Water Margin, China's Great Outlaw Novel: 108 Heroes, Mount Liang and the Mystery of Shi Nai'an

Water Margin (Shuihu Zhuan), also known in English as Outlaws of the Marsh or All Men Are Brothers, is a Chinese novel from the Ming dynasty, attributed to Shi Nai'an, that follows 108 outlaws who gather at Mount Liang to rebel against a corrupt government, are later granted amnesty, and are sent to fight foreign invaders and other rebels. It is regarded as one of the great Chinese novels written entirely in vernacular Chinese, the language people actually spoke, and it introduced some of the best-known characters in Chinese literature. The author question is messy: the book is traditionally credited to Shi Nai'an, but evidence also points to Luo Guanzhong, the writer associated with Romance of the Three Kingdoms, or to both men working on material shaped by many hands.

The real bandits behind the novel

The story grows out of history. The official History of Song records that an outlaw named Song Jiang of Huainan and his companions attacked government forces and roamed across several regions before a general was ordered to pacify them. Folk stories about Song Jiang circulated during the Southern Song, and by the thirteenth century a writer named Zhou Mi had recorded the names of his thirty-six companions.

Before the novel existed, there were whole groups of Yuan-dynasty plays about Song Jiang's band, and an important precursor, a folk-tale compilation called Old Affairs of the Xuanhe Period, already contained storylines the novel would later expand, such as the robbery of a convoy of birthday gifts. The historian James Zheng Gao has argued that storytellers in Hangzhou first compiled and told these tales of rural rebels in Shandong, providing the oral version that became the book. In other words, Water Margin is less one person's invention than the final shape of centuries of storytelling.

Who wrote it: Shi Nai'an, Luo Guanzhong or many hands?

Ming sources describe Shi Nai'an as a Yuan-dynasty writer from Qiantang, today's Hangzhou, but they say very little about him, and there is a large gap between his assumed lifetime and the earliest records that mention him. Because fiction was not a prestigious genre at first, early novels were often not carefully attributed, and the text of Water Margin clearly passed through many editorial hands.

Here is what the evidence actually says. A bibliography compiled in 1540 credits "Shi Nai'an from Qiantang" with the original version and Luo Guanzhong with the finished form. Early Ming editions usually describe the book as "compiled by Shi Nai'an, edited by Luo Guanzhong". The idea that Shi was the sole author became dominant only after the seventeenth-century critic Jin Shengtan printed a preface supposedly written by Shi; modern philologists have little doubt that Jin wrote it himself. Many scholars believe Shi wrote the first seventy chapters, while the later chapters are often attributed to Luo, who may have been his student. Most modern Chinese critics see the novel either as Shi's work or as a collective creation.

The date is uncertain too. The first external reference to the book comes from a discussion among Ming officials in 1524, and other scholars place its composition in the mid-fourteenth century, around the fall of the Yuan and the start of the Ming. A printed revision published during the Jiajing reign (1522–1566) became the ancestor of the most widely read versions, and the original title was Water Margin for Loyalty and Justice.

The story in brief

The novel opens with an accident: an official releases 108 spirits that had been imprisoned under an ancient stone tortoise. These are the 108 Stars of Destiny, divided into 36 Heavenly Spirits and 72 Earthly Fiends, who are reborn in the human world as heroes who band together for the cause of justice.

The early chapters are a relay of individual stories. Gao Qiu, a former street ruffian, rises to become Grand Marshal and abuses his power. One victim after another is driven out: the arms instructor Lin Chong is framed by Gao Qiu, almost dies in a fire set by Gao's men at a supply depot, kills his enemies and flees to the marshes of Mount Liang. Meanwhile seven men led by Chao Gai rob a convoy of birthday gifts meant for the powerful Imperial Tutor Cai Jing and also escape to the mountain. Soldiers, officials tired of serving a corrupt government and people with special skills all join, and by chapter sixty Song Jiang succeeds Chao Gai as the leader of the band.

After the 108 heroes hold their grand assembly, the story turns. Song Jiang strongly wants peace with the government. After defeating an imperial army, the outlaws accept amnesty from Emperor Huizong and are sent on campaigns against the Liao dynasty and against rebel forces including Fang La. They win, but at least two-thirds of them die in battle. Some survivors return to serve the court, others vanish into ordinary life, and Song Jiang himself is finally poisoned by the corrupt ministers he never stopped trying to serve. It is one of the bleakest endings in classic Chinese fiction.

Heroes worth knowing

You do not need to remember all 108 names, but a few are unavoidable: Shi Jin, Lu Zhishen, Wu Song, Li Kui, Yan Qing and Song Jiang are among the best-known characters in all of Chinese literature. Song Jiang is the leader whose loyalty to the throne shapes the tragic second half. Lin Chong is the model of a decent man pushed into rebellion. Li Kui is the most savage of the bandits, sometimes read as a force of nature with no restraint at all.

And then there is Wu Song, nicknamed "Pilgrim". In his most famous episode he passes an inn whose banner warns customers not to cross the ridge after three bowls of its strong wine. He drinks eighteen, ignores the warnings, falls asleep on a rock, and wakes up to a tiger. His staff breaks on a tree, so he pins the tiger down and kills it with his bare fists. The tiger-fighting legend is older than the novel: a thirteenth-century play already told it, though that play is lost.

What the novel is really about

A large part of the book is a series of linked stories, each describing a hero's suffering under an unjust system and his turn to banditry as an escape from persecution. That pattern gave Chinese a lasting expression, bi shang Liangshan, "to be forced up Mount Liang", meaning to be driven to rebel. The outlaws' slogan, "Accomplish the Way for Heaven", challenges authority itself, and readers have long taken the book to show that "chaos comes from above".

At the same time, the book celebrates yi, a code of righteousness and brotherhood, and the haohan ideal of the tough, generous man who drinks wine in big bowls and eats meat in big pieces. That ideal does not shy away from violence; it often glories in it. This moral ambiguity is why the novel has been both praised as a masterpiece and denounced as subversive or obscene since the Ming dynasty.

Three versions, three endings

There are three main full versions. The 100-chapter edition includes the campaigns against the Liao and Fang La after the amnesty; the 120-chapter edition adds campaigns against two more rebel leaders; and Jin Shengtan's 70-chapter edition stops before the amnesty altogether. Which version you read changes what the book means. Jin's version ends with the outlaws at the height of their power, while the longer versions end in loyalty, war and betrayal. Pearl S. Buck was the first to translate the 70-chapter version into English, publishing it in 1933 as All Men Are Brothers.

Influence across East Asia

The novel's influence spread far beyond China. Scholars note that the Korean novel Hong Gildong jeon draws heavily on it, and an early Korean record even says Heo Gyun wrote Hong Gildong in imitation of Water Margin. In Japan, where it was known as Suikoden, Kyokutei Bakin released a translation illustrated by Hokusai in 1805, and in 1827 Utagawa Kuniyoshi's woodblock prints of the 108 heroes made him famous and even set off a craze for full-body pictorial tattoos. The erotic novel Jin Ping Mei grew out of one episode of Wu Song's story, and the book was so feared that in 1799 the Qing government banned it.

Learn with Water Margin: Chinese phrases

Chinese	Pinyin	Meaning
逼上梁山	bī shàng Liángshān	to be driven to rebel
替天行道	tì tiān xíng dào	to act on Heaven's behalf
好汉	hǎohàn	a brave, honourable man
大碗喝酒，大块吃肉	dà wǎn hē jiǔ, dà kuài chī ròu	to live boldly and generously
武松打虎	Wǔ Sōng dǎ hǔ	Wu Song fights the tiger

Try this: Write one sentence in English and one in Chinese using 逼上梁山 to describe a time someone was pushed into a drastic decision.