Chinese Literature

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This story, entitled “The Exchange of Husbands and Wives,” is based on actual events which took place in the city of Chienkang in the third year of the Chien Yen period. Another story dating from the same period is “The Double Mirror,’ and this, though it has less to offer in the way of coincidence, contains such fine examples of conjugal virtue that it is, morally speaking, vastly superior to the first.

A tale, to win favour, must be simply told; To move its readers a moral tt must hold.

In the fourth year of the Chien Yen period, an officer from the northwest whose name was Feng Chung-yi was appointed a tax-collector at Foochow. At that time southeast China was exceedingly prosperous, and Feng decided to set off with his family for his new post. He imagined that Foochow with the mountains behind and the sea in front was as rich a place as any in which to settle; besides, with North China constantly over-run by the Tartars, the southeast should be a good place of refuge. Starting on his journey that same year, he reached Chienchow the following spring.

Famine has always followed war. As the Nu Chen Tartars crossed the Yellow River, eastern China was laid waste; and southeast China, though not ravaged by war, suffered a famine sent by Heaven. In Chienchow the famine was so severe that one peck of rice cost a thousand cash and the people were starving. Supplies were needed for the troops at the front, hence the officials pressed for the payment of taxes without caring whether the people were in a position to pay or not. As the proverb says: Even a clever girl cannot make gruel without rice. When the people had no rice or money to hand over, yet the officers continued to beat and bully them, they could stand it no longer and slipped away in twos or threes to the mountains to become rebels. A snake must have a head before it can move, and they had a leader—Fan Ju-wei. Fan had a sense of justice and hoped to save the suffering people; so all the rebels flocked to him, until soon they were more than one hundred thousand strong.

Houses and barns they set alight, And killed the rich at dead of night, Fasted alike when food was none, And shared together all they won.

Unable to resist the rebels, the government troops were defeated time and again. Then Fan occupied Chienchow, styling himself Commander an, and sent his men out to raid different districts; while all the younger members of his clan were given titles and became army officers. The commander had a distant relative called Fan Hsi-chou, who was twenty-

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