Romance of the Eastern Zhou States

Author: Feng Menglong
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2001-09-01
Features: "Wing the historical records without departing from them" is the highest realm recognized by ancient literary critics for historical romance novels. In Chinese historical fiction, perhaps only The Romance of the Warring States truly achieves this realm. This magnificent 108-chapter novel masterpiece is another outstanding work by the famous Ming Dynasty litterateur Feng Menglong, following his Three Words. The most prominent feature of the novel is that it is based on historical records, "taking details from events and summarizing the essence of the text"; "while dramatizing, there is some addition, and while describing, there is some embellishment." Faced with the rising and falling, complex, and intertwined events, as well as the numerous and chaotic characters coming and going, Feng Menglong fully demonstrated his outstanding ability to organize materials and his profound skill in narration and description, making the novel adhere to historical facts, with a clear thread, and can be regarded as a true historical textbook. During the reign of Emperor Yongzheng of the Qing Dynasty, Cai Yuanfang, a teacher in Nanjing, polished and commented on Feng Menglong's work, renaming it The Romance of the Warring States, which became the most influential and widely circulated version of the Warring States specialty novel in the Qing Dynasty.