What is the background and story outline of "Broken Soul Gun"?

The ghost gun was written in the autumn of 1935. During his teaching in cheeloo university, Jinan, Mr Lao She was busy with teaching and writing, which affected his health. Introduced by a friend, he practiced boxing with a famous boxer in Jinan, which also inspired his intention to create the martial arts novel Two Boxers. Later, due to various reasons, the novel failed to take shape, but he extracted the main plot and created the short story "Broken Soul Gun".

The Broken Soul Gun tells the story of the invasion of foreign powers in the late Qing Dynasty. After the martial arts expert Sha Zilong changed his status as an innkeeper, he connected three small fragments: Wang Sansheng's busking, the contest between Grandpa Sun and Wang Sansheng, and Grandpa Sun's performance. Among them, Sha Zilong's identity change from knight-errant to innkeeper is full of the author's deep and dignified cultural complex.

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works appreciation

This work artistically reproduces the social reality of semi-feudal and semi-colonial China: "The life changes of Jianghu Escorters make their own life value and pursuit meaningless. They can no longer live in the glorious past and have to face the cruel reality that they will be beaten if they fall behind. Imperialism mercilessly awakened the dream of the ancient oriental peoples in the Spring and Autumn Period with guns and cultural aggression, and everyone in the Chinese nation had to face the choice of life again.

"From the literal meaning of the' broken soul gun', what does the author mean? Does it imply the broken soul of the escort represented by Sha Zilong and the martial arts he admires, or does it reflect the true portrayal that the traditional culture of China, represented by Confucianism, has lost its strong position and is gradually marginalized under the massive invasion of western strong civilization? Or both, it really deserves readers' further consideration.

Baidu Encyclopedia-Soul Gun