Riding the wind of rebirth

Li Diaoyuan was an eccentric genius from Sichuan during the Qing Dynasty, and his success in academic and cultural pursuits was by no means accidental. This was primarily due to his family's scholarly tradition, but also to his innate talent and his persistent and diligent efforts. After resigning from his post and returning to his hometown, he devoted himself to reading and writing, "roaming freely among the mountains and rivers, entertaining himself with his writings," and was renowned alongside other scholars such as Yuan Mei of Qiantang, Zhao Yi of Yanghu, and Wang Wenzhi of Dantu, collectively known as the "Four Elders of the Forest."

In a corner of the memorial hall, a bookstore is selling collections of Li Diaoyuan's works, as well as books compiled by later generations about his anecdotes, biographies, and legends.

The work of compiling and organizing Li Diaoyuan's works, especially the compilation and research of "Han Hai", has not yet been fully completed. However, the compilation and publication of many interesting anecdotes about him, as well as some monographs that are likely to arouse the interest of the general public, are still at the forefront.

Sure enough, Li Laosan found the book "Li Diaoyuan's Couplet Stories" that Zhou Zhi had mentioned here.

Zhou Zhi also swept up some of Li Diaoyuan's works on phonetics and rhyme, as well as "Drama Talks", "Music Talks", and "Shu Language" into his shopping bag.

The book "Talks on Drama" consists of two volumes. The first volume mainly explores the evolution of the opera system, especially the textual research on local opera styles such as Qinqiang, Yiyangqiang, and Bangziqiang, which provides valuable materials for the study of local operas in the Qing Dynasty. The second volume examines the story sources of plays such as "The Story of the Lute" and "The Story of the White Rabbit", which has important historical value.

"Yucun Quhua" is also divided into two volumes. The first volume discusses Yuan Dynasty drama, compiling biographies of fifty-six writers including Guan Hanqing and Wang Shifu, as well as excerpts from representative works such as "The Injustice to Dou E" and "Autumn in the Han Palace". The second volume discusses Ming and Qing Dynasty drama, focusing on the analysis of the diction and rhythm of legendary plays such as "The Peony Pavilion" and "The Palace of Eternal Life".

The analysis presents three main viewpoints: First, it advocates for the integration of vocal styles, specifically combining Yiyang Opera, Kunqu Opera, and Sichuan Gaoqiang Opera to form a "five-style harmony" vocal system. Second, it emphasizes that dialogue should be "simple rather than profound," opposing the tendency towards excessive parallelism; in other words, the language should be natural and fluent. Third, opera should "enter people's hearts and minds, and provoke deep reflection," possessing a social function of changing customs and habits.

The book also cites documents such as "Nancun Chuogenglu" and "Taihe Zhengyinpu", and adopts the style of "excerpting sentences" plus "commentary". It includes the lyrics of various plays and marks them with annotations. In the evaluation of specific plays, it praises "The Romance of the Western Chamber" for its "naturalness" and criticizes "The Story of the Lute" for its "overly ornate lyrics", which reflects the aesthetic orientation of emphasizing the naturalness of language.

These two books established Li Diaoyuan's reputation as the "Father of Sichuan Opera" and have always been highly valued by the opera industry. Zhou Zhi flipped through the introduction and found that it was indeed a collated edition that was included in the 1959 "Collection of Chinese Classical Opera Theories" and published by Zhonghua Book Company.

Zhou Zhi himself is a researcher of ancient Chinese characters and phonetics. His books on drama and opera, such as "Talks on Drama" and "Talks on Opera," also involve phonetics and are important as supplementary materials.

The book "Shu Yu" is quite magical. It was actually compiled by Li Shi, a scholar of the Ming Dynasty. However, the previous versions did not exist. The current "Shu Yu" is actually based on the 1937 edition of "Han Hai" published by the Commercial Press based on the Qing Dynasty Qianlong edition.

In other words, if Li Diaoyuan hadn't included this book in the "Han Hai" for printing and publication, it would most likely have disappeared into the long river of history, leaving future generations to only imagine its existence based on its title.

"Shu Yu" is the first extant work on dialect vocabulary in China that focuses on a specific region. The book centers on researching the phonetics, characters, and meanings of Sichuan dialect during the Ming and Qing dynasties, tracing its connections to ancient pronunciations and meanings. Its aim is to record the characteristics of the local dialect before war and turmoil. The book employs a regionally differentiated approach; for example, it records that the word "姐" (jiě) in Shu dialect refers to mother in the level tone and to elder sister in the rising tone. Its phonological characteristics closely match those of modern Southern Sichuan dialect, confirming the phonetic hierarchy of the Suining dialect during the Ming dynasty.

The book's format serves as a model for later regional dialect studies, directly providing a template for works such as Mao Qiling's "A Record of the Essentials of Yue Dialect" and Hu Wenying's "A Study of Wu Dialect".

Even in the Qing Dynasty, Zhang Shenyi wrote "Supplement to the Dialects of Sichuan", and even my teacher and uncle originally wanted to set the doctoral topic of Zhouzhi as the study of ancient Bashu pronunciation. In fact, they were all influenced by Li Diaoyuan.

"Elbow, what are you still looking for?" Li Laosan had been flipping through "Stories of Couplets" for a long time, praising some of the "absolute" couplets recorded in the stories. Seeing Zhou Zhi still looking up with his head up while holding a stack of books, he said, "Why don't you tell me the title of the book, and we can all help you find it?"

"Found it. Third Brother, could you take this copy of 'Xingyuanlu' down from the shelf? Get both copies." "Why two copies?" Li Laosan took the books down from the shelf. "Huh, isn't this book written by Li Diaoyuan?"

"This was written by Li Diaoyuan's father. Later, Li Diaoyuan wrote a preface for it, and it was included in the Han Hai, which is how it was preserved."

"Are you taking one to give as a gift?"

"Yes, it's for Master Zhang Yuanfu."

"Huh? Isn't Master Zhang a chef? You gave him a book by a great scholar? In classical Chinese? Are you sure you're not mistaken?"

“No mistake, even great scholars can enjoy food,” Zhou Zhi laughed. “This book is the first Sichuan cuisine cookbook in Sichuan.”

"what?"

This version is a reprint by the Li Diaoyuan Memorial Hall based on the Qianlong edition of "Han Hai" and the 1984 edition included in the "Chinese Culinary Classics Series" published by China Commercial Press, provided by Professor Xiong Sizhi. It is quite detailed and comprehensive and has considerable collection value.

The *Xingyuan Lu* is divided into two volumes, containing records of ancient food and cooking techniques. It records 39 types of cooking, 24 types of brewing, 24 types of pastries and snacks, 25 types of food processing, 4 types of beverages, and 5 types of food preservation, totaling 121 types and 149 methods.

In the preface to Xingyuanlu, Li Diaoyuan wrote: "When my late father went on his official journeys, he often visited places where the Wu cuisine was sour and bitter. The cooks who served him food found it delicious, and he recorded these in a book. He did not rely on a copyist, but copied the dishes himself, and he did this for decades without fail."

This means that his father served as an official mostly in the Wu region, where the food was "sour and bitter." Therefore, whenever he ate a delicious dish brought by a chef, he would study and investigate how it was made, and then record it in a book. Moreover, he did not let his secretary do it, but copied it by hand himself. He did this for decades, and finally wrote this book, "Xingyuan Lu".

Are there many scholars like Li Diaoyuan's father?

“Zhouzi himself is one, his book ‘Fun Facts about Sichuan Cuisine’ is really good.” Mai Xiaomiao said, “The only thing is you can’t read it when you’re hungry in the middle of the night, because it has color illustrations that make your mouth water.”

“My book did borrow some content from Xingyuanlu. Speaking of literary figures who like to cook, before Li Diaoyuan, we also had the great writer Su Shi in Sichuan. Dongpo pork was his invention.”

"When it comes to the most famous work, it has to be Yuan Mei's 'Suiyuan Shidan'," Zhou Zhi said. "But Yuan Mei relied on his family chef, Wang Xiaoyu, to take him to visit various delicacies, allowing Wang Xiaoyu to learn, replicate, and innovate. The great talent Yuan Mei was more about experiencing and recording."

"Therefore, Yuan Mei was actually a 'eloquent but impractical' type of talented scholar, as were Liang Shiqiu and Zhou Zuoren during the Republican era. Unlike us in Sichuan, from Su Dongpo, the Li Huanan and Li Diaoyuan father and son, to Li Jieren during the Republican era, all of them were capable of both writing and hands-on work. It's a style passed down from generation to generation!" (End of this chapter)