What are the reasons for the prosperity of novels in Ming and Qing Dynasties?

An overview of the reasons for the prosperity of novels in Ming and Qing Dynasties: 1, the influence of foreign culture; 2. The popularization of culture and education has increased; 3. With the development of science and technology, the cost of printing and paper is reduced, allowing the circulation of multi-language works; Some social reasons force some literati to write novels to support their families. The hero of the novel: the foreign businessmen who travel north and south do not refer to foreign countries now, but with the development of economy and the extensive regional exchanges, the anecdotes brought by peddlers and pawns have increased. Some people used to do business, but the relationship between different places is not very close, and the business is mainly local, so people's knowledge is limited. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, with the expansion of business scope and the increase of contacts, the number of businessmen, the scale of business, and the quality of participants and business participants all improved. This is the basis of the novel: hearsay. Novel originated from myth and developed from hearsay. Rangers, anecdotes, fun stories, etc. It provides a wider range of materials for the novel, which makes the novel transition from strangeness to legend and flourish under the historical background of legend. For example, in a market town, many people go out to do business (including auxiliary businesses such as tourism, bodyguards and business trips). ), and they will bring many legendary experiences when they come back. You can't know honor or disgrace until you are full. At the same time, in agriculture, a large number of corn is planted, and sweet potatoes are gradually spread to the whole country. The improvement of people's living standards (the problem of food and clothing in people's lives has been basically solved since the Ming Dynasty) has had an extremely significant impact on culture, giving people enough time to engage in spiritual civilization construction. Countries in past dynasties have always encouraged childbearing, indicating that families do not have enough strength to have more children, and most of the people's energy is still focused on solving and improving their daily living standards. Since the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the economic strength of families has generally increased, and the population has risen sharply, beginning to exceed 1 100 million, which has never been achieved before. With a population of over 100 million, it was a remarkable thing under the background of the world's productive forces at that time, because population was the wealth of the country. Moreover, with the increase of population in Ming and Qing dynasties, the requirements for population quality have also increased. Because economic conditions have allowed people to spend part of their time on improving their own quality and spiritual culture. Since the Song Dynasty, the whole people began to pay attention to the cultural quality of the population, and culture and science and technology have developed by leaps and bounds. This development has been greatly curbed, and it has been encouraged since the Ming Dynasty. The spiritual culture of society, such as weeds that meet nectar after a long drought, grows wildly. As far as cultural popularization is concerned, private schools began in the Song Dynasty and prevailed in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Education is becoming more and more popular, and people's cultural and living standards have generally improved. From the letters found in archaeology, it can be found that after the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the correspondence between civilians increased, while in the past, there were more official exchanges and fewer civilians. In this way, with the improvement of people's cultural level, the increase of spiritual and civilized life demand, coupled with the information exchange formed by regional exchanges, the market and material of novels have been formed. Literati groups close to extended families: How is the novel atmosphere formed? From the perspective of scientific and technological development, with the popularization of papermaking and printing technology, the cost of books has been greatly reduced, and many families of scholars and officials have established their own special "printing houses". Tianyige and many other places still have printing facilities, which fully demonstrated the printing style at that time. At this time, the government officials and scholars had very close communication, and the publication of books became very easy. This is because the retirement age of officials will drop from 70 to 60 from tomorrow! After these retired officials returned to China, they had a decisive influence on the local culture and literati! Most literati turned to these officials before they became famous, and officials also liked to meet some promising literati. Because of China's cultural tradition, group concepts such as protege and noble family, literati and talented people are forced to squeeze together and advance together. Moreover, there will be many literati in this group, and they will learn from a noble person, so that they can often create literature and publish books in the name of their teachers. Up to now, we can still see calligraphy and painting works circulated under the guise of name-this can be seen from the "Jin Ming Chi Biao Tu" drawn in the name of Zhang Zeduan (Northern Song Dynasty). With such a group and the popularity of printing, it is very convenient to publish books. The exchange of talents between bureaucrats and literati can be completely communicated through books, so bookstores have flourished and many bibliophiles have emerged. This has formed a certain academic atmosphere for novel creation-literary groups have created an academic atmosphere. At this point, the market, material and academic atmosphere of the novel have been formed. What is left now is to break the cultural tradition of "writing carries the Tao, poetry must express the will" and let those literati be willing to create popular novels.