Water Margin, Water Dream
By shirly on 2016-04-18

As has introduced, the Romance of the Three Kingdom is a book about politics and wars, then the Water Margin is a book emphasizes the individual heroism, also with depictions of war scenes and male power. Also different from the Romance of Three Kingdom, its main characters, instead of having highbreded origin or high position, are almost all peasants and ordinary people without eminent identity. The book does not tell story of battles between countries and powers of the same level. Instead, it describes the battles between ordinary people with government. Its theme is rebellion of 108 brave men.

The story took place in Song Dynasty when Emperor Huizong was on reign. At that time, the evil governors ruled the state and the emperor was only a puppet. Therefore, under such a reign, people led a hard living. The faithful and upright were persecuted and forced to death. Local governors ganged up with tyrants and bullies to oppress the ordinary people. As a result, many people with warm-blood or faith, were framed. Then they gathered and formed a team first led by Cao Gai and later by Song Jiang. They set their base area on Mount Liang. They used their own wisdom and power to resist the government.

The story begins with the dark society of that time. From chapter one to fourty, the book tells the story of the 108 heroes. Each story is individual but also has some connections with others. In these fourty chapters, the characeristics of every heroes is vividly illustrated. The most successfully portrayed ones are Wu Song, Lu Zhishen, Li Kui and so on. When it comes to Wu Song, every body will remember his braveness and powerfulness in his fight with the tiger. At first, Wusong came to a town called Qinghe where there was a tiger doing evil to human beings. He was warned not to come near to the Jingyang Ridge, where the tiger haunted. But despite that, he still went past there. By the way, before he did so, he had a meal at a small store selling wine and beaf to passers-by. The store was called “do not pass the ridge with three bowls of wine”, which meant that if one had drunk three bowls of wine, he would immediately passed out and could not cross the ridge. However, Wu Song, the one in good body strength and rebellious spirit, not only drunk 18 bowls of wine, but also went across the ridge in spite of the storekeeper. And of course, he met the tiger when he crossed the ridge. But to everyone’s surprise, he should have defeat the tiger with his fists! Since then, he has been called as the hero to defeat the tiger.

From chapter 41 to chapter 80, the story tells about the fight between the 108 heroes with the government and evils. In these chapters, the cooperation between the heroes have their full manifestion. They won several battles. And they robbed the rich to help the poor. However, this kind of behavior was not tolerated by the government because their benefits was violated. Nevertheless, since the power of them was large at that time and they were influencial, the government decided to recruit the 108 heroes as governors. Of course at that time, some men did not want to give in to the government. But the leader of the team, Song Jiang, was tired of the stormy life and fight against government, looking forward to a steady life and a prominent position. So he agreed to subside to the authority. Thus, under the compromise of Song, other men, having no choice but to follow him, also subsided to the government.

From chapter 81 to chapter 120, the story tells about their story after they were recruited by the government. They helped the government to win the war against Tian Hu, Wang Qing, Fang La and so on. Their tactics and power worked as a sharop sword directly point to the rebellions to the Song Dynasty. But it was inevitable that there were some casualties. Many heroes died. Only 36 were left including Song Jiang. But after Song Jiang went back to the capital, he was poisoned to death for the evil governors were jealous of his accomplishement. Finally, few of the 108 heroes of great power and firm faith died in their bed.

This book called for people’s rebellion spirit. It is the sprouts of the people’s power and rights. It also emphasizes the faith and belief of the friends and country. Its meaning outshines many other books and deserves the honor of being the four major classic novels in China.