Author of Honglou Meng, Cao is considered to be China's greatest novelist, but little is known of his life. Cao Xueqin achieved posthumous fame through his life's work. The novel was written in "blood and tears".

What is the life story of Cao Xueqin?

Cao Xueqin was the posthumous grandson of Cao Yin, who was the Textile Commissioner in Nanking and was greatly favored by Emperor Kangxi. The Cao family's power and wealth were at its height under Cao Yin. However, a few years after Cao Xueqin was born, the Cao family had reached its downfall due to political reasons. In 1742, Cao Xueqin was found living in poverty in the western suburb of Peking. He died in 1763, at around forty years old, leaving behind his wife.

Cao Xueqin was a great writer in the Qing Dynasty. His personal name was Zhan, and his style name Mengruan. His representative work A Dream of Red Mansions was written in the latter half of the 18th century, which is not only a great Chinese novel but also a gem of world literature. The work is named as one of the Great Four Works, together with The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Pilgrim to the West and Outlaws of the Marsh.

When Cao Xi died in 1684, Yin, as Kangxi's personal confidante, took over the post. Cao Yin was one of the era's most prominent men of letters and a keen book collector. By the early 1700s, the Cao clan had become so rich and influential so it was able to host the Emperor Kangxi in his separate itinerant trips south to the Nanjing region six times.

When Cao Yin died in 1712, Kangxi, still in power, passed the office over to Yin's only son, Cao Yong. Yong himself died in 1715. Kangxi then allowed the family to adopt a paternal nephew, Cao Fu, as Cao Yin's posthumous son to continue in that position. Hence the clan held the office of Imperial Textile Commissioner at Jiangning for three generations.

The family's fortunes lasted until Kangxi's death and the ascension of Emperor Yongzheng to the throne. Yongzheng was much less tolerant of the debts the family chalked up in office. By 1727, after a series of warnings, he decided to confiscate the entire Cao clan's properties, including their mansion, and put Cao Fu under arrest. When Cao Fu was released a year later, the family, totally impoverished, was forced to relocate to Beijing. Cao Xueqin, still a young child then, followed the family in this odyssey.

The life of luxury in his boyhood acquainted him with the ways of noble families and the ruling class, while poverty in his old age enabled him to observe life more clearly and penetratingly. Based on his own understanding of life and with his progressive ideas, serious attitude and high craftsmanship, he was able to create A Dream of Red Mansions, a book regarded as the pinnacle of the Chinese classical novel.

This novel was written when Cao Xueqin was living in poverty and it was meant to be a recount of Cao's childhood, yet the debate of whether Jia Bao-yu, the hero in the novel was meant to represent Cao remained.

Cao seems to have spent about ten years writing and revising his novel, from roughly 1740 to 1750, but the last 40 of the 120 chapters were completed by a different author, Gao E, probably after the death of Cao. Though certain differences with the former 80 chapters can be found in Gao E's sequel, ideological content and artistic achievements still follow Cao's original plan and make the novel a single whole.

A Dream of Red Mansions portrays a galaxy of unforgettable characters. Jia Baoyu, the main male character is a rebel of the feudal noble class. He lives in a large feudal family, but he resents their decadence and hypocrisy, and finally abandons them. Jia Baoyu's anti-feudal awareness is also reflected in his persistent pursuit of true love.

Lin Daiyu, the female main character, is also a rebellious figure in the novel. She represents, to a certain degree, women's unfortunate fate in feudal society and their resistance to its oppressiveness. But the weakness is in her restrained and fragile character is typical of noble girls.

Baoyu and Daiyu are the two most beloved characters. In contrast to Baoyu and Daiyu, Baochai is portrayed as a conventional woman of feudal society. But in the declining period of the feudal system, she is also a tragic figure.

The author, instead of telling the love story superficially, tries to tap the social origins of the tragedy through probing deeply into the characters' minds and the complicated relationships among them, hence exposing the hypocrisy and cruelty of feudalism and the decadence of the ruling class. The novel goes far beyond the tragic love story, to depict a broad swath of society through describing a series of complicated conflicts and struggles, and ultimately predicting the doomed fate of feudal society as a whole. The novel criticizes feudalism, its corrupt politics, marriage system and ethical relationships and passionately denounces its cruelty and inhumanity In China, A Dream of Red Mansions is praised as an encyclopedia for analyzing feudal society.

Most of what we know about Cao Xueqin was passed down from his contemporaries and friends. Friends and acquaintances recalled an intelligent, highly talented man. His excellent work, Dream of the Red Chamber plays an important role in the history of Chinese literature. It has spawned a large batch of works after its style. Nowadays, many people organize clubs where they? study and analyze the Dream of the Red Chamber. Through their work, we can know more about Cao Xueqin and his story.