史詩《華抱山》初名《公道軍》，內容以明末清初無錫吼山地區的公道軍起義事件為主。太平天國失敗後，清朝大力查禁此歌，以同治年間最為激烈，違背禁歌令者，將抄家或砍頭，自此轉為「口傳心喊」的傳承方式：即是以創作押韻歌詞為前提下，固定使用二套旋律骨幹，進行旋律微調與節奏變化。
本論文以朱海容先生蒐集整理、華祖榮先生唱述之今本《華抱山》為靜態文本，第四代傳唱人──唐建琴老師之采錄影音檔案為動態文本，於第二至四章架構出《華抱山》研究的基礎；〈第五章、句式與節奏〉與〈第六章、音樂探討〉延續研究基礎進行音樂部份之深度探勘，推論出字數超過七言、旋律性強、節奏變化大的「搶句」即是文學與音樂調和的關鍵，藉此使史詩《華抱山》得以突破過往民歌研究之框架。
The initial title of the epic Hua Bao-Shan was Justice Troop (Gong Dao Jun), in which the content mainly retells the uprising of Justice Troop at Roar Hill in Wuxi during the late Ming and early Qing dynasties. After the fall of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the Qing Empire, especially during the reign of Tongzhi Emperor, strictly prohibited this song. Those who violated the order of this forbidden song were imposed with the punishment of nine familial exterminations or decapitation. As a result, this song was passed down via “verbal conveyance and inner perception” - namely, the melody was fine-tuned and the tempo was changed using two fixed melody backbones under the premise of the existence of lyric rhymes.
This study selected the existing text of Hua Bao-Shan collected and arranged by Hai-rong Chu and sung by Tzu-rong Hua as the static text and chose the video recording file of the fourth generation of singer, Chian-chin Tang, as the dynamic text. Chapters 2 to 4 outline the research foundation of Hua Bao-Shan; “Chapter 5 Sentence Structure and Rhythm” and “Chapter 6 Investigation on Musicality” extend the research foundation to perform an in-depth investigation on the music part and deduce that the “Chiang Ju” - where number of words exceeds seven Chinese characters, the melody is strong, and the change in tempo is significant - is the key to the harmony between literature and music. Therefore, this investigation into the epic Hua Bao-Shan breaks through the framework of past studies on folk songs.
