The prototype of the story of "Meng Jiangnu crying at the Great Wall" is Qi Liang's wife crying for her husband. "Meng Jiangnu crying at the Great Wall" is one of the four major Chinese folk legends, which is well-known to everyone, including women and children. Through this legend, the working people denounced the feudal system that was inhumane and destroyed family happiness, and sang praises of the steadfast and touching love. When people know this legend, they are often influenced by the content of the story and think that this legend happened during the Qin Shihuang period and the location was in the Qin Dynasty Great Wall area, etc. Little do they know that this legend was processed and evolved from a historical fact. Its prototype is in Linzi, Zibo, Shandong, and comes from the story of Qi Liang's wife. From the perspective of exegesis and philology, Meng Jiangnu's surname is not Meng. "Meng" means the eldest among brothers and sisters; "Jiang" is her surname. "Meng Jiangnu" actually means "the eldest daughter of the Jiang family"; moreover, Meng Jiangnu does not refer to a single person, but a general term for a class of people. According to Mao Zhuan, "Meng Jiang is the eldest daughter of Qi." Chen Huan's commentary: "Meng Jiang is the wife of aristocratic family." In the pre-Qin period, "Meng Jiang" generally referred to the eldest daughter of the king of Qi, and also referred to women of aristocratic family. In other words, many noble women of the royal family of Qi at that time could be called "Meng Jiang". In addition to documentary evidence, this point is also proved by the cultural relic Huanzi Meng Jiang Hu (this pot was cast by Jiang Lei, the eldest daughter of Jiang Guang, Duke Zhuang of Qi in the Spring and Autumn Period, and her husband Tian Huanzi Wu Yu, in memory of Tian Huanzi Wu Yu's father Tian Xu Wu). Meng Jiang here refers to the wife of Qi Liang (named Zhi), a senior official of Qi. The story of Qi Liang's wife was first recorded in the reliable history Zuo Zhuan Xianggong 23: Qi Hou (Duke Zhuang) returned from Jin and did not enter. Then he attacked Ju, the gate was closed, and he retreated with his wounded clothes. Tomorrow, he will fight again, and the meeting will be in Shoushu. Tomorrow, he will first meet Juzi Pu Houshi. The prince of Ju bribed him heavily to save his life, saying, "Let's have an alliance." Hua Zhou replied, "Greed for money and abandoning orders is also what the king hates. I received the order at dusk, but abandoned it before noon. How can I serve the king?" The prince of Ju beat the drums himself, and then attacked Qi Liang. The people of Ju succeeded. When the Duke of Qi returned, he met Qi Liang's wife in the suburbs and asked her to offer condolences. She said, "Zhi is guilty, why should I disgrace my order? If he is exempted from the crime, you have the shabby house of your ancestors. I, a concubine, cannot join you in the suburbs. The Duke of Qi will offer condolences to his wife." It means that in the autumn of the 22nd year of King Ling of Zhou (the 4th year of Duke Zhuang of Qi, 550 BC), Duke Zhuang of Qi, Jiang Guang, attacked Wei and Jin, and once captured the capital of Wei, Chaoge (now Qi County, Henan Province). In 549 BC, Duke Zhuang of Qi returned from Chaoge, but did not return to Linzi, the capital of Qi, and raided Ju (now Ju County, Shandong). In the battle of attacking Ju, Qi generals Qi Liang and Hua Zhou died bravely and sacrificed their lives for the country. Later, Qi and Ju made peace and stopped fighting, and the Qi people carried Qi Liang's body back to Linzi. Qi Liang's wife cried and welcomed her husband's coffin on the road outside the city. Duke Zhuang of Qi sent people to offer condolences. Qi Liang's wife believed that her husband had made great contributions to the country, and that Duke Zhuang of Qi sending people to offer condolences outside the city was not only insincere, but also hasty and hasty, and was not respectful enough to the martyrs, so she rejected Duke Zhuang of Qi's condolences outside the city. Later, Duke Zhuang of Qi personally went to Qi Liang's home to pay his respects and buried Qi Liang in the suburbs of Qidu (according to the "Shandong Tongzhi", "Qi Liang's tomb is three miles east of Linzi County. Duke Zhuang of Qi attacked Ju and Qi Liang died there. His wife welcomed the coffin and cried. See "Tan Gong" for the story. The 1921 "Linzi County Chronicles" recorded: "Qi Liang's tomb is three miles east of the county, east of Langjiazhuang, and is only a few feet high." The current Qi Liang tomb is about 600 meters east of Langjia Village, Qidu Town, Linzi District. Its burial mound was razed in 1967 due to land leveling, and the ruins still exist. Because it is in the east of the village, the villagers call it "Dongzhongzi"). It should be said that this story is clearly recorded in "Zuo Zhuan" and is a true story. Although there are no later plots such as "crying for husband", "city collapse", and "jumping into the water", it mainly shows the righteous and strong character of Qi Liang's wife, but her main framework of opposing war and loving her husband has been faintly revealed. The plot of "crying for husband" was added in Zengzi's words in "Book of Rites: Tan Gong". Zengzi said, "Qi Liang died, and his wife met his coffin on the road and cried sadly." This is the first time that "crying" appeared. In the Warring States Period, "Mencius" quoted Chunyu Kun's words, "Hua Zhou (who died after fighting side by side with Qi Liang and was seriously injured), Qi Liang's wife, was good at crying for her husband and changed the customs of the country." Later, "Han Shi Wai Chuan" also quoted Chunyu Kun's words, saying, "Qi Liang's wife cried sadly and people praised her for her singing." In this way, the historical fact in "Zuo Zhuan" that "Qi Liang's wife refused to mourn outside the suburbs of Qi Zhuanggong" became "Qi Liang's wife cried for her husband" and "was good at crying", and the focus of the story shifted, highlighting the sad and touching crying. From "Nineteen Ancient Poems: There is a high tower in the northwest": "There are string and singing sounds on the top, how sad the sound is? Who can make this song? It's Qi Liang's wife. "We can see from the poem that Qi Liang's wife had become a typical crying figure in people's minds at that time. The plot of "collapse of the city" was added in "Shuo Yuan Shan Shuo Pian" by Liu Xiang of the Western Han Dynasty: "In the past, Hua Zhou and Qi Liang died in battle. Their wives were sad and cried towards the city. The corners collapsed and the city was collapsed." Here it says that Qi Liang's wife cried so much that the city "collapsed" and "collapsed". In "Biographies of Women", the plot of "jumping into the Zibo River" was added: "She pillowed her husband's corpse under the city and cried. Her sincerity was so touching that everyone passing by shed tears. Ten days later, the city collapsed. After the burial, she said, 'Where can I go? I will die too.' So she went to the Zibo River and died. "Thus, by the Western Han Dynasty, the story of Qi Liang's wife had begun to take shape, with crying for her husband, collapsing the city, and jumping into the water becoming a series. In the Eastern Han Dynasty, Wang Chong's Lun Heng and Handan Chun's Cao'e Stele further narrated that it was Qicheng that collapsed due to crying, and that the city collapsed five feet high. Cui Bao's Annotations to Ancient and Modern Times in the Western Jin Dynasty continued to exaggerate, saying that the entire city of Qi "collapsed due to the emotion". By the Western Jin Dynasty, the story of Qi Liang's wife had gone beyond the scope of historical facts and evolved into a literary work that was "three parts true and seven parts false". If we say that from the Spring and Autumn Period to the Western Jin Dynasty, the story of Qi Liang's wife was still based on historical facts with embellishments. If the leaves are added, then by the Tang Dynasty, the story of Qi Liang's wife crying for her husband had completely gotten rid of the original prototype. The Tang Dynasty people pushed the time of the story forward by more than 300 years, and used the technique of grafting flowers and trees, transplanting it from the Linzi City of Qi State to the Qin Great Wall of the Qin Shihuang era; Qi Liang, a warrior, died in battle evolved into Qi Liang, a laborer, and was beaten to death; Qi Liang's wife also became Meng Zhongzi with a surname and name. In the sixth year of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang's Tianbao period (747 AD), the encyclopedia "Jingyu Collection" quoted the materials of "Tongxianji", which roughly means: "Qi Liang, who built the Great Wall during the Qin Shihuang period, escaped and entered Meng Chao's back garden. Chao's daughter Zhongzi was bathing in the pool. When she saw Qi Liang, she was startled and called him. She replied: "My name is Qi Liang, a Yan countryman, serving in the construction of the Great Wall, and I ran away because I couldn't bear the hardship." Zhongzi said: "Women's bodies cannot be seen. If you see my body, I will be your wife." She told his parents and they became husband and wife. Qi Liang was chased and beaten to death and built into the city wall. Zhongzi went looking for her husband, wept down the Great Wall and found her husband's body. "The Yuefu composed by Guanxiu, a poet monk in the late Tang Dynasty, still named Qi Liang's wife. The poem reads: "Qin's tyranny divided the four seas into dryness, and built the Great Wall to block the northern barbarians. The builders built the earth for 10,000 miles, and Qi Liang's chaste wife cried." In the fragments of the Tang handwritten "Wenxuan Jizhu", the story is roughly the same as that recorded in "Tongxianji", but the difference is that the heroine became Mengzi, who is closer to "Meng Jiangnu". What's more, in the Tang Dynasty Li Bai's poem "Donghai has a brave woman", it is written: "Liangshan was moved by Qi's wife, and cried bitterly for her. The metal and stone suddenly opened, all because of the deep affection. "Through the poet's imagination, Qi Liang's Liang became Liangshan, and Qi's wife cried not only to the point of collapsing the city, but also to the point of collapsing the mountain, which was truly earth-shattering and weeping. Meng Jiang's name first appeared in literary works in the poem "Dou Lian Zi" in the Dunhuang Stone Chamber scrolls in the late Tang and early Song dynasties. According to folklore expert Mr. Zhong Jingwen, the origin of the word "Meng Jiangnu" may be due to the fact that the folk poets who wrote the lyrics at that time added the word "woman" to the name "Meng Jiang" in order to accommodate the three-character sentence of the tune (Meng Jiangnu Qi Liang's wife, similar in rhyme); and the names of Qi Liang, Qi Liang, Fan Xiliang, and Wan Xiliang also evolved for the same reason. In the Ming Dynasty, in order to prevent the invasion of Wala, the Ming government repaired the Great Wall, which caused public resentment. In order to vent their dissatisfaction with the feudal rulers, the people changed Qi Liang to "Meng Jiangnu". The wife was named "Meng Jiangnu", Qi Liang was changed to "Wan Xiliang" (or Fan Xiliang), and plots such as seeking marriage, loving husband and wife, and sending winter clothes thousands of miles away were added, creating a brand new legend of "Meng Jiangnu crying at the Great Wall". After the middle of the Ming Dynasty, Meng Jiangnu Temples were built from the south to the Qi Great Wall and Shanhaiguan (now the Meng Jiangnu Temple in Qinhuangdao is still very popular). The "Records of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty" written by Feng Menglong, a famous writer in the Ming Dynasty, systematically sorted out and further artistically processed the previous legends. In the sixty-fourth chapter "Luan Ying was exterminated in Quwo City, and Qi Liang died in a battle at the gate", the story of Qi Liang and Hua Zhou dying in Ju and Qi Liang's wife crying for her husband was described in more detail and detail, and it was said that "later generations said that Qin Fan Qiliang was ordered to build the Great Wall and died, and his wife Meng Jiangnu sent winter clothes to the city. She cried bitterly when she heard her husband died, and the city collapsed. It was probably the story of Qi Liang, the general of Qi, but it was misrepresented. "As mentioned above, since Qi Liang's tomb is located east of Langjiazhuang outside the south wall of the old city of Linzi Qi, the main place where Meng Jiangnu cried for her husband should also be here. Therefore, the prototype of "Meng Jiangnu crying at the Great Wall" is Linzi. As for the remains of "Meng Jiangnu crying at the Great Wall" in Boshan, Zibo, Changqing, Jinan and along the Great Wall of Qi, the author believes that although there are discrepancies with historical facts, they are not far from the larger scope of Qi State. It is also possible and reasonable that they are all derivatives of this historical fact that occurred in Linzi. From the beginning of the story of Qi Liang's wife to the final legend of Meng Jiangnu, there are more than two thousand years in between. It is not accidental that a story can be loved by the people for a long time and constantly transformed and processed. The main reason is that this story represents the common aspirations of the entire human race and expresses the most authentic voice of the working people. That is: yearning for peace, pursuing stability, and longing for the happiness and tranquility of family life. (No pictures yet, welcome to provide.) (No pictures yet, welcome to provide.)