Cases of Judge Bao

Cases of Judge Bao (包公案) is a collection of two gong'an crime novels from the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644), both featuring cases judged by the legendary Song Dynasty judge Bao Zheng.^[1] They are:

• Cases of A Hundred Families Judged by Dragon-Design Bao (包龍圖百家公案) written by An Yushi (安遇时) in 1594.
• Cases Judged by the Dragon-Design (龍圖公案) by anonymous, which includes several chapters from the previous book.

Baijia Gong'an

• "Lady Qin's Ghost Return to Exile Shimei" (秦氏還魂配世美), Ch.26, which tells the story of a heartless man Chen Shimei betraying his loyal wife Lady Qin for power and wealth.

Stories

A Peking opera performance featuring Bao Zheng (seated) and his officers to his back.

A few stories have been freely adapted and rendered into English:

In Comber, Leon (1964). The Strange Cases of Magistrate Pao: Chinese Tales of Crime and Detection. Charles E. Tuttle Company. :

• "The Case of the Passionate Monk" (originally "Amitābha Peace Chant" 阿彌陀佛講和): A young girl who had been having midnight trysts with a scholar was murdered in her bedroom.
• "The Net of Heaven" (originally "Borrowed Clothes" 借衣): A girl who lost her virginity to an impostor fiance committed suicide when she discovered the truth.
• "The Dreams of the Goddess of Mercy" (觀音菩薩托夢): A lecherous monk raped his friend's wife and trapped the husband under a bell in the monastery.
• "The Key" (鎖匙): When her father insisted that she marry someone richer, a girl began meeting her fiance secretly. Things went awry when her maid was murdered.
• "The Temple by the River" (臨江亭): A man sought out justice for his friend who drowned in the river, knowing full well of the wife's indecency.
• "The Stolen Slippers" (偷鞋): A monk lustful for a woman successfully convinced the husband of her unfaithfulness by stealing her slippers.

In Chin, Yin-lien C.; Center, Yetta S.; Ross, Mildred (1992). "The Stone Lion" and Other Chinese Detective Stories: The Wisdom of Lord Bau. M. E. Sharpe. ISBN 0-87332-634-2. :

• "A Stolen Stallion" (騙馬): A gullible servant had his master's stallion stolen by a total stranger, who left him with only a mule.
• "Snow White Goose" (originally "Green Manure" 青糞): When two men fought for a goose, manure offered clues about the rightful owner.
• "The Stone Lion" (石獅子): A young man rescued and adopted by a kind family during a flood betrayed them after becoming an official.
• "The Black Bowl" (烏盆子): Two potters murdered a traveling merchant for money and made a black bowl out of his remains. Unbeknownst to them, the wronged ghost remained in the bowl.
  • This superstitious story arose from the 13th- or 14th-century play "The Ghost of the Pot" (盆兒鬼). A modified version was included in the 19th-century novel The Seven Heroes and Five Gallants.
  • The 1993 TV series Justice Pao included a segment based on this story. (The 19th-century version was adapted into the 2010 TV series Justice Bao: The Seven Heroes and Five Gallants.)
• "Borrowed Clothes", the same story as "The Net of Heaven" in Comber's book (with different character names).
• "Singsong Girl" (originally "Unrolling the Scroll" 扯畫軸): Careful readings of a scroll revealed hidden treasures for a dead man's second son.

In 2010, the scholar Wilt Idema published an annotated translation of eight ballad-stories (chantefable) from a late Ming dynasty collection printed in Beijing in the late Ming and which had recently been found in a tomb. ^[2]

References

Sources

• Hanan, Patrick (1980). "Judge Bao's Hundred Cases Reconstructed". Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies (Harvard-Yenching Institute) 40 (2): 301–323. Retrieved 27 December 2012. 
• Idema, W. L. (2010). Judge Bao and the Rule of Law Eight Ballad-Stories from the Period 1250-1450. Singapore: World Scientific. ISBN 9789814277013.