Dubbed the “Romeo and Juliet” of the East, the love story Luong Son Ba – Zhu Yingtai is a famous love story in Chinese history. This drama about a talented couple has also become a classic in Chinese cinema, associated with the memories of many generations. It is also the film that made a series of famous actors such as La Chi Tuong, Dong Khiet, Ha Nhuan Dong,… suddenly become stars.
For a long time now, Luong Son Ba – Chuc Anh Dai is still considered a legend that is half true and half false. After many centuries, the true existence of these people in the flow of time is still a big and curious question.
According to the story, Chuc Anh Dai is a young lady with golden branches and jade leaves. Because she was eager to learn, she recklessly disguised herself as a man to go to school, something that at that time only boys could do. Here, she met and fell in love with Luong Son Ba – a poor but studious boy. But no matter how much they fight, they still cannot be together. Chuc Anh Dai was forced by her parents to marry Ma Van Tai – a young man from a large and powerful mandarin family. Hearing that his loved one had to go on a palanquin, Luong Son Ba was so sad that he passed away. On his wedding day, Chuc Anh Dai ran away to his lover’s grave, and cried until she also died. Legend has it that two butterflies appeared on the grave and flew away together freely towards the horizon. “Even though we were not born on the same day, month, and year, we vow to die on the same day, month, and year” was born from here.
To ordinary people, this may just be an embellished story. But for experts, historians and archaeologists, they are much more curious and desire to find out the truth: did Luong Son Ba – Chuc Anh Dai really exist in history?
In 2016, in Zhejiang province, China, archaeologists found a tombstone suspected to be Liangshanbo’s tombstone. Most likely, Luong Son Ba was a real person and he was an official during the Jin Dynasty (266 – 420). He was an honest mandarin who had merit in building dikes and helping people, so he was respected and worshiped by the people for a long time.
The tombstone of a mandarin named Luong Son Ba of the Jin Dynasty
Obviously, this “real” Luong Son Ba in history lived at least to middle age and became famous, not dying young for love like in the sad love story. As for the person named Chuc Anh Dai, there has never been any evidence that he really exists. Experts say that maybe because ancient people admired a righteous mandarin, they created the story of “beautifying” him. With the changes of time, it has become a love anecdote that is still passed down to this day.
However, whether Luong Chuc’s love story is fake or real is still an open question. Also in this same tomb of Luong Son Ba, a brick dating back 1,700 years was found, carved with two hearts. That could be a symbol or evidence for a certain love story, but it’s too difficult for posterity to know the real answer.
Stone slab engraved with two hearts in the tomb
Source: 163