Sun Shaozu is a character in the classical Chinese novel Dream of the Red Chamber, nicknamed the Wolf of Zhongshan. Both Wikidata and the Chinese Wikipedia article are titled Sun Shaozu, and Wikidata also lists the traditional-character form. It is the character's name in the novel, so the heading stays Sun Shaozu. The story is set in the dynasty of the novel, and he is recorded as male.[1][2]
In the story
The Chinese Wikipedia article says that Sun Shaozu is from Datong prefecture in Shanxi, descended from army officers, and was at the time a protege of the Ning and Rong houses. His wife is Jia Yingchun, one of the Twelve Beauties of Jinling. He is coarse and extremely vile, loves women, gambling and drink, and has abused almost all the wives and maids in his household. When Jia Yingchun first came home for a short stay she was already in tears. Jia Baoyu asked his father Jia Zheng to let her stay in the Grand View Garden. Jia Zheng and Lady Wang were reluctant, but by the rules of a great household they did not keep her. In the end Yingchun died of Sun Shaozu's cruelty. After the Jia house was raided, he also wrote to Jia Zheng, saying that Jia She had once owed him money and demanding that Jia Zheng repay it.[2]
How he is written
The article says that Cao Xueqin never lets Sun Shaozu appear in person in the book. By the method of powdering the back, he makes Sun Shaozu's ungrateful, cruel, shameless and kick-them-when-down character stand out through the accounts of Jia Yingchun and others.[2]
Basic facts
- Description: character of Dream of the Red Chamber, husband of Yingchun[1]
- Nickname: Wolf of Zhongshan[2]
- Setting recorded on this entry: the dynasty of the novel[1]
- Appears in: Dream of the Red Chamber[2]