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Glossary and Character Taxonomy  Breakdown by Country of Origin   Bibliography   Table of Contents    The Best of the Encyclopedia

He Yufeng. He Yufeng was created by “Yanbei Xianren,” the pseudonym of the Chinese author Wen K’ang, and appeared in seventeen novels (sixteen unauthorized sequels by other authors) from 1851 to 1927, beginning with Ernü Yingxiong Zhuan.

He Yufeng is a Nüxia/Wüxia. He Yufeng is the daughter of disgraced General Ho, whose superior killed him via sorcery. He Yufeng, loyhal to her father in the proper Confucian way, retreats to a rustic village with her mother and then goes to the underworld and trains herself as a nüxia, or female knight-errant, to avenge her father. While her mother is alive, however, He Yufeng cannot carry out her revenge, and instead makes a good living robbing corrupt and evil government officials. He Yufeng is so strong and such a good fighter that all the other outlaws greatly respect and fear her. In the underworld she is known as Shisan Mei, “the Thirteenth Sister.” She falls in love with a scholar, An Ji, and after the death of the man who killed her father she marries An Jim. In the sequels further martial arts adventures befall her.

* I'm including the He Yufeng novels in the Best of the Encyclopedia category because they were archetypal. There were fictional nüxia before He Yufeng, centuries' worth, but He Yufeng became the most popular and archetypal of the 19^th and early 20^th century nüxia thanks to the quality of Ernü Yingxiong Zhuan and the sixteen sequels to it which stretched out He Yufeng's adventures to 1927. Wüxia fiction evolved significantly during the 1851-1927 period of He Yufeng's existence, and her novels are good guide posts to that evolution. She become iconic during her heyday for readers, and ultimately it took the advent of film and cinematic wüxia to supplant her. 

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