Shuāng Fèng Qí Yuán 雙鳳奇緣
The Strange Fate of the Twin Phoenixes by 雪樵主人 (撰)
About the work
Shuāng Fèng Qí Yuán 雙鳳奇緣 (The Strange Fate of the Twin Phoenixes) is a large Qīng-dynasty historical romance in 80 huí attributed to the pseudonymous Xuě Qiáo Zhǔrén 雪樵主人 (Master of the Snowy Woodcutter). The work centers on the legend of Wáng Zhāojūn 王昭君, the Han-dynasty court lady sent as a bride to the Xiōngnú 匈奴 chieftain, here greatly expanded with fictional elaborations involving corrupt court ministers, military campaigns, and romantic subplots. The title “Twin Phoenixes” (shuāng fèng 雙鳳) refers to the two female protagonists — Wáng Zhāojūn and a parallel figure — whose destinies interweave.
A shorter version of the same title by the same pen name is KR4k0227 Shuāng Fēng Qí Yuán 雙風奇緣 (note different second character: 風 fēng “wind” vs 鳳 fèng “phoenix”).
Tiyao
No tiyao found in source.
Abstract
Shuāng Fèng Qí Yuán is an elaborated historical romance built on the canonical story of Wáng Zhāojūn 王昭君 (also called Wáng Qiáng 王嬙 or Jiāomíng Hào 昭君), the Han court lady famously sent to the Xiōngnú under Emperor Yuán 漢元帝. In the novel, the story is greatly expanded: the corrupt minister Máo Yánsòu 毛延壽 (here called Máo Xiàng 毛相) manipulates the portrait system to extort bribes from the families of court candidates; Zhāojūn’s father, the governor Wáng Zhōng 王忠, suffers punishment for refusing to pay; after her banishment to the frontier and years of suffering, Zhāojūn is eventually vindicated through the agency of loyal generals (Lǐ Líng 李陵, Lǐ Guǎng 李廣, and others) and military campaigns against the Xiōngnú. The novel continues well beyond the standard narrative, encompassing 80 chapters that include the story of the Wǔ Zétiān 武則天 era (chapters 81–90 in the source file appear to cover a Táng-dynasty continuation, involving Xuē Gāng 薛剛 and others), suggesting that the text as transmitted may be a compilation that has incorporated additional material from a different historical romance cycle.
The author Xuě Qiáo Zhǔrén 雪樵主人 is unidentified; no CBDB entry exists. The work has not been precisely dated; on stylistic and genre grounds, a Qīng composition — likely eighteenth or early nineteenth century — is probable. The relationship between this text (KR4k0226) and the shorter Shuāng Fēng Qí Yuán 雙風奇緣 (KR4k0227) is unclear: the latter may be an earlier draft, an abridgement, or a separate composition by the same author using the same pen name and similar title with a different second character (fèng 鳳 “phoenix” vs fēng 風 “wind”). Both works begin with essentially the same plot — Hàn Yuándì 漢元帝 dreaming of a beautiful woman and sending Máo Yánsòu to find her — and share chapter titles for their early chapters.
The Wáng Zhāojūn legend had a long literary history in Chinese literature, including the Táng yuánběn variety show, Má Zhìyuǎn’s 馬致遠 celebrated Yuán zájù Hàngōng Qiū 漢宮秋, and numerous Qīng novels. Shuāng Fèng Qí Yuán is an example of the genre of late imperial popular historical romance that enormously expanded canonical stories into multi-chapter vernacular novels for a mass readership.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located.
Other points of interest
The source file appears to contain 80 chapters dealing primarily with the Wáng Zhāojūn narrative, but chapters in the 80s–90 range shift to Tang-dynasty material (薛剛 Xuē Gāng, 武三思 Wǔ Sānsī, 武則天 Wǔ Zétiān, 程咬金 Chéng Yǎojīn), raising the question of whether the transmitted text is a composite of two distinct works.