Old Man's Journey to the West

Author: (Qing) Ao Chen Xianghe, edited by Dai Hongsen
Publisher:
Publishing Date: August 1, 1997
Features: The Old Man Who Walks the Earth (Twenty installments) was first published in the monthly magazine Xiu Xiang Xue Bao in 1903. It was discontinued after the thirteenth installment due to certain reasons and later continued in Tianjin Ri Ri Xinwen. It was originally attributed to Hongdu Bai Lian Sheng. The author's real name was Liu E, styled Tieyun, a native of Danpu, Jiangsu in the late Qing Dynasty, born in 1857 and died in 1909. He came from a feudal official family but had no interest in pursuing official status through imperial examinations. He was knowledgeable in mathematics, medicine, and river management. He served as a secretary to the River Conservancy Commission Wu Dachen and Shandong Governor Zhang Yao, assisting in river management projects and gaining great reputation. He also proposed to the Qing government to borrow foreign capital to build railways and mine coal in Shanxi. Although these proposals were not carried out through Liu E's hands, at a time when imperialist powers were coveting China and the entire nation was united against the enemy, his of sacrificing sovereignty to maintain the corrupt Qing rule clearly contradicted the interests and wishes of the people, leading to him being labeled as a "traitor." Liu E eventually left the Qing court in frustration and turned to business, but all his plans to establish industries ended in failure. During the Boxer Rebellion (1900), when the Eight-Nation Alliance invaded Beijing, Liu E purchased grain from Taicang Storage and established a relief bureau to alleviate famine in Beijing. In 1908, the Qing court arrested him for selling stored grain and exiled him to Xinjiang, where he died of illness in Dihua (now Urumqi) in July 1909. The Old Man Who Walks the Earth is a novel written by Liu E in his later years, completed in 1906. Through the travels and observations of the protagonist, Lao Can, it fiercely criticizes the darkness of the then-local governance, exposing the so-called "honest officials" who were actually butchers who killed people to gain promotions and stained their official hats with blood. Objectively, it helped the people realize that they could place no hope in the entire bureaucratic group. This reflects the author's more progressive side in sympathizing with the suffering of the people. However, his fundamental political views were backward, even reactionary. He firmly supported feudal rule, lacked awareness of the aggressive nature of imperialist powers, and opposed the bourgeois democratic revolution and the Boxer Rebellion's anti-invasion struggle, both of which were clearly reflected in the book. As a result, The Old Man Who Walks the Earth is a book with both strengths and flaws. For fifty years since its publication, it has enjoyed a wide readership. Many have praised its literary artistry, and Mr. Lu Xun also commended it in A Brief History of Chinese Fiction, saying, "The descriptions of scenery and objects are sometimes impressive." As an artistic work, it is evident that the author avoided imitation and pursued creativity in language, observation, and detailed depiction. Compared to contemporary novels of the late Qing Dynasty, it achieves remarkable artistic success. This year marks the centennial of Liu E's birth, and we are publishing The Old Man Who Walks the Earth to commemorate the author and contribute to further study of the book's ideological and artistic value. This edition is based on the Tianjin Ri Ri Xinwen version, with references to the versions of Xiu Xiang Xue Bao, the Yadong Library edition, and the Yi Wen Shu Fang edition. Text and punctuation have been corrected. For convenience, some brief annotations have been added. There is also a six-installment Second Collection, which we have arranged as an appendix based on the standalone edition published by Shanghai Liangyou Book Company, without annotations. In collation, there are a few places where all versions are incorrect, and we have adjusted them based on the context:
(1) On page 118 of the eleventh installment, the sentence "to lie beneath the discarded straw dogs, one must be blinded" has "blinded" () in the Ri Ri Xinwen version, while other versions have "obscured" (). It has been corrected to "blinded" based on the text of Zhuangzi.
(2) On page 182 of the seventeenth installment, the sentence "but used a wolf skin rug to cover Ren's legs" has "wolf skin rug" () in all versions, which contradicts the plot described in the twelfth and sixteenth installments. It has been corrected to "tiger skin rug" () based on the preceding text.
(3) On page 188 of the eighteenth installment, the sentence "the death of the Jia family cannot be known from the mooncakes" has "Jia family" () in all versions, but it should be "Wei family" () based on the context.
(4) On page 194 of the nineteenth installment, the sentence "but you should go to Qidong Village first" has "village" () in all versions, which is inconsistent with the rest of the book, so it has been corrected to "village" ().
Additionally, in the book, "Zhang Gongbao" and "Zhuang Gongbao," as well as "Wei Qian" and "Wei Cheng," are all names of the same person, but the names are mixed. We have standardized them based on the initial publication of the Ri Ri Xinwen version as "Zhang Gongbao" and "Wei Qian."