Walking in a rather elegant garden in Shaoxing, Ruan Dacheng yawned but just woke up.
He stretched and yawned, then turned around and leaned back against the pillow and squinted.
Two beautiful girls aged fourteen heard the noise and came in gently on tiptoe like cats. They peeked at the door and saw that the master was already sitting there, so they came together to help him get up.
Qingqiu brewed a pot of tea and said, "Master, I wrote the script until midnight last night. Why did you get up so early today?"
Ningdong took a silk shirt and prepared to put it on for Ruan Dacheng, "How were your thoughts last night? How many plays did you write?"
Ruan Dacheng opened his eyes, took the tea and rinsed his mouth.
"Sir, I'm old and can't survive anymore." He took another cup of tea to moisten his throat. "I still remember that in the spring of the sixth year of Chongzhen, I wrote a spring lantern riddle script to welcome my uncle back home after his official career. It only took more than a month to complete the thirty-year-old riddles.
After nine plays and more than 50,000 words, the script of Spring Lantern Riddles was completed, and Mr. Shuziyuan admired it very much after reading it."
Ruan Dacheng was very proud when he talked about the past.
Looking back on the past, when Chongzhen was six years old, although he was still never hired, he was still young and still managed very well with his smart mind and extensive connections.
"No, Mr. Ciyuan is also a master of opera. But as soon as Master's spring lantern riddle came out, it was highly praised by Deziyuan. Many booksellers and theater troupes rushed to buy it. Later, once the opera was rehearsed and performed, it attracted even more attention.
Countless viewers praised it, and everyone applauded." Qingqiu, the girl, skillfully poured tea and flattered the master just right.
The Duke of Ziyuan they are talking about is Ruan Dacheng's great-uncle Ruan Zihua. The Ruan family is a famous gentry in Anqing. Ruan Zihua is the son of Ruan E, the governor of Fujian and Zhejiang during the Jiajing period. Ruan E had meritorious service in fighting against the Japanese, but he was greedy for money and was later impeached for having an affair with Yan Song.
The relationship between father and son is good and they avoid serious treatment.
Ruan Zihua was a Jinshi in Wanli Middle School. He was appointed as the prefect of Shaowu in Fujian in the early years of Chongzhen. After he returned to his hometown in Anqing, he recruited actors and founded a family theater troupe. He entertained himself with Kunqu Opera, Yiyang Opera, etc., and became the most famous private theater troupe in Jiangnan at that time.
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In order to please his uncle, Ruan Dacheng spent more than a month writing the script Spring Lantern Riddles.
Ruan Dacheng was indeed capable. For him, writing opera scripts was just a free work after he resigned from office, but he reached the top level of screenwriting at that time. His masterpiece Muni He was written in one go in only sixteen days. It was as long as
The forty-sixth place on the double gold list only took more than twenty days.
Other scripts, such as Yan Zi Jian and Zhong Yi Huan, were also completed in one go and were sold well. Once they were staged, they became the most popular new dramas at that time.
But for Ruan Dacheng, drama was just a hobby he used to entertain himself and earn some royalties after he was demoted. When he was young, he focused on the imperial examination and could also write poems and poems.
When he was very young, his poems were already known as the most accomplished poets of the Ming Dynasty. Many people said that to read Ming poems, one must first read Ruan Dacheng's poems.
Even at that time, many people praised Ruan Dacheng as a peerless genius that had not been seen for five hundred years. His poems were even praised by many as equal to Wang Wei and Meng Haoran.
He was simply praised as the first poet of the Ming Dynasty.
Of course, this is not all flattery. Although Ruan Dacheng is from a famous family, he has produced many Jinshi and officials, and he once worshiped the leader of Donglin as his disciple, and was called a distinguished scholar in the Donglin Party.
Lin Zhong is naturally praised by everyone, but he does have real skills.
Ruan Dacheng's poems, from young to old, became more and more sophisticated as he wrote them. In his early poems, he wrote about the beautiful scenery of the south of the Yangtze River and the leisure life of the scholar-bureaucrats. There were also later poems about the endless war in the north and the destruction of the Central Plains.
In view of the tragedy of the war, it can be said that his poems depict the entire scene of the late Ming Dynasty with great depth.
However, Ruan Dacheng's biggest ideal in this life is to be an official, a high official, or a chief assistant. Therefore, whether it is poetry or opera, it is just his hobby, and it can at most be used to improve himself in Shilin.
It's just a stepping stone to fame in the officialdom, he has no intention of doing so.
It's just that the young and energetic Ruan Dacheng finally hit a wall in Beijing and suffered a lot. In order to fight for a position in the civil service department, he eventually turned himself from the heir to the Donglin Party to a traitor to the Eunuch Party.
But he was not idle after he was demoted. He wrote poems and plays, established poetry societies, opened bookstores and theater troupes, printed and sold books, and even used his extremely wide network of contacts to litigate people and even work as a political broker.
Official comprador.
While using poems and operas to build his reputation, he also used it to make money. He made friends with scholars, took in knight-errant swordsmen, and talked about military affairs everywhere. Although he tried to come back several times in the Chongzhen Dynasty, he finally made a successful comeback in the Hongguang Dynasty.
It's just that the Hongguang court was destroyed too quickly. Otherwise, with his ability, he would not have stopped at the Ministry of War. He would have joined the cabinet and become a bachelor long ago.
After the death of Nandu, Ruan Dacheng felt as if his backbone had been ripped out. He lost all his energy and energy. He ran to Hangzhou, followed Fang Guoan's army to Jinhua, Yanzhou, and then was called to Shaoxing.
Ambition, frustration and frustration.
Recently I want to write a new drama based on Jian Guo's Northern Expedition as a gift to Jian Guo. I hope that after meeting Jian Guo, I can win the favor and appreciation of this young and enterprising Jian Guo.
After all, Lu Jianguo was able to ignore the opposition of the Donglin Party members and ignore their negligence in taking charge of Hongguang, and still appointed him and Ma Shiying as Shaoqing. Even traitors such as Liu Kongzhao and Yang Wencong were re-employed, which made him feel
There is an opportunity to reuse it.
I used to be able to write several scripts in a day, or even write dozens of new plays in half a month, but now I can't write well.
No matter how much I write, I can't satisfy him.
Worry about gains and losses.
He has collected a lot of Lu Jianguo's past, but he still feels that he cannot see through him. Lu Jianguo's behavior is always unusual, which makes Ruan Dacheng, who prides himself on being smart, feel very confused.
"Hey, I'm fifty-nine years old. I'm old."
I will be sixty next year, and when I look back, I am shocked to realize how old I am.
But Ruan Dacheng is still a little bit dissatisfied with his elders. Liu Zongzhou, Zhang Guowei, Huang Dao, Zhou Fang, Chen Meng and other hot-mouthed people can all re-enter the cabinet. What is wrong with Ruan Dacheng?
In terms of ability to do things, I am definitely better than them. Even in terms of military skills, I am much better than them.
But it just happened that there was no chance.
Zhang Guowei was the governor of Liangjiang, Huang Daozhou was the governor of Anhui, and Zhu Dadian was the governor of Huguang.
When he arrived in Shaoxing, although he was given the post of Shaoqing, he actually had nothing to do all day long. Apart from occasionally drinking tea with Ma Shiying and listening to the Kunqu opera performed by his family's troupe at home, he was really bored.
But I'm not willing to give in.
Ruan Dacheng has been looking for an opportunity to come back, an opportunity to impress the Supervisor. He wanted to write a play about the Northern Expedition to praise the Supervisor, but he couldn't write anything satisfactory.
Maybe we can only count on Fang Fengnian and Fang Guoan. Fang Fengnian is in the cabinet. After all, he was once the chief assistant of Chongzhen, and Fang Guoan has a heavy army in Yanzhou. Fang Fengnian has been planning to overthrow the cabinet and replace Song Zhipu's chief assistant.
Although Song Zhipu is a close confidant of the Supervisor, his qualifications and prestige are not high enough after all. How can he be the opponent of an old fox like Fang Fengnian? What's more, Fang Fengnian has joined forces with Chen Meng, and even He Tengjiao, the new member of the cabinet, is very close to them. There are also generals from the feudal town outside.
Support, this should be no problem.
Just like when Ma Shiying and the four towns in Jiangbei supported King Fu and proclaimed himself emperor, Shi Kefa of the Donglin Party and others intended to support King Lu, but in the end they had no choice but to accept it in front of the generals of the feudal towns?
Fang Guoan had worshiped Fang Fengnian as his adoptive father, and they had a very close relationship. He had also been in Fang Guoan's army for a long time, and the relationship was also good.
Just when I was thinking about inviting Fang Fengnian to come over to listen to the play and have a good chat, I heard the sound of hurried footsteps outside, and the steward came in in a panic, "Sir, it's not good. Uncle Zhennan was killed in Fu'an by the prisoner with a sword, so Yu Lin passed the news.
The first one is Shaoxing."
"The Fang Ge Department has also been deposed by the Supervisor State!"
Ruan Dacheng's head was banged, and he was stunned on the spot.