Chinese Opera Mask, Zhuan Zhu

Zhuan Zhu

He Lu sent Zhuan Zhu to kill his cousin King Liao.

Chinese Opera Mask, Tu Anjia

Tu Anjia

From "To Save the Infant."

The story takes place during the Warring States Period. In the State of Jin, the evil minister Tu Anjia is in power. He frames Zhao Dun and causes his family and next of kin, numbering more than three hundred, to be killed. Zhao Dun's son happens to have married the sister of the Lord of Jin. At the time of the massacre, she is already pregnant. She escapes back to the palace, where she gives birth to a son. Tu is determined to annihilate the whole of the Zhao's, and sends his men to the palace in search of the infant. By then, the infant is already in the safe hands of a former retainer of the Zhao's called Cheng Ying.

Tu offers a bounty of a thousand taels of gold to anyone who would inform him of the whereabouts of the infant, and if the boy cannot be found within ten days, he would have all the babies of the same age throughout the land killed. Cheng and Gongsun Wujiu put their heads together to save the boy. Cheng is willing to sacrifice his own son, and Gongsun is willing to give up his own life. So Gongsun takes Cheng's son to Shouyang Hill to hide, while Cheng goes to Tu to report that the baby is found. Tu leads his troops to search the hill and captures Gongsun and the baby. Suspicious, he orders Cheng to whip Gongsun to test his reaction. Cheng holds back his tears and whips Gongsun. Tu is convinced, and orders to have Gongsun and the baby executed. The orphan of the Zhao family is thus saved.

Chinese Opera Mask, Zhu Wen

Zhu Wen (852-912), the founder of the Later Liang Dynasty in the period of the Five Dynasties, was from Dangshan County of Song Prefecture (the present Dangshan County of Anhui Province).

In his childhood, Zhu Wen was a rogue in the village. Along with his brother, he later joined the forces of the peasant uprising and was appointed Vanguard General on the Southeastern Front and Defence General of Tongzhou Prefecture. But when the uprising army ran short of food and recruits, he surrendered to the Tang army in 882 and was granted the name of Quanzhong (Full Allegiance). Zhu Wen, that is, Zhu Quanzhong, then served as viceroy of Bianzhou city. Relying on his powerful army, Zhu Wen put the emperor Zhao Zong under his control. Later he had Zhao Zong murdered and made his 13-year-old son Li Zhu a puppet emperor. In 907 he abrogated the young emperor, putting an end to the Tang Dynasty. He then usurped the crown and changed his name to Zhu Huang and the empire title to Liang. He also moved the capital to Bianzhou that was given a new name of Kaifengfu. It was known in Chinese history as the Later Liang Dynasty. After that, the other warlords followed his example and styled themselves emperors one after another, thus ushering in a chaotic period of the Five Dynasties and Ten States.

After Zhu Wen took over the power, he made some efforts to reform the corrupt political system passed down from the Tang Dynasty. The Council of Secretaries, which was of great power but controlled by eunuchs in the Tang period, was restructured into the Consulting Council, whose director served as the consultant of the emperor, but with less power than the director of the Council of Secretaries of the Tang Dynasty. And when Qian Liu, the king of the State Wuyue suggested in 910 that he employ 25 eunuchs of the Tang, Tai Zu of Liang answered that he did not need such eunuchs since the reform was being carried out to remove malpractices. Two years after his reign, he restored the salary system for the officials so that they would not abuse the power to exploit the people. Besides, levies on the peasants were lightened.

Some years after Zhu Wen took the throne, Li Keyong, a major opponent warlord died and his son Li Cunxu proclaimed himself King of Jin. Owing to the family feud, the two sides fought a fierce battle in 911 at Gaoyi (the present Caoyi County of Hebei Province) with the army of Liang utterly defeated. So the following year, Emperor Tai Zu himself led an army of 500,000 northward to attack the Jin State. But at the mere sight of Jin's army, Liang's vanguard troops fled pell-mell. Actually it was only Jin's patrol of several hundred soldiers. Back to Luoyang, Tai Zu of Liang became badly ill. He sobbed bitterly before his death and said to his loyal ministers, "None of my sons is the match for Li Cunxu after my death. I would not be able to have a place for my grave." He was killed at 60 by his third son, who succeeded to the throne. In 923, Li Cunxu's army took the capital city Kaifeng and leveled his tomb.

Chinese Opera Mask, Chong Houhu

Chong Houhu

Chong Houhu with a white flowered three-tile face in Presenting Lady Daji, an episode in Canonization of the Gods. Chong Houhu was one of four feudal lords serving under King Zhou of the Shang dynasty. Su Hu, the governor of Jizhou, had a beautiful daughter called Daji. The lascivious King Zhou, hearing of her beauty, summoned her father and demanded that she be married to him. When Su Hu refused, the king ordered Chong Houhu to attack Jizhou, forcing Su Hu to yield to his demand. On their way to the capital, the father and daughter put up at an inn. During the night a fox spirit came and swallowed the girl and then assumed her form. King Zhou, unaware of what had happened, married the fox spirit, which turned out to be a very wicked creature. Its wickedness contributed to the eventual downfall of the Shang dynasty.

Chinese Opera Mask, Wei Jiang

Wei Jiang

Wei Jiang with a pink three-tile face in Orphan of the House of Zhao, an opera adapted from an episode in History of the Eastern Zhou, Also called Searching For and Saving the Orphan. This is a story of murder and cruelty on the one hand and courage and sacrifice on the other. Tu Angu, a tyrannical general of the state of Jin, had ordered the execution of Zhao Shuo, son-in-law of Duke Ling of Jin, and his whole family. Only one member of this family, Zhao Shu's baby son Zhao Wu, escaped death thanks to help of Cheng Ying, a devoted friend to the Zhao family, who hid the baby in his house.

Shortly afterwards the wicked general found out about this and ordered a ruthless search. Realizing that there would be great trouble if he did not give up the baby, Cheng Ying devised a plan: He had an infant child of his own that was about the same age as the Zhao family's orphan; since nobody outside his family had seen the two babies, perhaps he could hoodwink the general by giving up his own child, pretending it was the Zhao orphan. The trick worked and the sole survivor of the Zhao family was saved. Zhao Wu grew into a fine young man versed in both literature and the martial arts, and when the time came for him to enter the world, Cheng Ying told him the secret. True to the hopes of his savior and guardian, the young man avenged the murder of his family. Wei Jiang was a Jin general faithful to Zhao Wu. In the opera he personally kills the wicked Tu Angu.

Chinese Opera Mask, Zheng Lun

Zheng Lun

Zheng Lun with a green pointed three-tile face in Green Dragon Pass, an opera based on an episode in the novel Canonization of the Gods. This novel, written in the Ming dynasty, tells of the struggles between the rulers of the Shang and Zhou dynasties, but the plots and characters are mostly fictitious. Gods, fairies, and other supernatural beings, fighting each other with magic and magic weapons, dominate many of the stories. The novel begins with the political turmoil that engulfed the last years of the Shang dynasty and the uprising led by King Wu of Zhou and ends with the canonizing of gods by Jiang Ziya, a prime minister of Zhou.

Green Dragon Pass was a strategic spot hotly contested by the Shang and Zhou armies. Zheng Lun was a general under King Wen, the father of King Wu. In the opera he is sent to attack Green Dragon Pass defended by Sang general Qiu Yin. Although not a god, Zheng Lun has the power of exhaling white smoke to conceal himself. His adversary also possesses magic powers, so neither can defeat the other. In the end Zheng Lun captures the pass with the help of the gods.