What a Strange Phenomenon that So Many Redologists Failed to Know the Meaning of the Hanging Bottle! ——On the Humanistic Value of “Spring in the Hanging Bottle” in the Qianlong’s Poem Peach

The photoengraving A Dream in Red Mansions in 1911 had the note of “hanging bottle” as “the one hanging on the wall”, which is completely different from the one in the dictionary Rhyming Things in Peiwen. This indicates that the note maker of the photoengraving book was entirely unfamiliar with Rhyming Things in Peiwen. Referring to the relationship between the dictionary and CAO Yin, we can conclude an indisputable fact that the note maker was not the person who knew CAO Yin well. However, the redologists have failed to be aware of it for over 100 years. Instead, they have inherited this incorrect note. This paper has made a bold attempt to make correction of it. Moreover, it has revealed that the most vivid interpretation of “hanging bottle” can be obtained from the poem composed by Emperor Qianlong. The line “The peach blossoms hiding in the hanging bottle for appreciation in the following year” was the elaborate design of the Emperor. And it has the everlasting value in Chinese inheritance of praising spring.