Chapter 40 East and West

The series of novels "Di Gong Case" is very special. It is the only time in the history of reasoning that the East collided with the West, the ancients collided with the modern, and the legend collided with reason. A few old friends from the publishing and cultural circles are not doing their jobs, and they are working part-time as consultants for a production company. An advertising company came to shoot a TV commercial for a credit card. The male spokesperson they chose was Zhang Dachun, a famous urchin novelist.The creative staff of the advertising company didn’t know that these people and Dachun had been close friends for 20 years, so they dutifully introduced Zhang Dachun’s personality traits: “Mr. Zhang Dachun is a very special person, he is neither ancient nor Not modern; neither Eastern nor Western—" At this point, Zhan Hongzhi couldn't bear it anymore, and interjected: "Our way of speaking is relatively simple and concise, and we directly say that Zhang Dachun is not a thing."

The difference from Zhang Dachun is that Di Gong's case is a "thing", which involves two people from things, one is Di Renjie and the other is Gao Luopei. Let’s talk about Di Renjie first. The protagonist of this series of novels is directly Di Gong in the Di Gong case. He is an ancient man thousands of years ago, Di Renjie, the famous prime minister of the Tang Dynasty in Eastern China. This Di Renjie, who has a real history, was active in the brilliant but embarrassing period of Chinese history, that is, after the reign of Emperor Taizong of Tang Dynasty (in my personal opinion, the first Chinese emperor in history), the world was peaceful and prosperous. During the period from Tang Gaozong in Tang Dynasty to the powerful Wu Zetian usurping Tang Lizhou, this made Di Renjie unable to live a smooth life like Fang Xuanling and Du Ruhui in his predecessors. Instead, he had to walk carefully, and even had to get involved During the power change struggle between the new forces of the Wu family and Li Tang's old officials, he was once imprisoned and almost sentenced to death for treason, or directly sentenced to death in prison, but such a difficult situation also gave Di Renjie a special opportunity to play.But the key point is to be honest, Wu Zetian, who is suspicious by nature but has a clear mind and is absolutely worthy of being called wise, trusts him quite a bit after all. Later Tang Zhongzong), and accepted his recommendation, and promoted the upright and capable Zhang Jianzhi to the court for the first time.Di Renjie himself died when Wu Zetian was still in power at the age of seventy-one. In the future, it was Zhang Jianzhi who led the performance. The great storm of power that I only saw when the empress changed her dynasty finally became a super big teacup storm in the Tang court and came to an end. The people's lives are very limited, which is also Wu Zetian's great side).

Generally speaking, historians trace the origin and always credit most of the credit to Bao Zhongzong, recommended Zhang Jianzhi, and Di Renjie who planted the seeds of returning to the Tang Dynasty with one hand, and called him the mainstay of his generation. Di Renjie himself, who was born in the Ming Dynasty, was an extremely powerful minister, and for forty or fifty years, he was immersed in political power almost without interruption. Rushen and outspoken loyalty and unyielding are the most eye-catching (generally, outspokenness is always attributed to personality qualities, but in fact it comes from the so-called professional dignity and training).Judging from his life deeds and remarks, basically, Di Renjie is of course a Confucian who reads sage books, but he is also an extremely pragmatic official who is skilled in political affairs. The shrewdness and ability of strong Legalism is used to govern the people and serve as officials. In fact, it is the most standard Chinese "intellectual/professional civil official" model since the Han Dynasty. above importance.

In the long history of thousands of years, such a typical professional civil servant, of course, has a spectrum of good and bad, but in terms of its best performance, it is close to what we call today's "enlightened rightist"-diligence, integrity, High efficiency, trust in professionalism, and a sense of urgent responsibility to look down on all living beings, more importantly, a considerable degree of rationality, not close to ghosts and gods, not cranky, and have a basic tendency to return to simple common sense and experience. Di Renjie is probably the best layer among them.

Then there is Gao Luopei, Dr. Robert H. van Gulik, the re-creator of Di Gongan, a famous Dutch sinologist born in the 20th century. Born in 1910, Gao Luopei was a diplomat in theory and had been an ambassador. However, like some strange Europeans, he was very young about the "old and mysterious" East, In particular, China, which represents the cultural system in the East, has a kind of vigorous interest as if it has heard the call.Gao Luopei started to learn Chinese spontaneously when he was in middle school, and added Japanese in college, looking like he must travel east in his life.From this point of view, even the reason why he chose to be a diplomat in the future can be regarded as part of this logic of thinking and preparation for this call.

In the future, as a diplomat, he traveled all over Tokyo, Surabaya, New Delhi, Beirut, Damascus, Kuala Lumpur, and most importantly, Chongqing, China, and claimed to be proficient in 15 languages. Strictly speaking, Gao Luo Pei didn't really stay in China for a long time, only three years during the Anti-Japanese War (1942-1945), which was far less than his two missions to Japan before and after World War II. Ten years. What's more interesting is that rather than saying that he is a modern European diplomat, he is rather an old literati from the Qing Dynasty. His interest in China is quite "old", and it is heavily concentrated on traditional folk culture.He studied Guqin, calligraphy and painting, collected antiques, ancient books, Guqin scores, ancient painting scores, etc. He was not very interested in the cultural thinking of the great tradition. The current situation in China in the network of intertwined power struggles in the country not only turns a blind eye, but also somewhat despises it.

Gao Luopei's Sinology research is most famous for his text collection and research on Chinese sexology in the Ming Dynasty. After many years, this achievement has circled the world and returned to the land of the Chinese. A few years ago "Secret Opera Picture Test", which has caused a small wave in Taiwan's publishing industry, is Gao Luopei's masterpiece. Then there are 16 interesting mystery novels, Judge Dee, which he rewrote on the basis of Ming Dynasty gongan novels, Judge Dee. What needs to be explained in particular is that the so-called "legend hits reason" we mentioned at the beginning does not refer to Di Renjie and Gao Luopei meeting in the real world. rationality), not to mention a crude dichotomy between Chinese and Western cultures, but to highlight the special writing origin and process of this group of mystery novels.

The legend refers to Laoyuan, which is a public case novel circulated in Chinese folk in the Ming Dynasty. Just like the "Bao Gongan" that most people are familiar with today, the so-called gongan novel is a legendary story about a great official in ancient China who broke prison. Bao Gong and Di Gong) as the center, accompanied by clever and loyal masters and staff (such as Gongsun Ce, Hong Liang), and capable government officials as the eyes and ears (such as Chao Mahan, Ma Rong Qiaotai), what kind of strange cases of injustice, there are no exceptions. Responding to the sound, it was very enjoyable.

Of course, since it is a folk legend, it naturally expresses the understanding, expectation, and imagination of the people, and it does not have to be responsible for official history. For example, Bao Zheng in "Song History" is just an ordinary official, unlike Di Renjie who has at least "" Seven thousand people were imprisoned for a long time at the age of one year, and the majestic deeds called "Ping Shu" at the time, and the characters, plots, language, and even various details of food, clothing, housing and transportation in the story do not have to be as accurate as the described era.

In addition, it is inevitable that it will be full of all kinds of yin and yang, ghosts and gods, especially at the critical moment when the case is stalemate and the story is difficult to break through, or even impossible to make up. Wronged souls enter the dream to clarify the case in detail, that is, when encountering danger and dying, there is a fairy who remembers the friendship of our colleagues in the heaven in the past, and specially appears to warn and rescue Yun Yun-this is a long-standing folk tale. The typical technique of "natural flow, magic and realism", such as "thinking without steps, use Xiandu" in Taiwanese dialect.

As for rationality, it refers to the Western writing tradition invoked by Colope's rewriting: the classical reasoning technique of reason. In fact, in this novel, Gao Luopei's earliest role-playing was a simple "translator"-he originally wanted to introduce this koan novel to Europeans. However, in 1949 this year When the translation was published, Gao Luopei appealed to Europeans who were in the second golden age of mystery novels and were very familiar with the creation and appreciation of mystery novels, suggesting that mystery novels could be written in the style and form of Chinese koan novels, but because no one accepted In the end, the over-energy and not very serious diplomat decided to do it himself. This is the origin of these sixteen novels today, which are quite different from the old ones that were originally circulated in China. First of all, Gao Luopei, who is proficient in Chinese, still carefully wrote in English, which he is more comfortable with when rewriting the novels; secondly, he also drew illustrations for this series of novels by himself. Luo Pei can't help but paint the focus woman in the painting as nude, whether it's in the hall of the home, or in the courtroom where Duke Dee asks the case.The real most important change is that there are sixteen novels, the layout of the case and the method of solving the case have basically abandoned the methods of using torture in the court to extract confessions and relying on ghosts and gods to solve the key in the original koan novels.The new Duke Dee is not so much an official sitting high in the courtroom, but rather a detective who looks around and uses logical reasoning as the guide to solve the case, just like the familiar Sherlock Holmes, Poirot, and Ellery Quinn . So far, it has officially entered the century-old European and American mystery novels, but its rich historical color, its Chinese folk life and taste (in fact, it is closer to the Song and Ming Dynasties than the Tang Dynasty), and the ancient Chinese detective Di Renjie it created, are in the present. Let it shine a unique and moving light in this long river. Breaking into prison is like a god, not relying on yin and yang, but using rational and professional guidance to find the final answer. It is very interesting that the new Di Renjie in Gao Luopei's works did not become a Western detective in the official uniform of the Tang Dynasty. Circle back, closer to the real generation of Di Renjie in the old and new "Tang Shu". Although it is different from the rational development path in the West and the specifications are different, so it is not easy to compare them side by side, but the thinking tradition of Chinese scholars in ancient China has always been quite rational, not the Platonic mathematical rationality that breaks with the real world, but rather It is a kind of simple rationality that tends to common sense and experience-I think this source mainly comes from Confucius, a very special person who appeared "early" without the support of sufficient historical conditions, and is unusually free and mature in thinking , he does not care about ghosts and gods, does not ask about the origin of everything, does not seek the ultimate answer, is always interested in the details of the empirical world, and remains highly alert to the many variables and disturbances in the real world. Therefore, he is unwilling and unable to construct a reduction His clear and concise thinking system gives different suggestions and answers to similar questions in different situations. In the world of thinking that tends to be very heavy, he is always free and agile, just like he always likes to take walks and play in mountains and rivers. Longing for an unfettered pastoral life. Since this person's thinking has won early in Chinese history (too much victory, so it is a pity that other parallel possible developments have been blocked), Chinese scholars have embarked on such a simple and rational path to a considerable extent, and it is precisely this characteristic, Only then did European rationalists in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, such as Leibniz and Voltaire, admire it—of course, there is a certain degree of misunderstanding of time and space isolation, as well as the projection of their personal subjective expectations. Di Renjie is basically a scholar on this road. He advised Tang Gaozong not to angrily kill Xue Huaiyi who felled the cypress tree in the tomb of the first emperor, and not to punish the rebellious Yue King's party members. Think twice as a prince, relying on his indomitable powerful rational cognition and analysis; and Di Renjie is also a person with very few mysterious thoughts. There are as many as 1,700 temples in the "Wu Chu Depraved Temple" (to a certain extent, we really hope that there are people like Di Renjie in Taiwan today, who will take good care of those who blatantly occupy mountains as kings, destroy natural water and soil, and There are many temples and altars that cheat money and do all kinds of evil things in the name of gods and Buddhas. There is no need to demolish more than 1,700 temples. In his later years, Wu Zetian, who bravely dissuaded Buddhists, spent huge sums of money to build large Buddha statues. Of course, this is not quite the same as the common people in the old novels, who circulated imaginations, handled cases with inspiration, and was always assisted by ghosts and gods. There is nothing to say about this, the vast and complex folk have their own imaginations, expectations, guesses, and stubborn beliefs, not only in koan novels, but also in other plain-text novels that are embellished with jealousy, the deification of heroes, the luxury of high-class life The dramatization and simplification of the reality of life, and even the complete glamorization of women, have their own reasons and needs, and are more meaningful, and there is no need to force others to return to reality. For example, in most of Chinese history, the real currency is copper coins, and the casting of silver taels is mainly used for the convenience of local taxes and tribute transportation. There are hundreds of taels of silver and running around (it is easy to have the kind of embarrassing and funny plots in Mark Twain's satirical novels); However, who can say which famous general and concubine in Chinese history is like Lai Guozhou?In fact, taking Di Renjie’s Tang Dynasty as an example, the emperor’s daughter usually married a wealthy family at that time (after the powerful family politics in the Jin Dynasty, the existence of the wealthy family continued all the way to the Tang Dynasty, and there are black and white rankings from generation to generation. )’s sons-in-law, nine out of ten of these son-in-laws are not very promising, not to mention, in the court ecology of the rising feminist rights in the Tang Dynasty, if we go to the biographies of the concubines in the official history, we will find again and again that the emperor always has to wait before the princess comes out of the cabinet. , painstakingly advised her delicate daughter to remember to treat her parents-in-law with courtesy, and not to bully that poor son-in-law. However, compared with many detectives of classical reasoning, Di Gong, who was rewritten and created by Gao Luopei, still has a lot of uniqueness. The most interesting thing is that the ancient Chinese political mechanism allows him to be both He has the multiple identities of detective, prosecutor and judge, and when necessary, he also plays the role of a folk hero who fills in legal loopholes. This is a full-featured, convenient and easy-to-use new justice model. This kind of righteous retribution from upstream raw materials to downstream sales of finished products is indeed very comforting, especially in bad times. Generally, good people spontaneously have the feeling of "catching them all" and "rather killing mistakes than letting them go". When there is a sense of injustice—for example, we recently saw the newly elected leader of Taiwan swear to sweep up black money, but the bad guys are still at large. When the scar makes people shake their heads and sigh, many people will naturally have the appearance of the late leader Chiang Ching-kuo in their minds, or the older and more direct one with a crescent moon pattern on the forehead (birthmark? Tattoo? Sticker? Scar?) blue sky. The full-featured new machine developed by Gao Luopei for classical mystery novels is actually an old machine that has been around for a long time in real human history. Generally, we can generally call it "enlightened autocracy". Since Plato, there have been many conscientious and responsible political and legal thinkers who believe that enlightened autocracy is the best system in human society, but the difficulty lies in that few clear-headed people dare to advocate such a good thing. The reason is simple. It There is no effective and reassuring preservative. Over time, especially after the transfer of power, the first to disappear is always enlightened, and the stubborn one is always autocratic, so some people joke that enlightened autocracy is a rare flower, rare and beautiful, However, the chromosomes are incomplete and cannot produce offspring. So where is the best place to live for this kind of comforting yet unsettling enlightened dictatorship?My personal answer is the novel, the black and white world of the novel, if it is isolated, it will decompose the bacteria of corruption, it is always rational, enlightened, efficient, never tired or dead, ghosts and snakes have nothing to hide in front of it, and it is enjoyable. You say it's escapism, don't you?The straightforward and famous writer Zhang Beihai replied: "Idiot, of course." I dare not answer in such an intimate and impolite way. My idea is that it is meaningful and healthy to escape from the annoying real world once in a while. Yes, keep you alive, have the strength to continue dealing with the world, or at least not go crazy or commit suicide in despair. Well, let us happily enter Duke Dee's world of justice, and then face social reality in a healthy and healthy manner.