In Jin Shengtan’s preface to his edition, Jin not only condemns the bandits as a group, but also condemns the work of prior authors and editors for stressing the virtues of loyalty and righteousness in the conduct of the bandits.16 Jin Shengtan’s editing of the story went as far as even composing the closing scene that unambiguously stamps his “authorship” onto the 70 Chapter version. In this final scene, bandit leader Lu Junyi, on the very night of the banquet celebrating the destruction of the corrupt local officials that would otherwise conclude the novel, dreams of the execution of the bandit leaders. As he looks up just before his execution he sees a sign which states “Universal peace throughout the kingdom.” Jin Shengtan’s message is crystal clear. With shocking abruptness, the reader—enthralled with the story and expecting more from the triumphant and vindicated bandits, such as the long awaited Imperial pardon or the appointments to Imperial service by a grateful Emperor—is confronted with a stark moral lesson.17 Despite the portrayal of the worthy band as righteous and virtuous heroes, there are in fact, no amnesties or pardons for outlaws, bandits, and rebels.
While Jin Shengtan evidently sympathized with the misfortunes of some of the bandits and even admired them as individuals, Jin’s sympathy for the individual characters is weighted against his unambiguous condemnation of outlawlessness and banditry.18 This is the key to understanding the oscillation between Jin’s ambivalence and sympathy, which is so apparent in his treatment of The Water Margin that it survives even the most stringent reworking of J.H. Jackson’s translation. In Jackson’s translation of The Water Margin we can still read Jin’s working of the story, such as his undermining of Song Jiang’s values of loyalty and justice at every turn, by contrasting it with expressions of callousness and barbarism, both on the deserving and the innocent.
In understanding the nature of the drastic editing and revision of Jin Shengtan’s Water Margin story, we need to consider the time in which Jin was working on this text and the nature of the man himself. Jin Shengtan’s 70 Chapter version was published in 1641, which was the version first translated in English by Pearl Buck as All Men Are Brothers (1933) and the basis of this translation, The Water Margin by J.H. Jackson (1937).19 At the time of the publication of Jin’s 70 Chapter version in 1641, the once great Ming Dynasty was in its terminal years. In 1630, Li Zicheng of Yanan in northern Shaanxi province (which features early in The Water Margin and again prominently in later Chinese history), led a peasant uprising against corrupt local officials, against a backdrop of a terrible famine. Raising a large army, Li Zicheng’s peasant rebellion ravaged a large part of northern China, while the Ming armies, underpaid and suffering from poor morale, in addition to the simultaneous problem of facing the invading Manchus in the northeast, were unable to suppress the rebellion. In 1644 Li Zicheng’s armies entered the Ming capital of Beijing without opposition, where the last Ming Emperor, Chongzhen hanged himself. In the same period, Zhang Xianzhong led an uprising against the Ming which ravaged southwestern Sichuan province and left it devastated for decades to come. Against the background of the social chaos and disorder accompanying the fall of the Ming Dynasty, it is little wonder that Jin Shengtan professed such ambivalence against the bandits of The Water Margin.
Born in 1610 in a poor family of the scholarly gentry class, Jin Shengtan received an education at a village school, rather than by a private tutor. As was normal in pre-modern China, Jin Shengtan received an education in the Confucian classics, in part directly from his father, a scholar, which naturally provided him with the necessary knowledge of Confucianism to enable him to ultimately pass his county level xiucai degree in the Imperial examination system. Why he did not pursue or achieve an advanced level degree at the provincial or Imperial Court level is unknown, but there are perhaps clues to this in his ultimate choice of a literary career. Unlike other scholars, Jin eschewed the Confucian classics, having been bored with them since childhood and preferring to delve into the vulgar realm of popular vernacular novels, armed in part with an appreciation of Buddhist and Taoist literary works, which he read as a child during periods of illness from school.20 Having obtained his xiucai degree in his late teens or early twenties, it may well be that Jin preferred not to continue the typical process of a further ten or fifteen years of scholarship necessary for success in the advanced degrees of the Imperial examination system. There is no reliable evidence of Jin having ever held public office, the goal of Confucian scholars, even at the county level to which he was qualified.21 Far from abandoning scholarship per se, it was in this time that Jin began his literary career, beginning work on The Water Margin which had enthralled him since the age of eleven. Additionally, it is also noted that Jin turned his vast knowledge of orthodox Confucian classics, as well as his extensive knowledge of historiography, popular literature, Buddhism, and Taoism against noted public lecturers, hectoring and ridiculing them to the delight of gathered crowds.22
The fall of the Ming in 1644 when he was in his mid-thirties and at the prime of his life, prompted Jin like many other Ming loyalist intellectuals, to reject public office under the new Qing Dynasty established by the conquering Manchus.23 How Jin supported his family in his rejection of public life is not known, although it has been supposed that he passed his time in intimate conversation with friends and writing in solitude, much like Shi Naian did, as related in the preface to the 70 Chapter version. This preface, presented as having been written by Shi Naian, was in fact composed by Jin himself. Therefore it is reasonable to expect that there may be some element of an autobiography in it. What is known is that while Jin may have rejected public office, unlike the “Shi Naian” of his fake preface, he certainly did not reject an intellectual interest in politics. From his humble, but satisfying household by the river depicted in the Water Margin preface, Jin Shengtan continued to turn his intellect to his literary work. In 1660, at the urging of his son, Jin began work on his analysis of the works of China’s greatest poet, the definitive Confucian scholar, Du Fu of the Tang Dynasty. It was to be Jin’s final and uncompleted work.
In 1661, perhaps inspired by his core Confucian principles or by Du Fu’s example of a diligent Confucian scholar willing to admonish the Emperor at the risk of his own life, Jin became involved in an episode of civil unrest which was to cost him his life.24 Jin Shengtan joined over a hundred scholars in protest over the excesses of the new Suzhou magistrate, who had imposed harsh penalties for late payment of taxes and who had been selling taxed grain for personal profit. Taking advantage of a gathering of all of Jiangsu province’s officials to mourn the passing of the Shunzhi Emperor, the scholars marched onto the home of the Prefect of Suzhou where the officials were gathered, collecting a over a thousand supporters along the way, demanding the resignation of the magistrate. Jin escaped the arrest of the leaders of the protest, after which the magistrate confessed that he had taken his unjust and illegal actions only to fund the gifts demanded of him by the provincial governor. To cover his own complicity the provincial governor reworded the magistrate’s confession