Viewing the Evolution of Zhou Cang’s Image from the Relationship between Pictures and Texts in Printmaking

Zhou Cang is a well-known character in the novel “The Romance of the Three Kingdoms”. How his image of the mighty man came into being in the scroll paintings and the illustrations in the novels of the Romance of The Three Kingdoms in Ming and Qing Dynasties, and mainly folklore scholars discussed it from the literature and folklore legend. This article starts from the perspective of the illustrations in the novel “Romance of the Three Kingdoms” in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, and compares the content of the novels. It is found that the image of Zhou Cang has gone through the three phases of the Jin and Yuan Dynasties irregular period, the basic stereotype period in the Ming Dynasty, and the popular period in the Qing Dynasty.


Introduction
Zhou Cang is a well-known character in "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms". In Ming and Qing art works, he usually appears as the image of a big man with a beard and an angry face. The archetype of "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms", does not appear in the original text of "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms", where Zhou Cang's popular image of a great man has become a question. The academic circle has not paid much attention to this, and as a character in the novel, the illustrations are a more appropriate entry point. Therefore, this article attempts to explore the evolution of Zhou Cang's images from the perspective of corresponding images and texts in Ming and Qing prints.

Early "Zhou Cang" Image
Zhou Cang almost always appears with Guan Yu in literary works, so if you want to explore the source of Zhou Cang's image, you need to start with Guan Yu's image. Blackwater unearthed in the city, now in the possession of St. Unearthed in the city of Heishui, the Jin Dynasty print "The Statue of King Wu'an" from the Saint Parkersburg branch of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences is an earlier surviving image of Guan Yu, this figure painted five tufts of beard Guan Yu sitting under pine trees, surrounded by five Famous soldiers, one person holding a shield, one person holding a flag, one person wearing armor, one person holding a Guanzi banner, one person holding a sword, although there is a genus holding a big sword behind him, from the perspective of positional relationship, appearance characteristics, etc., this person is not outstanding compared with the rest of the genus with flags and short knives.
In the illustrated prints of the "Guan Gong Single Sword Association" section of the "Zhizhi New Journal Quanxiang Pinghua" (Anonym, 1321(Anonym, -1325 in the Yuan Dynasty, there is an image of a strong bruised man holding a big knife following Guan Yu. On the right side of this print, there are five sergeants playing music at the banquet. In the middle, Guan Yu grasps Lu Su with one hand and swings a fist with the other. It is very consistent with the characteristics of Zhou Cang in the later period. "Guan Gong Single Sword Association" corresponds to the text "On the day of Guan Gong light bow and short arrow, there are no more than 50 people who are acquainted with horses and swords, and went south to Lu Su Village... Three times in a row, Guan Gong was furious and stopped Lu Su. Guan Gong said that the thieves will have nothing to do with banquets. The name is Single Sword Club, so that the soldiers will not sing music and Er Yan Yu will not sing. Don't dare, Guan Gong will spare his life and go back to Jingzhou". It can be seen that there is no special mention of the name of his entourage, but only "more than fifty people". In addition, the text also clearly mentions that Guan Gong only brought short swords and light bows to the banquet.
The waist hangs a single sword, but in the illustration, there is a general holding a big knife. It can be seen that the illustration here does not completely correspond to the text of the novel. In addition, the image of the horse and the knife following Guan Yu is not fixed. In the remaining illustrations, Guan Yu usually appears as a single horseman, but there is only one example.
Not only that, but Zhou Cang's name also appeared in "Zhizhi New Journal Quanxiang Pinghua Three Kingdoms", but at this time there was no relationship between Zhou Cang and Guan Yu. He appeared after Guan Yu's death, and Zhuge Liang left Qishan for the fifth time. A "Han General" appeared on the stage, and Sima Yi, who came to steal the Wooden Cow Flowing Horse Scripture, was humiliated by Zhuge Liang's order, but the engraving illustrations did not depict this. It can be seen that although "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" has not yet been published, the name of Zhou Cang has been mentioned in the Yuan Dynasty, Lu Zhen's book "Tongshan Lao Nong Ji" (Lu, 1790) in the Yuan Dynasty contains an article "Wu'an Wang Temple Ji", which mentions "Lampei Xiaxi Guiqi" Yang, take the red rabbit and come from Zhou Cang, confirms Zhou Cang's identity as a follower of Guan Yu in the text, but has not yet clearly matched Zhou Cang with the image of the later bearded man with a sword.

Out between the Three Countries on Behalf of Graphic Novels Zhou Cang Image
All this in the early Ming Dynasty, "Three Kingdoms" continue to print and publish that in Speaking of the number of events that Zhou Cang, are summa- It can be seen that Zhou Cang in the engraving illustrations is the same as the description in the text. It usually appears with Guan Yu, but does not appear much in the illustrations in the novel, and despite the fact that the book has a strong description of Zhou Cang, "appearance of clear description, illustration and not a same, especially the beard part, the after image comparison can be found, Wanli nineteen years", popular Romance of the Three Kingdoms in Zhou Cang image can be divided into two types, one is a full beard, the other is that only the lower jaw has a beard. It can be seen that the image of Zhou Cang in the description of the novel has been fixed, and the corresponding engraving illustrations did not follow.

The Establishment of the Image of Zhou Cang in the Qing Dynasty-Taking "Pictures and Records of the Holy Relics of Emperor Guan Sheng" as an Example
By the Qing Dynasty, the image of Zhoucang gradually became complete. The Cang's appearance is very stable in the "Guan Sheng Emperor Sacred Relics".
The appearance and clothing features of Zhou Cang in scenes such as "Supervisor Jingzhou" and "Single-handedly Going to the Meeting" are basically the same as here, and are also common in the art of Qing Dynasty. The image is basically the same.
In addition, it is also worth noting that in the "Guan Sheng Emperor Sacred How can they be used as evidence Zhou Cang is beside Guan Yu? It can be seen that in the Guan Yu sacrifice at that time, the statue of Zhou Cang had been standing by the side as Guan Yu's entourage, and it "has been passed for a long time". In addition, Liang Zhangju's "Ying Liao Cong Hua" (Liang, 1935) in the mid-Qing Dynasty It is mentioned that there are many related temples in the mountain villages in the hometown. "Every few miles must be related to the temple. There must be many statues in the temple, and there must be a statue of General Zhou next to it, which is known as Zhou Cang". Not only that, but the people will also worship Zhou Cang separately. General Zhou's shrine is supernatural, and the chatter in the temple is contemptuous.
There is a "black prostitute" in the "Jian Hu Ji" (Chu, 2012)  The "prototype" of the Three Kingdoms Zhoucang of the Three Kingdoms There are no characters in the original text. The popular image of Han Zhoucang is problematic. There is not much attention from academia. The characters and illustrations in the novels and the prints of the novel are more suitable to entry points. Therefore, this article attempts to explore the evolution of Zhou Cang's