Near this old well.
“Lightly cover her with earth—
Oh! Yang Kuei-fei!
What is all my empire worth
Now I’ve lost thee!”
During the Ch’ing Dynasty the native music was gradually superseded by a much cruder, less melodious product imported from barbarian lands. With the old style of music went many of the better plays; in many cases they were replaced by the so-called “military plays”, that is to say acrobatic exhibitions of stage fighting to the accompaniment of crashing orchestral pandemonium. Toward the end of the Ch’ing Dynasty the Yuan drama had almost entirely vanished from the Peking stage. In a later chapter will be found a fuller discussion of the newer types of music.
But the chief innovation in the drama under the Manchu rule came through the influence of popular novels. Episodes from the famous novels read by everybody were brought on the stage in ever-increasing numbers. The novel, like the drama, is a literary form despised by the pundits and it too began to flourish during the Mongol Dynasty when the literary examinations were suppressed. Many novels are of unknown authorship, because their authors considered such works as beneath their dignity. But for the very reason that the authors did not employ the literary language the great masses of the people were able to enjoy these stories. Let it be remarked in passing that the novel is now coming into its own and is receiving its just share of attention from scholars, at least from the progressive ones. Doctor Hu Shih, of the National University, Peking, has pointed out that it is the novel written in the vernacular that has given to spoken Chinese such unity as it possesses, and that it is through works in the popular language that a common speech for all China may ultimately be achieved. To-day, of course, natives of Peking, Shanghai, and Canton speak languages differing as widely as do those of Berlin, Amsterdam, and London, or Rome, Paris, and Madrid. Due to the crystallization of the written language, however, students from the three Chinese centers can read one another’s letters, although, as I have often observed in laboratories or on the playground, when they converse they have recourse to English. It is due to their linguistic and literary importance that Doctor Hu Shih has edited critical editions of about a dozen famous Chinese novels.
Among the novels, “The Story of the Three Kingdoms” (San Kuo Ch’i) is by far the most popular. It was written in the Yuan Dynasty and deals with the period of romantic chivalry, 221-265 A.D., when three dynasties ruled in three separate capitals. In it appear the cruel Tsao Tsao and the resourceful Chu Ko-liang, together with many another brave warrior. Every educated Chinese has read it, and the illiterate coolies have hired readers, that they too may learn of the stirring adventures of their more or less mythical heroes. The enthusiasm for this book is simply unbounded, as the following instance may serve to illustrate. Friends of mine in Peking, a young architect and his wife, were continually annoyed during hot August evenings by a fairly loud voice with a monotonous rising and falling inflection that kept coming over the wall of the adjoining courtyard from eight o’clock until midnight. It cast a shadow over conversation, it distracted attention from reading, and it effectually prevented peaceful sleep. My friends began by setting their victrola on their side of the wall to playing “Over There!” for an hour or two on end; next they sent out the house boy to buy firecrackers and ordered him to set off package after package under a tin pail; and finally they allowed a bottle of asafetida to trickle over the wall—but all to no avail. They recovered neither their peace of mind nor their slumber until the shuo-shu-te had read to his coolie audience the last chapter of “The Three Kingdoms”, a novel as long as the whole Bible.
An endless number of plays are based on this book of romantic history, which deserves to be called the national epic of the Chinese. A long list of “military plays” derive their plots from the “Shui Hu Chuan” (Story of the River Bank), a novel based upon the doings of a band of brigands who terrorized a number of provinces early in the twelfth century. Some of the swashbucklers in this story had Robin Hood’s habit of giving to the poor what they had stolen from the rich and corrupt officials. From the “Liao Chai” (translated by Mr. Giles, “Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio”) come many plays dealing with fairies and other supernatural beings. The novel that might be considered a possible rival in popularity to the story of “The Three Kingdoms”, is “The Dream of the Red Chamber” (Hung Lou Meng), the story of the love of a young idler for his two pretty cousins, and the decay of an old and wealthy family. Poetic love stories from this novel were brought on the stage only in recent years by Mei Lan-fang, the actor who is responsible for many innovations in the Peking theater. The play, “Burying the Flowers”, mentioned in the chapter on Mei Lan-fang, is one example of a dramatization of an episode from this book.
In his “Geschichte der chinesischen Litteratur” the German scholar Wilhelm Grube, who knew the Chinese character well, remarks in discussing the novel that a ruse or a sly calculation on the part of a warrior seems to appeal to the Chinese much more than actual bravery on the battle field. A number of plays taken from the story of “The Three Kingdoms” bear out this point by reason of their perennial popularity. No play perhaps is oftener acted than “The Ruse of the Empty City” (Kung Chuan Chi). The famous hero Chu Ko-liang is in a city stripped of all its defenders when suddenly a strong enemy force arrives. He orders the gates to be opened wide as though peace were reigning throughout the country, and seats himself on the wall above the gate. When the advance guard of the enemy arrives it finds the commander, who more than any other is known for his resourcefulness and his stratagems, calmly reading a book in the face of the threatening attack. Naturally enough the enemy fears an ambush of some sort and withdraws. By his calm Chu Ko-liang has saved a city; his bluff has won.