open sea

Chapter 1486 Weng Li'an

When something begins, most people have no idea how it will end.

The prefect of London issued a recruitment call covering the whole of England, Ireland, and Scotland. In the end, except for a few students from Cambridge, all the others were rejected.

Hundreds of unsuccessful candidates went round and round, and finally entered the Chinese Literature Hall in Westminster Abbey.

This may be the most successful enrollment since the Ming Dynasty established the Nanyang Military Mansion and established the first overseas Chinese language school.

People can already realize what a good command of Chinese can do in London just by looking at it.

The real rulers of the Anmin Theater are not old James, the owner of the old theater, named Kimmy; nor are they the playwrights Christopher Marlowe and Robert Green.

It is Weng Li'an, William Shakespeare, who is unknown and has no experience in acting scripts.

Just because he can speak both Chinese and English.

Even if the mastery is not so good, I can already have some simple conversations with Tang Xianzu, enough to understand the core of the story that Tang Xianzu wants to express.

The first play to be moved into the Anmin Theater at Hampton Court Palace is called "London Story". From the perspective of the protagonist 'Weng Li'an', from Puli to London, it tells the tragic life of the little people during the war years.

The script was written by Tang Xianzu, and Weng Li'an translated it and added the plots he wanted, and finally handed it over to Christopher Marlowe and Robert Green for polishing.

The story is told from the perspective of two actors, Belle and a girl also in London, on the outskirts of Plymouth, who play the daughters of a new business aristocracy.

Using what they saw and heard, they explained that the Black Death struck, the nobles escaped from the town to blockade, and the merchants of the Ming Dynasty gave relief to the priests to treat their illnesses. At their home in the suburbs, their father was ordered to go outside the city to provide food and clothing for the nobles who had taken refuge.

Against this background, the next scene of the story happened in the city of Plymouth. Weng Lian, a young commoner, had an almost morbid devotion to the church. Seeing the Black Death ravaging the city, he listened to the instigation of the bishop of the church and attempted to kill Cao Daochang who came to treat the disease with a musket. But because of the poor quality of the musket, it failed to fire.

The public opinion of the people was raging, and they wanted to be independent in Puzhou and take revenge on those nobles who abandoned them. Weng Li'an was trapped in it and tried to assassinate Cao Changqing for the second time. wounded.

Weng Li'an and his accomplices escaped from the city by taking advantage of the war between the Ming army in the city and the outside world, but the narrator will think for him, why the nobles who ruled them abandoned the people, why the church was helpless against the Black Death, and why they hurt Cao Changqing who helped them?

Outside the city, Weng Li'an and a few accomplices were suffering from hunger and cold. They entered the manor of sisters Bai Li'er to beg for food, but Bai Li'er beat them out with a stick. Their words were full of contempt for ordinary people like Weng Li'an.

Weng Li'an did not fight back, and left Puli with his friends.

And the Bai Lier sisters also quickly finished, because not long after Weng Li'an and others left, they warmly received two noble youths, but they were defiled, their lives were taken, and they were finally thrown into the well.

"What? I'm going to be thrown down a well in front of all the audience?"

Bai Lier listened to Weng Li'an's statement, her eyes widened and she screamed, "I'm going to die!"

"No, no, it's okay, it's this well." Weng Li'an took her to a scene stage in the second act of Hampton Palace, pointing to the well on the ground: "It's a fake well, and there are quilts under the stage , you can climb to the backcourt after you go down."

Only then did Bai Lier settle down: "I'm going to try dancing a few times before the show, it must be very exciting for the audience."

"Right? That's what I thought too. Mr. Tang's original script was for the two of you to jump into the well after being defiled. I was very puzzled about this. I thought it would be better to be killed and thrown into the well."

"What about the back?"

Weng Li'an opened the script and continued to read: "Your father came back and found that the house was in a mess. He learned about your experience through other people and decided to go to London to complain to the Queen; and I also set foot on the road to London after saying goodbye to you. .”

"On the way, there will be Marlowe playing the role of a tortured slave who cannot bear the oppression of his noble master, cuts off his master's nose and eats it, throws his master's wife out of the window, and finally commits suicide by mocking God."

"Green will play a cobbler who was recruited by the nobles because of the war. When the battle is unfavorable, the nobles run away and push him to the front. The Ming soldier played by Mr. Wei spared his life, but he betrayed Mr. Wei for his old master and killed him. He died, but when he returned to his hometown, the leather shop had been swallowed up by the nobles, and nothing was left for him."

"Your father sued the Queen in London, but was repatriated due to insufficient evidence; in the outskirts of London, I, Green, and your father, three people met, we will see the tyranny of the royal family, the pride of the nobles, the chaos of the law, and the insult of corrupt officials , the bullying of foolish people."

"These are death to the east, death to the west, death to death, and death to rebellion, just to draw out one: whether to suffer the nobles' domination and die silently, or follow the Ming army to fight to the death to overthrow the old Tudor nobles and establish our Common people live by learning how to choose officials to rule the country."

Weng Li'an nodded slowly: "This is a problem."

After finishing speaking, he closed the script and said: "I still have a love in the story, but the story Mr. Tang originally arranged is not in line with the cultural traditions of England. Where is there someone who only sleeps with one person in his life and never gets married? I think that needs to be reconsidered.”

"But even without my love story, the script is already perfect. It just needs to be polished by Green and Marlowe before it can be performed on stage."

"Moreover, Mr. Tang has prepared a band for the performance, and is currently arranging music and libretto for the county government."

Bai Lier also nodded one after another, and said: "My friend's timber factory is also busy making the stage recently. I heard that this play will not only be performed in Hampton Court Palace in the future, but will also travel around the country."

"In the future, I will have the opportunity to perform in France, Spain, and even the New World. Playwrights, actors, and bands, this is really an unprecedented change!"

Weng Li'an also had a satisfied smile on his face.

He has a premonition that this play is likely to become the most influential play in history, setting a precedent for the industry.

More importantly, because of Tang Xianzu's reserve, although the magistrate has almost completed more than half of the entire script, he does not intend to sign the script and the performance, and gives all the credit to him, Weng Li'an.

And in the future, the script written by Tang Xianzu also plans to be signed by him.

The magistrate doesn't care about money or fame, which makes Weng Li'an so happy.

He doesn't care about the fame behind him, but he cares about the wealth in front of him.

Weng Li'an bought a cemetery in the outskirts of London some time ago, and asked the stonemason to bury the truth of the creation, and he was not stingy about his gratitude to Tang Xianzu.

(End of this chapter)