Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #zhanggongan, aggregated by home.social.
Another page of the Zhang Gong’an manhua, this time featuring Zhang Ping topping from the bottom: attempting to hear a case in court when he himself is the accused, and hasn’t even sat the Capital Examination yet.
Zhang Ping: “This student believes…”
Chen Chou: “Zhang xiong, you’re finally saying something.”
Zhang Ping: “None of this counts as real evidence. What Madam Jin stated is not the full truth.”
Pls enjoy manhua Zhang Ping absolutely acing this job interview to write a play for a theatre troupe.
Troupe manager: That’s it, we’ll write a ghost story!
Chen Chou: Right! Zhang-xiong, you’re the best at ghost stories!
Zhang Ping: I’ve always thought…
{dramatic zoom}
There are no gods or ghosts in this world.
11. what are some tropes you’re playing with?
Forced proximity; only one bed (my beloved!).
I would love to claim that I’m building on the intertextuality that the series* uses to hint at a particular relationship being (homo)sexual, but I’m not doing anything nearly as subtle as that. 😅
* iirc, this reference is also present in the novel #ZhangGongAn as well, but since the novel is, per word of god, not danmei, while the series #ALeagueOfNobleman is trying its hardest to look like a dangai, I feel like it comes across slightly differently there.
I just found out that Liu Xueyi was supposed to have a cameo in A League of Nobleman—as Prince Huai, the Emperor's gay uncle!!! It was cut for the obvious reasons. :(
What a disappointment. @liztai our cdrama interests would have overlapped perfectly for once!
Instagram post about this: https://www.instagram.com/p/Con-3_4rZ9K/?hl=en&img_index=1. Liu Xueyi is also listed in the MyDramaList cast as "Royal uncle, guest role": https://mydramalist.com/61971-the-society-of-four-leaves/cast
#LiuXueyi #ALeagueOfNobleman #ZhangGongAn #ImperialUncle #cdrama
Enjoying this episode of the Beyond Huaxia podcast, on the Imperial Exam System: https://beyondhuaxia.podbean.com/e/episode-18-education-and-the-chinese-exam-system/
This excerpt, on the career prospects of men who failed the exams, makes me feel vindicated for making Chen Chou an accountant in my #ALeagueOfNobleman post-canon fic! He doesn’t have to worry about his ‘patron’ dropping him because Zhang Ping would never. <3
I hope one day DFGG finishes the novel and we can find out what they both really end up doing!
Just read Wang Mowen’s name in hanzi while actually paying attention and realised he has a classic, meaningful relationship between given name and courtesy name. :)
王砚，字墨闻
王 wáng, surname: king
砚 yàn, given name: inkstone
墨闻 mòwén, courtesy name: ink + to hear/news/reputation
They are really introducing Chen Chou how they mean to go on, aren’t they?
Look what came!!! (No idea if this is a good or popular adaptation, but you know, adaptation is interesting for its own sake. And: reading practice, with pictures!)
The books came with some postcards; will share pictures of them later.
Da Feng Gua Guo: no CP, this story is gen
Manhua publishers: got it! One is red, one is blue, and they stand really close to one another
Meanwhile, I am relistening to the audio drama (which is just the first case; I barely understand any of it tbh, but it’s comforting) and waiting impatiently for the Taobao delivery driver to bring the #ZhangGongAn manhua I ordered.
Did you know, I love them? (https://chrysanthemumgarden.com/novel-tl/mzg/mzg-35/)
The first two arcs of the Chrysanthemum Garden #ZhangGongAn translation are complete, if you want to take a look! https://chrysanthemumgarden.com/novel-tl/mzg/
…okay, I’m pretty sure the opera singing in this drama is modified to make it easier to follow the lyrics (cos they’re pretty important to the plot) but I’m still going to let myself off for not understanding a word. 😅
#ZhangGongAn
Listening to the #ZhangGongAn audio drama, thinking about how Chen Chou is just the best friend ever in all versions of this story.
Can anyone link me to a "Mao'er FM for beginners" guide, or just tell me how to use it pls? I just saw that the first arc of #ZhangGongAn has been adapted to an audiodrama: https://www.missevan.com/mdrama/18073
(No of course I won't be able to understand it. Let's call it a stretch goal?)
This is the qin in Zhang Ping’s courtesy name, 芹墉 Qinyong! #ZhangGongAn
#intro post for yr. villainous friend
Hello! I'm Rae and I'm here for #fandom, primarily #webnovels of the #danmei, #baihe, #wuxia, and/or #xianxia variety. I watch the occasional #cdrama too, but very slowly. As you can tell from my name, I am an #MDZS fan (also #SVSSS and #TGCF). I'm currently doing a #ChuLiuxiangReadalong, watching #LegendOfFei, and constantly thinking about #ALeagueOfNobleman and its source novel #ZhangGongAn. I love villains and stories about conflicting loyalties, dark pasts and mysterious secrets. I write fanfic and share it here.
Other than fandom, I post a little about #ChineseHistory, learning Mandarin (just passed HSK 3 and HSKK Elementary!), historical bookbinding, personal web dev, and so on. I'm in the Central European time zone and also read German, plus a tiny bit of Swedish.
#ZhangGongAn chapter 4 includes the first appearances of Wang Yan and Tao Zhoufeng, the Minister of Justice who wishes to reform irredeemable criminals by planting weeping willows outside their cells and giving them pamphlets on good conduct.
Lan Jue wonders, can Zhang Ping really be a criminal mastermind?
… ran away to spend most of #ZhangGongAn Arc 4 pretending to be a jaded jianghu hero called Wuming (without a name), blundered around playing out lines from his favourite novels, and instantly got himself and Lan Jue’s son into big trouble.
I love how much books and literature are a presence in these stories!
#ImperialUncle, chapter 2:
Prince Dai! Oh yes, that’s him; that is one hundred percent the kid who caused an international incident, got sent to the countryside to think about what he’d done, and (mild #ZhangGongAn Arc 4 spoiler in next post).
AAAAAAH
CHRYSANTHEMUM GARDEN HAS PICKED UP #ZhangGongAn!!!!
Chapter one dropped yesterday! https://chrysanthemumgarden.com/novel-tl/mzg/
!!!!!
🧠 : I wish there were more #ZhangGongAn and #ALeagueOfNobleman fanworks out there!
👼 : You could make that happen! Set up a kinkmeme or a fan event for it!
🧠 : But are there really enough other fans out there for it to catch on?
😈 : Sure.
😈 : If you go back to Twitter, I bet there are loads~
#ZhangGongAn, arc 5:
Absolutely love to see my guy Xie Fu and his hard work get some recognition. ❤️ (pls ignore my current Hanzi Troubles.)
#ZhangGongAn, act five:
Zhang Ping: *speaks plainly but sparingly about, e.g., whether his interlocutor is currently suspected of serial murder*
Zhang Ping, having picked up from somewhere (Lan Jue) that tact is important: *manages a ‘comforting’ smile*
Currently-not-a-suspect: *terrified to death*
Everyone else: County Magistrate Zhang is so mysterious, powerful, unfathomable and wise!! We have no idea what’s happening. He’s so impressive!
Zhang Ping: I’m doing great at human interaction 😊
#ZhangGongAn, more trivia: I guess that leaves us in "approximately the Song Dynasty" in terms of dress and material culture, not that that means a lot if all the international relations are different!
Oh, I meant to add that in #ALeagueOfNobleman, at least, the current dynasty is called the Great Yong, 大雍, and now I know that Jingzhou Prefecture used to be Yong Prefecture 雍州. I wonder if it just felt like an acceptably imperial name due to that? This is an entirely useless question. 😄
I'm honestly not even sure how real-world dynasties got their names...
#ZhangGongAn trivia: the book never names the capital city besides calling it 京 or 京城, and I have been lazily thinking of it as Beijing or nearest equivalent for no reason. (Well, the MTL always says Beijing, but I knew that was wrong.)
Just thought to look up Jingzhao Prefecture (京兆府), which Zhang Ping's boss governs, and Wikipedia says it's the area around Chang'an, so that's where the capital is! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jingzhao
Does this help narrow down the time zone this book is set in? Not super much, as we're in an imaginary dynasty. So far I've got this chronology:
- Tang Dynasty: definitely happened and is in the past. In this history, Chang'an was not destroyed in the dynasty's fall
- Chu Dynasty: fictional; sadly, the one Xiang Yu was associated with doesn't match up (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chu_(state)#Qin_and_Han_dynasties)
- "The former dynasty": fictional, succeeded the Chu
- Current dynasty, obviously fictional
#ZhangGongAn, Act 5: Lan Jue started out reminiscing about his late wife, switched to the Zhang Ping track in his brain, and (not shown) cracked himself up while staring into space such that the servant coming to see him turned right around, telling himself, “Minster Lan has been very stressed lately!”
#ZhangGongAn: I do have thoughts to share on Arc 5 already, but most of them require screenshots so I can just point and yell.
Arc 5 so far:
Everyone: Zhang Ping, it's very nice that you've solved so many mysteries, but now you have to do your actual job.
Zhang Ping: 😐
Zhang Ping: Okay.
Everyone: ...
Zhang Ping: *wanders off and solves another mystery*
#ZhangGongAn: pleased to say I did get all the way through Arc 4 in the end! I can't wait to read it again in human translation and actually understand what's going on. 😓
This arc did have some more pressing downsides: the case was tied to people from a defunct Northern kingdom, so—in the MTL at least—there's a fair amount of the word 'barbarian' being thrown around, etc. I stress the MTL because I'm not sure if (a) that's a fitting translation at all; (b) it's the word a human translator into English these days would pick, if so. That makes it hard to say how much the anti-Northern-Asian attitudes should be ascribed to the characters vs. the narration, you know?
The final resolution of the case is also aided by the Ministry of Justice torturing the main suspect to get him to confess, which is very not cool.
Well, on to the next case.
#ZhangGongAn but mostly #ChineseLearning: it’s so satisfying to see patterns you just learnt in class in a real text. 😊
(It's this: https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/ASGUQ861)
#ZhangGongAn The murder of Ma Lian (conceited rich scholar) happens in the book as well, but it’s tied into a bigger mystery that made my head spin. I… think I understand what happened?
I like how the bigger story involves lost manuscripts and hinges on recognising which famous calligrapher’s handwriting was used as a model by a particular scholar! But I’m still not really sure how Wang Yan’s delinquent younger brother got pulled into the whole thing. (The bit where Wang Yan slapped him and yelled at him was great, though.)
#ZhangGongAn update: book Xu Deng is definitely *not* the same character as series Xu Dong, although I still think there might be some inspiration there. (It might also be wishful thinking, because I liked series Xu Dong so much.)
Also very exciting news: book Zhang Ping has a courtesy name, Qinyong! I don’t think he ever mentioned one in #ALeagueOfNobleman.
芹 qín: celery
墉 yōng: (literary) city wall
I will go looking to see if this is a reference to anything, but if it already rings a bell for you, please let this non-erudite friend know.
I believe we have just met the book version of Xu Dong!
Back to reading #ZhangGongAn. 🥰 This ‘ghost market’ reminds me of the market overt concept in the UK: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_overt
The main differences I've noticed so far between #ZhangGongAn and #ALeagueOfNobleman:
- the first case is different (I wouldn't expect the cases to be that similar between the book and show anyway—they were also very different between Fourteenth Year of Chenghua and Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty)
- Lan Jue's dead wife and young son are mentioned early on, rather than being entirely non-existent for the whole story and then referred to in one ass-covering This Isn't Really A Dangai line in the last episode 🙄
- Prince Huai (the imperial uncle in Imperial Uncle) has been mentioned, and I wonder if there will be a plot thread concerning him; he was absent from the drama
I cracked and am currently reading a machine translation of #ZhangGongAn https://www.novelupdates.com/series/the-mystery-of-zhang-gong/ (created using an epub of the raws + this Calibre plugin: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=353052). The MTL is not great, but the advantage of this plugin is that the book's translated paragraph by paragraph, with the original and translated text both present. So far, I read just enough Chinese to untangle any MTL weirdness.
Probably I should instead be trying to read the Chinese and using the MTL English to help me out, but it's already so slow and this is such a long book!