Sān Chūn Mèng 三春夢
Dream of Three Springs by 佚名 (anonymous)
About the work
Sān Chūn Mèng 三春夢 (Dream of Three Springs) is an anonymous Qīng-dynasty novel in approximately 33 huí 回, set against the backdrop of the Ming-Qīng dynastic transition and Qīng military campaigns in Guangdong. The text, approximately 37,634 lines in the Kanripo edition, includes a preface (xù 序) and a “Key Characters” table (shū zhōng jǐnyào rénwù jiǎnmíng biǎo 書中緊要人物簡明表). An apparently identical or near-identical second copy exists in the corpus at KR4k0219.
Prefaces
The preface opens with a lament for the fall of the Ming dynasty: “Alas! Since the Tatar barbarians entered the Pass, the altars of the Ming were reduced to rubble, and the people of the Central Plains fell under alien rule…” (嗚呼！自達虜入關，明社丘墟，中原農冠之族淪爲左衽). It goes on to discuss the loyalty of Southern Ming resistance fighters in Guangdong, the role of the general Liú Jìnzhōng 劉進忠 (who defected and then re-defected), and the campaigns of Zhèng Chénggōng 鄭成功 in coastal Fujian and Guangdong. The preface invokes the resistance of Kantong Prince Shén Ruì 沈瑞 and criticizes Liú Jìnzhōng for his inconstancy. This Han-nationalist framing situates the novel in the late Qīng / early Republican anti-Manchu literary tradition, even though the action is set in the seventeenth century.
Abstract
The narrative centers on the Cháozhōu 潮州 region of Guangdong during the early Qīng suppression of Southern Ming resistance. Key figures in the story include the general Liú Jìnzhōng 劉進忠 (a historical figure, fl. 1670s), the “義成王” Yìchéng Wáng (a Ming loyalist title), the Qīng Kāngqīn Wáng 康親王 (Kangxi’s uncle Jǐ’ěrhǎlǎng 濟爾哈朗’s line, who commanded Qīng forces in the South), and a range of fictional military heroes and heroines including Báiyǔhǔ 白玉虎, Yáng Fēixióng 楊飛熊, and the female warrior Sài Fēi 賽妃. The novel thus belongs to the genre of nányīng xiaoshuo (Southern resistance fiction) that proliferated in the late Qīng, blending historical record with fictional heroism.
The title Sān Chūn Mèng (Dream of Three Springs) is allusive rather than descriptive of the plot; it may evoke the fragility and transience of the Ming cause, likened to a dream across three spring seasons. The structure — resistance, betrayal, treachery, military reversal, and heroic martyrdom — follows the conventions of loyalist military fiction (yīngxióng chuánqí 英雄傳奇 subgenre).
The Han nationalist preface — condemning the Manchu conquest in unambiguous terms as “Tatar barbarism” — suggests composition in the final decades of the Qīng dynasty (post-1875) or in the early Republic, when censorship had relaxed or been lifted. The author remains unknown. No modern critical edition or scholarly study has been located.
Note on duplication: The Kanripo corpus contains a second copy of this text at KR4k0219, which has an identical line count (37,634 lines). The two entries are almost certainly the same text, possibly scanned from different exemplars or representing two slightly variant manuscript copies. Cross-checking of file contents against KR4k0219 is recommended.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located.
Links
- Catalog meta:
data/catalogs/meta/KR4k.yamls.v. KR4k0215 - See also: KR4k0219 (duplicate or near-duplicate text)