《桃花扇》以复社名士侯方域与秦淮名妓李香君的爱情故事为主线,描绘了南明弘光王朝由建立到覆灭的动荡而短暂的历史。用作者孔尚任的话说,就是“借离合之情,写兴亡之感”。南明灭亡之后,做了樵夫的苏昆生重游故都南京后抚今追昔,向做了渔夫的说书艺人柳敬亭唱出了沉郁、悲怆的曲子《哀江南》:“俺曾见金陵玉殿莺啼晓,秦淮水榭花开早,谁知道容易冰消!眼看他起朱楼,眼看他宴宾客,眼看他楼塌了!这青苔碧瓦 ”Peach Blossom Fan“ is based on the love story of Hou Fangyu, a famous literary person, and Li Xiangjun, a famous literary person of Qin Huai, and depicts the turbulent and short history of the establishment and destruction of the Hongguang dynasty of Nanming. In the words of the author, Kong Shangren, it is ”to borrow the feelings of separation and cooperation and to write about the sense of rise and fall." After the death of Nanming, Su Kunsheng, who was a widower, revisited the old capital of Nanjing and made a fuss over the past. He told a storytelling artist Liu Jingting who was a fisherman to sing a melancholy and compassionate song “Yan Jiangnan”: “You have seen Jinling Yudian Dawn. , Qinhuai Shuihua blooming early, who knows easily ice elimination! Seeing him from Zhulou, seeing him feast guests, seeing him building collapse!