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水滸全傳

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Text ID
KR4k0066
Date
1550–1589
Dynasty
明

Shuǐhǔ Quánzhuàn 水滸全傳

The Water Margin (Complete Transmission) by 施耐庵 (撰), 羅貫中 (撰)

About the work

The Shuǐhǔ Quánzhuàn 水滸全傳 (“Complete Transmission of the Water Margin”) is one of the canonical Chinese vernacular novels, chronicling the career of a band of 108 outlaws — immortalized in their rebel fortress on the marshes of Mount Liáng 梁山 — who eventually receive imperial amnesty and are sent on a doomed campaign against foreign enemies. The Kanripo text follows the 120-chapter (huí 回) recension known as the Shuǐhǔ Quánzhuàn, the most complete version, as opposed to the shorter 70-chapter recension truncated and commented upon by Jīn Shèngtàn 金聖嘆 in the mid-seventeenth century. The work is conventionally attributed jointly to Shī Nài’ān 施耐庵 as primary author and Luó Guànzhōng 羅貫中 as reviser.

Tiyao

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Abstract

The Shuǐhǔ Zhuàn 水滸傳 belongs to the same general tradition as the Sānguó Yǎnyì — a vernacular historical novel that elaborated over centuries of oral performance and serial written revision before reaching its received form. The narrative is set in the reign of Sòng Huīzōng 宋徽宗 (r. 1100–1125), during whose court corruption drove loyal men to outlawry. The first extant dated edition dates to 1589 (Wànlì 萬曆 17th year); portions of the text are attested in editions from as early as 1550 (Jiājìng 嘉靖).

The attribution to Shī Nài’ān 施耐庵 is ancient but problematic. No independent biographical record of Shī Nài’ān survives from the Sòng, Yuán, or early Míng periods; his existence as a separate historical person distinct from Luó Guànzhōng has been seriously questioned by some scholars. Wilkinson (§31.2.1) notes the first extant dated edition as 1589, with some parts dated to 1550, and ascribes the work conventionally to Shī Nài’ān; the CBDB entry for Shī Nài’ān (CBDB id 511354) likewise lacks birth or death years. The 120-chapter version (Shuǐhǔ Quánzhuàn) represents the “complete” text, extending through the campaigns against the Liáo 遼 and Fāng Là 方臘; subsequent continuation chapters, including the Zhēng Qí 征齊 sequence, are found in some recensions but not others.

The novel contains approximately 800 named characters (Wilkinson §31.2.1) and generated a rich tradition of commentary, including the influential Jīn Shèngtàn 70-chapter abridgement, which cuts the narrative at the great banquet on Liáng Shān and presents it as tragedy. The novel’s political ambiguity — celebrating outlaw brotherhood and military valor while critiquing both corrupt officials and the limits of the outlaws’ own moral code — made it simultaneously beloved and controversial throughout the later imperial period. It is mentioned 36 times in the Sìkù Quánshū (mostly in negative references).

Translations and research

  • Shapiro, Sidney, tr. Outlaws of the Marsh. 3 vols. Foreign Languages Press, 1980. (70-chapter version.)
  • Dent-Young, John, and Alex Dent-Young, tr. The Marshes of Mount Liang: A New Translation of the Shuihu zhuan or Water Margin. 5 vols. Chinese University of Hong Kong Press, 1994–2002. (120-chapter version; all chapters, most verse.)
  • Dars, Jacques, tr. Au bord de l’eau. 2 vols. Gallimard (Pléiade), 1978. (70-chapter version, French.)
  • Irwin, R. G. The Evolution of a Chinese Novel: Shui-hu-chuan. Harvard University Press, 1953.
  • Gregory, Scott W. Bandits in Print: The Water Margin and the Transformations of the Chinese Novel. Cornell University Press, 2023.
  • Jenner, W. J. F. “Tough guys, mateship and honour: Another Chinese tradition.” East Asian History 12 (1996): 1–38.
  • Børdahl, Vibeke. Wu Song Fights the Tiger: The Interaction of Oral and Written Traditions in the Chinese Novel, Drama, and Storytelling. NIAS Press, 2013.
  • Rolston, David L., ed. How to Read the Chinese Novel. Princeton University Press, 1990. Contains Jīn Shèngtàn’s commentary in translation.

Other points of interest

The novel’s structural conceit of 36 Heavenly Spirits plus 72 Earthly Demons, totaling 108 heroes, reflects Buddhist cosmological numerology. The band of robbers begins at 36 in earlier storytelling traditions and grows to 108 in the received novel. The Shuǐhǔ Quánzhuàn (120-chapter) version exists in tension with the truncated Jīn Shèngtàn edition, which eliminates the amnesty plot and frames the outlaws’ story as pure tragedy — this was the most widely read edition in the Qīng and Republican periods.

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