"Grew up reading Guan Yu's stories?" These words sounded very normal to others, but they made Liu Xu, who was originally smiling on the side, look a little strange.

So, Liu Xu asked in the next second, "Li Tianwang, dare to ask what your common name is?" ”

"Under Li Jing, I should have already told Immortal Venerable just now!" King Tota Li replied with some puzzlement.

"Of course I know that your name is Li Jing, I just want to know, are you the Li Jing of Chen Tangguan, or Li Jing, the Duke of Weiguo!" Liu Xu asked.

"Dai Guogong doesn't dare to be, a small-character pharmacist from a layman's family, a native of Sanyuan County, Yongzhou, his ancestral home is Longxi Didao, and he has nothing to do with Chentangguan!" Li Jing said, "At the same time, I dare to ask Xianzun, when the minister is in the world, I am familiar with military books and familiar with Chinese geography, but I really don't know where there is a pass, called Chentang Pass, there is a place that I have never known, I hope Xianzun will solve my doubts!" ”

"Hehe, Chentangguan is the name of the place in the Shang period, and now it is no longer called this name, and it is understandable that the king of heaven does not know!" Liu Xu smiled, Li Jing nodded, and stopped talking.

"It seems that my previous guess was wrong, this Journey to the West doesn't seem to be linked to the Romance of the Gods!" Liu Xu muttered in his heart.

Previously, through the clairvoyant chatting and hearing the title of the saint, Liu Xu naturally thought that the world of Journey to the West and the world of the Romance of the Gods were connected, thus constituting the prototype of a desolate worldview.

But now after communicating with Li Jing, Liu Xu was surprised to find that this should still be a simple Journey to the West worldview.

In the eyes of many people now, the human identity of the King of Tota Li is Li Jing, the general soldier of Chentangguan, who gave birth to a Nezha, and after tossing around, he became the general of the Western Zhou Dynasty, the hero of the battle to destroy the Shang, and was named the King of Tota Li in the later Jiang Ziya Fengshen, and since then he has become the commander-in-chief of the three armies of the heavenly court.

This is a story that all Chinese people know, although the reputation of Tota Li Tianwang is far less than his son Nezha, but wherever Nazha appears, there will definitely be Tota Li Tianwang, thanks to his own son, Tota Li Tianwang can also be said to be a household name.

But it is worth mentioning that this kind of cognition was actually formed in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, and it was a consensus that came after the popularity of the Romance of the Gods.

Liu Xu has read a lot of relevant historical materials, so the concept of the god Tota Li Tianwang has been embodied as early as the Eastern Jin Dynasty, but it is Journey to the West itself that really resoundingly played the name of Tota Li Tianwang.

Therefore, if you want to determine the identity of Tota Li Tianwang in Journey to the West, it is still necessary to combine the character context of Tota Li Tianwang, when Journey to the West was written, and the various cultural cognitions that Wu Chengen himself came into contact with, and finally create the character of Tota Li Tianwang.

In fact, the original image of this Tota Li Heavenly King was a Buddhist Heavenly King, named Bishamen Heavenly King.

Why is it said that this strangely named guy and King Tota Li are the same person, because in the Buddhist scriptures, this King Bishamen has a famous son named Nazha, you see, that's right.

This is also why Li Jing is such a standard Chinese name, why it is so strange to name his son Nezha, because this itself is an ancient Indian accent.

I won't go into detail about the evolution of Buddhism, I believe that no one is interested, but when it came to the Song Dynasty, because Li Jing, the god of war of the Tang Dynasty, had swept the entire Western Regions, so the Song people began to dig and write a lot of stories about Li Jing's cultivation of immortals, and most of these stories took place in the Western Regions, and Li Jing gradually became a god.

At the same time, the Song Dynasty admired Li Jing very much, so he gave Li Jing the title of king, so Li Jing had the title of Heavenly King.

During the Yuan Dynasty, Yuan miscellaneous dramas began to flourish, and then, based on the "Legend of the Western Regions of the Tang Dynasty" written by the monk Xuanzang, a large number of dramas with the theme of Journey to the West were adapted. Later, in order to attract the attention of more audiences, a large number of immortals, monsters, and stories of the Buddha were added to this theme.

According to the timeline, when Monk Xuanzang began to travel west, Li Jing had already swept the Western Regions, and had great prestige in the Western Regions.

So gradually, Li Tianwang Li Jing became the main immortal character who will definitely appear in the Journey to the West related dramas during the Yuan Miscellaneous Drama Period.

In the early years of the Ming Dynasty, Wu Chengen synthesized all the repertoire related to the Journey to the West in the Yuan Dynasty and created the pinnacle of classical mythology "Journey to the West".

And Li Jing's military exploits and achievements in the human world are enough to support his seat in the heavenly court and convince everyone.

Therefore, Liu Xu can say without a doubt that the Tota Li Tianwang in Journey to the West refers to Li Jing, the military god of the Tang Dynasty, and has nothing to do with other people.

At that time, all the Chinese people did not know that there was a place called Chentangguan in the Shang Dynasty.

However, there is still a bug in Journey to the West, that is, Tota Li Tianwang appeared as early as 500 years before the start of Journey to the West, that is, when Sun Wukong made trouble in the Heavenly Palace, and Li Jing was not born at that time, which did not match the time.

This is also the reason why there will be a Shang Dynasty Li Jing in the follow-up Romance of the Gods, the purpose is to match the concept of Tota Li Tianwang in time.

But if we talk about the concept of time, there are actually a lot of bugs in Journey to the West, two of the four heavenly masters are not right in time, and a lot of the gods and Buddhas in the sky were born in the middle of these 500 years.

But this is also normal, after all, what author writes without being found by readers with a lot of logical problems, and then scolded for being toxic?

It is worth mentioning that Guan Yu is indeed mentioned in Journey to the West.

When writing about the plot of Guanyin Zen Temple, there is such a paragraph

[Good walkers, jumped into the Nantianmen with a somersault, bluffed Pang, Liu, Gou, and Bi bowed. Ma, Zhao, Wen, and Guan Kong's backs all said: "Oh no! Oh no! The master of the troubled heavenly palace is here again! The walker shook his hand and said, "Rank is exempt from courtesy, don't be surprised." I have come to seek the King of Wide-eyed Heaven. ”】

This Ma, Zhao, Wen, and Guan refer to the four marshals under the True Martial Heaven Throne, among which Guan is Guan Yu.

By the way, Zhao in it refers to Zhao Gongming.

So you see, Zhao Gongming, who was originally just a marshal in Journey to the West, became a great immortal in the Romance of the Gods, and was later named the God of Wealth.

But then again, since then, the folk have also had the saying that Guan Yu, the god of martial arts, and Zhao Gongming, the god of literature and wealth.

This is also the reason why Li Jing recognized Guan Yu for the first time, because in the Journey to the West world, the two are indeed colleagues.

It's a bit far, through Li Jing's identity cognition, Liu Xu can then infer that the worldview of Journey to the West has nothing to do with the later worldview of the gods, but why is the concept of a saint appearing here?

Liu Xu had a headache about this.

(End of chapter)