Chapter 21 postscript

It is the first novel I wrote.Twenty years have passed since 1955. I am from Haining, Zhejiang.The legend of Emperor Qianlong has been heard in his hometown since he was a child.When I was a boy scout, I once camped by the stone pond built by Emperor Qianlong in Haining, and watched the raging tide come in in the middle of the night.So it is only natural that the first novel wrote the story that impressed me the most.But the character Chen Jialuo is my invention.Princess Xiangxiang is not the legendary or historical concubine Xiangxiang either.Princess Xiangxiang is much more beautiful than Concubine Xiang.The illustration of Xiangfei attached to this book is just to let readers see that Qianlong had such a concubine.

Haining belonged to Hangzhou Prefecture in the Qing Dynasty. It was a small coastal county and was only famous for its tides.Famous figures in modern times include Wang Guowei, Jiang Baili, Xu Zhimo, etc. Their characters all have some melancholy and tragic undertones, and they all have a bit of untimely stubbornness.Chen Jialuo may also have some shadows of these people.But Haining doesn't have any fighters, even Jiang Baili, a military expert, can only talk about martial arts, and he is not good at using martial arts. Historian Meng Sen has done textual research and believes that the legend that Qianlong was a descendant of the Chen family in Haining is unreliable, and the legend that Xiangfei was killed by the empress dowager is also false.Historians don't like legends, of course, but people who write fiction do.

Qianlong went all out to build the Haining seawall until it was completed, which benefited the people greatly.I wrote him badly in the book, and sometimes I feel a little sorry.His poems are not good, and they didn’t have much to do with them. It’s just that when I was a child, I saw stone carvings of his imperial poems everywhere in Haining and Hangzhou. The inscription, if you don't satirize him, it's hard to get angry. I have never practiced calligraphy except for tracing red grids in elementary school. The title and signature written on the cover are not worthy of a calligrapher.I also don't know anything about poetry. It wasn't until I revised this book recently that I read Mr. Wang Li's "Chinese Poetry" and first realized mediocrity.The imitation of Qianlong's poems is fine, but the imitation of Chen Jialuo and Yu Yutong's poems is very childish.Chen Jialuo was originally Xie Yuan in his first work, but he thought that Xie Yuan's poems could not be so bad, so he cut his feet and fit his shoes when revising, and removed his title of Jie Yuan.Although Yu Yutong is only a scholar, his poems should not be at such a novice level.However, he was nicknamed "Golden Flute Scholar", and his fame was a little more flexible and he would not be dismissed.The review of the book is also not well done.The review in the first edition of this book was mediocre at all, and it is only slightly improved now.

This book was serialized in newspapers at first, and later published as a booklet. Now it is reprinted after revision and revision, and almost every sentence has been changed.Even the third proof was badly corrected.Brother Cai Yanpei, who is in charge of proofreading, Brother Chen Dong, the typesetting foreman of Ming Pao Publishing Department, and other workers, I often feel both regret and shame. "Jin Yong's Works Collection" is expected to be about 40 volumes.Each volume is accompanied by printed color illustrations (mainland version), hoping to let readers (especially readers in foreign countries) get in touch with more Chinese cultural relics and works of art.If you think the novel itself is too boring, then take a look at the pictures. The seal of "Jin Yong's Works Collection" at the back of the book was made by Mr. Yi Yueshi, a Jinshi family. Thank you very much.

Brothers Shen Baoxin and Chen Huasheng have helped a lot in publishing planning and printing of "Collected Works". I am really grateful. May 1975