Journey to the West: Wrong Reason

Answer 1

There may be some errors in Journey to the West for the following reasons:

** 1. Reason for error in year **
1. ** Original structure and modification restrictions **
- There were many time-related plots in the original work, and one move could affect the whole thing. For example, the date of Tang Sanzang's departure, the length of time he took the scriptures, and the number of years Li Shimin was in office were mentioned in many places in the book and restricted each other. If one of them was changed, such as changing the date of Tang Sanzang's return to Chang 'an to "the fourth year of Yonghui", it would lead to the change of the target of worship and many other plots that needed to be changed. If the departure date of the scriptures was changed to "the ninth year of Zhenguan", it would not only conflict with the thirteen years of Zhenguan mentioned many times in the original text, but also cause the time confusion of Tang Sanzang's life experience. This was because Tang Sanzang's father, Chen Guangrui, went to Beijing to take the imperial examination in the thirteenth year of Zhenguan, which involved the time and logic of Tang Sanzang's birth, growth, and a series of events related to the scriptures.
2. ** The possible influence of future generations **
- Some of the content was added by later generations, such as the "Appraise" and the ninth, tenth, and eleventh chapters, which may be supplemented by the literati of the Qing Dynasty. The content of these supplements and the original content might not be logically connected enough, resulting in confusion in the overall timeline. For example, after adding these supplements to the original work, there was a contradiction in the logical relationship between Tang Sanzang's life experience and the time of departure.

** 2. Reason for errors related to other plots **
1. ** Author's Knowledge Limitations **
- Judging from the food plot, Wu Chengen might have been frustrated in his old age, lived in seclusion, and had limited understanding of the outside world due to the traffic blockage in ancient times. He could only imagine it according to ancient books. Therefore, when describing the diet of the four masters and disciples, it did not reflect the variety that should be due to regional changes, resulting in a situation where the diet was almost the same no matter where they went.
2. ** The influence of the background of the times and cultural concepts **
- Under the background of Taoism in the Ming Dynasty, Journey to the West did not have much influence at that time. It was possible that it did not undergo very rigorous proofreading or scrutiny during the creation process. Moreover, under the cultural concept of that time, the logic and rigor of some plots might not be as high as in modern times, resulting in some plots being wrong or unreasonable.
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