"Qingqiu Chronicle" Derivative Project
"The Creator of Chinese Characters: A Brief History of the Cangjie Family" (the American version is titled "Chronicles of Qingqiu") will be grandly launched by Huacheng Publishing House in September 2024. It is a mythological epic about Cangjie creating civilization with Chinese characters.
Cangjie invented Chinese characters under the inspiration of the great god Fuxi, and created the great Chinese civilization based on them. However, the dark energy hidden in the characters gradually emerged. Ju Song, Cangjie's female disciple, turned from love to hatred and challenged Cangjie's kingdom on behalf of the evil forces. The new civilization faced a catastrophe. How will Cangjie face this crisis? After he was murdered by Ju Song, how will his son Jiagen inherit his father's career, turn the tide, and save the precarious world?
This novel is based on the legend of Cangjie's creation of Chinese characters. It uses the "trilogy" as the framework structure and the metaphorical style of "Zhuyu" to describe the strange and bizarre events of the birth of civilization. The book is magnificent, the plot is ups and downs, the imagination is magnificent and fantastic, and the characters are vivid, showing an epic scene like "The Lord of the Rings". It is also a fascinating "Brief History of Chinese Characters". It not only reinterprets Chinese mythology and historical traditions, but also provides a powerful IP prototype for film, television, animation and games.
Qingqiu Chronicle Part 1
word making
Plot Summary
Cang Jie was born dumb and lived with his witch grandmother and cousin Achou. He was gifted with the ability to draw talismans. The great god Fuxi saw his talent and kindness, and not only allowed him to speak, but also gave him the power to create characters. The magic of this magic was that every time he created a character, something corresponding to the character would appear in the world. For example, when he created the character "寺", a temple appeared at the end of the field; when he created the character "池", a pond appeared in front of the temple; when he created the character "陶", a pottery kiln appeared. In this way, he created many things that did not exist in the world, and from then on he became famous and grew up to be a young priest.
At that time, the world was divided into the traditional knotting school and the character creation school represented by Cangjie. A fierce battle broke out between the two schools. The two sides competed in the character competition, and the character creation school represented by Cangjie won a great victory.
In order to create more oracle bone characters to promote civilization, Cang Jie gave up his priesthood and opened a writing school to create characters with his smart students. He further invented the ideographic and ideographic methods, which increased the speed of creating characters by several times and improved the functions of expression. Cang Jie created a character for himself, "Miao", which transformed into a beautiful and kind girl at night, who became his most beloved lover and wife.
The female disciple Ju Song failed to realize her secret love for her master, and turned her love into hatred. She violated the ban and created some words that gave rise to disasters in the world: "adultery", "jealousy", "enemy", "murder", "crazy", "demolition", etc. She also created the words "thief" and "robber", which led to the proliferation of thieves, smuggling on the black market and making huge profits. These dark Chinese characters spread everywhere and brought crisis to the bright world.
Cang Jie was very angry and expelled her from his school. Ju Song took the evil dark characters and went to the ambitious Qishe King Hu Zhong to create more evil characters for him. The world began to be filled with injustice, oppression, resentment and violence, and disasters were rampant. Not only that, under Ju Song's conspiracy, Hu Zhong pretended to convene a "nation-wide character competition" and invited Cang Jie to attend the meeting, but took the opportunity to kidnap his beloved wife Miao, in order to force him to create a bloodthirsty super monster. Cang Jie had no choice but to hand over the "demon" character he had created before. Then a vicious demon king appeared in the world. It flew in the sky, attacked the people of Qingqiu, devoured lives, and caused huge casualties. Hu Zhong took the opportunity to attack Qingqiu State, defeated the defenders, forced the king to commit suicide, and the people fell into dire straits.
Hu Zhong's son Hu Zheng was a prince with a conscience. While his father was busy with the war, he secretly released Cang Jie. Cang Jie escaped and wandered around the occupied motherland, hoping to create a new character more powerful than the word "demon" to defeat the dark forces, but he never succeeded. He walked along the Luo River and the Yellow River, looking for hermits and masters, and experienced hardships. Finally, he got inspiration from the patterns on the back of the sacred turtle and finally created the word "dragon" - a great mythical beast was born. It won a great victory in the battle with the demon. Under Cang Jie's call, the people of Qingqiu launched an uprising. The army of Qishe, which lost the support of the "demon", retreated step by step. Hu Zhong committed suicide in despair in the palace. Cang Jie rescued his beloved Miao, and the two hugged and cried.
To commemorate this great victory, Cang Jie created the character "鳯". A gorgeous and beautiful phoenix flew from the sky and danced with the powerful dragon. The people looked up at the sky and cheered enthusiastically. They honored him as the new king, named "Cangdi", and Miao became his queen. A new country was born, and a peaceful and happy civilized era seemed to be approaching.
In order to prevent the devil and dragon characters from being used by bad people, Cang Jie built a bronze box to seal up the dangerous "original characters". Soon he fell seriously ill. Before he died, he told Miao to destroy them. But Miao did not carry out her husband's will after Cang Jie's funeral, which left dangerous seeds for future world crises.
The Maker of Words Part 2
Big Character Maker
Plot Summary
This part is the plot transition from the first part to the third part. It first reviews the reasons behind Cangjie's death. It turns out that Ju Song used dark witchcraft to hammer the ox scapula with Cangjie's name on it every night to break it. This took more than three years and finally caused Cangjie to die with all his bones broken. Before his death, Cangjie entrusted the bronze box to Miao and created a character "Mei" for her. It was a magical sheep fairy who could transform into a girl and became Miao's most loyal maid.
After the fall of Qishe, Ju Song took refuge with Jiu Huang, the king of smuggling characters, and with his help, she created dark Chinese characters, and then invented bamboo slips and sentences, using this technology to lead civilization astray. She disguised herself to attend Cangjie's funeral, and used this opportunity to contact Qingqiu's state teacher Ma Si, with whom she established a secret anti-Miao alliance. She also seduced her talented junior fellow apprentice Pi Yong, turning him into another important ally.
In order to help Ju Song overthrow the Qingqiu regime, Ma Si stole the bronze box and released the terrible word "demon". The devil reappeared in the world, flying in the sky, creating great fear among the people. Ju Song took the opportunity to form a coalition of various countries, defeated the army of Qingqiu, occupied the capital, and became the queen herself. At the coronation ceremony, she killed Miao with her own hands and used her death to crown herself.
But Miao told Ju Song's life story before she died. It turned out that she, like Miao, was a creation of Cang Jie. In other words, Cang Jie was not only his master and enemy, but also her father. Pi Yong found the original character of "Ju Song" in the bronze box, proving that what Miao said was true. After learning this fact, Ju Song fell into madness because she was the one who killed her father.
Qingqiu Chronicle Part Three
word god
summary of the story
Cangjie not only created the three characters Miao, Jusong and Mei during his lifetime, but also left a word "and" on a piece of tortoise shell. In the ruins of the Fuxi Temple amid lightning and thunder, the word "qi" stood out, turning into a magical baby boy with double pupils. The blind Qitong King Zihu was passing through the ruins, and found the tortoise shell and baby from the rubble. Knowing his origin, he named him "Jiagen" and raised him with care.
In order to conquer the surrounding countries, the Witch King Jusong opened the twelve dark gates of the universe, using the chaotic energy in the night sky to create twelve evil beasts similar to the "magic" beasts of the past, and launched more ferocious and brutal wars. Sorrows are everywhere, and people are dying. She also sent "Qongqi", one of the twelve evil beasts, the most cunning and vicious, to search for and kill Jiagen. In order to rescue Jiagen, Hu Zheng was seriously injured and died. The sheep fairy "Mei" rescued Jiagen and took him to escape with difficulty.
In such war-torn times, Cangjie's son, the young protagonist Jiagen, thrives and becomes a handsome sixteen-year-old boy. He decided to find his biological parents, and determined to restore peace to the world.
In order to achieve this goal, Kagen and Kazumi set out again and came to the sacred mountain where the "Imperial Rider" lived in seclusion - Mount Fuyang, where Jiagen learned the secret technique of taming the beasts, hoping to revive the "Twelve Gods and Beasts" ", and use their divine power to fight against the Witch King. They also found bone seals representing the "Twelve Divine Beasts" from the Fusang Sacred Tree, but before they could be revived, the "Qiong Qi Corps" surrounded Mount Fuyang. They launched a bloody massacre, and the impatiens rider and a large number of mythical beasts were unfortunately killed.
The evil beast storm launched by Jusong caused a huge disaster, and even the capital city became a place where evil beasts ravaged. Kill the conspirators, arrest Pillon, and put him in a dark prison.
Jiagen finally learned that Cangjie was his biological father, and then realized all the secrets of his father's creation of characters, and grew into a new generation of "character gods". He held high the banner of resistance and called on the people to form a rebel army. After Jusong created the evil beast Qiongqi, he created Chaos, Wuwu and Taotie. They are called "Four Fiends" together, and their magic power is infinite, causing Jiagen's army to retreat steadily.
Just when he was constantly frustrated, Jiagen was blessed by the gods and was able to enter the "different world" built by his father Cangjie. Under the guidance of Cangjie's "dead spirit", he discovered and mastered the mysteries of the twenty-four solar terms and the operation of the universe. From this, eleven "air beasts" except Mei were created. With the help of their divine power, Jiagen killed the "Four Evils," and the rebel army broke into the palace and arrested Jusong.
Jiagen intends to use the penalty of blinding Jusong's eyes to avenge his adoptive father, Huzheng. At the time of execution, he accidentally discovered that Jusong was his real mother, and Jusong also realized that the only young man who defeated her was her own child.
Back then, it was Cangjie and Jusong who carved the name "Qi" on the tortoise shell with the aim of creating a magical child. This process of giving birth to a child is called "zi pregnancy". At that time, it was a more sacred reproduction than childbirth (flesh pregnancy).
Inspired by the ghost of Cangjie, Jiagen awakens the great love in his heart, forgives and releases Jusong. But Jusong rejected his son's kindness, took the sword and stabbed his son's chest. Jiagen died in pain.
At this time, the sheep fairy "Mei" uttered the prophecy and curse given by Fengshen Feilian back then - Jia Gen will be killed by his mother, but he will be resurrected, and his mother will also gain eternal life, but both eyes will be blind. All the bones in the body are broken, and they can only crawl on the ground like insects, living on soil and earthworms.
The curse took effect on the second day, and people saw Jiagen resurrected with blood, while Ju Chan crawled on the ground like a snake. After struggling in his heart, Jia Gen decided to use his own body parts to remove the curse that God had placed on his mother. Despite the dissuasion of everyone, he blinded himself and broke his limbs. This move moved Fengshen Feilian, who withdrew half of his curse—Ju Chan could walk again, but she was still a blind woman.
Faced with his son's repeated pardons and rescues, the stubborn Ju Sang finally wakes up and regrets the heinous sins he has committed. The mother and son cried together. They let go of their previous suspicions and immersed themselves in love and affection.
Jusong is determined to destroy the twelve evil beasts in order to prevent them from continuing to harm the world. She told her son that the way to subdue the evil beast is to use a hammer to crush the original characters carved on the ox blade, turning the evil beast into dust, and then draw its image into a figure and record it in the shamanistic book "Shan Hai Jing" (book Possess the magic power of the enchantment, which can imprison those evil beasts), only in this way can the evil beasts be prevented from causing harm to the world again.
Jiagen was elected as the king by the people of Qingqiu, and respectfully called him "ancestor". He entrusted the "Twelve Qi Beasts" as the "Twelve Zodiac Signs" to protect the people born in the year under his jurisdiction.
But the evil beast Qiongqi was not killed by Jia Gen. It successfully suspended animation and escaped, accumulating strength and preparing to make a comeback. It predicted that Ju Chan was going to kill him, so he stole the shamanistic "Shan Hai Jing" first, opened the enchantment of the dark word system, and released more ancient evil beasts. The powerful army formed by them is marching towards Qingqiu country. A new disaster is about to strike. Jiagen and his mother Jusong decided to join hands to fight against evil beasts, defend the homeland of mankind, and restore the devastated human land.
Historical Analysis of Chinese Characters:
The Origin of Chinese Characters in the Framework of Civilization
The Dichotomy of Cultural Anthropology
Two British and American old men, Toynbee and Huntington, started the debate on the grand narrative of civilization. This is undoubtedly a deconstruction of human history, which has triggered a new wave of historical standardization. As the elite members of human beings, the intellectuals have declared without shame that they have the powerful ability to draw a line with the humble animal kingdom, that is, they have found the four great signs that distinguish humans from animals.
The best-selling author Yuval Noah Harari claimed in "A Brief History of Human Beings" that walking upright, having a larger brain capacity, using fire (becoming the earliest cook in the biological world and the inventor of the dark night culture), and being good at socializing are all important. It is the main scale for human beings to differentiate themselves from the animal kingdom, and it is also the four magic weapons for human beings to climb to the top of the biological chain. Although this classification method is crude and uninnovative, it is enough to satisfy the cognitive hunger of the scientifically illiterate public.
This kind of standardized operation can also be repeated in the writing of human history. When people need to name some human historical activities in ancient times, they will use "culture" to name them. For example, historians call the remains of human activities discovered in the Yangshao area "Yangshao Culture". And there are four standards to measure this "culture" -
The first is to have pantheistic religious beliefs and have professionals such as priests and wizards; the second is to master a complex language system and be able to use this language to start a dialogue with gods/humans; the third is to have mobility/settlement The gathering villages and houses with vegetation/stone materials; the fourth is the use of stone and pottery tools, stone tools tend to be more detailed, and there is a differentiation of tools and decorative functions, and it is possible to fire wheeled pottery (especially painted pottery), And make it an important commodity in regional trade.
After the "culture" continued to move forward, people finally waited for the great thing called "civilization". The lonely fireball on the ground slowly illuminates the wise faces of human beings.
Green Daniel proposed three signs to measure civilization. The first is writing, whether it is pure pictographic or pictographic/phonetic double-material writing; the second is the emergence of large-scale cities, even with tall terraces, stairs and city walls. And it can accommodate more than 5,000 residents; the third is the ritual building that forms a system, such as the pyramids of Egypt and Maya; Japanese and Chinese scholars also add a fourth sign, which is the metal manufacturing system marked by bronze casting (mining, smelting and casting technology), this "three plus one" system, has become the basic tableware that people use to taste history.
This is actually the three "globalization" processes in the history of early human evolution. In the first stage of "gene seeding period", the great migration from Africa achieved the great goal of Homo sapiens globalization; and in the second stage of "painted pottery seeding period", human beings promoted The wave of globalization of painted pottery. In the third stage of the "bronze seeding period", human beings completed the process of bronze globalization by means of escape and trade. Without these three baptisms of "globalization", the cultural miracle of the "Axial Age" would not have occurred. (Click here to read the full article)
