The Seven Heroes and Five Gallants


The Tale of Loyal Heroes and Righteous Gallants, also known by its 1883 reprint title The Three Heroes and Five Gallants, 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, 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 —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 and the wuxia genres.
Praised for its humorous narration and vivid characterizations, the novel has enjoyed huge readership: it spawned two dozen sequels by 1924 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

was a storyteller who performed in Beijing, the Qing dynasty capital, between 1810 and 1871. He gained particular fame telling the legends of Song dynasty official Bao Zheng, also known as Bao Longtu. Shi's performances, accompanied by sanxian playing, would attract audience of thousands. This story proved so popular that publishing houses and sellers began acquiring hand-written manuscripts to be circulated and sold. One such copy, apparently a transcript of another storyteller's oral narratives, contained this reference of Shi :
These early handwritten copies were known as Bao Gong An or Longtu Gong'an, sharing titles with 16th-century Ming dynasty collections. A later version known as Longtu Erlu, dating as early as 1867 and without singsong verses and nonsense remarks, was clearly written down from memory by someone who heard Shi's live performances. Another source mentions a and a Wen Liang who "would every day go and listen to the telling of the story and after returning home together write it down comparing notes." Wen Liang was one of the biggest book collectors in 19th-century Beijing and clearly an elite member of the society.

''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 in 1879, which caused a sensation in Beijing. Unprecedentedly for a print Chinese novel, the oral storyteller's name Shi Yukun appeared on the title page. The book also included 3 prefaces, written respectively by:
In an 1883 reprint by Wenya zhai 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".
was pleasantly surprised by the novel which he described as "a truly unique piece of writing in the world".

''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.
A meticulous philologist, Yu ensured that the writing conformed to the highest standards of scholarship. Most of his changes were textual and superficial, including:
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" 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". However, he did not change later chapters which follow up on that substory, resulting in slight inconsistencies.
Despite his pedantry, his revised version, which was published by Shanghai's Guangbaisong zhai, became the predominant version throughout China, particularly in South China.

Later reprints

By the end of the 19th century, the novel was republished at least 13 times.
, Lu Xun called the novel "outstanding" among "storytelling tales" and wrote: "Though some of the incidents are rather naive, the gallant outlaws are vividly presented and the descriptions of town life and jests with which the book is interspersed add to the interest."
not only wrote the preface for the 1925 reprint, but also included the novel among his "Sinology Book List of the Lowest Level" for Tsinghua University students.
In the 1920s, Lu Xun considered it necessary to reprint this novel. In a letter to Hu Shih dated December 28, 1923, Lu suggested using the version before Yu Yue's editorship while including Yu's Chapter 1 as an appendix. The reprinting project was undertaken by Yu Yue's great-grandson Yu Pingbo, who nevertheless consulted his great-grandfather's version during his editorship. When East Asia Library published the reprint in 1925, Hu wrote the preface and greatly praised the original. This reprint significantly revived The Three Heroes and Five Gallants'' version.

Main characters

The Seven Heroes

The Five Gallants / Five Rats

  1. Lu Fang, nicknamed "Sky Rat"
  2. Han Zhang, nicknamed "Earth Rat"
  3. Xu Qing, nicknamed "Mountain Rat"
  4. Jiang Ping, nicknamed "River Rat"
  5. Bai Yutang, nicknamed "Sleek Rat"

    Major antagonists

Structure

Discussing the plot, researcher Paize Keulemans concluded, "there is no main plot. Rather, the novel's structure consists of a bewildering number of events that defy easy and succinct summary". Still, the novel can be roughly divided into 2 parts, with the first 27 chapters focusing on Bao Zheng and his legal cases and the remaining 93 chapters focusing on the heroes and gallants. Stories from the first part were largely taken from literary and oral traditions and as such contain supernatural materials. In comparison, the second part exclusively represents Shi's creative genius and is devoid of superstition.

Sequels and imitators

''The Five Younger Gallants'' and ''The Sequel to the Five Younger Gallants''

The 1879 novel does not complete by the 120th and final chapter, instead, in the final page the readers are referred to a sequel book titled The Five Younger Gallants, which was said to be "close to a hundred chapters". In 1890, a novel with that title was published by another Beijing publisher, Wenguang lou. It was edited by Shi Duo and a "Wind-Captivated Daoist" —calling to mind "Captivated Daoist", the editor of the original novel. None of the "previewed" plotlines at the end of the original appeared in the sequel. The editors did not deny that the two novels had different origins: Shi Duo claimed that their novel was published after acquiring the complete three-hundred-some-chapter "authentic" draft by Shi Yukun, "without begrudging the great cost". According to their draft, which contained three parts, "Wind-Captivated Daoist" believed the 1879 original must have been a fake.
Despite having 124 chapters, the "Copper Net Trap" that the heroes and gallants set out to destroy in the 1879 original was still not destroyed by the end of the book. Instead, the novel ends on a cliff-hanger to entice its readers to purchase the next installment, which was published in 1891 as The Sequel to the Five Younger Gallants. Both sequels enjoyed huge readership and were reprinted many times. Lu Xun believed "these works were written by many hands... resulting in numerous inconsistencies."

Other sequels and imitators

Two alternative sequels to the original novel are:
Shi Duo in his preface to The Sequel to the Five Younger Gallants denounced competitors who claimed that they possessed Shi Yukun's story as "shameless crooks". Although The Sequel to the Five Younger Gallants completed the tale, it could not stop enthusiasts and profiteers from writing and publishing more sequels, such as Another Sequel to the Five Younger Gallants, The Third Sequel to the Five Younger Gallants and many others, with Lu Xun in 1924 counting 24 sequels. An explosion of copycat novels also flooded the market in the last years of the 19th century, assuming similar titles such as
In a 1909 essay, writer Shi An lamented the cheapness of such works :
The famous pingshu performer Shan Tianfang also produced a televised radio drama The White-Eyebrow Hero, which follows the adventure of Xu Liang, one of the main characters from The Five Younger Gallants, and his group of fellow fighters to defeat various evil forces of jianghu outlaws.
, Yan Chasan, and Yumo as portrayed by Peking opera actors. From a performance in Tianchan Theatre, Shanghai, 20 December 2014.
as portrayed by Peking opera actors. From a performance in Tianchan Theatre, Shanghai, 20 December 2014.
and his reliable captains as portrayed by Peking opera actors.
actor. From a performance in Tianchan Theatre, Shanghai, 20 December 2014.

Translations

Two English translations are available:
Song's book is an abridged translation of all 120 chapters. Blader translated roughly a third of the chapters, relatively more faithfully. As Blader used the version before Yu Yue's editorship, Chapter 1 is noticeably different from Song's book.
In addition, two other books contain stories from the novel's first 19 chapters:
The novel has been translated into other languages, such as Japanese, Vietnamese, Malay, Czech, French, and Russian.

Themes

The novel places great emphasis on Confucian values, such as yi and ren, which characterize all heroes and gallants. In Chapter 13, the storyteller added a short commentary on the definition of "hero" :
In addition, the novel also champions personal freedom. In Chapter 29, for example, Zhan Zhao confessed : "As to my promotion to the imperial guard, I find it prevents me from doing what I like best and that is travel around enjoying the beauties of nature. Now I'm tied down by officialdom. If it wasn't for the high regard I have for Prime Minister Bao I would have resigned long ago." His "northern" counterpart Ouyang Chun even shunned Bao and other officials altogether, preferring to help the government on his own, even anonymously. In imperial China, when officialdom was particularly prized and coveted, such statements and actions speak volumes of the author's beliefs.
The last 42 chapters focus on the suppression of a fictitious rebellion. The inclusion of this segment conveyed the author's desire for peace and tranquility, as mid-19th century Qing dynasty was ravaged by numerous bloody rebellions, including the Taiping Rebellion, the Nien Rebellion, and the Panthay Rebellion, which together took tens of millions of lives.

Adaptations

Storytelling

Chinese masters including Wang Shaotang and Shan Tianfang have performed stories from the novel.

Films

Note: Most of the early films were opera films.
and Ding Zhaohui and their mother watch as their cousin Ding Yuehua crosses sword with her future husband Zhan Zhao.

, with the newborn crown prince in her basket, arrives at Gold Water Bridge where she has been instructed to strangle the infant and dump his body.

, Taiwan. They were designed by Gongsun Ce in the novel.
In addition, two TV series set in the Qing dynasty imagined how the novel was created: