Jīnlíng Qiū 金陵秋
Autumn in Jinling
by 林紓 (撰)
About the work
Jīnlíng Qiū 金陵秋 (Autumn in Jinling) is a historical novel in 30 章 (zhāng, numbered chapters) plus a prefatory narrative (緣起), written by 林紓 Lín Shū (1852–1924). It is set during the 1911 Wuchang Uprising and the ensuing campaign for Nanjing (金陵), fictionalized through the dual perspective of a female student protagonist, Hú Qiūguāng 胡秋光, and the military campaign led by the historical figure General Lín Shùqìng 林述慶. The title plays on both the toponym (Jīnlíng, i.e., Nánjīng) and the season “autumn,” with its traditional connotations of decline, mourning, and the close of an era.
Tiyao
No tiyao found in source.
Abstract
The novel’s origin is explained in Lín Shū’s own 緣起 (prefatory note), written in his persona as “Lěng Hóng Shēng” 冷紅生 (“Cold Red Scholar,” his fictional alter ego). Lín recounts that General Lín Shùqìng 林述慶, a veteran of the 1911 Nanjing campaign, came to him in Tiānjīn to study classical prose (古文). After the general died suddenly, his widow presented Lín Shū with four juàn of the general’s wartime diaries. Working from these diaries, Lín composed the novel in about a month, using the female student Hú Qiūguāng as the narrative thread (wěi 緯).
The novel thus occupies a peculiar hybrid genre: a romanticized reconstruction of the 1911 Republican revolution’s military operations around Nánjīng, based on a real participant’s diary, filtered through the lens of a scholar who was himself a conservative opponent of the revolution. The 30 chapters trace the collapse of Qīng resistance, the battle for the Tiānbǎo 天保 city wall, the entry into Nanjing (章 11: 完鎮), political negotiations (章 26: 和議), and a concluding marriage (章 28: 禮成) and return south (章 29: 西歸). The romantic subplot involving Hú Qiūguāng and Wáng Zhòngyīng 王仲英 runs parallel to the military narrative.
Lín Shùqìng 林述慶 (1876–1912) was a real Qīng and Republican-era military officer from Fújiàn who commanded the Zhejiang-Jiangsu Army in the siege of Nánjīng in late 1911 and died in 1912 — an early date confirmed by the novel’s own framing narrative, which places composition shortly after the general’s death. The novel thus dates to 1912–1914, with the Kanripo text representing what appears to be a reprint or typeset edition from the Republican period.
Lín Shū 林紓 (courtesy name Qíngnán 琴南, sobriquet Wèilú 畏廬; 1852–1924) was a native of Mǐnhóu 閩侯 (Fúzhōu, Fújiàn). A classically trained prose stylist, he became famous above all as the pre-eminent translator of Western novels into Literary Chinese (wényán 文言) — he produced no fewer than 181 such translations by working through oral-vernacular intermediaries, since he knew no Western languages. His translations of Dickens, Balzac, Haggard, and others were enormously influential in the late-Qīng and early Republican literary world. He was a resolute conservative who opposed both the New Culture Movement (Xīn Wénhuà Yùndòng 新文化運動) and the use of bǎihuà vernacular as a literary medium. Jīnlíng Qiū is one of several original novels he wrote, as distinct from his translation work. CBDB id: 54317; birth 1852, death 1924.
Translations and research
- Hill, Michael Gibbs. 2012. Lin Shu, Inc.: Translation and the Making of Modern Chinese Culture. Oxford University Press. (The standard English-language study of Lín Shū; primarily focused on his translation activities but provides essential biographical and literary context.)
- Huters, Theodore. 2005. Bringing the World Home: Appropriating the West in Late Qing and Early Republican China. University of Hawai’i Press. (Broader context for Lín Shū’s literary position in late-Qīng and Republican cultural history.)
No English translation of this novel located.