Wúchǐ Nú 無恥奴
Shameless Slaves (First Collection) by 蘇同 (撰)
About the work
Wúchǐ Nú 無恥奴 is a late Qing satirical novel in 16 chapters (huí 回) by 蘇同 Sū Tóng (撰). The Kanripo text is the 第一集 (First Collection). The title means “Shameless Slaves” or “Shameless Bondservants” — nú 奴 here carrying the resonance of servility and obsequiousness, characterizing corrupt officials and merchants who have abandoned all principle in their craving for position and profit. The catalog metadata erroneously records the author as “第一集,” which is the volume label, not the author’s name; the source file header explicitly reads “（清）蘇同 著.”
Note on catalog error: The data/catalogs/meta/KR4k.yaml entry records author: 第一集, which is plainly a data entry error — “第一集” is the volume designation, not an author name. The source file clearly gives “蘇同 著.” Author corrected here accordingly.
Tiyao
No tiyao found in source.
Abstract
The novel opens with a programmatic preface in which the author explains that his title “Shameless Slaves” is directed at the class of late Qing officials and merchants — people who have “traveled ten years and ten thousand li,” as the narrator says of himself, and seen enough of the world to know its corruption. The narrator frames his project as an act of social medicine: to make readers recognize and be ashamed of servility, sycophancy, and self-interest masquerading as loyalty.
The plot follows a set of interlocking characters through the political crises of the late Qing — allusions to the First Sino-Japanese War (the chapter heading references Pyongyang, 平壤) and events of the Gengzi year 庚子 (1900, the Boxer Uprising) appear explicitly in the text. Officials scheme, sell out their country, seek promotions through bribery, and avoid military service; the narrator’s alter ego is a principled but frustrated gentleman who rails against these “shameless slaves” to no effect. The military and diplomatic dimensions of China’s late Qing crises — censured memorials, exile to the frontier (天山), defeat in Korea — provide the political backdrop.
蘇同 Sū Tóng is otherwise unknown; no entry appears in the CBDB database for an author of this name in the relevant period, and no independent biographical information has been located. The internal textual references to events up to 1900 (庚子 Gengzi year) place composition no earlier than 1900; the tone and genre place it squarely in the reform-fiction (qiǎnzé xiǎoshuō 譴責小說) wave of 1900–1910. The designation “第一集” (First Collection) implies the author planned further volumes, but no second collection has been located in the Kanripo corpus.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located.
Other points of interest
The explicit reference to the fall of Pyongyang (甄總統退兵失平壤, chapter six) and to “the Gengzi year” (庚子, 1900) as events the characters have lived through is useful for dating composition. The title’s focus on nú 奴 (slave/bondservant) as a form of character degradation anticipates the early Republican discourse on “slave mentality” (núlì xìng 奴隸性), which would become a major theme of the May Fourth generation.
Links
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