Selected Chinese Stories — Translation by Robert K. Douglas

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Fortunately, however, the learned Chinese are not quite such literary prigs as they pretend to be; and just as the most pronounced Confucianist keeps a soft place in his heart for Buddhist deities and the mysticisms of Tao, so the most pedantic scholar occasionally indulges, under the rose, in the study of the loves and adventures of heroes and heroines who are mere fictions of the brain. It is difficult to say when the first story was published in China, but it is quite safe to assume that stories have been current from all time. There never was a land in which stories did not exist. Even the dull nomads of the deserts of Mongolia and of the still drearier wastes of Tibet attempt to vary the monotony of their existence by telling strange tales as they crowd round their camp-fires. To such people the efforts of the imagination are to life what froth is to champagne. They keep it fresh and brisk, and impart liveliness to what without them would be flat and wearisome.
The earliest stories which we know of in China are those which are enshrined in the Book of Odes, the contents of which date back to the time of Solomon. In these ballads we find tales and fragments of tales which doubtless formed part of the stock-in-trade of professional story-tellers who sought to amuse the Chinese immigrants on their arrival in the strange land of their adoption. In these, as in everything Chinese, there is a lack of that vivid fancy which belongs to more imaginative races. The fiery inspiration of the Aryan peoples has been denied to the Scythian mind. No torrents of passion nor eloquent denunciations break the calm narratives which flow from the placid pens of Chinese story-tellers. Their themes are for the most part the idyllic scenes of country life, in which love, tempered with subdued passion, plays a prominent part. On such matters they only speak right on, and give us plain and detailed particulars of the events which they wish to describe. Compared with Western writers, they labour under the disadvantage of having to work out their own literary systems. No ideas from the people of other countries, except those of India, have ever reached them. All opportunities of sharpening their wits by communication with other foreigners have been denied them. To India they owe much that gives lightness and variety to their works of fiction. Buddhistic fancies and the philosophical conceptions which underlie Brahmanism introduced new and interesting phases into the native literature; and indirectly those supernatural and magical ideas which first made their appearance in the writings of Taoist sages, and which have since become part of the stock-in-trade of Chinese novelists, were derived from the same sources.
Chinese novels may be divided into two classes, historical and social. Chinese history, as all students of the subject know, has through its long course been broken up into short lengths by rebellions, wars, and dynastic changes, and thus furnishes abundant matter for novels of the first of these kinds. It has also this great advantage in the eyes of native novelists, that it supplies them with ready-made plots. All that is required of them is that they should dispose the characters and events in picturesque arrangements, and introduce the leaven of dialogue, and any touches of fancy they may be capable of, to impart lightness and variety to their pages. The most celebrated Chinese historical novel is the San kwo chi, or ‘History of the Three Kingdoms,’ by one Lo Kwanchung, a writer of the Yuen dynasty (1268-1368). The period chosen as the subject of this work is that which embraces the fall of the Han dynasty (25-220 AD) and the existence of the three states into which the empire was temporarily divided during the succeeding fifty-five years. This epoch was one of great disorder. There were wars and rumours of wars on all sides. The reins of power had fallen from the nerveless grasp of the degenerate rulers of the Han dynasty and had been seized by a usurper named Tung Cho, who put the reigning emperor to death and placed a puppet of his own on the throne. The violence and atrocities of this man have made him a proverb and a byword in Chinese history. One particular act attributed to him has been singled out as being even more atrocious than his many butcheries and murders. With remorseless cruelty he enforced the removal of the population of the imperial capital, Lohyang, numbering, it is said, several millions, to the city of Ch’anyang, and ordered the destruction by fire of the deserted town. At length Fate overtook him—as it commonly overtakes tyrants—and he was assassinated by one of the countless enemies which he had raised against himself. His fall, however, failed to bring about peace, and several rebels rose to keep alive the prevailing disorder. The puppet whom Tung Cho had placed on the throne was murdered in his turn, and a successful leader, assuming the imperial purple, proclaimed himself the first of the emperors of the Wei dynasty. Simultaneously with this new line of sovereigns another usurper established a kingdom for himself in the modern province of Szech’uen; and yet another founded one, which he styled the kingdom of Wu, in Southern China. The rivalries of these three states made an intriguing quarrel. Probably no half-century in Chinese history has so bloody a record as that of this epoch. It is therefore a model period for the pen of a historical novelist, and Lo Kwanchung has taken every advantage of the materials thus placed at his disposal. With considerable skill he unfolds the complicated drama, and moves the puppets, crowded on the stage, with precision and without confusion. The principal characters stand prominently forward, and the action of the plot goes on about them without in the least obscuring their presence. Nor is the romance ever allowed to drop to the prosaic level of history. The more serious records of wars and political movements are lightened by a plentiful introduction of artistic by-play. By the exercise of the novelist’s licence we are admitted into the palaces of the emperors, and are initiated into the secrets of court intrigues. Even the imperial harems are thrown open for our benefit. We are made confidants of the plots hatched in the busy brains of idle ladies, which on more than one occasion overthrew emperors and caused fire and sword to overspread the land. The supernatural also is largely introduced. Times of political disorder are generally favourable to superstition. It is quite possible that Lo may have only given a picturesque colouring to the reported wonders and strange omens which were commonly current at the time.
The History of the Three Kingdoms is unquestionably the best Chinese novel of its class. There are others—the Shui hu ch’uen, for instance—but by common consent the one above described has received the general suffrages of the people.
The social novel is quite a different kind. Like the Babylonians of old, Chinamen see war as an uncultured accomplishment, and the writers of romances of this order eschew battles and bloodshed with a horror equal to the avidity with which some Western novelists indulge in them. With us, as with all Aryan nations, a gallant soldier is the popular hero, and the atmosphere of the camp is a favourite scene for the plot.