This is one of a series of papers of the author's dealing with Hong-Iou Meng (Dream of the Red Chamber) from a new angle. The main point of the paper is to refute the“autobiography theory" and to revise the “the sole Cao house theory". The Jia house in the novel is molded after the Li house in Suzhou. The leading character in the novel Jia Bao-yu implies Li Ding, the eldest son of Li Xu who was the director of the Imperial Suzhou Silk Factory in the Qing dynasty. Initially, Li Ding wrote several chapters of Si-Tou Ji. Then Cao Xue-qin took over and rewrote and expanded it. In the original version of Si-Tou Ji created by Li Ding, the characters include several females. Generally they are consided as“several unusual females". After Cao Xue-qin took over and painstakingly rewrote the novel, “the Jingling twelve hairpins (beauties)” were thus created, forming remarkably typical characters in the novel. According to Zi-yan Zhai's (or Li Ding's) annotations, “twelve hairpins (beauties) are from Suzhou”The socalled“twelve Jinling hairpins (beauties)"are really“Suzhou twelve hairpins (beauties)”.
