committed suicide. Jin Wenqing makes Fu Caiyun his concubine. Over the course of the novel, a pattern of retributions,[2] specifically Buddhist-style retributions,[4] occur against Jin Wenqing, punishing him for his actions. Jin Wenqing becomes a diplomat and travels to Europe. There he is unsuccessful as a government minister and does not grasp the world outside of China. Meanwhile, Fu Caiyun, who cheats on him,[2] wins favors of several royal families, including Empress Victoria of Germany, and becomes friends with the Russian nihilist Sara Aizenson.[5] Jin Wenqing returns to China and then falls into disgrace. When he dies, everyone around him has abandoned him.[2] Fu Caiyun runs away from Jin Wenqing's family after his death. At the end of the story Fu Caiyun is engaged in a relationship to a Beijing opera singer. Ultimately the novel was never finished. The table of contents of the novel states that Fu Caiyun will reunite with Count Waldersee, but this portion was never written.[5] The revised novel describes the upper class of China resident in Beijing and Shanghai during final 25 years of the 19th Century and compares the fate of the said upper class to that of Jin Wenqing.[2] Development[edit] Jin Tianhe wrote the original five chapters of the project.[6] It was originally a political novel criticizing Russian advances into China.[3] Two of the chapters were published in Jiangsu (T: 江蘇, S: 江苏, P: Jiāngsū, W: Chiang-su), a magazine that was published in Jiangsu (then Kiangsu) and ran from 1903 to 1904.[2] Zeng Pu wrote that the five Jin Tianhe chapters "concentrate too much on the protagonist, so they at most describe an extraordinary courtesan, and along with her, a number of historical anecdotes."[6] Zeng Pu stated that if the original conception of the novel succeeded "it would be no more than the Li Xiangjun [(C: 李香君, P: Lǐ Xiāngjūn, W: Li Hsiang-chün)] of Taohua shan, or the Chen Yuanyuan of Cangsang yan [T: 滄桑豔, S: 沧桑艳, P: Cāngsāng yàn, W: Ts'ang-sang yen]."[6] In 1904 Zeng Pu took control of the novel.[7] Subsequently the first two volumes of the novel were published by the Grove of Fiction publishing company in 1905. Each of these volumes contained 10 chapters. Four additional chapters were serialized in the The Grove of Fiction magazine in 1907. These chapters were intended to be in a third volume but this volume was never published. In 1928 Zeng Pu reworked the novel into a thirty chapter version and published this version.[2] Ultimately Zeng Pu completed the novel, transforming it into a historical novel.[3] Zeng Pu argued that in his conception "the protagonist functions as the thread which I attempt to link together the history of the past thirty years."[6] The University of Hong Kong Libraries wrote that "Although Zeng Pu was an avid reader of French literature in the original, the influence of his Western models on NHH comes out most clearly in the transformations of traditional Chinese motifs."[3] The novel, beginning with Chapter 22, was published in the magazine Xiaoshuo Lin (小說林). The chapters did not appear in consecutive issues, but instead were published in a sporadic manner.[8] Purpose and style[edit] The novel indirectly criticized the Qing Dynasty government and promoted the values of democracy. The author uses the motif of the courtesan or the beautiful lady and the scholar in order to create a reflection of the intelligentsia in the late Qing Dynasty.[3] Characters[edit] Sai Jinhua in 1887. The character of Fu Caiyun is based on her. Characters in the Zeng Pu versions: Jin Jun (T: 金 鈞, S: 金 钧, P: Jīn Jūn, W: Chin Chün) or Jin Wenqing (C: 金雯青, P: Jīn Wénqīng, W: Chin Wen-ch'ing) is an official who is brought down by a series of retributions.[2] Jin Jun is based on Hong Jun.[1][9][10] Jin Jun is intended to represent a late Qing politician, being either a model or a caricature of such.[5] David Der-wei Wang wrote that Jin Wenqing is "as much a cuckold in the bedroom as he is a dupe in the councilroom."[5] The author added that "The bedroom comedy between" Jin Wenqing and Fu Caiyun "may well be read as a political satire, pointing to the impotence and corruption of the late Qing court."[11] Fu Caiyun (T: 傅彩雲, S: 傅彩云, P: Fù Cǎiyún, W: Fu Ts'ai-yün), a sing-song girl who becomes Jin Wenqing's concubine. She is in fact an image of a woman who was wronged by Jin Wenqing. Fu Caiyun cheats on him.[2] David Der-wei Wang, author of Fin-de-siècle Splendor: Repressed Modernities of Late Qing Fiction, 1849-1911, stated that compared to her husband, Fu Caiyun "is much more resourceful in every aspect of life."[5] Fu Caiyun had performed better in her zhuangyuan imperial examination than her husband did in the portions regarding foreign customs and languages. Keith McMahon, author of Polygamy and Sublime Passion: Sexuality in China on the Verge of Modernity, wrote that this was "another symbol of the Chinese man's endemic failure to understand China's need to adapt."[12] David Wang stated that Fu Caiyun is "a highly dynamic character" who is "never a pure, virtuous woman."[5] Liu Jianmei, author of Revolution Plus Love: Literary History, Women's Bodies, and Thematic Repetition in Twentieth-Century Chinese Fiction, wrote that Fu Caiyun is both a "promiscuous femme fatale and a national heroine."[13] Fu Caiyun is based on Sai Jinhua.[1][10] Ying Hu, author of Tales of Translation: Composing the New Woman in China, 1899-1918, wrote that Sai Jinhua's portrayal in that work was "resolutely ambiguous."[14] Sara Aizenson - Sara, a Russian nihilist, becomes friends with Fu Caiyun. While accompanying Fu Caiyun, Sara talks about Sophia Perovskaya.[5] Despite the exposure to the ideals, Fu Caiyun does not become a revolutionary.[13] Analysis[edit] Peter Li wrote an essay on the book, "The Dramatic Structure of Niehai hua", published in The Chinese Novel at the Turn of the Century.[15] Li argues that the "architectonic" construction and "incremental dramatic development" are the two principles within the novel's structure. Li discusses the protagonist, the setting, foreshadowing within the story, and the general plot.[16] Robert E. Hegel, author of a book review of The Chinese Novel at the Turn of the Century, wrote that Li's essay "appears to be an early version of an essay expanded to form Chapter 4 of his Tseng P'u.[15] Cordell D. K. Yee, who also reviewed The Chinese Novel at the Turn of the Century, argued that Li's essay has "little evidence of symmetrical design, or even "dramatic" structure."[16] Yee wrote that Li's essay "seems to lose sight" of the argument stated, that the analysis process became "almost an end in itself."[16] Translations[edit] The first 5 chapters were translated as A Flower in a Sinful Sea (translated by Rafe de Crespigny and Liu Ts'un-yan), Renditions (17 & 18), 1982, pp. 137–92. An edition in French, titled Fleur sur l'Océan des Péchés and translated by Isabelle Bijon, was published by Éditions Trans-Europe-Repress (TER) in March 1983.[17] References[edit] Doar, Bruce. "The Chinese Novel at the Turn of the Century" (book review). The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs, ISSN 0156-7365, 01/1982, Issue 7, pp. 199 – 201 (Available on JSTOR) Doleželová-Velingerová, Milena. "Chapter 38: Fiction from the End of the Empire to the Beginning of the Republic (1897-1916)" in: Mair, Victor H. (editor). The Columbia History of Chinese Literature. Columbia University Press, August 13, 2013. p. 697-731. ISBN 9780231528511. Hegel, Robert E. "The Chinese Novel at the Turn of the Century" (book review). Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews (CLEAR), ISSN 0161-9705, 07/1983, Volume 5, Issue 1/2, pp. 188 – 191 Hu, Ying. Tales of Translation: Composing the New Woman in China, 1899-1918. Stanford University Press, 2000. ISBN 9780804737746. Idema, Wilt. A Guide to Chinese Literature. University of Michigan Press, January 1, 1997. ISBN 9780892640997. (French) Lévy, André. "Fleur sur l'océan des péchés". (book review of Niehai Hua, Archive). Études chinoises, No. 1, 1982. Li, Peter. "The Dramatic Structure of Niehai hua" in: Doleželová-Velingerová, Milena (editor). The Chinese Novel at the Turn of the Century (Toronto: University of Toronto Press; January 1, 1980), ISBN 9780802054739. Liu, Jianmei. Revolution Plus Love: Literary History, Women's Bodies, and Thematic Repetition in Twentieth-Century Chinese Fiction. University of Hawaii Press, October 2003. ISBN 978-0824825867 - See book introduction (Archive) McMahon, Keith. Polygamy and Sublime Passion: Sexuality in China on the Verge of Modernity. University of Hawaii Press, 2010. ISBN 9780824833763. Starr, Chloë. Red-light Novels of the late Qing. BRILL, April 24, 2007. ISBN 9047428595, 9789047428596. Wang, David Der-wei. Fin-de-siècle Splendor: Repressed Modernities of Late Qing Fiction, 1849-1911. Stanford University Press, 1997. ISBN 9780804728454. Yee, Cordell D. K. "The Chinese Novel at the Turn of the Century" (book review). Journal of Asian Studies, ISSN 0021-9118, 05/1982, Volume 41, Issue 3, p. 574
Flower in the sea of evil (Chinese Edition) (Chinese) Hardcover – January 8, 2011
Flower in the sea of evil"" is one of the condemnation books in the late Qing Dynasty. With the experience of Suzhou Number One Scholar Jin Jun and famous prostitute Fu Caiyun as the clue, it depicts the historical transformation of China' political and cultural life of the thirty years from the first year in Tongzhi period to the Jiawu War. It successfully focuses on the depiction of the feudal intellectuals and bureaucratic officials on their hypocrisy and corruption and incapability when facing the conflict of the western civilization
Gong Xiaogong and the Sacking of the Garden of Perfect Brightness
Chinese scholars are almost universal in their condemnation of James Bruce, Lord Elgin, who led the Anglo-French Expeditionary Force to Beijing in 1860, as the man responsible for razing the Garden of Perfect Brightness. For Chinese patriots, the image of the isolated Jesuit-baroque stone rubble of the Western Pavilions at the garden remains the single most graphic image of 19th century conflict between China and the Western imperialist powers. Few today know of the diplomatic intricacies that led to the Second Opium War, or of the horrors, authored by both sides, attendant on its conclusion. In the mass of Chinese documentation on this deplorable act of international plunder, there is the occasional reference to 'traitors' who aided and abetted the Anglo-French Expeditionary Force in their wilful pyromania. 'Wild histories' (yeshi) and memoirs couched as fiction are even more specific, and single out one 'pseudo-foreigner clad in a white suit and boots' who purportedly led the foreigners to the palace complex in pursuit of a personal vendetta. Ironically, the father of 'the man in the white suit' is remembered in Chinese history texts as one of the most prominent patriots of the 19th century. Fig. 2 Fig. 2 The same kirin, repositioned to what is now Peking University in the early Republic. Photo: GRB, winter 2000. In the following investigation of this unsolved case we trace a path through a maze of whispers and innuendo. The story involves the poet Gu Taiqing, wife of Yihui, a man who was the son of the Daoguang emperor during whose reign Gong Xiaogong's father mysteriously died. Yihui had two famous half cousins: Yizhu (who reigned as the Xianfeng emperor) and Yixin (Prince Gong). The political fortunes of both of these men were enmeshed with the destruction of the Garden of Perfect Brightness. Prince Gong and his mansion (Gong wangfu) will be the subject of a future issue of China Heritage Quarterly. The following essay was first published as Gong Xiaogong: A Case of Mistaken Identity, Wellington: Asian Studies Institute, Victoria University, 1999. In Zhang Guangtian's 2006 play Yuanming Yuan (see 'On Stage & Screen' in Features), Gong Xiaogong continues to play an important, if invidious, role in the history of the garden palace, both past and present. [GRB] Gong Xiaogong: A Case of Mistaken Identity Drifting in a sinful sea, The wrongs from the last incarnation are judged in the present. A Flower in a Sinful Sea[1] Following the Anglo-French assault on the Yuanming Yuan, the Garden of Perfect Brightness, and a cheerless victory over the Chinese court in 1860, the British imperial representative Lord Elgin spent December in Shanghai recuperating from the frenzy in the north. He read Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Aurora Leigh, followed by Trollope's Doctor Thorne and Charles Darwin's recently published On the Origin of the Species. The latter perhaps would have given him son succour, for he may have found therein a justification for the retributive actions he had recently authored against the 'backward' and primitive Manchu-Chinese court. In 1861, Elgin was invited as Guest of Honour at the Royal Academy Diner and in his speech he commented on the devastation he and his fellows had wrought in Beijing: I am not so incorrigibly barbarous as to be incapable of feeling the humanizing influences which fall upon us from the noble works of art by which we are surrounded. No one regretted more sincerely than I did the destruction of that collection of summer houses and kiosks, already, and previously to any act of mine, rifled of their contents, which was dignified by the title of Summer Palace of the Chinese Emperor... ... in no other way, except indeed by inflicting on this country and on China the calamity of another year of war, could I mark the sense which I entertained...of an atrocious crime, which, if it had passed unpunished, would have placed in jeopardy the life of every European in China. I felt the time had come which I must choose between the indulgence of a not unnatural sensibility, and the performance of a painful duty. Among other things he went on to speak of his view of Chinese art and aesthetics: I have been repeatedly asked whether, in my opinion, the interests of art are likely to be in any degree promoted by the opening up of China... . I do not think in matters of art we have much to learn from that country...the most cynical representations of the grotesque have been the principal products of Chinese conceptions of the sublime and beautiful. Nevertheless I am disposed to believe that under this mass of abortions and rubbish there lie some hidden sparks of a divine fire, which the genius of my countrymen may gather and nurse into a flame.[2] It has been suggested that one of the reasons why James Bruce, the Eighth Earl of Elgin, was concerned more with human life than with antiquities and buildings was that as a youth he had suffered from the obsession of his father (Thomas Bruce, a more infamous Lord Elgin) with the marble friezes of the Parthenon in Athens. His sensibility to human artifice was dulled by his earlier experience and brought to bear on his punitive expedition to north China. His decision to burn the Yuanming Yuan "at least meant that flesh-and-blood injuries done to people he knew intimately would for once be revenged not, as in war, upon other people...but on inanimate objects, on redundant and expensive things". And it was the Garden of Perfect Brightness that "would bear the brunt of his revenge".[3] It is here that there is an elision, perhaps, between speculation about Elgin's varied motives, hinted at in the above quotations, and rumours surrounding the presumed Chinese traitor who is said to have led the foreign forces to the Yuanming Yuan. The 'traitor' (Hanjian) is supposed to have suggested that rather than taking revenge on the Han Chinese city of Beijing, the Anglo-British forces exercise themselves on the garden-palaces beloved of the Manchus. Objects destroyed and looted as opposed to lives lost and suffering inflicted thus seem to offer a strange dimension of coincidence between the reasoning of James Bruce, Lord Elgin, son of the purloiner of the 'Elgin Marbles', and the putative Chinese instigator of the pillage of the Yuanming Yuan, Gong Cheng (Xiaogong), son of a famed critic of Qing rule. Fig. 3 Fig. 3 A computer-generated view of the main audience hall, 'Zhengda Guangming', of Yuanming Yuan. It was here that Lord Elgin set up the headquarters from which he and his colleagues orchestrated the rape of the gardens. Therefore, it was probably the last building to be torched. Source: Beijing Zhuda diannao donghua gongsi. Gong Zizhen Gong Xiaogong was the eldest son of Gong Zizhen (hao Ding'an, 1792-1841), a noted literary figure of the late Qing.[4] While his father's abiding fame has been enshrined by propagandists as an exemplar of the Qing scholar-officials whose crise de coeur, expressed in prose and poetry, have become staples of patriotic education, his son, when mentioned at all, is known as an unfilial eccentric and traitor. Gong Zizhen was an early and articulate critic of Qing governance. He is claimed by nationalist and Communist Party historians alike as 'China's Dante' and he figures prominently in the modern lineage of literati-patriots who were prescient enough to recognise the cause and needs of Han China as distinct fro abiding loyalty to the ruling house of the Qing, the Aisin Gioro. The reality, his loyalties and those of his son, however, may be quite different from contemporary interpolations. Gong Zizhen was from a famous literary family of Hangzhou. Having spent much of his youth in Beijing he soon became involved in scholarly pursuits and an (often frustrated) official career. Evidence of his insight into the looming plight of the Qing empire can be found in an essay produced in 1820 'Bar Foreign Ships from our Southeastern Coasts'.[5] Though no longer extant its title hints at an understanding of the possible friction with European traders decades before conflict broke out into the open. Gong became an associate of Lin Zexu, the Imperial Commissioner entrusted by the Court with the abolition of the opium trade, and with him and Wei Yuan formed a poetry club, the Poetry Society, in 1830. Stymied in his official career due to his poor calligraphy—and presumably because of the disquiet caused by his ideas—Gong Zizhen became increasingly critical of the authorities and outspoken about his views, thereby adding to his reputation as an unstable and erratic individual. He shared his insights with Lin Zexu and when the latter was commissioned by the court to deal with the opium trade in Guangzhou, Gong wrote to him about the inequitable situation and entreated his friend to limit commerce with the West while also building up China's defences. He even offered Lin his services, but was turned down.[6] Rebuffed, in both Beijing and Canton, Gong suddenly quit his post with the Board of Ceremonies, where he had been working since 1837, and left the capital, an act that confirmed his reputation for erratic behaviour, or 'wildness', kuang. Fig. 4 Fig. 4 A computer-generated impression of the interior of the imperial audience hall, 'Zhengda Guangming'. Source: Beijing Zhuda diannao donghua gongsi. If anything, Gong Zizhen's fame grew after his sudden departure and, by the end of the dynasty, he was regarded as a precursor of the intellectual foment that would eventually overwhelm the country. Even in the late Cultural Revolution (the early 1970s) he was one of the few writers whose complete works were made available.[7] Just as he was pressed into the service of Party orthodoxy then his name was also invoked by the authors of the controversial 1988 TV series River Elegy, who said of him: At the time [when the Chinese court refused the entreaties of the West] only one man in China was thinking clearly. It is because of his clear-headedness that he suffered more than anyone else. He said that [the late Qing] was an age of spiritual confusion, that there were no talented ministers at court or courageous generals in the army, that schools lacked outstanding teachers, and the peasantry was hopeless as were artisans, builders and merchants. It was an era of decay in which not even the thieves were competent. He would cry out each day for Heaven to restore order, but his appeals went unanswered, so then every day he called for great disorder under Heaven. His name was Gong Zizhen.[8] Gong is remembered in particular for his 'Miscellaneous Poems of the Year Jihai'(Jihai zashi), a cycle of poems written in 1839, after he quit Beijing and returned south. The most famous of these is, perhaps: CXXV All life in China's nine regions depends on the thundering storm, thousands of horses all struck dumb is deplorable indeed. I urge the Lord of Heaven to shake us up again and grant us human talent not bound to a single kind.[9] These lines were later popularised within the Communist Party by no less a figure than Mao Zedong when, in 1945, in commenting on the need for Party members to be more innovative, he said famously, "I urge Marx and Lenin to shake us up again/ and grant us human talent not bound to a single kind".[10] More relevant to our present argument, however, are suggestions that the "human talent not bound to a single kind", of which Zizhen wrote, included in particular his son, Gong Xiaogong. Gong Xiaogong The eccentric scholar (kuangshi), or idiosyncratic individual has been a cultural stereotype in China, variously excoriated and celebrated, for centuries. The irreverent 'empty talkers' of the Wei-Jin period were blamed for the fall of dynasties; the unruly philosophers and writers of the late Ming, from Li Zhi to the Yuan brothers of Gongan, were vilified for rejecting the orthodoxy of the day and conspiring in the fall of the last Han imperial house. Outspoken and irascible individuals have been condemned either as the products of social and political decadence, the dangerous embodiment of decline, or as a cultural malaise, the prognosticators and progenitors of collapse whose very words and deeds add to the desuetude of dynasties. The details of Gong Xiaogong's life are sketchy. Born in Shanghai in 1817, he was educated in a family that had produced talented scholars and writers for a number of generations, both among its male and female members. As the son of a renowned writer, and great-grandson of a famous etymologist and phonologist, Duan Yucai, Xiaogong grew up in a scholastic environment with easy access to a large library of rare books, many of which, it was said, were not included in Qianlong's Great Treasury of the Four Compilations (Siku quanshu). His youthful talent was spoken of as excelling even that of his gifted father, with whom he travelled as he pursued his official career in Beijing. It was also a clan with recent affiliations and a fascination with the growing port city of Shanghai. But his was a genius confounded by a wildly arrogant personality. "His eccentricity put him at odds with the times and led him to even greater excesses. He is viewed universally as a misfit." Loathing the world in which he found himself, Xiaogong is portrayed as having eventually let his errant nature lead him to the heinous acts of a traitor, a Hanjian.[11] Although like his father a native of Hangzhou, Xiaogong is taken by writers and historians as being a typical deracinated Shanghai gadfly, a failed scholar and local dandy. One of the most important sources of information about Gong's life is tantalisingly brief biographical sketch by his friend, the scholar and 'displaced person' Wang Tao (1828-1897).[12] According to Wang, a drinking companion during Xiaogong's last years, Gong studied both Manchu and Mongolian during his father's long years in the imperial capital, spending much of his childhood disporting himself with non-Han companions and honing his skills in archery and horsemanship with them; so much so that Wang claimed that "he was altogether a young barbarian [hu'er]". It was in his youth that he also became friendly with Yang Molin, a man who ran some seventy pawnshops and was known as Pawner Yang. Accustomed to the privileges of wealth and painfully aware of his father's frustrated official career, Xiaogong took little interest in pursuing the traditional path of the scholar-official, although his father admonished him in a series of four poems to persevere with his studies and not to waste his efforts on vain-glorious fame.[13] Fig. 5 Fig. 5 'From inside the room I heard a tapping noise...' [When asked why he was hitting his father's funerary tablet, Gong responds:] 'My father was a great man who gained his great name under false pretenses... his admirers... would even praise the perfume of his farts. I am trying at the moment to arrange his collected works for publication, but there are a number of things that are utter rubbish, or confusing and misleading at the very least.... He always used to correct my writing, and whenever he found a mistake he would beat me. Not it's my turn...' Source (image and text): Renditions Special Issue: Middlebrow Fiction, Nos. 17&18 (Spring & Autumn 1982), p.162. In keeping with the image of the indulgent eccentric, Xiaogong is spoken of as being a "disciple of Liu Ling", that is, a heavy drinker. Although drunken fits could explain much of his behaviour, the popular stories about his arrogance were also taken by many as pointing at one fatal flaw, that of filial impiety. So sure of his own literary taste, Xiaogong presumed to sit in judgement on the works of his own father. According to biographical notes and rumour, Xiaogong would set up his father's ancestral tablet on his desk and as he read through his work would strike it with a teacher's rule as a sign of his displeasure whenever he came across what he deemed to be infelicitous phrases or weak lines of poetry. Said to be a man of few words who would flee large gatherings of people by his middle years Xiaogong supposedly felt himself to be a failure. While resident in Shanghai where he became known as one of the "wild eccentrics" of the city (haishang yikuang)—he was even know for years as "Crazy Man Gong" (Gong fengzi)[14]—Xiaogong is said to have made the acquaintance of Zeng Jipu, a Cantonese, and through him met Thomas Wade, the British consul general, for whom he became a secretary and something of an interpreter. When the Anglo-French Expeditionary Force was sent to Tianjin and then on to Beijing in 1860, Xiaogong reportedly accompanied it, resulting in a reputation of infamy that was to haunt his last years and besmirch his name thereafter.[15] The 'Traitor' The name of Gong Xiaogong has been obscured by obloquy from the time of the sacking of the Yuanming Yuan, for the story goes that he acted as the guide to the foreign forces that attacked the imperial precinct in the late summer of 1860. According to some, he actually led the invaders to the garden-palace outside Beijing itself and suggested that rather than exacting revenge on the capital, an act that would inevitably have resulted in a great loss of life, they instead loot and burn the magnificent Manchu pleasance on its outskirts. The odium attached to this supposed act of treachery, first given currency by a rumour and then hinted at by no less an authority than Wang Tao, has been reinforced by popular anecdotes, by an influential series of poems on the Yuanming Yuan by Wang Kaiyun (1833-1916), written some years after the pillage, and in fictional accounts published early in the twentieth century (for Wang Kaiyun's poem, see Articles in this issue). More recently, this strange tale has resurfaced once more in the form of a new novel about the despoliation of the gardens. One of the most detailed descriptions of Xiaogong's involvement with the history of the Yuanming Yuan, published in the Republican period, actually finds the first textual evidence of treachery among Chinese turncoats like Gong in the Veritable Records of Wenzong, the account of the Xianfeng reign. The writer Xie Xingyao quotes from an imperial memorial dating from mid-1860 to the effect that: Originally these barbarians [the British and French] travelled far from their homelands purely for the sake of trade. That relations should have been completely severed is entirely due to the endless machinations of vile traitors.[16] The traitors, some of them wastrels and vagabonds from Guangdong, others local bandits from around Beijing, supposedly included in their number Gong Xiaogong. Returning to Wang Tao's contemporary version of the events, we learn that he gleaned the details of them during long bouts of drinking with Xiaogong. "Mr Kung [Gong]", Wang remarks, "was by nature very fond of wine, and as he was one of my very best friends, whenever I was free in the evening I would go to his place and stay there until the small hours drinking and talking about everything under the sun". The telling passage in Wang Tao's account reads: He was not interested in an official career, and in middle life he was reduced to such poverty that he had to pawn even his lutes and his books. When staying in Shanghai he got to know a Cantonese named Tseng Chi-pu. It happened that the future British minister, Sir Thomas Wade, was appointed at this time to the post of counsellor, in which he had charge of all the business of translation and interpreting. For this reason Wade was looking around for some Chinese scholar to help him in his work, and when Tseng introduced Kung to him, Wade was so pleased with him after a short conversation that he offered him a job. During the campaign of 1860 Gong went up to Tientsin with the British fleet. Such conduct aroused great dislike.[17] The rumours about Gong dressed in Western garb—some have him leading the foreign troops to the Yuanming Yuan wearing a white linen suit and gold rimmed spectacles—and at the beck and call of the British were current in the last years of his life. They were reinforced by Wang Tao's comments—and perhaps by Gong's own drunkern bragging—and soon embellished by the wags of Shanghai. His reputation as an increasingly unstable character supposedly led to a falling out not only with his British employer, but also with his fellow. Again, as Wang Tao remarks: He was always attacking other people, and he went his own way as he pleased, without regard for what others thought of him. It was rare for him to find anything good to say of his contemporaries. These in their turn feared and disliked him as an eccentric, and shunned his company so much that they would go out of their way to avoid meeting him.[18] Poverty forced Xiaogong to sell his scant possessions, though he kept his two concubines, having eschewed the company of his wife for over a decade. And even his sons repulsed him and he drove them away when they attempted to visit from Hangzhou. As Wang concludes, "Naturally all this aroused a good deal of hostile talk. He went out of his mind before he died".[19] One is led to surmise that this "hostile talk" gradually found expression in a form both more malicious and permanent than the haughty scorn with which Xiaogong had treated his contemporaries. I would speculate that the malice was embroidered into the stories that grew around accounts of his role in the punitive Anglo-French expedition to Beijing in 1860. Many writers on the subject of the sacking of the Yuanming Yuan speak of the currency of tales about Xiaogong acting as a guide to the foreign troops and that he even went so far as to suggest that they destroy all of the Haidian gardens (Dianyuan), as the numerous imperial and noble residences and villas in the Haidian area northwest of the walled city of Beijing were collectively called at the time. Sources are often referred to in tantalisingly vague terms in an attempt to add a cloak of veracity to the rumours about Gong. There is little doubt that there was a general sense of local outrage at the conduct of the southern Chinese who had followed the foreign forces to the capital and had enthusiastically engaged in the plunder. Furthermore, there is evidence both in foreign eyewitnesses' accounts and in writings of local writers (and imperial records) that these camp followers found scant fellowship with the northerners whose city they were attacking, and that they had even less sympathy with the Manchu rulers whose pleasure palace they helped sack. Nor should it be forgotten that the disdain that Beijing people, in particular residents in and around Haidian, showed for the outsiders might also be in part due to their own role in the destruction of the Yuanming Yuan—for there are claims that it was Haidian residents who first clambered over the palace walls to loot the place and then set it on fire to disguise their felony before the outsiders arrived. Fig. 6 Fig. 6 A rare image of Guiyueqiao, a bridge at the site 'Pangran Dagong' near the Buddha city of Sravasti, Yuanming Yuan, that survived the sacking of the gardens. There is speculation that the picture was taken surreptitiously by a foreigner as the grounds of the gardens were still interdicted imperial property long after 1860. Source: Liu Yang, Xiride xiagong: Yuanming Yuan, Beijing: Xueyuan Chubanshe, 2005, p.75. Others see the rape of the Yuanming Yuan and Gong's putative involvement in it in a somewhat more sympathetic light. The argument is made that Gong Xiaogong may have indeed directed the foreign troops to the Yuanming Yuan, but by so doing he was instrumental in protecting both the imperial palace at the heart of Beijing and the city itself, the Celestial Capital, and symbolic centre of the Manchu-Qing dynasty. For although they resulted in inestimable material loss, the plundering of the treasures of the Yuanming Yuan and the razing of the garden pavilions did fortuitously contribute to the salvation of the city and its inhabitants. As Chai Xiaofeng, writing in the 1930s, remarks: Xiaogong strenuously remonstrated with the British who were set on assaulting the capital and told them that the Yuanming Yuan contained mountains of riches, the very best of the luxuries of China, and that its destruction should more than satisfy their lust for revenge. The British followed his suggestion and thus the capital was spared. How unjust then it is for him to be judged now as he is![20] More phlegmatic historical opinion, however, makes the case that there is no substance to the rumours regarding Gong's notorious deed; nor, apart from aberrant emotional need, is there any reason to support the various rationalisations of Xiaogong's supposed infamy. Having reviewed both Chinese and non-Chinese sources regarding the destruction of the gardens, the historian Liu Fenghan, writing in Taiwan in the early 1960s, concluded that: I feel that I am in a position to dismiss categorically the calumny against Xiaogong... . While there can be no doubt that Gong enjoyed intercourse with the British, judging from the situation at the time it is highly unlikely that he would have been able to exercise such an influence on them. On the grounds of common sense alone one must doubt whether the British would have acted as they did on the suggestion of [a Chinese] like Xiaogong. When the British finally decided upon this course of action not even their French allies could dissuade them, let along someone like Gong Xiaogong.[21] Sins of the Son Given such doubts, it is not surprising—and perhaps even fitting—that it is in the realm of fiction that Gong Xiaogong's posthumous ill repute has continued to grow, the story of his treason being embellished with increasingly colourful detail with the passage of time. The modern formulation of Gong's historical reputation has entailed a complex calibration of issues related to statist Confucian values, loyalty to the Manchu-Qing dynasty and the nascent sense of 'patriotism' that emerged as that dynasty foundered. The most famous late-imperial example of Xiaogong's fictional career is embodied in the character of Gong Xiaoqi, a distasteful figure who features in the opening chapters of the episodic novel A Flower in a Sinful Sea. Inspired by 'A Freedom Lover' (Ai Ziyouzhe, the penname of Jing Songcen [1874-1947]) and written by 'The Sick Man of Asia (Dongya bingfu), that is, Zeng Pu (1872-1935), A Flower in a Sinful Sea made its debut in instalments in 1903. In the second chapter of the novel we find a description of an encounter between a number of scholar-officials in a Shanghai teahouse. While chatting they catch sight of a surly Chinese figure in Western dress jabbering away in English with a foreigner. They subsequently learn that this man is none other than the infamous Gong Xiaoqi, a man famed for having led foreign troops to destroy the Yuanming Yuan: Suddenly, as they sat there in the room [having just ordered a large bottle of champagne to accompany their meal], there was the sound of someone walking past outside in leather-soled boots, and they looked up to see who went by. It was the same two men, the Chinese and the Westerner, whom Jin Jun had seen that evening in the Public Gardens. Xue Furen indicated the Chinese and said: "Do any of you recognise that man?" None of the others knew who he was, and Xue told them: "That is Gong Xiaoqi". "Isn't he Gong Ding'an's son?" asked Lü Cangshu. "That's right", said Xue. "Originally, he knew no English, but then Thomas Wade wanted to read The History of the Han Dynasty in Chinese, and he asked for someone to explain it to him. At first, nobody dared to go, but then Xiaoqi volunteered, and Wade now places the greatest trust in him. I have even heard that the burning of the Summer Palace [Yuanming Yuan] was actually his idea".[22] Gong's character and history had been established some time earlier in the novel: "Two days ago", remarked Cheng Musheng, "I saw Mr. Gong's son, Gong Xiaoqi, in Shanghai". "Don't mention that fellow", said Bei Yuzeng. "He has completely gone over to the foreigners". Xie Jiefu asked then, "Why should he turn traitor so quickly? The foreigners must have offered him a lot of money if he agreed to act as a guide to them". "It's not that", replied Bei Yuzeng. "He's a strange man, and he has funny ideas. He claims he would rather hand our country over to the foreigners than leave it with the Manchus. Just think of it!" Guo Zhaoting said, "I think it is because of his father, Gong Ding'an. He used to say things like that; and there is a proverb which says 'If the father kills a man for good reason, the son will kill for fun'. That explains quite a lot". "If that sort of man is not eliminated", said Cheng Musheng, "it will do great harm to our dynasty".[23] Later on, Gong's concubine, 'Forest of Love' (Ailin), is interviewed by one of the protagonists of the book, and she describes her erstwhile lover's peculiar character (here the author borrows heavily from Wang Tao's account of Xiaogong): People used to see him looking so well-off, treating gold as if it was dirt, and he seemed like a young prince with a tremendous family behind him. In fact, he was a young waster with no family at all. He quarrelled with his father over some silly point in the classics, and he hardly ever went home... . All day and every day Xiaoqi was either in bed with some prostitute who speaks the Suzhou dialect, or studying Mongolian and Tangut, or practising archery and horse-riding with some Central Asian people. All his money came from a friend called Yang Molin. Then Yang died, and he was lucky enough to meet up with the English minister, Sir Thomas Wade. He became a private secretary, and that kept him in funds for a few more years. Having fallen out with Wade, however, Xiaoqi was reduced to trading in antiques and curios. His rejection of accepted social mores led him, claims the concubine, to take— Fig. 7 Fig. 7 'Yuanming Yuan Welcomes You!', northeast entrance to the gardens, 1998. Photo: GRB. ... the literary name of 'Half Moraliy' [Banlun], meaning that he ignores all the five moral relationships of family, country and friends, and all he cares about is me. While I was his mistress, he gave all his affection to this half-relationship. Now he can't even manage that.[24] People generally believed he had gone over to the foreigners for money an offered advice to the Elgin mission: "Everyone cursed him for a traitor", agreed Forest of Love, "but he wouldn't accept that. Some people praised him as a revolutionary, but he wouldn't accept that either. When he suggested burning the Summer Palace, he told me once that all he wanted to do was to avenge his father".[25] And it is this point in the narration of A Flower in a Sinful Sea that the fiction about Gong Xiaogong is conflated with another intriguing and romantic tale about his father, Gong Zizhen, and the supposed clandestine love affair between Zizhen and the poet Gu Taiqing.[26] The Lilac Affair There had been speculation about Gong Zizhen's last years from the time of his sudden death in 1841. As we noted earlier, in 1839 he quit his position with the Board of Ceremonies and travelled alone to his native town of Hangzhou. He later returned to the capital to accompany his family back south, but notably failed to enter Beijing itself. Of the various speculations about his sudden demise in Danyang, Jiangsu, in 1841 where he was teaching,[27] the most convincing is tale about a close relationship he is said to have had with Gu Taiqing. Gu Taiqing (also known as Xilin Chun, 1799-?1875) was a noted writer of verse, a painter and connoisseur of art. She became the concubine of Yihui (1799-1838), a grandson of the Qianlong emperor and a noted poet and calligrapher who inherited the rank of prince in 1815. Her life with Yihui was a happy one, but following his death she was expelled from the princely mansion by Zaijun, Yihui's son from an earlier union, along with her seven children. According to one source, this precipitate act was due to gossip in the capital concerning a reputed affair she was said to have had with Gong Zizhen.[28] She lived on into the 1870s, producing a collection of poetry generally remarked upon as being among the finest of the late Qing. The rumours about Gu Taiging's affair with Gong Zizhen are based on one of the most famous quatrains in Gong's 'Miscellaneous Poems of the Year Jihai' that reads: Lingering on a desolate mountain, tired with travel, I dream of spring in the ethereal park west of the city, Where, as dusk descended on the vermilion mansion, a horseman once delivered a letter To the one dressed in white,
Knowledge Graph
Examples
1 Flower in the Sea of Evil is full of citings from traditional literature .
2 Flower in the Sea of Evil is very heavy to understand for people that are not familiar with antique literature
3 Flower in the Sea of sins is also influenced by Western literature.