This book is under rated and out of print.This was written 500 years before the printing press was invented and should never be out of print. It is a classic historic work and a great read and very saucy in parts. One is amazed at how 'civilised' modern and corrupt in an up to date, in a political sense, China was a thousand years ago.

INTRODUCTION The Legend of the “Chin P'ing Mei’

THE following, pieced together from various sources, ís the
legend of how the Chin P'ing Mei came to be written: In the middle of the sixteenth century A.D. a humble official named Wang Yü happened to be the owner of a very important picture,! the Going Up River by Chang Tse-tuan of the Sung dynasty. It was important not only as a work of art but also as a historical document, for it portrayed the splendours of K’ai-feng Fu, the Northern Sung capital, previous to its destruction in A.D. 1127 by the Kin Tartars. The picture was coveted by a wicked and tyrannical official named Yen Sung,’ who made every effort to secure it. For a long time Wang Yü held out; but the wicked Yen Sung having finally become all-powerful in the Government was able to threaten Wang with the complete ruin of himself and his family, and at last Wang saw no alternative but to consent.

To show off his new acquisition Yen Sung gave a banquet to which he invited the celebrated statesman and writer T'ang Shun. chih.* To his host’s astonishment the distinguished guest showed very little interest in the picture, and when pressed for an opinion, declared that it was a copy. That a person of literary and political eminence could be mistaken on a point of connoisseurship was, according to the ideas of the day, out of the question. Henceforward Yen Sung’s only thought was how he could best revenge himself on Wang Yü, who, he felt certain, had kept the original picture, sending in its place a worthless copy. Yen had not long to wait for his opportunity. In 1550 the Tartar chieftain Amda broke . through the defences of the Chihli frontier at a point for the protection of which Wang Yü was responsible. Yen impeached him, : and Wang Yü was executed. E

This, however, was only the beginning of a vendetta. Yen Sung died in 1568. But meanwhile Wang Yü’s son Wang Shih-cheng* had begun to make his mark as a man of great literary attainments and determined character. His one regret was that the death of Yen Sung had deprived him of the chance of directly avenging his father’s impeachment. But Yen Sung's son, Yen Shih-fan, execrated in Chinese legend as the paragon of treachery and corruption, had been partly responsible for the impeachment of Wang Yü, and it was against Yen Shih-fan that the vendetta of the Wang family was now directed. Many are the stories of Yen’s miraculous escapes from the assassins whom the filial Wang Shihcheng hired to avenge his father’s death. But Yen was strongly and ingeniously guarded; as indeed he needed to be, for he had ...