YU YUE WAS PLEASANTLY SURPRISED

Yu Yue was pleasantly surprised by the novel which he described as "a truly unique piece of writing in the world".^[16]

Unknown author - http://ztwww.zjlib.net.cn/pics/listv.asp?id=1642

Yu Yue, scholar of the Qing Dynasty.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Heroes_and_Five_Gallants#/media/File:%E4%BF%9E%E6%A8%BE.jpg  

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seven_Heroes_and_Five_Gallants 

The Tale of Loyal Heroes and Righteous Gallants (忠烈俠義傳), also known by its 1883 reprint title The Three Heroes and Five Gallants (三俠五義), is an 1879 Chinese novel based on storyteller Shi Yukun's oral performances. The novel was later revised by philologist Yu Yue and republished in 1889 under the title The Seven Heroes and Five Gallants (七俠五義), with the story essentially unaltered.

Set in 11th-century Song dynasty, the story detailed the rise of legendary judge Bao Zheng to high office, and how a group of youxia (knights-errant)—each with exceptional martial talent and selfless heroism—helped him fight crimes, oppression, corruption and rebellion. It was one of the first novels to merge the gong'an (court-case fiction) and the wuxia (chivalric fiction) genres.

Praised for its humorous narration and vivid characterizations, the novel has enjoyed huge readership: it spawned two dozen sequels by 1924 (according to Lu Xun) and served as the thematic model of allegedly over 100 novels in the late Qing dynasty. Even in the modern era, the tales have been continuously reenacted in popular cultural mediums, including oral storytelling, operas, films and TV dramas. 

Textual evolution

Shi Yukun's storytelling and transcripts

Shi Yukun was a storyteller who performed in Beijing, the Qing dynasty capital, between 1810 and 1871.^[1] He gained particular fame telling the legends of Song dynasty official Bao Zheng (999–1062), also known as Bao Longtu (包龍圖; "Dragon-Pattern Bao"). Shi's performances, accompanied by sanxian (lute) playing, would attract audience of thousands.^[2] This story proved so popular that publishing houses and sellers began acquiring hand-written manuscripts to be circulated and sold.^[3] One such copy, apparently a transcript of another storyteller's oral narratives, contained this reference of Shi (translated by Susan Blader):^[4]

Let's just take Third Master Shi Yukun as an example. No matter what, I cannot outdo him in storytelling. At present, he no longer makes appearances. But, when he would go to that storytelling hall, he would tell three chapters of a story in one day and collect many tens of strings of cash. Now today his name resounds in the nine cities and there is no one who has not heard of him. I, myself, collect only one or two strings of cash a day for my storytelling, and what can they buy these days?

These early handwritten copies were known as Bao Gong An (包公案; The Cases of Lord Bao) or Longtu Gong'an (龍圖公案; The Cases of Longtu or The Cases of the Lord of the Dragon Pattern), sharing titles with 16th-century Ming dynasty collections. A later version known as Longtu Erlu (龍圖耳錄; Aural Record of Longtu), dating as early as 1867^[5] and without singsong verses and nonsense remarks, was clearly written down from memory by someone who heard Shi's live performances.^[6][7] Another source mentions a Xiang Leting (祥樂亭) and a Wen Liang (文良) who "would every day go and listen to the telling of the story and after returning home together write it down comparing notes."^[8] Wen Liang was one of the biggest book collectors in 19th-century Beijing and clearly an elite member of the society.^[9] 

The Tale of Loyal Heroes and Righteous Gallants (1879)

Based on Longtu Erlu, the 120-chapter The Tale of Loyal Heroes and Righteous Gallants was printed by a movable type at the Juzhen tang (聚珍堂) in 1879, which caused a sensation in Beijing.^[10] Unprecedentedly for a print Chinese novel, the oral storyteller's name Shi Yukun appeared on the title page.^[11] The book also included 3 prefaces, written respectively by:

• "Bamboo-Inquiring Master" (問竹主人) who claimed to be the main contributor. He deleted some supernatural parts of Longtu Erlu. Some scholars believe this claim indicated that he was Shi Yukun himself.^[12]
• "Captivated Daoist" (入迷道人), most likely a principal writer or editor. He has been identified as Wen Lin (文琳) by some scholars.^[13]
• "Thought-Retiring Master" (退思主人), probably the owner of Juzhen tang or someone close.

In an 1883 reprint by Wenya zhai (文雅齋)^[14] the novel was renamed to The Three Heroes and Five Gallants, with the "three heroes" being actually four people, namely Zhan Zhao the "Southern Hero", Ouyang Chun the "Northern Hero", and the Ding twins or "Twin Heroes".^[15] 

The Seven Heroes and Five Gallants (1889)

Years later, Suzhou-based scholar Yu Yue received the book from his friend Pan Zuyin, president of Qing's Board of Works, who recommended it as "quite worth reading". Initially skeptical, Yu Yue was eventually so fascinated by the novel that he set out to revise it.^[16]

A meticulous philologist, Yu ensured that the writing conformed to the highest standards of scholarship.^[17] Most of his changes were textual and superficial, including:

• He changed the title to The Seven Heroes and Five Gallants, because he reasoned that the Ding twins being two people could not be considered just one hero. He also considered Ai Hu, Zhi Hua and Shen Zhongyuan "heroes", even though Zhi and Shen do not have the word "hero" in their nicknames.
• He changed a character's name from Yan Chasan (顏查散) to Yan Shenmin (顏眘敏, notice how much the Chinese characters resemble each other) because he found "Chasan" too "uneducated" for someone of a scholar-official background.^[18]

The only major change from Yu Yue was that he completely rewrote Chapter 1, which was previously titled "The Crown Prince is Substituted at Birth by a Scheme; the Imperial Concubine Is Rescued by a Heroic and Gallant Martyr" (設陰謀臨產換太子 奮俠義替死救皇娘) and tells of a fictional story that does not follow history. Yu found the story absurd and rewrote the chapter according to the standard history book History of Song, also changing its title to "Basing Official History to Revise Longtu's Crime Cases; Employing Lord Bao to Begin the Whole Book of Heroes and Gallants" (據正史翻龍圖公案 借包公領俠義全書). However, he did not change later chapters which follow up on that substory, resulting in slight inconsistencies.^[19]

Despite his pedantry, his revised version, which was published by Shanghai's Guangbaisong zhai (廣百宋齋), became the predominant version throughout China, particularly in South China.^[20] 

^/.../