Bao, Judge. Bao Ch’eng (or Zheng) (999-1062 C.E.) was a Chinese magistrate who was famous for treating all classes fairly and showing no favoritism to the wealthy and powerful. After his death he became a figure of folklore and then heroic folktales and fiction. “Wenzhu Zhuren,” the pseudonym of Shih Yü-k’un, wrote a serialized libretto “The Cases of Judge Bao” (1865?) which starred a fictionalized version of Bao Ch’eng. The libretto was later published as a novel, with twenty-three unauthorized sequels following by a variety of authors, through 1922. In fiction, centuries ago, in China, Judge Bao is a magistrate of the greatest rectitude and integrity. He is incorruptible and immune to bribery. He is always stern and grave, rarely smiling and seeming to lack any sense of humor. He has the power to investigate, judge, and punish. He is respected even in Hell. He has a magic pillow on which he will lay his head and communicate with the underworld. He is a cunning and astute detective who is capable of subterfuge and even torture if it will gain him the confession he needs to punish the guilty. His enemies vary from corrupt high officials to the ghosts of animals. Bao is assisted by a variety of Nüxia/Wüxia, who carry out Bao’s legwork.
In the late 20th and early 21st century “wüxia” has become shorthand in the West for “Chinese martial arts literature or film.” However, the roots of wüxia are centuries-old and involve historical people as well as literary genres.
Literally translated, wüxia (also written as wü-hsia, wü hsia, and yü-hsia) means “wandering” (wü) and “force” (xia). Traditionally the term has been applied to knights-errant, wandering warriors who roamed about the countryside using their skill at arms to fight injustices. The knight-errant emerged during the chaos of the Warring States period (403-221 B.C.E.), when seven different states fought for supremacy. Soldiers, both noble and peasant, wandered from state to state looking for employment, and some or many of these soldiers protected the weak and oppressed against the powerful and unjust. Knights-errant appear in the historical record through the centuries and dynasties, only disappearing during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911 C.E.).
The historical Chinese knight-errant differed from his Western counterpart in a number of ways. Western knights were members of religious orders and belonged to the aristocratic class. Chinese knights came from every social class and had no religious affiliations, even being seen as having rejected Confucian values. Western knights became associated with the idea of courtly love, while the Chinese knights practiced sexual abstinence. And Western knights, though often defending the weak, were members of the aristocracy and ultimately fought in support of the feudal system, while Chinese knights-errant were hostile to the social system they lived under.
The fictional Chinese knight-errant first appeared in poetry during the Han Dynasty (221 B.C.E. to 206 C.E.) and was popular for the next several centuries. The character fell out of fashion during the Sung (960-1279) and Yuan (1279-1368) Dynasties and was successfully revived during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). Oral ballads and prose about the wüxia became popular toward the end of the Tang Dynasty (c. 800 C.E.). Long prose romances about the wüxia appeared during the Yuan Dynasty. The greatest number of wüxia novels were published during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911 C.E.), when the development of lithography cut production costs and time to a fraction of what it had been under the traditional block-print method of bookmaking.
During the 19th century the three most popular and common genres of wüxia fiction were detective, love, and flying swordsmen. The detective or legal wüxia story is a hybrid form, combining the traditional knights-errant story with the kung-an (alternatively, gong-an) or crime and criminal story. Kung-an is as old a genre as wüxia, and combining the two proved to be popular with the audience and profitable for the writers. The format of the detective wüxia story involves knights-errant working for or protecting a righteous official (usually a fictionalized version of a historical person) in his prosecution of criminals. Shih Yü-k’un’s The Three Heroes and Five Gallants (starring Judge Bao) is a notable example of the legal wüxia genre. Other notable late Qing detective wüxia include Shih-kung An (The Cases of Lord Shih, 1798), about the supposed exploits of Shih Shih-lun (1659-1722), a notably righteous official, and P’eng-kung An (The Cases of Lord P’eng, 1891), about the supposed exploits of the righteous official P’eng P’eng (1637-1704). Though popular the legal wüxia story are rarely artistically successful. The integration of the kung-an genre with the wüxia story with the more adventurous aspects of the wüxia genre is usually uneven, so that the legal investigations of the judges are given less attention by the author than the battles and exploits of the wüxia. As well, the wüxia were traditionally rebels and outlaws (though honorable and heroic) while the judges were the defenders of the status quo and the embodiment of the law. Their collaboration meant that the outlaws were helping the representative of an unjust social system, and that the judge was forced to rely on outlaws to enforce the law. This can be seen as a cynical comment on the justice system of 19th century China, but in the context of the story the clash of philosophies leads to a moral and thematic confusion.
The love wüxia story usually has all the elements of a traditional romantic story (boy meets girl, boy and girl overcome difficulties, boy and girl live happily ever after), but the story often begins as wüxia fiction and ends as a variety of the scholar-beauty story, as in Wen Kang’s The Gallant Maid (see: He Yufeng). The wüxia’s rough edges are smoothed over and his youthful impetuousness is transformed into sober propriety.
The flying swordsmen genre became popular only in the late Qing period and is now the dominant form of wüxia story. Western audiences will be most familiar with this genre through Wang Du Lu and Wang Hui-Ling’s film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000). The heroes of flying swordsmen wüxia are usually Buddhist or Taoist monks who have magical powers. Storyteller’s Jigong (see: Jigong) is a good early example of the flying swordsmen wüxia and usefully defines the flying swordsman knights-errant as those who “fly over eaves and walk on walls.” Flying swordsmen wüxia are sometimes immortal, perform various miracles, and have a variety of powers which they use against evil wüxia and various monsters.