Kitay_i_okrestnosti_Mifologia_folklor_literatura

Margaret В. Wan

University of Utah, Cedar City

The Drum Ballad Cases of Judge Liu:

A Window on the Form in the Early Nineteenth Century

The drum ballad manuscript of Liu Gong an (Cases of Judge Liu Щ'&Ш) from the Chewangfu collection provides a wealth of valuable information on the form at the turn of the nineteenth century. While most drum ballad texts are notoriously hard to date, internal references in Cases of Judge Liu suggest that it took shape between 1797 and 1804.1 Besides relating Judge Liu's efforts to bring justice, it describes and critiques the stories and performances with which it competed, often in self-conscious narrator asides. It also serves as an early example of long court-case narratives. What can we learn from it about the context and conventions of drum ballads at that time?

Drum ballad texts (guci ШШ) form a large corpus of popular literature in the Qlng dynasty. Composed of alternating passages of prose and verse, the form was popular in northern China. Drum ballads circulated in manuscript, woodblock, and eventually lithographic editions. The volume of texts is quite considerable. They form more than half of the enormous Chewangfu corpus by length. (Chou Jiang 2000: 58) More than 2,300 known drum ballad titles existed by the Republican era. (Li Yu 2006). Despite their great numbers, drum ballad texts have garnered little scholarly attention beyond a few cataloging efforts.2

World view and audience

Drum ballads form a corpus of distinctly local literature. In contrast with novels, which in the Qing dynasty usually circulated nationally, drum ballads were

1 References within the drum ballad Liu Gong an suggest this range of dates, since it refers to Liu Kang as being alive, and it refers to Gaozong as being on the throne (Qianlong already gone). Liu Gong an: Che wangfu qu ben, edited by Yan Qi (Beijing: Renmin wenxue chubanshe, 1990), 6. This is also noted in the preface to this edition, ibid., 1.

2 Besides Li Yu's index, see Zhao Jingshen's pioneering Guci xuan (Shanghai: Zhonghua shuju, 1959), and the descriptions in two articles by HuHung-po.

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often produced and circulated locally. Cases of Judge Liu contains several references that suggest it imagined its audience to be familiar with the Beijing area. At one point the narrator refers to "our Baoding County" (ПЙвШ^/ЁЯ?)?so it may have been aimed at audiences in Baoding, about fifty miles north of Beijing. (Liu Gong an: 1.1.4)3 It also speaks familiarly of Beijing, the capital: "Audience, if you go to other places, little counties and villages are different than this capital (ШЙШК)." (Liu Gong an: 14.1.211) Throughout the ballad, the narrator frequently uses Beijing as the norm to explain differences in administration in Jiangnan, where much of tale is set. (Liu Gong an: 8.2.123—24, 18.1.274)

Besides their location in and around Baoding and Beijing, what else does Cases of Judge Liu reveal about its audience? Other clues are less direct, but still suggestive. A speech about the difficulties of being a merchant appears with variations several times in the course of Cases of Judge Liu. (Liu Gong an: 9.3.147, 11.2.171) It may suggest merchants constituted part of the audience for this drum ballad. Cases of Judge Liu also provides information on questions of literacy. Judge Liu is surprised on two separate occasions when a woman is able to write. (Liu Gong an: 2.1.21, 2.2.24) This suggests that literacy among women—or at least the ability to write—was not the norm to the audiences for Cases of Judge Liu. Elsewhere, it notes that a grain merchant could recognize characters Щ ^ ) but could not really read (~$СШАУ^Ш). (Liu Gong an: 15.3.237)

The social focus in Cases of Judge Liu is primarily on the lower levels of society. The mimetic level is correspondingly low. The scholar-gentry class that are the protagonists of a great deal of Chinese fiction here appear in an unflattering light. The main exception is Judge Liu himself; his motives are pure, but even he is horribly ugly. In one murder case, a Provincial Graduate (juren IfSA) and his sister-in-law are portrayed with marked, explicit irony. The reader knows them to be criminals, but they persist in acting self-righteous. When the sister-in-law, the proud daughter of an official, starts raising a fuss, the text states that she acts the chaste widow: "She intentionally pretended to be a chaste woman of ice, masquerading as a proper person" (^[ШШ^ШШ^, ? Ё З Ш А 1 Е ^ Л ) (Liu Gong an: 10.2.155). This case of adultery and murder proves particularly difficult to solve. Indeed, the crucial clue comes from none other than a thief who happened to witness the murder when he was trying to rob Wu's estate. The thief is crude and rude but upright, a better person than the Provincial Graduate and his sister-in-law.

3 References to Cases of Judge Liu give the volume number, chapter number, and page number in the 1990 reprint edition edited by Yan Qi.

This forms a sharp contrast with the typical characterization in the earlier court-case tale collections like Longtu gong'an (Longtu's court cases |1Н£л^|)- There students and gentry are generally portrayed positively; the villains tend to be privileged sons of high-level officials, officials themselves, or the wealthy in general. (Ma 1973: 195—97) Elsewhere in Cases of Judge Liu the "white faced student" is not a positive character. He does not immediately garner Judge Liu's trust by his looks. He also is morally wrong, since it will be revealed he not only had an affair with a nun, he murdered another woman. {Liu Gong an: 7.3.116) In Cases of Judge Liu, the low view of human nature extends to the уamen runners. Most of the runners are shown as lustful and avaricious, taking advantage of people whenever an opportunity arises.

In Cases of Judge Liu, unlike Western detective stories, most of the "suspense" lies not in what really happened or in the detective work, since clues are found mostly by coincidence. There is some interest in how or why the crime was committed, which we find out along with Judge Liu, but who did it is rarely a question. Physiognomy gives that away almost immediately.4 In addition, interior monologues quickly reveal if someone is innocent or guilty, so there is no suspense due to a possible wrongful accusation. For example, when Judge Liu confronts the nun with a murder he believes occurred in her priory, she thinks:

"I thought if I confessed to the licentious affair, I wouldn't be executed for it. I didn't expect it to connect to this. This head belongs to my little sister, Sujie; my heartless lover wanted to be with her, but she wouldn't, so he killed her with a knife, buried the body in the priory, and took the head out of the temple. He said he had an enemy and wanted to frame him. I didn't expect this head would be here in the court. If I confess now, my life is over!" She thinks again, "Even though Sujie was killed in my temple, there's no evidence. Why don't I grit my teeth and refuse to confess. Let's see what Hunchback [Judge Liu] can do to me!"

{LiuGong an: 7.2.110—11)

Without this interior monologue, the reader would know only as much as Judge Liu. When the nun persists in protesting her innocence, one might begin to believe her. With the information provided by the monologue, however, the reader knows exactly what happened, and the focus shifts to how Judge Liu will prove it and punish the offenders. Elsewhere, epithets (such as "criminal") that label the characters confirm guilt even before Judge Liu can solve the case. In

4 The narrator gives a long explanation of the basis of physiognomy, quoting accurately from Mencius: "If within the breast all be correct, the pupil is bright. If within the breast all be not correct, the pupil is dull. Listen to a man's words and look at the pupil of his eye. How can a man conceal his character?" {Liu Gong an 8.3.130)

Cases of Judge Liu, suspense lies in how the judge will handle the case and the personal consequences to him if he does not handle it well. The heart of the story is about interpersonal dynamics and social expectations. This extends a phenomenon noted by Y.W. Ma in Ming collections of court-case tales. There the judge is the heart of the collection, and the only fully fleshed out character. (Ma 1973: 201) Here the other characters may be fleshed out, but the reader sympathizes with Judge Liu.

For example, Judge Liu is shown to be extremely parsimonious, eating only the simplest food and wearing clothes so tattered that the people on the street laugh at him. He is invited to his superior's birthday party; when GovernorGeneral Gao rejects his simple gift, Liu gets even by telling all the other well wishers that the party has been called off. Gao is incensed over losing all the valuable birthday gifts, and gives Judge Liu an impossible case to solve: an unidentified head that was found in a public well. As Judge Liu mulls over the case, he thinks:

Governor-General Gao hates and resents me, He must have said I

should send that Liu to solve a case. If I can't solve it in five days,

Governor-General Gao probably won't allow it. He'll say I

am lacking in talent and wisdom, without learning, not fit to serve

as Prefect in this office.

Using public means for a private grudge, he'll certainly impeach me. I only fear

because of this case Gao will memorialize the cinnabar palace. What I fear

is that our sagely emperor's dragon heart will anger and I, Liu,

will lose my office and have to leave my post. If I, Liu, have to leave Jiangning Fu,

that would suit Gao's plan.

After that he could ask for all the money he wants without any fear

that his name would live in infamy. (Liu Gong an: 5.3.82)

The above interior monologue is rendered in verse. The function is similar to that of interior monologue in Yangzhou storytelling, which serves to make characters like Wu Song human, in contrast to their "heroic" public speech. (Bordahl 1996: 200, 233—34) The contrast in Judge Liu's case is not quite as striking as that of Wu Song, but it is still palpable. To the public Judge Liu is fearless and

A white-haired licentiate is like rotten wood. How could you know I

have read and learned five carts, 10,000 volumes of books?"

{Liu Gong an 10.2.156)

Thus references to the Confucian classics serve as self-righteous covers for criminal actions.At some level this serves as characterization of a particular type; phrases from the canon naturally characterize the parlance of litigators andProvincial Graduates. However, the disconnect between the rhetoric and the underlying situation in this case makes the quotation distinctly ironic. This raises questions of cultural unity and diversity in the Qing Dynasty. To what degree are values shared by different strata of society? In some local ballads, the difference in values can be large indeed. Anne McLaren gives a striking example of variant values in local ballads from the Wu region, which celebrate marriage practices that would be aberrant by Confucian standards. (McLaren 2007) In Cases of Judge Liu, however, standard Confucian values are not at issue so much as the misuse of Confucian rhetoric.7

Court-case and other fiction

The structure of Cases of Judge Liu shows a debt to previous court-casetale collections like Longtu Gong an (Longtu's court cases f ï H £ \ H ) . These were collections of independent stories connected simply by the judge who solved the cases. Y.W. Ma recognizes the central role of the judge as "one of the most predominant features of kung-an fiction," evident from the earliest stories in the Yuan. (Ma 1979: 207) Chen Pingyuan suggests that Qing court-case adventure novels may have taken their cues from these court-case tale collections, (Chen Pingyuan 1992: 46—47) and this appears to be true as well for the drum ballad Cases of Judge Liu. Judge Liu provides the linking thread that runs through the work. The work is divided into sections (bu Ш), and within that into chapters (hui

0 ) . The numbering of the chapters starts over with each section. All the cases in a particular section (or group of sections) end up being related. As some of the cases are settled, one still hangs unsolved to keep the audience's interest. Since

7 In another case later in the book, the canonical expression "in giving and receiving men and women's hands should not touch" is presented as a straightforward expression of values. (LiuGong an: 14.4.223) It is interesting that this case also presents the gentry in a somewhat more positive light; the landlord thinks better of his demand to sleep with his manager's wife, and Judge Liu must clear him of an accusation of murder.

the cases are often divided across chapters,most of the time the essentials of the case are repeated in each chapter—by judge, testimony, yamen runners or whomever. The frequent extensive recapitulation may have to do with reading practices, suggesting that this tale was consumedin shortsegments.

Casesof Judge Liu's connection with collectionsof court-case tales goes beyonda similar structure. Indeed, Cases of Judge Liu shows an acute awareness of its literary context: the narrative genres on which it draws, and those which it avoids and critiques. Some of this awareness is conveyed through allusions. To characterize Judge Liu as a fearless and incorruptible judge, the text often compares him to Judge Bao, and occasionally to Hai Rui. An even more striking series of allusions tocourt-case narratives occurs in the drum ballad Shi an qi wen (ШШ^ТШ)- Judge Shi,whenpuzzled about a case, gets down previous court-caseworks to read. These are described as "old books," and the list includes many popularworks that included court cases—

erences to Judge Bao catching Guo Huai and reuniting mother and son in the drum ballad Longtu Gongan, and the incorruptible judges Hai Rui and Peng Peng as historical figures. (Shi an qi wen: 1.5a—6b) The passage serves as a self-conscious reflection on the literary and historical "models" for Judge Shi.8

Even more striking, the self-reflexive comments in the drum ballad Cases of Judge Liu serve to position this book explicitly vis-à-vis other narratives. In so doing, it argues for the way it should be read and its superiority to other competing narratives. While defending its uniqueness and criticizing other narratives, it also identifies shared material, which raises fascinating questions on the nature of the borrowing among drum ballads.

Let us first examine this narrative's claims regarding its own nature and its superiority to its competition. Time and again, Cases of Judge Liu insists on its own basis in fact. One passage goes:

8 Indeed, such a function was imagined in the preface to the important collection of court-case fiction Longtu's Court Cases, which promotes Judge Bao as a moral example for present-day officials. After discoursing on Judge Bao's character, incorruptibility, and mercy towards ordinary people, it states, "I hope that those who act as 'father and mother to the people' will burn incense and read

Longtu's Court Cases."

The preface to the novel Cases of Judge Shi borrows heavily from this preface to Longtu's Court Cases,often using the exact words and simply substituting Judge Shi's name for Judge Bao's. This suggests once again how strong a model the collection Longtu's Court Cases was for later works in the court-case genre. Beyond this, the preface to Cases of Judge Shi adds an additional purpose; it not only presents the novel as a model for contemporary officials, but also opens its readership up to a more universal audience by aiming to let later "people of the world" know who Judge Shi was.

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Cases of Judge Liu makes of this kind of verse as a stock description of battle. While Cases of Judge Liu avoids such description, other court-case ballads incorporate more martial elements. For instance, Red Flag Ravine focuses more on Judge Shi's martial helpers than the judge himself. However, this does not mean it revels in descriptions of the martial arts. Red Flag Ravine spends a good part of the drum ballad establishing a spectacularly constructed, unassailable bandit's lair, and the reader might expect an impressive battle as the climax of the tale. Instead, like Liu Gong an, the focus is on relationships and problem solving. In the end, the heroes in Red Flag Ravine do not battle their way through the defenses of the bandit lair; instead, they turn the bandit leader to their side.

By explicitly rejecting stylized, fantastic battle, the narrator in Cases of Judge Liu calls attention to his own way of telling the story. The drum ballad Cases of Judge Liu attempts to set itself apart by being nearly contemporary and "realistic" or "true." It also defends itself against the charge that it copied from Shi Gong an (Cases of Judge Shi).

Someone says, "No need to tell this tale any further. How could there be someone in Old Buddha Qianlong's time who could jump to the top of a wall over a yard tall by stamping his feet when he's standing flat on the ground? Didn't you take that from the scene with Huang Tianba in Shi Gong anl He can fly across eaves and walk on walls, jump walls and scale roofs. Do tell, how is it that Chen Dayong can also fly across eaves and walk on walls?" Audience, there's something you don't know. It seems that Huang Tianba of the Kangxi period in Shi Gong an was the first or second most skilled, his arts were top-notch. Now people in the Qianlong period, from the looks of it, are even more skilled than he! Isn't that so? You ask who? Listen carefully: there's a baldy who went into the palace at night....He could go over walls like he was walking on level ground. If you talk of Huang Tianba's skill, Huang would lose to him. This baldy could cross oceans for 60 cents of Luohan money. That's one. There's another, from Tianjin, named Liu, the fourth in his generation, with the nickname Swallowtail. His skill is hard to describe. If he starts running, even a great horse can't catch up to him. If a swallow is flying ahead of him, he can leap and grab it by the tail. That's how skilled he is! He can also stay under water for three to five days. Audience, think, how do the two I've mentioned compare with Huang Tianba? (Liu Gong an: 14.2.215—216)

This explanation refers to Shi Gong an in a familiar manner, and Huang Tianba as a potential model for Chen Dayong. Both heroes serve the same role as the judge's martial helper; here it is specifically the description of Chen's martial arts technique that is at issue. The narrator has to reverse the premise of the critique and say that Huang Tianba is nothing special now; several martial artists since his time could outdo him.

In defending itself against copying, however, Cases of Judge Liu identifies shared material that the audience within the text is portrayed as recognizing. In