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Feng Menglong (1574–1646), courtesy names Youlong (猶龍), Gongyu (公魚), Ziyou (子猶), or Eryou (耳猶), was a Chinese historian, novelist, and poet of the late Ming Dynasty. He was born in Changzhou County,Changzhou (長洲縣), not to be confused with Changzhou now part of Suzhou, in Jiangsu Province.Yenna Wu. Vernacular Stories. in V. Mair, (ed.), The Columbia History of Chinese Literature (NY: Columbia University Press, 2001). pp. 597-605.
In 1626, he narrowly avoided punishment after being implicated as an associate of Zhou Shunchang (周順昌), who was purged by the eunuch Wei Zhongxian. He resolved to complete his trilogy of vernacular Chinese short story collections: Stories Old and New, Stories to Caution the World, and Stories to Awaken the World (喻世明言, 警世通言, and 醒世恆言), the first two volumes of which had already appeared.
Feng Menglong was also known by a variety of pseudonyms or (號, hào), including 龍子猶, 墨憨齋主人, 吳下詞奴, 姑蘇詞奴, 前周柱史, 顧曲散人, and 綠天館主人. In recognition of his reputation as a writer, Feng was finally awarded the gongsheng degree in 1630 at the age of fifty-seven. In the subsequent year he received his first government post as instructor of Dantu County (丹徒縣, today Zhenjiang, Jiangsu). In 1634 he was appointed magistrate of Shouning County (壽寧) in Fujian. During his tenure, he was regarded as a morally upright and diligent administrator. He retired in 1638.
In 1644 the Ming state was thrown into turmoil by the sacking of Beijing by Li Zicheng's rebel army and invasion by the Qing forces. At the age of seventy-one, he published the Grand Proposals for National Rejuvenation (中興偉略) to inspire his countrymen to repel the invaders. He died in 1646 as the Ming dynasty continued to collapse. Some works indicate or imply that he was killed by Qing soldiers.
Feng's literary output consisted of the compilation of histories and local gazettes, the retelling of folktales and stories from antiquity in the form of short stories and plays, and the authorship of vernacular Chinese novels. Two of his noteworthy works are the Qing Shi ( History of Love, 情史), an anthology of classical love stories, and the shenmo novel The Three Sui Quash the Demons' Revolt. In 1620 he published the Illustrious Words to Instruct the World (喻世明言), or Stories Old and New, the first part of his well-known trilogy. Stories old and new: a Ming dynasty collection. University of Washington Press
He is frequently associated with Ling Mengchu, author of Slapping the Table in Amazement, a two-part collection of entertaining vernacular tales.
Feng Menglong also expressed his attitudes towards society through his works, which were heavily influenced by his interactions with officialdom and the Chinese literati. Feng Menglong became the magistrate of Shouning near the end of his life, in his sixties. During his appointment, he sought to correct injustices and hoped to build up a reputation as a humble and upright official. Unfortunately, his efforts were frustrated by the widespread corruption of the late Ming dynasty (a theme also treated extensively in other contemporaneous works, such as Zhang Yingyu's The Book of Swindles ( 1617)Zhang Yingyu, The Book of Swindles: Selections from a Late Ming Collection (New York: Columbia University Press, 2017).); bribery and extortion were common bureaucratic behaviors, and themes of official malfeasance figure in many of Feng's stories. Realizing that atmosphere of corruption could not be easily changed, Feng Menglong conveyed his discontent and patriotism through words. Each character of his stories has strong and direct characteristics: there is a clear morality line drawn between “good” and “bad”. Moreover, the meaning behind the stories explores the social issues during Ming Dynasty. For instance, the stories of "The White Maiden Locked for Eternity in Leifeng Pagoda" and "The Young Lady Gives the Young Man a Gift of Money" from Stories to Caution the World express the idea of how women pursued their freedom and happiness under a patriarchal society.
During his tenure as magistrate of Shouning, Feng learned of the local practice of drowning female infants in the river. He authored the Public Notice on the Prohibition of the Drowning of Daughters (禁溺女告示) to appeal to parents not to carry out what he viewed as an abhorrent custom and provide for punishments for infanticidal parents and rewards for those taking in abandoned children.An excerpt:
“······一般十月懷胎，吃盡辛苦，不論男女，總是骨血，何忍淹棄。 為父者你自想，若不收女，你妻從何而來？為母者你自想，若不收女，你身從何而活？況且生男未必孝順，生女未必忤逆。······”
... Ordinarily, you carry a fetus for ten lunar months and endure an ordeal; regardless of gender, it is still your flesh and blood, how can you bear to drown and discard it? If girls were not kept, fathers should ask yourselves, where would your wife have come from? Likewise, mothers should ask yourselves, how could your own life have continued? Moreover, boys are not necessarily filial, and girls are not necessarily disobedient....
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