Water Margin. Shi Naian
for a population of over 1.3 billion. It must deal with the challenge of providing clean air, water, and food for this enormous population. It must deal with the challenges of a population with a skewed sex ratio that currently stands at 1.2:1 boys to girls. This means that for every 10 million women, there will be 12 million men, for whom 2 million may not have a chance of a wife or family.
What may be the result of an inability to successfully manage these challenges? Perhaps we can take history as a mirror to guide the present, and consider the traditional response of hungry, angry, and poverty stricken unmarried men. Perhaps we only have to turn to history, and the historical fiction of The Water Margin to find out.
Footnote
9 The “Four Great Novels” include Romance of the Three Kingdoms, The Water Margin, Journey to the West, and The Dream of the Red Chamber.
10 Mencius 5A:5 in Wing-Tsit Chan, A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy. 4th ed. (Princeton University Press, Princeton 1969). p78.
11 Shelley Hsueh-lun Chang, History and Legend. Ideas and Images in the Ming Historical Novels. (University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor 1990), p136.
12 Ibid.
13 John Ching-yu Wang, Chin Sheng-t’an (Twayne Publishers Inc, NY 1972). p61.
14 See Irwin Op.cit, pp43-51.
15 Ibid, p82.
16 Wang, Op.cit, p62.
17 After Irwin, Op. cit, p90.
18 Wang, Op. cit, p60.
19 Buck Op. cit and Jackson Op.cit.
20 Wang, Op.cit, p24-26.
21 Irwin, Op.cit, p87.
22 Wang Op.cit p29.
23 Ibid, p32.
24 Ibid p34.
25 After “Kumiao Jilue” (“A Brief Record of the Lamenting in the Temple”), T’ung-shih (Bitter History) Commercial Press, Shanghai 1912, in Wang, Op. cit, pp34-36.
26 For a full description of this concept, see Shelley Hsueh-lun Chang, History and Legend: Ideas and Images in the Ming Historical Novels. (University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor 1990).
27 David L. Rolston, Traditional Chinese Fiction and Fiction Commentary: Reading and Writing Between the Lines. (Stanford University Press, Stanford 1997), p104.
28 Buck (1968) Op.cit, p.vi.
29 Edgar Snow, Red Star Over China. First Revised and Enlarged Edition, (Penguin Books Ltd, Harmondsworth. 1972), p156.
30 John Fitzgerald, “Continuity Within Discontinuity The Case of Water Margin Mythology,” Modern China, Vol. 12 No. 3, July 1986, p381.
31 Buck (1968) Op.cit, p.ix.
32 Mao Zedong, “Problems of Strategy in China’s Revolutionary War,” December 1936, Selected Works Vol I (Foreign Languages Press, Beijing 1961), p211 and “On Contradiction” August 1937, Ibid, p324.
33 Fitzgerald Op.cit, p381.
34 Ibid.
35 Shi Naian and Luo Guanzhong, Shuihu Zhuan. Vol 1. (Renmin Wenhuaxue Chubanshe, Beijing 1975) Water Margin. Vol 1. (People’s Cultural Studies Publishing House, Beijing, 1975), p.1.
36 Fitzgerald, Op.cit, p.376.
37 See Fitzgerald, Op.cit. pp.365-367.
38 Fitzgerald Op.cit. p364.
39 Dai Jinhua, “Rewriting the Red Classics,” in Rethinking Chinese Popular Culture: Cannibalizations of the Canon, Carlos Rojas and Eileen Cheng-yin Chow (eds) (Routledge, Abingdon. 2009) p160.
List of the 108 Heroes at Liangshan Marsh
| NAME | NICKNAME | FIRST APPEARS IN CHAPTER |
| An Daoquan | Divine Doctor | 64 |
| Bai Sheng | Daylight Rat | 17 |
| Bao Xu | God of Death | 66 |
| Cai Qing | The Flower | 61 |
| Cai Fu | Iron Arm | 61 |
| Cao Zheng | Demon Carver | 16 |
| Chai Jin | Small Whirlwind | 8 |
| Chen Da | Leaping Tiger | 1 |
| Dai Zong | Divine Traveler | 35 |
| Deng Fei | Fiery Eyed Beast | 43 |
| Ding Desun | Arrow Struck Tiger | 69 |
| Dong Ping |