Water Margin

Water Margin (simplified Chinese: 水浒传; traditional Chinese: 水滸傳; pinyin: Shuǐhǔ Zhuàn), also called Outlaws of the Marsh or All Men Are Brothers, is a Chinese novel from the Ming dynasty that is one of the preeminent Classic Chinese Novels. Attributed to Shi Nai'an, Water Margin was one of the earliest Chinese novels written in vernacular Mandarin Chinese.

Set during the Northern Song dynasty (around 1120), the story follows a group of 108 outlaws that gathers at Mount Liang (also known as Liangshan Marsh) to rebel against the government. Later they are granted amnesty and enlisted by the government to resist the nomadic conquest of the Liao dynasty and other rebels. The novel's authorship has been traditionally attributed to Shi Nai'an (1296–1372), yet the first external reference to the novel only appeared in 1524 during the Jiajing reign of the Ming dynasty. Research on the various editions of Water Margin found that it underwent a complex textual evolution, and some modern scholars have argued the work to be the collective creativity of writers from multiple generations.