Tang Xianzu in Suichang

For many， Tang Xianzu (1550-1616) is the playwright who authored “Peony Pavilion”， the very representative play of Kunqu Opera， a world cultural heritage since 2001. For people in Suichang County in southwestern Zhejiang， Tang Xianzu is more than a timeless playwright. He worked as county magaistrate in Suichang. What he achieved as a county magistrate is typical of best county governors all the time.

In 1593， the 43-year-old Tang came to Suichang， a small county nestled in mountains in southwestern Zhejiang. According to records of that time， landlocked Suichang was sparsely populated and the government’s annual revenue was negligible. The area was so remote and wild that tigers sometimes menaced mountain villages. Thieves and bandits were a common sight. After his arrival at the county， the first thing Tang did was to visit the Confucius Temple in the county and local scholars and influential personages. He restored education， cracked down on bandits， hunted tigers， and brought de facto local rulers under control. He also conducted taxation reform， levying fair taxes and forcing the wealthy families to pay up the previous taxes they should have paid.

In addition to these measures， he also went all out to promote agriculture and encourage local farmers to do their farming. In ancient times， county government officials in China held a springtime ceremony to celebrate the beginning of farming season and urge farmers to do their job appropriately and pray for good harvests. Such a ceremony varied from place to place. What Tang Xianzu did in Suichang was to visit rural households， distributed flowers and wine to farmers， gave whips to farmers so that they could best control their buffalos to plow farmlands.

The way he held springtime ceremony has been preserved for more than 400 years. This ceremony is now a big part of an agricultural festival in Suichang. It is inscribed on the list of the intangible cultural heritage of Zhejiang Province. And the province is now applying for its status as a national cultural heritage.

Tang Xianzu served as a government official for 15 years and he spent five of them in Suichang. Under his rule， Suichang became peaceful and prosperous. Even Tang himself proudly compared Suichang with Peach Blossom Stream， an otherworldly rural paradise depicted in a masterpiece in the ancient Chinese literature. He was widely known as a model magistrate.

During the five years， he wrote 130 poems. Some of them are about the springtime agriculture ceremony and more than fifty are about the natural beauty of Suichang. Tang found the local scenery so enchanting that he invited some of his friends to visit Suichang.

What makes local people especially proud is that Tang Xianzu wrote “Peony Pavilion” in Suichang. After he finished revising his “Purple Hairpin”， he began writing “Peony Pavilion”. As an anecdote goes， Tang Xianzu had brush pen and paper with him when he took a sedan ride. If he thought of a good sentence during a ride， he would immediately jot it down and paste the paper onto the ceiling of his sedan. Half a year after he left Suichang， “Peony Pavilion” was published.

In the cultural renaissance since the late 1970s， Suichang has become a must-visit for scholars on Tang Xianzu and Kunqu Opera at home and abroad. Suichang has taken measures to promote itself as the birthplace of “Peony Pavilion”， a cultural masterpiece of the world.

Suichang published a collection of essays in celebration of the 435th anniversary of the birthday of Tang Xianzu in 1985. The county also built two pavilions at the scenic mountains which Tang Xianzu had visited and praised in his poems. In 1995， Tang Xianzu Memorial came into being in Suichang. In August 2001， Suichang hosted the first annual conference of China Tang Xianzu Research Institute and published a book on Tang Xianzu’s stay in Suichang. Newsletter on Tang Xianzu Studies， the first academic journal dedicated to the study of the playwright， came into being. In 2006， Suichang formulated an overall plan to further promote Tang Xianzu in Suichang. Also in 2006， Suichang hosted an international seminar on Tang Xianzu and set up a Tang Xianzu research branch under the China Association for Traditional Operas. In 2009， the Springtime Agricultural Festival was resumed. This year， the festival was upgraded.

Suichang and Stratford-Upon-Avon will jointly host an event in 2016 in commemoration of the 400th anniversary of the deaths of Tang Xianzu and Williams Shakespeare.□