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The lineage of figures and attributes of Xia embodied in Chinese Xia videogames

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The lineage of figures and attributes of Xia embodied in Chinese Xia videogames

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Content Copyright 2020 Yanchen Zhang
The Lineage of Figures and Attributes of Xia embodied in Chinese Xia Videogames
by
Yanchen Zhang
A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC DORNSIFE COLLEGE OF LETTERS, ARTS AND SCIENCES
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF ARTS
EAST ASIAN AREA STUDIES
August 2020
ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES ............................................................................................. iii
ABSTRACT ………………..................................................................................................….... iv
INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................................... 1
CHAPTER I: The Legacy of pre-modern Xia cultures: Reality and Fiction …………………... 10
Section (1) From Wandering to Powerful, the Transformation of Attributes of Xia .….. 10
Section (2) Martial and Divine: Two Major Fighting Prowess of Xia ………………… 18
CHAPTER II: Challenges Against Xia Culture and Its Responses Since the Ming Dynasty …. 27
Section (1) Gongan Stories: Cooperation Under Urban Power Centralization ………... 27
Section (2) Nationalist and Escapist Novels in the Twentieth Century………..………. 32
CHAPTER III: Videogames: An Inheritor and Innovator in Xia genres ………………………. 41
Section (1) Film Adaptations of Xia Novels: A Late-Starter, A Participant, but Not A
Dominator ………………………………………………….…………………………... 42
Section (2) Videogame, A Late-Starter of the Mainland Entertainment Market .……… 48
Section (3) The First Wave of Xia Videogames: Interactive Adaptations of Jin, Gu, and
Liang ……………..……………………………………………………………………. 54
Section (4) The Second Wave Xia Videogames: Success and Stagnant ………………. 65
Section (5) The Third Wave Xia Videogames: Diverse in Gameplay and Storytelling ... 75
CONCLUSION ………..……………………………………………………………………….. 83
BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................................ 84

iii

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES
Table 1: Examples of How Personalities Influence the Game Experience .................................. 80
Figure 1: Jackie Chan’s Picture Advertisement of Little Overlord .............................................. 49
Figure 2: Mortal Kombat II, DOOM, and Xiao Ao Jiang Hu ...................................................... 60
Figure 3: Same Characters in Videogames and Movies of Xiao Ao Jiang Hu ............................ 62
Figure 4: Same Characters in Game Maps, Portraits, and Cinematic .......................................... 64
Figure 5: Map and Combat Scene in the Three Swords .............................................................. 70

iv

Abstract
Chinese videogames of the “Xia” (could be roughly translated to hero) genre are frequently
criticized as an unchanging and stagnant genre of interactive entertainment in terms of both
storytelling and game mechanics. In fact, such an impression toward Xia videogames is the
unchanging and stagnant one, as they were only focusing on the second of the three waves of
Chinese videogames. This thesis aims to examine the change of Xia figures in its cultural history
with a much larger context and clarify this misconception by analyzing both the development of
game mechanics and the increasingly ancient Xia figures and attributes revived in the three
waves of Xia videogames.

1

Introduction
In 1997, Popsoft, one of the most prominent magazines in the field of videogames in China,
named Xian Jian Qi Xia Zhuan, Jian Xia Qing Yuan, and Xuan Yuan Jian as the “Three Swords.”
It was because they were the best of the second wave Xia videogames and also shared the word
“Jian” (sword) in their titles.
1
Their qualities in terms of graphical rendering and design
sophistication were no match of their contemporary Western and Japanese blockbusters.
However, according to the editor of Popsoft, “the progress made by those domestic games (in
comparison with the first wave Xia videogames) was unquestionable,” and he believed “the
domestic (Xia) videogames are catching up, and their future could only be better!”
2

Ironically, such a passionate wish was considered as a false prediction by many
videogame commentators over the next two decades. Due to their success, the Xia videogame
market was monopolized by sequels and imitators of Three Swords since the late 1990s.
3
What is
worse, Popsoft itself published an article in 2010 to reflect criticisms from Chinese gamers about
the little progress made by domestic Xia game companies in comparison with their foreign

1
Shuijing, “Liu Yue Bang Ping,” 六月榜评 [Editor’s Comment on the Top Games of June] Popsoft, July
1997, 111.
2
Lanxing, “Ba Yue Bang Ping,” 八月榜评 [Editor’s Comment on the Top Games of August,] Popsoft,
September 1997, 111.
3
Li Yuan, “Guo Chan You Xi He Qu He Cong Da Tao Lun” 国产游戏何去何从大讨论 [Discussion:
What is the Future of Domestic Videogames?], December 1998, 50-51.
2

counterparts. By representing the general opinion of Chinese gamer communities, the author of
this 2010 article harshly criticized Three Swords and Xia videogames as a whole. The author
argues that the domination of the Three Swords made their sequels and imitators remaking their
successful features over and over again instead of pursuing advanced storytelling technics and
game mechanics. On the contrary of what was published in Popsoft thirteen years ago, the author
believed that the stagnation caused by the Three Swords was dreadful for the future of Xia
videogames. “What domestic companies could offer and what domestic gamers want are just like
the tortoise and the hare,” the author claims, “the tortoise will never catch up unless the hare
takes a nap and waits.”
4

This thesis, however, rebuts this statement by pointing out that there have been three major
waves in the development of Xia videogames, and this popular criticism focused on only the
second wave of its development while the most recent third wave has been quite innovative.
Furthermore, I will rebut this argument by examining the change of Xia figures in its cultural
history with a much larger context. By doing so, I will claim that in the long history of Xia, its
figures and attributes were impacted by social, political, military, and cultural factors. Among
them, one of the most obvious and important aspects was how Xia figures were inherited and

4
8 Shenjing 8 神经, “Shi Mian Mai Fu Guo Chan Dan Ji You Xi De Yu Lun Kun Jing” 十面埋伏—— 国
产单机游戏的舆论困境 [Ambush from All Sides---- Domestic Single-Player Games’ Predicament on
Public Opinions] Popsoft, 2010, vol 9A, 101-3.
3

adjusted when transiting between different forms or genres of media. So the argument about
videogames that Xia videogames were seemingly becoming stagnant and lack of creativity
beyond the patterns of those of Three Swords, as well as my counterarguments that such
stagnation was temporal and finally replaced by more innovative and diverse designings in the
third wave of Xia videogames were coming together. They echo a pattern of how Xia figures
were reconfigured when they move into new genres or forms of media.
As a cultural figure that could be traced back to the 4
th
century BCE, Xia has had manifold
definitions in different eras in Chinese history and has experienced a complicated path of
continuity and change in the past thousands of years. Nevertheless, at the beginning of the first-
wave Xia videogames, the public perception of Xia in the Chinese mainland almost entirely
derived from novels and movies made in Hong Kong and Taiwan since the 1950s. The second
and third waves of Xia videogames, however, revived previous Xia types—first from Jin Yong
and similar 20
th
-century novels in the second wave, and then from the diverse historical
repository of Xia figures in what I call the 3
rd
wave. In order to offer more explicit background
information to its reader, this thesis will start by examining the content and origin of once-
dominant Xia attributes that revived by videogames.
4

Chapter one will start from the wandering and the powerful, the two kinds of attributes of
Xia emerged before the Tang dynasty as figures in historical anecdotes. Historians like Sima
Qian and Ban Gu tended to portray the wandering Xia as people who tended to not stay in the
same place, and they would help every people in need by donating their commodities. On the
other hand, powerful Xia usually portrayed as someone who residue in a specific region and built
connections with officials to govern and offer help to the people of this region with their
reputations, though their followers may become local bullies. Despite the differences between
them, both wandering and powerful Xia valued personalities and virtues over their strength.
Later, with the rise of oral storytelling of Xia tales in the Tang dynasty, the definition of Xia
shifted from personalities and virtues to the physical and fighting prowess of Xia characters, and
the main approaches for them to help people became murdering, kidnapping, or other activities
relied on their fighting skills. There were also two kinds of personal strengths they possessed.
One is the martial Xia that used relatively realistic fist or weapon skills, while the other is divine
Xia, who were demigods with supernatural power that inspired by their contemporary religious
oral storytellers. It is worth notice that these two kinds of personal strengths were more like two
ends of the spectrum instead of two mutually exclusive attributes.
5

Chapter two will cover the era between the Ming dynasty(1368–1644 CE) to the late 20
th

century. During that time, the old Xia attributes and figures were changed according to the needs
of audiences as well as the public, especially elite perceptions toward Xia figures. In the Ming
and Qing (1644-1912 CE) dynasties, the royal court centralized its power in the urban regions
while shrinking its controls of rural areas. Therefore, in the urban regions, a new set of
definitions of Xia was created in Gongan novels. Unlike the popular wandering definition that
Xia were not supposed to ally with powerful people, Xia in Gongan novels were more alike their
powerful predecessors. They were loyal to the royal court and willing to serve honest officials to
punish the bad officials and bandits. By doing so, they consider themselves as a way of helping
local people. In the late 19
th
century, western countries and Japan increased their invasions in
China. Boxers, a secret society that highly influenced by Xia attributes, stood up to confront
western troops with modern firearms but tragically failed. Their failure, as a proof of the inability
of Xia’s strength, challenged the public imagination of Xia. Under this circumstance, two kinds
of new Xia definitions emerged. The nationalists emphasized the individual victories of Xia
against western martial artists. They also portrayed those Xia individuals as the defender of the
dignity of itself the traditional cultures it represented from western invasion. The escapists,
however, chose to imagine a utopia in remote mountains that free from the western invasions and
6

domestic social problems. Such kind of place usually ran by demigod divine Xia who were much
powerful than western militaries, and ordinary people also had the chance to learn their divine
spells. Few years after the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) won the civil war in 1949, Xia
novels were banned in the Chinese mainland. As a result, the Xia novelists in Hong Kong and
Taiwan combined nationalist and escapist novels since the 1950s.
Chapter 3 will start by discussing the influence of those Hong Kong and Taiwan Xia
novels, their cinematic adaptations, and the status quo of the Chinese market influenced the new
industry of Xia videogames. Then, this chapter will offer a detailed analysis of the development
made in the second wave and third wave of Xia videogames. Though Xia novelists in Hong
Kong and Taiwan were successful in their field, their influence in the field of Xia movie was
significantly less than the escapist and nationalist novels in the late Qing and ROC era, for the
Chinese Xia movie industry started at the era when the market of Xia novels was dominated by
nationalists and escapists. In other words, the Chinese Xia movies industry started by adapting
the most popular works in its early years. Just like the Xia movie industry, the videogame
industry also followed a similar path. When the ban against Xia novels and movies in the
mainland was removed in the early 1980s, the Xia novels and movies from Hong Kong and
Taiwan quickly penetrated this promising market. Thus, many companies started to design first
7

wave Xia videogames, which were the interactive adaptations of those movies and novels. In the
1990s, games developed on consoles must be approved by the company of consoles, and there
were strong public and state oppositions against consoles in the mainland. For those reasons,
personal computers (PC) became the dominant platform for first and later waves Xia games.
Therefore, the first-wave Xia videogames were designed to attract potential players from
fandoms of original novels and movies. The first wave of Xia videogames consisted mostly of
interactive adaptions of novels and movies made in Hong Kong and Taiwan after the 1950s. The
plots of those games normally copied the stories and settings of original novels or cinematic
counterparts with a minimal amount of changes. Since the plots are fixed, players could only
accept the figures and attributes embodied in original novels and movies. However, the available
works they could adapt were quickly exhausted, and players were getting bored. Thus, the
second-wave Xia videogames emerged to satisfy the needs of players.
Designers of second-wave Xia videogames started to jump out from Jin Yong’s universe and
adopt Xia figures and attributes from escapists or nationalist novels, Gongan novels, and other
Xia stories from the Tang dynasty(618 to 907 CE) to the Republic of China (ROC, 1912-1949
CE) era. Most of those games share new but similar mechanics such as maps, combat designs,
and UI. Though multiple ending were available in the second wave, they were all pre-made by
8

game designers and tended to have little differences in terms of what kind of Xia the protagonist
will become. Their success in creating a new design pattern, however, created a comfort zone for
them to stabilize their income from their fandoms. That is to say, the well-known second wave of
titles represented by the Three Swords tended to repeat previously successful patterns and were
consequently criticized by the commentators for their lack of creativity and innovation.
5
The
sequels and imitators of the Three Swords drown out relatively creative games in videogame
magazines, the most important way for players and game vendors to access and discuss game
until the decline of magazines.
Since the early 2010s, videogame magazines started to decline and finally replaced by their
cyber counterparts, where new creative Xia videogames and the established Xia games like
Three Swords have relatively equal opportunities to be noticed and purchased. In comparison to
the second wave, the third wave videogames dug deeper into the history of Xia to surface more
ancient figures and attributes of Xia that was less perceptible in the modern era. The gameplay in
the third wave also became more sophisticated and diverse. Jumped out of the patterns of Three
Swords, third-wave Xia videogames started to embrace the features of various kinds of games
such as open-world, Battle Royale, Roguelike, and Idle games. The diverse game mechanics and

5
Shan Liang De Da Hui Lang, “Mian Yi Wei Ji Cong Si Da Ming Bu Kan Guo Chan Wu Xia You Xi,” 勉
以为继——从《四大名捕》看国产武侠游戏 [Hardly Sustaining: Viewing Domestic Martial Xia
Games from The Four Constables] Popsoft, 2004.
9

more advanced capabilities of computers set the stage for the revival of the pre-Tang figures and
attributes of Xia. By taking The Scroll of Taiwu, the most successful third wave Xia videogame
with millions of sold copies as an example, this section will analyze how the attributes of ancient
wandering and powerful Xia were embodied in this third-wave Xia videogame.

10

CHAPTER I: Priority of Xia Attributes Shifted from Virtues to Strengths
The historical writings about Xia that can be traced back to the Spring and Autumn Period
(771-476BC) established the basic attributes of Xia that is a crucial element of the Xia figure in
later genre/media/narratives. So the first part of this thesis will cover the major Xia attributes and
figures before the Ming dynasty. Many of those elements were drown out by their post-Ming
counterparts until the rise of the third wave of Xia videogames brought them back.

(1) From Wandering to Powerful, the Transformation of Attributes of Xia
In the era of the Spring and Autumn period, the concept of Xia appeared in works of thinkers
of other schools as an object of criticism. Students of Zhuang Zhou, a representative philosopher
of the Taoist school, argued they wield “sword of the common man,” and they are “no different
from fighting cocks” and “of no use in the affair of the state.”
6
Han Fei, the most well-known
thinker of the Legalist school, first applied the term of Xia and defined it, yet as a legalist who
value the authority of law and the state, he criticized them even harsher. What made Xia intolerable
for Legalists like him, is the fact that they put their aims of justice over the authority of law. He
called Xia one of the “five vermin of the state” as they usually gathered their companions and

6
Zhuang Zhou. Zhuang Zi. Translated by Fang Yong. Beijing: Zhong Hua Shu Ju, 2011.

11

abused their martial skills to violate the law of the state or even assassinate prominent officials.
Moreover, it was hard for the state to arrest them since they tended to wander around rather than
reside in certain places.
7

Though no actual examples were given by Zhuang Zhou and Han Fei, it is clear that the image
of Xia in this era was distinct from what that of modern or even Ming and Qing dynasties, for Xia
is not a conclusive and static idea.
The first piece that offered a relatively positive and detailed definition and specific examples
of Xia in history is Shi Ji 史记, written by Sima Qian in the Han dynasty. At the beginning of the
chapter of biographies of wandering Xia 游侠列传, Sima Qian says:
As for the wandering Xia, though their actions may not conform to perfect righteousness, yet
they are always true to their word. What they undertake they invariably fulfil; what they have
promised they invariably carry out. Without thinking of themselves they hasten to the side of
those who are in trouble, whether it means survival or destruction, life or death. Yet they never
boast of their accomplishments but rather consider it a disgrace to brag of what they have done
for others. So there is much about them which is worthy of admiration.
8

Later in the same text, Sima Qian listed Zhu Jia and Guo Xie as embodiments of the two sides
of the spirit of wandering Xia ( 游侠) and powerful Xia ( 豪侠). Wandering Xia tended to travel
around the country to help every endangered people they see. For instance, Zhu Jia’s stories were

7
Han Fei. Han Fei Zi. Translated by Chen Bingcai. Beijing: Zhong Hua Shu Ju, 2007.
8
Sima Qian, Records of the Grand Historian of China, vol. 2, 2 vols (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1971), 410.
12

mostly about how he saved people from poverty and danger. Consequently, he and his relatives
could only afford the most basic necessities of their daily lives.
On the other hand, powerful Xia are described as settling down in a certain region and use
violence and prestige to control this region. Their local influence was often significant enough to
help them built connections with local authorities. While Zhu Jia represented the benign side of
wandering Xia, Guo Xie resembled the formidable images of powerful Xia that were condemned
by Han Fei, as most of the stories of him involved murders. In his early years, Guo was a vindictive
figure who tended to be easily offended and enraged. Consequently, Guo had a lot of blood on his
hands. When he became more mature, he became a less fierce person who would return good for
evil and mediate feuds between notable houses. His complicated personalities won him wide
respect and a significant amount of followers.
9
The complexity of Xia attributes that embodied on
him was resonated in late videogame representations like The Scroll of Taiwu.
Though Guo’s behaviors in his adulthood were seen as key characters of wandering Xia by
Sima Qian, many of his followers did not embrace the spirit of wander Xia. Some of them even
became local bullies in the name of Guo. When Guo walked in his hometown, people carefully
made way for him, yet there was a man who sat on the road to block his way and stared him to

9
Sima, Records of the Grand Historian of China, vol 1, 412-14.
13

show his disaffection to Guo. Some vindictive followers of Guo were infuriated by such disrespect,
and they were planning to kill this man. Yet Guo stopped them by saying that instead of blaming
this man for being offensive to him, he should introspect himself, as his virtue and reputation is
not good enough to win the respect of one of his countrymen.
10

Nevertheless, Guo could not regulate everything his followers did and stop them before it was
too late. In 127 BCE, the imperial court of Han ordered all wealthy houses to move to Maoling, a
town close to the capital of the empire, in order to contain their influences. Though the wealth of
Guo’s house was not enough to get in the list, his house was still on the list of forced migration, as
a local official feared him and his followers and wanted to seize this chance to get rid of him once
and for all. Guo’s vindictive followers found out the official who responsible for this, beheaded
him, and murdered his father as well. Followers of Guo even killed the official’s messenger who
tried to report the crime of them to the Han court outside of the imperial palace. Such blatant
atrocities inevitably caught the attention of the emperor. He sent an envoy to investigate Guo and
his followers. During the investigation, a Confucian scholar was murdered right after he
condemned Guo in front of his followers and the royal envoy. A minister argued that as a commoner,
Guo “has taken the authority of the government into his own hands” and killing people according

10
Ibid, 414-15.
14

to the will of him and his followers; though Guo himself did not even know the follower who
committed those crimes, the very existence of his influence and the consequences it would cause
posed a threat to the authority of the Han court. As a result, Guo and his whole family were
sentenced to death.
11

As its name suggests, wandering Xia supposed to travel around and help people in need. Yet
as Sima Qian pointed out, their attributes as Xia were replaced by a powerful ( 豪) Xia slowly but
surely, and the mass started to perceive wandering Xia and powerful Xia as equals. Sima
considered powerful Xia as figures who “band together in cliques and powerful family groups,
pooling their wealth and making the poor serve them, arrogantly and cruelly oppressing the weak
and helpless, giving free to rein to their own desires and treating people any way they please.” The
life of Guo was a good example of the decline of wandering Xia and the rise of powerful Xia.
Despite Guo having spent his early years in wandering, he settled down in his adulthood to exert
his influence around where he lived and attracted many followers. They spared or murdered who
disrespected Guo and beheaded the official who forced them to move, for their regional influences
were vital to their existence as powerful Xia. Though Guo himself may identify himself as a

11
Ibid, 415-17.
15

wandering Xia who was helping people in his late years, his followers who were loosely organized
around him behaved more like those of powerful Xia rather than their wandering counterparts.
12

Another reason for powerful Xia earned their names was their connections with the authorities,
and the authorities were proud to use powerful Xia as models to shape their political or social
identities. In other words, Xia were highly respected in the Han dynasty, and the authorities were
gladly to build connections with powerful Xia or even act like one of them.
The founders of Han were coming from lower classes that deeply influenced by Xia cultures.
13

Even after they conquered the entire empire, many ministers and nobles still behaved like common
men on the imperial court. They were drunk, wrangling and shouting about their contributions,
some even drawing out their swords and hacking at pillars of the palace.
14
Consequently, those
ministers and royals brought the attributes of Xia along with other attributes of common men into
the ruling class. So, many ministers were proud of having Xia friends and served as umbrellas for
their friends to protect them from the punishments of their wrongdoings. When Guo Xie and his
family were forced to migrate, Wei Qing, one of the most successful generals in the Han dynasty,
stood out in front of the emperor to defend Guo, for his family was not wealthy enough to migrate.
Yet the emperor refuted Wei’s proposal by saying that Guo was wealthy enough; otherwise, general

12
Ibid, 411-12.
13
Ban Gu, Han Shu 汉书 [The Book of Han], vol. 12, 12 vols. (Beijing: Zhong Hua Shu Ju, 1962), 4246.
14
Sima, Records of the Grand Historian of China, vol 1, 293.
16

Wei would not speak for him.
15
It is obvious that the emperor was sarcastic and dissatisfied, yet
the fact that Wei still took the risk and defended Guo in front of his emperor indicated how close
their relationship was.
16

In many cases, members of the royal house of Han tried to behave like powerful Xia and
recruit followers to achieve their political agendas, and that became another significant factor in
transforming wandering Xia to powerful Xia. In order to avoid the threat of royal relatives while
preserving their social status, emperors of Han dynasties apportioned fractions of their lands to
them. Though such a policy diffused the power of royal kings into their small pieces of land, it
also allowed to adopt the pattern of powerful Xia and exert their power in an alternative way. When
prohibited from expanding their influence outside of their realms, wandering Xia, who worshipped
people like Zhu Jia and Guo Xie as their role models and traveled around the empire, became a
vital source for them to recruit more talents. Thus, many kings mimicked famous Xia and used
their resources, or even subjects in their realm to encourage wandering Xia to stay in their realms
and serve them. For instance, Liu An, the king of Huai Nan, prohibited commoner girls from
marrying by the will of them or their family. Instead, they use those girls as gifts to please

15
Ibid, 416.
16
Chen Shan 陈山, Zhong Guo Wu Xia Shi 中国武侠史 [History of Chinese Wuxia] (Shanghai: Shang
Hai San Lian Shu Dian, 1992), 64.
17

wandering Xia.
17
After wandering Xia married local girls, they would typically stay with their
family and serve the king of Huai Nan out of gratitude.
It goes without saying that those recruited Xia would be used by local officials or kings not
only as private armies, but agents to carry out tasks that their masters could not accomplish through
legal methods, such as assassination or threat. Liu Wu, the king of Liang, was once a candidate to
replace Liu Rong, his nephew, who lost his status as the crown prince. However, the emperor chose
another crown prince due to the opposition of ministers led by Yuan Ang. Liu Wu then ordered the
wandering Xia he recruited to assassinate Yuan Ang, and other ministers who dissuaded the
emperor from chose Liu Wu as the crown prince.
18
Consequently, the Han court was shocked by
the death of over ten prominent ministers, and the emperor stripped Liu Wu of his power in the
royal court. After the assassination, such a pattern was widely adopted throughout the remainder
of the Han dynasty. Even in the last years of the Han dynasty, attempts to assassinate well-known
ministers like Kong Rong and Cai Yong were still common as a result of political struggles. Thus,
ministers feared the threat of assassins and swordsmen as much as they feared the “unpredictable
punishment” from the emperor and did not dare to speak out their minds.
19

17
Ban Gu, Han Shu, 1668.
18
Sima, Records of the Grand Historian of China, vol 1, 444-46.
19
Fan Ye, Hou Han Shu 后汉书 [Book of the Later Han] (Beijing: Zhong Hua Shu Ju, 1965), 2531.
18

It is clear that from the Spring and Autumn era to the Han dynasty, the Xia figures become
established in these historical texts as powerful figures who dared to violate the dominant
government authority and use violence to pursue their potentially righteous aims. By doing so,
they were perceived as evil bullies by pre-Han scholars like Zhuang Zhou and Han Fei and became
role models for many elites in the Han dynasty. Overall, Xia figures were considered as good
heroes who use violence or reputations to help those ignored or abused by the government/elite,
and such attributes were inherited by later representations.

(2) Martial and Divine: Two Major Fighting Prowess of Xia:
The dynasties of Tang and Song were considered as milestones for the development of Xia
figures by multiple experts. The first and most obvious reason for this is that the first martial ( 武)
Xia novel was written during the Tang dynasty, according to notable Xia novelists like Jin Yong.
20

Secondly, the idea that Xia tends to rely on their physical strength to achieve their goals became
fixed during Tang and Song dynasties.
21

20
Jin, Yong, and Feng, Qiyong, Ping Dian Ben Jin Yong Wu Xia Quan Ji 评点本金庸武侠全集 [The
Complete Collections of Jin Yong’s Works on Wuxia with Comments], vol. 27, 36 vols. (Beijing: Wen
Hua Yi Shu Chu Ban She, 1999), 656.
21
Chen Pingyuan, The Development of Chinese Martial Arts Fiction (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2016), 41-45.
19

The capabilities of weapons and martial arts of Xia were intentionally left unmentioned in
most of historical records or fictions before the Tang Dynasties. In the biographies of assassins in
Shiji, Sima Qian recorded Jing Ke, the assassin who tried to kill the first emperor of Qin to repay
the kindness of a prince whose kingdom was destroyed by Qin. Sima spent many paragraphs to
describe his inadequate sword skills and his weapon, the sharpest dagger of the world with a deadly
poison that can kill anyone with a tiny scratch.
22
Yet in the biographies of wandering Xia, Sima
Qian recorded almost no details about their personal strength in comparison with what he did in
the biographies of assassins. It is worth notice that Xia and assassins were overlapped to a certain
degree, and one way Sima used to distinguish them is the means for them to succeed. Sima believed
that personal strengths are the primary virtue of assassins, and Xia should rely on their personalities
and reputations to achieve their goals.
Yet during Tang and Song dynasties, such impression of the means of Xia is altered. In the
Tang dynasty, Niu Su recorded the story of Wu Baoan. Wu was a fellow countryman of Guo
Zhongxiang, a newly promoted official in the border troops against barbarians in Yao Zhou, later
called Yunnan province. Wu heard about the promotion of Guo and sent a letter to Guo to ask him
to help his fellow countryman by offering Wu a position in the army. Though Guo never met or

22
Sima Qian 司马迁, Shi Ji 史记[Records of the Grand Historian of China], (Beijing: Zhong Hua Shu Ju,
1959), 2533.
20

heard about Wu, he still did Wu a favor. When Wu was on his way to the border, Guo’s army was
defeated by barbarians, and Guo got captured. The tradition of those barbarians was to let their
prisoners send letters to their friends and relatives to ask for an extremely high amount of ransom.
So, Guo wrote a letter to Wu to ask him to contact Guo’s uncle Guo Yuanzhen, a prominent minister
of the royal court, to pay the ransom. Nevertheless, when Wu took Guo’s letter to the capital city,
Guo’s uncle had already passed away. Hence the only hope to save Guo was in Wu’s hand. To
repay the favor of Guo, Wu decided to sell all of his properties to pay the ransom of someone he
had never met.
Years later, Guo became a senior official when Wu and his wife passed away. To repay Wu’s
favor, Guo also sold all his property to hold a luxury burial for Wu and his wife. Sima Qian would
probably classify this story as a tale of Xia, for Wu and Guo’s spirits of helping people in need by
giving up their own properties were also shared by Zhu Jia. Nevertheless, the author of Tai Ping
Guang Ji, a book published in the Song dynasty that contained stories that happened in Tang and
Song dynasties, put the story of Wu Baoan in the chapters of “Spirit of loyalty and self-sacrifice
( 气义)” instead of the chapters of Xia.
23
In contrast, most protagonists of stories in the chapters of
Xia possess some sort of martial skills or supernatural powers, and the author went into great detail

23
Li Fang 李昉 et al, Tai Ping Guang Ji 太平广记 [Extensive Records of the Taiping Era], vol. 4, 10
vols. (Beijing: Zhong Hua Shu Ju, 1961), 1214-17.
21

to describe their fighting prowess. The classification of Tai Ping Guang Ji served as an excellent
example of the change of major attribute of Xia in the mind of people in Tang and Song dynasties.
One of the most significant reasons for the change of focus of Xia is the change in the form
of media as well as audiences. As art theorists like Clement Greenberg stated, “the nature of the
medium of each art decided its unique and proper area of competence.”
24
Before novels became a
proper form of art in China, most of the stories of Xia were recorded in official histories that
approved by royal courts or books on Confucianism. The nature of those books determined that
the main function of them was jiaohua 教化, which is a term widely used in dynastical China and
could be roughly translated as educating subjects with good (normally Confucianist) principles.
The nature of media that was recording Xia stories changed dramatically during Tang and
Song dynasties. In the early Tang dynasty, the cities with relatively more advanced industries and
commerce started to develop. With the concentration of money and goods in cities, came the
concentration of population in cities and the rise of the society of a new citizen class.
25
Those
citizens were in the middle and lower classes in cities, and unlike the elites, they tended to unable
to afford the money to make friends with Xia or become Xia themselves. Yet they were still

24
Clement Greenberg, “Modernist Painting,” in The New Art: A Critical Anthology (New York: E.P.
Dutton, 1973), 66-77.
25
Dong Guodong, Zhong Guo Ren Kou Shi 中国人口史 [History of Chinese Population], vol. 2, 6 vols
(Shanghai: Fu Dan Da Xue Chu Ban She, 2002), 286.
22

influenced by the culture of Xia that was popular among elites in the same city. Catering to their
needs to participate in the Xia culture at an affordable price, novels featuring stories of Xia started
to emerge.
26

It is worth notice that Xia novels in Tang and Song dynasties were not necessarily printed as
books and sell to citizens, for the printing industries were not advanced enough to make paper
books cheap enough for the citizen class. Also, though the literacy rate of urban people was higher
than their rural counterparts, a significant share of them were still unable to read. So a widely-used
way to present Xia novels to audiences in Tang and Song dynasty was Shuohua Yishu (oral
storytelling). Performers of talk ort usually stand on stage and tell stories to their audiences.
Though oral storytelling is normally based on books or written scripts, the way stories performed
in oral storytelling was quite distinct from the written one. First, readers were able to read their
books as their wish in terms of when to read it and how long they wanted to read, but performers
of oral storytelling could not keep all their audiences listening when the show last too long. So
they had to segment the whole story into several parts and use cliffhangers to make sure their
audiences want to follow up the rest of their show. In addition, their income is directly determined
by the number of their audiences as well as how much they were fascinated by the story. Therefore,

26
Chen Shan, Zhong Guo Wu Xia Shi,121-30.
23

unlike pre-Tang intellectuals who recorded Xia stories with educative purposes, attracting the
attention of audiences or potential audiences and entertaining them was the fundamental purpose
of oral storytelling performer who told tales of Xia since the Tang dynasty.
27

The way oral storytelling performers relied on to attract audiences was not simply translating
written Chinese into its oral counterpart that was more understandable to the listenership of oral
storytellings. In fact, they have added many elements that would be appreciated by their
listenership, such as romances, punishing bullies (especially those who tended to bully their
audiences!), and the most important, the incredible personal strengths of Xia.
28
BB notes end here
The perception of oral storytelling performers about the personal strength of Xia did not come
from pure imagination, despite the fact that they tended to have no experience or knowledge of
martial arts. Like oral storytelling performers, there were a significant amount of acrobats and
martial artists who perform their skills in front of urban residents to make their livings. Those
martial artists were well-known in the cities they lived in. They even served as a brigade for
Emperor Xuanzong of Tang in the coup against Empress Wei in 710 CE. Therefore, the show of

27
Wang Hailin, Zhong Guo Wu Xia Xiao Shuo Shi Lve 中国武侠小说史略 [Brief History of Chinese
Martial Art Novels] (Taiyuan: Bei Yue Wen Yi Chu Ban She, 1988), 19-25, 48-54.
28
Ibid.
24

acrobats and martial artists became a major source of inspiration for the personal strength of Xia
to oral storytelling performers as well as novelists.
2930

Nevertheless, martial arts alone could not satisfy the needs of all oral storytelling performers
and novelists to emphasize the personal strength of Xia. Though martial arts could help Xia to
achieve their goals, they were still in the realm of mortals. In the Tang dynasty, Buddhist monks
were allowed to Sujiang(俗讲), which is preaching in a popular and entertaining way in their
temples to appeal to potential followers. Scholars like Wang Hailin considered it as a major rival
of oral storytellings, and oral storytelling performers tend to weaken the advantage of their rivals
by learning from Sujiang about how to use mysticism to attract listeners. Gong Pengcheng believes
that oral storytelling performers and Xia novelists who embrace mysticism also inspired by the
skills practiced by Tartars came from western regions of China as well as their exotic
mysteriousness as foreigner/barbarians.
3132

The complicated factors mentioned above led to the beginning of the divergence of martial
( 武) Xia and divine ( 仙) Xia as two major ways to describe the power of Xia. The primary
difference between wandering Xia and powerful Xia is what they ought to achieve, and what

29
Ibid, 15-18.
30
Chen Shan, Zhong Guo Wu Xia Shi, 159-165.
31
Wang Hailin, Zhong Guo Wu Xia Xiao Shuo Shi Lve, 49,50.
32
Gong Pengcheng 龚鹏程, Da Xia 大侠 [Great Xia], (Taipei: Jin Guan Chu Ban She, 1987), Chapter 7.
25

distinct divine Xia from martial Xia is the power that allows them to become Xia. Liang Yusheng,
one of the most prominent novelists of martial Xia, once said, “martial arts are the bodies of the
spirits of Xia. Namely, martial arts are means for Xia to practice their principles”.
33
Though this
statement was made as a comment to compare the martial Xia fiction written by him and his peer
Jin Yong, it could also be applied to the genre of divine Xia fiction. As its name suggested, martial
Xia were those who relied upon their martial arts skills to become Xia in both real and fictional
worlds. The records and fictions about them may contain some minor exaggerations, but after all,
they were still considered as mortals with excellent martial arts skills. However, the fictions about
divine Xia usually involve certain degrees of mysticism. They tended to be described as deities or
half-defied people who possess supernatural powers. They usually claim themselves as
reincarnations or pupils of deities and sent by the heaven to save mortals from suffering. They
could make elixirs to heal people, produce food out of nowhere, and use their divine spells or
weapons to punish corrupted officials or banish haunting ghosts. Though the influence of divine
Xia fictions was far less significant than their martial counterparts, their legacies still inspired
many religious secret societies, Yuan Yang Hu Die school in the late-Qing and ROC period, Jin
Yong and his peers, and the second-wave Xia videogames.

33
Tong Shuo Zhi (Liang Yusheng), “Jin Yong Liang Yusheng He Lun,” 金庸梁羽生合论 [A Joint
Discussion of Jin Yong and Liang Yusheng] Hai Guang Wen Yi, January 1966.
26

Most of Xia stories in Tang and Song dynasties intentionally put fiction stories in a historical
context. Taking the story of Wu Baoan as an example, though this story was recorded by the New
Book of Tang, a history book that endorsed by the royal court of the Northern Song, its authenticity
was questioned by many scholars. They pointed out that the name of Wu Baoan, Guo Yuanzhen,
and even the generals who commanded the war against barbarians have never mentioned by any
other historical records. Even Zi Zhi Tong Jian, another officially endorsed history book that
detailed all sizes of war and battles in the Tang dynasty, did not cover this major warfare against
barbarians, let alone the names of Wu, Guo, and generals. The only person mentioned in the story
of Guo whose identity could be confirmed by other historical records was Guo Yuanzhen, a well-
known minister in his era. However, Guo Yuanzhen himself was only mentioned as the uncle of a
protagonist and never appeared in person. According to Lia Ruihe, this is a technique that widely
used in Tang and Song Xia stories to set the actual stage for a fictional story to make it more
convincing. This technique was so successful to a level that even officially endorsed history New
Book of Tang considered the story of Wu Baoan as an authentic story rather than a novel about
Xia.
34

34
Lai Ruihe, “Xiao Shuo De Zheng Shi Hua, Yi Xin Tang Shu Wu Bao An Zhuan Wei Li,” 小说的正史
化—— 以《新唐书· 吴保安传》为例 [The Official-historicization of Novels—— Taking the Chapter of
Wu Baoan in the New Book of Tang as An Example] Tang Shi Lun Cong 唐史论丛[Collected Essays of
Tang History] 2009 (2009): 343–55.
27

Chapter II: Challenges Against Xia Culture and Its Responses Since the
Ming Dynasty
(1): Gongan Stories: Cooperation Under Urban Power Centralization
As mentioned above, the development of Xia figures and attributes during Tang and Song
dynasties heavily relied upon on the rise of urban entertainment such as oral storytelling. Though
the growth speed of the urban population in the Ming dynasty was lower than their rural
counterparts, urban entertainment developed dramatically.
35
The urban entertainment in the Ming
and Qing dynasty, however, was not only shaped by the growing urban population but the
censorship from officials as well. The needs of audiences and officials converged together and
formed Gongan novels as a new genre in this late imperial era. In Gongan novels, Xia figures have
a central role, but their relationship to the state is no longer as clearly oppositional or free from the
control of state/officials as it was in genres in other eras.
Xia stories before the Ming dynasty tended to glorify Xia, who use their martial or divine
skills to achieve their justice with little respect to the laws and the authorities. Xia, as heroic models,
were meant to protect the weak from the strong, especially the strong who abuse their powers to
bully the weak. The audiences of Xia stories tended to be the weak when they confront the

35
Cao Shuji, Zhong Guo Ren Kou Shi, vol. 4, 6 vols. (Shanghai: Fu Dan Da Xue Chu Ban She, 2002),
460, .
28

authorities or people who empathize with the weak. Consequently, corrupt officials, no matter how
powerful they were, were threatened, kidnapped, or even murdered by Xia in many stories popular
with urban audiences.
36

The content and influence of such a rebellious culture could not be abided by the Ming and
Qing’s royal courts, which with more centralized power. As Hu Shiying argues, the oral storytelling
in the Song dynasty still had characteristics of folk arts, but since the Ming dynasty, oral
storytelling was controlled and occupied by the ruling class, as most of the oral artists and their
audiences were live in urban regions where easier for the imperial state to take hegemonic control.
This process was finished in the Qing dynasty, and the will of the ruling class could twist the nature
of oral storytelling.
37
The situation of written Xia stories was even worse. In the Qing dynasty, the
censorship against literati was more brutal than ever before. Any use of words that were trying to
offend or even believed to be sarcastic against Qing rulers would make writers risk their lives.
38

Even novels with romantic or violent elements, such as Outlaws of the Marsh (水浒传) and
Romance of the Western Chamber ( 西厢记) that were written only to entertain people were also
prohibited from being published multiple times during the Qing dynasty, for the authorities

36
Wang Hailin, Zhong Guo Wu Xia Xiao Shuo Shi Lve, 23.
37
Hu Shiying, Hua Ben Xiao Shuo Gai Lun 话本小说概论 [Introduction to Huaben Stories], vol. 2, 2
vols. (Beijing: Shang Wu Yin Shu Guan, 2011), 454-64, 774-75.
38
Liu Yizheng, Zhong Guo Wen Hua Shi 中国文化史 [A Cultural History of China], vol. 2, 2 vols.
(Shanghai: Shang Hai Gu Ji Chu Ban She, 2001), 809-14.
29

believed that those novels would encourage people to violate the law and deviate from being
morally good.
39

The literal meaning of the term “Gongan” is desks used by officials, and it was used to describe
crime cases that were hard to solve. These two meanings of the term precisely represented the
content of the genre of Gongan novels. These usually start with crime cases or potential rebellions
that are too difficult for normal officials to manage, and the arrival of the protagonist an honest,
loyal, and capable official who joins the investigation and solves the case, often using unorthodox
methods with the help of Xia lieutenants as necessary. Though the genre of Gongan novels was
already established in Song and Yuan dynasties, their focus was on crime investigations, the
integrity of honest officials, and how they punish their corrupted peers.
40
It was after the Ming
dynasty that the Gongan novels converged with Xia novels, with the role played by Xia lieutenants
became increasingly significant to a level that in San Xia Wu Yi ( 三侠五义), one of the most
successful Gongan novels, the role of officials and their crime investigations became peripheral.
41

39
Chen Weixing, “Ming Qing Shi Qi Shui Hu Zhuan Jin Hui Qing Kuang Kao Lun” 明清时期《水浒
传》禁毁情况考论 [A Research on the Banning of Outlaws of the Marsh in Ming and Qing Dynasties]
(Di Si Jie Zhong Guo Gu Ji Shu Zi Hua Guo Ji Xue Shu Yan Tao Hui, Beijing: Shou Du Shi Fan Da Xue
Dian Zi Wen Xian Yan Jiu Suo, 2013),
http://61.181.120.82:8081/kcms/detail/detail.aspx?filename=GXWH201308001002&dbcode=IPFD&dbn
ame=IPFD2015.
40
Hu Shiying, Hua Ben Xiao Shuo Gai Lun, 838-41.
41
Chen Shan, Zhong Guo Wu Xia Shi, 262-63.
30

In its sequel, Qi Xia Wu Yi ( 七侠五义), the author even removed all plot elements that not under
the influence of Xia characters and actions.
42

It is fair to say that the confluence of pre-Ming Gongan novels and Xia novels resulted from
the coercive political pressure and censorship. That is to say, the main reason for Xia novelists to
set Xia protagonists as lieutenants of loyal and honest officials and set anti-emperor rebels as
antagonists was to justify Xia genres to policymakers and show their loyalty to the royal court.
43

One of the best examples of this show of loyalty is Huang Tianba, a Xia protagonist in a well-
known novel called Shi Gong An ( 施公案). Huang tries to save his peers who have been captured
by well-respected official Shi Shilun by assassinating him. Nevertheless, when Huang confronts
Shi, he was impressed by Shi’s virtue and decided to take the seal that marks Shi’s authority instead.
When Shi sets a trap to capture Huang, he decides to spare him, and Huang was grateful and sworn
his loyalty to Shi. To emphasize his new status as a loyal servant, Huang even changed his surname
to Shi and given name to Zhong ( 忠), which means loyalty in Chinese. In the later chapters of the
book, Huang helps Shi to solve cases by arresting criminals with martial skills, and even defends
Shi against his own sworn outlaw brothers.
44

42
Ibid.
43
Chen Pingyuan, The Development of Chinese Martial Arts Fiction, 59-64.
44
Shi Gong An 施公案 [Cases of Judge Shi] (Taibei: Guo Li Tai Wan Shi Fan Da Xue Chu Ban Zhong
Xin, 2012), http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25393.
31

The sworn brother system was always portrayed as a vital kind of bond for most figures of
Xia or with Xia elements before and during the Ming and Qing dynasties. For instance, in the late
Han and Three Kingdoms era (184CE-280CE), Liu Bei, a well-known wandering Xia and warlord,
were very close to his two companions Guan Yu and Zhang Fei, but they were not sworn as brothers
in history. Their brotherhood was constructed in tales created by oral storytellers and novelists. In
a blossoming peach garden, they swear their Xia-alike oath to be brothers even their surnames are
different. Though they were not born on the same day, they wish to die on the same day to serve
their common purpose that “save the troubled and to aid the endangered, to avenge the nation
above, and pacify the citizenry below.” Though they have endured tremendous difficulties when
achieving the goals in their oath, their brotherhood was never severed. Moreover, in many tales
about them, the last and one of the most critical military failures of Liu was interpreted as a result
of Liu’s wrath and irrational attempt to avenge his brothers at all costs.
45

Under that context, betraying, let alone murdering sworn brothers, was almost a taboo to
figures in Xia tales. However, authors of Gongan novels claimed that figures like Huang served
the great good by siding with the royal court and honest officials instead of their sworn brothers.
By creating unorthodox Xia figures like Huang who prioritizes their loyalty to a perfect official

45
Luo Guanzhong, San Guo Yan Yi 三国演义 [Romance of the Three Kingdoms] (Beijing: Ren Min Wen
Xue Chu Ban She, 2005), 5.
32

over their bonds with sworn outlaw brothers, Gongan novels protected their works and themselves
from censorships and political persecution, and most of their Gongan Xia literature survived
censorship in Ming and Qing dynasties and were handed down to this day while many novels of
other genres failed to do so.
46
Moreover, Gongan stories were welcomed by their audiences. Shi
Gong An was reprinted numerous times, and people in that era claimed that “nobody doesn’t know
Huang Tianba and Shi Gong An.”
47

Heroic Xia figures were generally supposed to stand with the weak and protect them from the
strong, especially those who abuse their powers. Therefore Gongan authors set their stories under
the time when notable clean officials like Bao Zheng, Hai Rui, and Shi Shilun lived so that their
Xia characters could be allied with incorruptible officials doing battle against systemic corruption.
By helping these perfect officials, these Xia heroes are also helping the commoners. So the usage
of those perfect officials as protagonists not only popularized this new Gongan genre but made the
alliances between Xia and officials more easily accepted by their audiences as well.
48

(2) Nationalist and Escapist Novels in the Twentieth Century

46
Cao Zhengwen, Zhong Guo Xia Wen Hua Shi 中国侠文化史 [A History of the Culture of Chinese Xia]
(Shanghai: Shang Hai Wen Yi Chu Ban She, 1994), 64-66.
47
Feng Lihua, “Qing Dai Gong An Xia Yi Xiao Shuo Jie Shou Xin Lun,” 清代公案侠义小说接受新论
[A New Theory of the Acceptance of Gong An Xia Yi Novels In the Qing Dynasty] Tian Fu Xin Lun
2011, no. 2 (2011): 144–47.
48
Hu Shiying, Hua Ben Xiao Shuo Gai Lun, 848-72.
33

Just as how urban population and officials in the Ming and Qing dynasties shaped Gongan Xia
novels, the two major kinds of genres of Xia novels in the late Qing and ROC periods also inspired
by the mentality of urban audiences and elites and their perception toward contemporary events.
The fighting prowess of Xia was questioned since western firearms were introduced into
China, especially after the failure of Boxers, an martial arts organization influenced by figures in
Xia tales. So the Xia novelists in that era used nationalists and escapists genres as two major
methods to justify the fighting prowess of their figures to their audiences. An excellent example
of the nationalist novels is Jin Dai Xia Yi Ying Xiong Zhuan. In this book, the author portrayed two
main protagonists, Wang Wu and Huo Yuanjia, based on real martial artists with the same names
and exaggerated their achievements. Those two, just like typical protagonists of Xia stories,
possess extraordinary martial skills that can make them defeat any foreign or domestic martial
artists. In line with the nationalistic concerns of the day, these characters helped Boxers to fight
against western armies and challenged foreign martial artists who called Chinese people as “Sick
man of East Asia.” However, the two protagonists are both killed by the products of western
science. Wang was overwhelmed by German soldiers and killed by their firearms, and Huo was
killed by an insidious Japanese doctor with modern poison. By telling the tales of Guo and Wang,
34

the author claimed that the fighting prowess of Xia figures and their martial arts are not inferior to
western firearms in order to keep their audiences interested in Xia tales.
49

On the other hand, the escapist novelists chose to inherit and develop figures and attributes
mentioned in divine Xia tales since the Tang dynasty and form a new style of novel Xia figures.
Unlike their nationalist counterparts, escapist novelists tended to avoid direct confrontation
between their divine Xia figures and firearms. They portrayed imagined utopias in remote
mountains to their readers where uncontaminated by “severe atrocities” in the outside world and
full of opportunities for people to be much more powerful than both martial Xia and people with
modern firearms.
50
Taking a well-known novel Shu Shan Jian Xia Zhuan as an example, the main
characters of it still using swords as their primary weapons. Nevertheless, unlike martial Xia, who
use swords to chop, impale, and slash their enemies, they use divine power to control their swords
so they can fly on it or command it to strike their enemies from miles away. Also, the end of
material form no longer means the end of a character. In Shu Shan Jian Xia Zhuan, the advanced
level of martial arts could transform characters into demigods whose souls could live and
reincarnate after the destruction of their bodies.
51

49
Xiang Kairan, Jin Dai Xia Yi Ying Xiong Zhuan 近代侠义英雄传[Modern Heroic Xia Stories] (Guilin:
Li Jiang Chu Ban She, 2013).
50
Wang Hailin, Zhong Guo Wu Xia Xiao Shuo Shi Lve, 146-64.
51
Li Shoumin, Shu Shan Jian Xia Zhuan 蜀山剑侠传 [Sword Xia in Mountains of Sichuan] (Xian: ,
2017).
35

In the mid-twentieth century, many novelists inherited and combined the escapist and
nationalist patterns and figures to create their own novels. Since the 1950s, novelists like Jin Yong
and Gu Long started to publish their works on newspapers and magazines in Hong Kong and
Taiwan. Those patterns in their novels were very similar to their nationalists and escapists
predecessors. They also accepted the criticism made by left-wing intellectuals against the escapist
novelists and reformed their styles accordingly. As mentioned above, the new style of divine Xia
created by escapist novelists was criticized for being unrealistic and full of reactionary thoughts.
Just like escapist novels such as Shu Shan Jian Xia Zhuan, most characters in their novels still
use sword and fists to release supernatural power. However, the scale of their power was much
more realistic than Shu Shan Jian Xia Zhuan and other escapist predecessors. For instance, in the
world of Shu Shan Jian Xia Zhuan, users of divine power could become deities and live forever.
Their divine power could help them or their swords to fly across mountains to strike their foe or
blast mountaintops apart. However, in most novels of Jin, Gu, and Liang, top-level martial artists
were just mortals with a limited level of superpower. The best their martial power could do is but
keep them healthy and live slightly longer or release energy from their swords or fists to break the
organs of enemies who are few feet away from them.
52

52
Chen Pingyuan, The Development of Chinese Martial Arts Fiction, 94-95.
36

Also, those novelists redeemed the image of Xia from the criticism about the reactionary
thoughts of Xia novels by reinterpreting their identity of defenders of the weak as defenders of the
working and peasant class and enemy of the reactionary ruling class. As Liang Yusheng says, Xia
were “the personification of virtues of lower-class people,” and Xia novelists should portray them
as “the embodiment of justice, wisdom and strength” who “reveal the corruptions and atrocities of
representing figures of the reactionary ruling class.”
53

The status of Gongan novels as a prevalent genre of Xia stories in the Ming and Qing dynasty
also became a major reason for left-wing critics to oppose Xia novels. The unorthodox alliance
between the authorities and Xia lieutenants was acceptable to audiences who lived under the
context it was created, but not to left-wing critics at all. This essay has discussed how the general
public in the dynastical period worshipped clean officials as an impeccable incarnation of social
justice, but that discourse was not accepted by left-wing critics. Those honest officials, as well as
the royal court that they were loyal to, were considered by them as tools constructed by the “feudal
ruling class” to justify themselves and relieve class struggles. Therefore, the Xia who work with
those officials also became traitors of the mass.
54

53
Feng Lisan, “Yu Xiang Gang Zuo Jia Yi Xi Tan” 与香港作家一夕谈 [A Night Talk With Hong Kong
Writers], Guang Xi Ri Bao, January 3, 1985. quoted in Wang Hailin, Zhong Guo Wu Xia Xiao Shuo Shi
Lve, 187.
54
Hu Shiying, Hua Ben Xiao Shuo Gai Lun, 837-72.
37

Under such a context, the legacies and patterns of Gongan novels were well-known by modern
audiences yet could not be directly inherited by Xia novelists without being controversial.
55
Thus,
Jin Yong and Liang Yusheng came out with their well-known idea, “the greatest Xia should devote
themselves for their country and people,” to adopt the legacies of Gongan novels by combining it
with nationalism. In Gongan novels, Xia tend to willingly cooperate with the authorities because
they were impressed by the reputation of clean officials who could protect the weak from the strong.
While in Jin’s novels, especially his early works, Xia only cooperate with the authority when the
whole country was in danger, especially under the invasion of foreign enemies.
Though most foreign enemies in his book were non-Han barbarians in the dynastic period, the
idea Jin wants to express, however, was not Han-chauvinism that against other ethnic minorities
in China. What the barbarian invasions actually referred to, is the western and Japanese invasion
of China since the mid-nineteenth century. By adopting the techniques of escapists, Jin
reinterpreted the pre-modern barbarian invasions by the discourse of modern nationalism that
constructed on that traumatic experience shared by Jin Yong and almost all other Chinese lived in
the mid-twentieth century, no matter what their ideologies were. In 1923, Jin was born in a wealthy
family that related to many celebrities in the ROC and PRC periods. However, the invasion of the

55
Wang Hailin, Zhong Guo Wu Xia Xiao Shuo Shi Lve, 99-109
38

Japanese army since the 1930s has completely changed his status. The Japanese army burned his
family’s house and properties, and his mother and younger brother were both died during the
warfare because of the lack of medical supplies. In 1943, Jin could not even afford to travel
hundreds of kilometers from Chongqing to Kunming to attend the National Southwestern
Associated University, one of the best Chinese universities in that era.
56

Therefore, though he adopted techniques used by escapists, his attitude toward foreign
invasions was dramatically different. In famous escapists novels like Shu Shan Jian Xia Zhuan and
Liu Hu Xia Yin, the protagonists escaped from the foreign invasion and hid into remote mountains
where they encountered divine Xia and started their adventures. Yet Jin, whose life was ruined by
the Japanese invaders, chose to let his protagonists lead other Xia to stand up and fight to defend
their nation from barbarians.
57

His approval of modern nationalism over the pre-modern loyalty to the royal court, which
appeared in most of Gongan novels, was reflected in most of his works. In Shu Jian En Chou Lu,
his very first book, the Xia protagonist had a debate with the antagonist, a Qing emperor who is

56
Liu Yizhong, Jin Yong De Zhong Guo Guan:Shu Jian En Chou Lu Yu Tian Long Ba Bu De Wen Ben Bi
Jiao Yan Jiu 金庸的中国观：书剑恩仇录与天龙八部的文本比较研究 [Jin Yong’s View of China: A
Comparative Research on Text between The Book and the Sword and Eight Legions] (Taibei: Guo Li Tai
Wan Da Xue Zheng Zhi Xue Xi Zhong Guo Da Lu Ji Liang An Guan Xi Jiao Xue Yu Yan Jiu Zhong Xin,
2015), 22, 47-52.
57
Zheng Zhengheng, Jin Yong: Cong Xiang Gang Dao Shi Jie 金庸：从香港到世界 [Jin Yong: From
Hong Kong to the World] (Hong Kong: San Lian Shu Dian, 2016), 286-97.
39

actually the son of a Han minister, over the content of loyalty. The emperor believed the pre-
modern idea of loyalty, which is that all subjects should be loyal to their emperor. Yet the Xia
protagonist, who represented modern nationalism, argued that loyalty to the emperor is in
secondary importance in comparison with loyalty toward one’s family and nationality. As a result,
the emperor could not refute the protagonist’s argument and suffer from anxiety sweating, as he
realized that his Han father was kneeling to himself every single day, which was considered as a
taboo by the most of pre-modern Chinese.
This debate is not the only evidence of how Jin inherit the pattern of cooperation between Xia
and the authorities from Gongan novels while reinterpreting it with nationalism. Authors of
Gongan novels frequently used the name of well-respected officials and worshipped their
capability and impeccable morality to portray them as equal or superior figures than Xia. However,
Jin tends to portray the allies who work for the royal court as weak and puny characters who can
hardly offer any help to Xia protagonists. For instance, Lv Wende, as many officials mentioned by
Gongan novels, was a prominent general in history. Though he was criticized for corruption, his
reputation as a capable general was well-known.
58
Yet in She Diao Ying Xiong Zhuan, one of the
most famous boos of Jin Yong, Lv was portrayed as an incompetent and narrow-minded bureaucrat

58
Li Zengbo, Ke Zhai Za Gao Xu Gao [Sequel of Manuscript written in the Room of Ke] (n.p.:
Unpublished manuscript), accessed March 19, 2020,
https://ctext.org/wiki.pl?if=gb&chapter=385053&remap=gb.
40

who was constantly hindering the plans of Xia protagonists. The only reason for Xia protagonists
to work with him was that they had to use his authority to command soldiers to defend the city of
Xiangyang from the Mongolian army.
59

59
Jin, Yong, and Feng, Qiyong, Ping Dian Ben Jin Yong Wu Xia Quan Ji, vol.9-12, 36vols.
41

Chapter III: Videogames: An Inheritor and Innovator in Xia genres
Jin, Gu, and Liang’s reinterpretation toward legacies of Xia novels precisely catered to the
needs and expectations of their contemporary audience while avoiding most controversies and
criticisms against previous Xia novels. As a result, their novels, especially Jin’s, became the most
well-known and well-respected pieces of literature in Hong Kong and Taiwan. A noticeable
opinion that initiated a debate in the literati of Hong Kong was that everything in Hong Kong was
mediocre, except Jin Yong (The word “Yong” means mediocre in Chinese).
60

Meanwhile, the space left for Xia novels in mainland China kept narrowing. Xia novels as a
whole were always considered as a totally reactionary genre by the communists. Since the 1960s,
especially during the Cultural Revolution, reading or evening possessing Xia novels, or even most
novels with Xia elements, could lead to social rejection or even public persecution. Even during
the first years of the period of reform and open up, Xia novels were still not considered as a
wholesome genre by the older generation.
61
Despite their opposition, Jin and his peers’ novels, as
the most well-known and well-developed genre of novels in Taiwan and Hong Kong, quickly
surged into mainland China where Xia novels had fallen into a stagnant state for decades, occupied
its promising market, and fascinated its younger generation.

60
Ibid, 17.
61
Wang Hailin, Zhong Guo Wu Xia Xiao Shuo Shi Lve, 180.
42

(1) : Film Adaptations of Xia Novels: A Late-starter, A Participant, but Not A Dominator
The movies of Xia is indeed a big and complex field of study and not the focus of this thesis.
Instead, this section will examine those following aspects of Xia movies that related to Xia
videogames. Firstly, Xia movies served as examples of how Jin’s generation’s success in
literature does not necessarily be applied in other fields, just like how first wave Xia videogames
were replaced by the second wave. Secondly, Xia movies are also examples of how a new form
of media started by adapting famous works of existing media. The pattern of how movies
adapting escapist/nationalist novels and Jin’s generation’s books could also be found in the first
wave of videogames. Finally, Xia movies influenced the first-wave Xia videogames along with
Jin’s generation’s novels. Though they were not as successful as Jin’s novels, Xia movies, as I
will mention in chapter III, actually contributed more to the first wave Xia videogames than
novels did. It was because it was a medium that was more recent and vivid in providing visual
and audio information about Xia figures.
The popularity of Jin and his peers’ novels in the existing Hong Kong and Taiwan market, as
well as expanding the mainland market, set the stage for producers to make and audiences to
consume the adaptations of their works in other forms of media. From 1958 to 2018, at least 61
43

film adaptions of Jin’s works were produced, and many Jin’s audiences were attended movie
theaters to watch their familiar stories.
62

Nevertheless, the film adaptations of Jin’s works were never the mainstream of the movie
market in Hong Kong and Taiwan in terms of both quantity and quality. From 1970 to 1977, 548
Xia movies were made in Taiwan alone, and they made up 42 percent of Taiwanese movies in
these years.
63
In contrast, only four film adaptations of Jin’s novels were released in either Hong
Kong or Taiwan from 1970 to 1977. One of the most common ways to measure the quality of
movies is the voice of critics. The critics, however, tended to not view film adaptations of Jin and
his peers’ novels as the best Xia movies. During the fourth and fifth Hong Kong International Film
Festival, experts of Xia movies were gathered to nominate the best Xia movies from 1949 to 1980.
They came up with a list of that consisted of 30 costume Xia movies and 28 Kungfu Xia movies
with relatively modern contexts, yet only two of them were adaptations of Jin’s novels, and one of
them was an adaptation of Liang’s novel. The mass audience also tended to not view the
adaptations of Jin and his peers’ novels as the best Xia movies. The Jin film adaptation with the

62
Xu Xingyang, “Jin Yong Xiao Shuo Gai Bian Wei Dian Ying Pian Mu Kao” 金庸小说改编为电影篇目
考 [Examine the Film Adaptations of Jin Yong’s Novels], Dian Ying Wen Xue, no. 6 (2013): 84–86.
63
Ibid; Chen Feibao, Tai Wan Dian Ying Shi Hua 台湾电影史话 [A History of Taiwanese Movies]
Beijing: Zhong Guo Dian Ying Chu Ban She, 1988), 233-34.
44

highest box office was Lu Ding Ji, but it only took 40 million Hong Kong dollars and ranked the
third in 1992, the year it was released.
64

The main reason for the apparent gap of significance between Jin and his peers’ works in the
field of Xia novels and their film adaptations in the field of Xia movies was that they were
newcomers to a well-established industry that studied from escapist and nationalist novels for
decades. Although the identity of the first Xia movie in China is debatable, yet all of the possible
candidates were movies produced in the early 1920s. In the early stage of the new field of Xia
movies, most directors were only mimicking foreign counterparts, studying domestic operas, and
adapting pre-existed works of other forms.
65
Many prominent Xia movies in the 1920s and 1930s
were adaptations of pre-modern Xia novels like Outlaws of the Marsh and San Xia Wu Yi. Some
of them also followed the trend by adapting popular novels written by their contemporaries, such
as Xiang Kairan, the author of Jin Dai Xia Yi Ying Xiong Zhuan.
66
In 1928, Huo Shao Hong Lian
Si [Burning the Red Lotus Temple], a film adaptation of Xiang’s divine Xia book, broke the box
office sales of all genres of domestic movies. This movie was so successful to a level where its
production company planned to make 35 sequels, and 17 of them were made until 1931. Inspired

64
“1992 Xiang Gang Piao Fang,” 中国票房 [Boxofficecn], 2015,
http://www.boxofficecn.com/hkboxoffice1992.
65
Ibid, 6-11, Jia Leilei, Zhong Guo Wu Xia Dian Ying Shi 中国武侠电影史 [A History of Chinese
Martial Xia Movies] (Beijing: Wen Hua Yi Shu Chu Ban She, 2005), 41-44.
66
Chen Mo, Zhong Guo Wu Xia Dian Ying Shi, 23-31, 43-45.
45

by Huo Shao Hong Lian Si, many directors made their own Xia movies and even named them with
the combination of “Huo Shao” and a location that resembled Red Lotus Temple. From 1929 to
1931, over 250 Xia movies were made by 50 film studios in Shanghai, and they accounted for
more than 60 percent of movie production of the total movies those studios made.
67

Its popularity, however, also brought them critiques from the left-wing intellectuals as well as
the state of ROC. Though many of Xiang Kairan’s works such as Jin Dai Xia Yi Ying Xiong Zhuan
were nationalist Xia novels, the original novel was a divine Xia story with obvious escapist
tendency. Its movie adaptation successfully filmed typical escapist Xia scenarios of “divine Xia
riding on his/her sword to fly” with limited materials and techniques. Those scenes looked too
realistic for many Chinese in the 1920s and 1930s who had little knowledge about photography.
Consequently, many teenagers perceived those scenes as real and ran away from home to
search divine Xia in remote mountains. Under the worrisome context where the Japanese were
invading Manchuria and CCP were infiltrating ROC-controlled regions, increasing cases like that
would aggravate the social disorder. Therefore, the state finally banned this series as well as other
Xia movies in 1931, and the movies and novels that caused such kind of social problems heated
up the criticisms against pre-modern superstitions and feudal thoughts in Xia stories as a whole

67
Jia Leilei, Zhong Guo Wu Xia Dian Ying Shi, 50.
46

that mentioned above.
68
Yet, on the other hand, these movies exhibited the importance of special
effects and film editing to portray the fighting prowess of Xia figures, and it also inspired future
Xia movies to further develop and adopt those techniques.
One of the most famous movies inspired by nationalist Xia novels was the Huang Feihong
series. In 1949, a director named Hu Peng made a movie based on Chen Jin’s Xia novels about
Huang Feihong. Just like Huo Yuanjia and Wang Wu, Huang was also a real historical figure and
a well-known martial artist. By using the same pattern Xiang used to portray Huo and Wang, Chen
and Hu also exaggerated Huang’s story in their novels and films to romanticize him. Under the
nationalist narrative, Huang was portrayed as an embodiment of dignity and virtues of Xia and the
Chinese nation in the modern days where Chinese martial arts and the Chinese nation were facing
unprecedented pressure brought by foreign powers. Secondly, unlike escapist movies that relied
on special effects to present divine Xia’s supernatural powers, Huang Feihong and other movies
inspired by nationalist Xia novels hired experienced martial artists as consultants and actors to
attract audiences. Those elements inherited from nationalist novels, as well as Huang’s Cantonese
identity, helped the Huang Feihong movies achieved success in the filmdom of Hong Kong without
receiving as much criticism as their escapist counterparts. As a result, movies of Huang’s stories

68
Ibid, 59-61, 65; Chen Mo, Zhong Guo Wu Xia Dian Ying Shi, 45-53. For details about
nationalist/escapist Xia novels and critics against Xia stories, see pg.48.
47

became a popular genre in the market of Xia movies. From 1949 to 1980, Hu Peng singlehandedly
directed 58 Huang Feihong movies, and other directors contributed 50 movies to this genre.
69

In other words, nationalists and escapists Xia stories, as a well-established form of art in the
early twentieth century, deeply influenced Xia movies since its early years, and many storytellings
and performing patterns used in Xia movies before the 1980s were derived from escapist and
nationalist novels in the early twentieth century. People in the field of Xia movies spent decades
to adapt and internalize those patterns to make them suit the context movies. Their progress
gradually created a well-established industry that could sustain itself by pre-existing escapist and
nationalist patterns without relying on the newfangled patterns created by Jin, Gu, and Liang in
their novels.
Movies, as a new form of media, provided a unique perspective to reconfigure Xia figures that
once appeared in original novels. The techniques and patterns, such as special effects, film editing,
and action directors, tend to emphasize the vividness and details of physical appearance and
fighting prowess of Xia figures. The nature of movies as media and those techniques, Xia movies
provided accessible visual examples for designers of first wave Xia videogames. So, inspired by

69
Chen Mo, Zhong Guo Wu Xia Dian Ying Shi, 101-3.
48

those representations, first wave Xia videogames like Xiao Ao Jiang Hu was mimicking the visual
and action representations in Xia movies.
(2): Videogame, A Late-Starter of the Mainland Entertainment Market
Before analyzing the first wave of Xia videogames, it is necessary to introduce the background
that directly affected the designing strategies of the first wave Xia videogames as well as the
development of Chinese videogames after the first wave. First and foremost, the existing
popularity and fandoms of movies and novels were vital to the rising videogame market, so the
first wave Xia videogames were designed as interactive adaptations of Xia movies and novels.
Also, the negative perception of videogames shared by the Chinese public made Personal
Computers (PC) instead of gaming consoles as the dominant platform for Xia videogame designers
to publish their videogames. In comparison to console, PC was a more open and accessible
platform for both designers and players of Xia videogames. Unlike consoles, PC game designers
could publish games without the permission of platform holders. The openness of PC set the stage
for the third wave Xia videogames made by independent designers to thrive.
In 1991, mainland Chinese finally developed their first game console, a combination of the
Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) and Personal Computers (PC), with the launch price
roughly equal to 50 US dollars. Yet unlike most of the consoles that marketed themselves as game
49

devices, this console was called the Little Overlord (Xiaobawang) Learning machine since 1993,
and none of its gaming capabilities were displayed in the advertisements that the company spent a
tremendous amount of money to make.
70

Figure 1: Jackie Chan’s Picture Advertisement of Little Overlord
71

The protagonist of the advertisements was played by Jackie Chan, one of the most prominent
movie stars. The rest of the actors in the advertisement were all children, including the son of

70
“Pin Pai Da Shi Ji 品牌大事记 [The Timeline of the Brand],” Company website, Xiaobawang, 2017,
http://www.subor.com.cn/about.asp?id=50&Str=%E5%93%81%E7%89%8C%E5%A4%A7%E4%BA%8
B%E8%AE%B0.
71
The Chinese Letters in the picture (from top to bottom) are: Little Overlord, Chinese and English
Bilingual Learning Machine SB-926, Highly recommend “Cognitive Code (CC)” study software, CC start
guide, CC (English) phrase practice, CC (typing) speed practive, CC (English) word practive, CC general
practice, CC (English) crossword puzzles, highly recommended by the Computer Eduction Research
Center of Chinese Elementary and Middle Schools.
50

Jackie Chan himself.
72
This console itself was an embodiment of the overall context of the Chinese
videogame market.
Above all, the fact that no domestic game console was developed in the first 15 years after the
CCP opened the mainland entertainment market indicated that in comparison with novels, movies,
and other forms of arts/entertainment, videogames were late starters in China, especially the
mainland. This fundamental fact dragged the first wave of Xia videogames from the starting line,
and they had to adapt or even mimic pre-existing Xia novels and movies as late starters.
This fact was caused by or related to other contexts of the Chinese entertainment market that
also embodied in the Xiaobawang console. First things first, it is harder for the general public in
China to accept videogames than novels and movies as a proper form of art. The Cultural
Revolution and other censoring policies conducted by both PRC and ROC during the 1950s to
1970s served as devastating blows to entertainments in China. Nevertheless, the decades and
centuries of the existence of movies and novels as proper entertainments prior to those political
movements set the stage for them to be reintroduced and reaccepted. The videogames, however,
was not even existed before the start of the Cultural Revolution. Though non-video games also
existed for centuries in pre-modern China, the Confucian traditions tended to consider them as a

72
Tian Cheng Nai Nai, “Xiao Ba Wang Xue Xi Ji Guang Gao 小霸王学习机广告 [Advertisements of
Little Overlord Learning Machine],” Video site, Bilibili, March 30, 2016,
https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1Ks411z7GQ?p=1.
51

distraction from study or even a sort of moral deterioration.
73
The Chinese public opinion toward
games in the 1980s was just like the final sentence of San Zi Jing, one of the most widely used
classic texts to teach young children: “Diligence (to study) has its reward, but games have no
advantages.”
74

In other words, Chinese parents tend to consider an expensive learning machine as a worthy
investment of their children’s education, but a game console with the same price would face stiff
opposition from them. Consequently, the company of Little overlord applied an advertising
strategy to convince those parents to buy this device for their children. Two years after its first
release, the Little Overlord game console changed its name to the Little Overlord learning machine.
All of the Little Overlord advertisements that participated by Jackie Chan were focusing on how
the Little Overlord, as a learning machine, could help children to study and live up to their parents’
expectations. And the real use of it as a game console was never mentioned in those advertisements,
the only time the word “game” was mentioned was the introduction of an English puzzle game
software.

73
Sara Liao, “Japanese Console Games Popularization in China: Governance, Copycats, and Gamers,”
Games and Culture 11, no. 3 (2016): 275–97.
74
Wang Yinglin, Xin Yi San Zi Jing 新译三字经 [Newly Translated Three Character Classic], trans.
Huang Peirong (Taibei: San Min Shu Ju, 1992).
52

Another important fact is the cost of playing games. In the 1980s, the world videogame market
was monopolized by the western and Japanese companies. Their gaming devices, such as consoles,
computers, and software, were hardly affordable for mainland Chinese in the 1980s. In 1985, the
NES was released in the US market with a launch price of 199 US dollars.
75
In the same year, the
average household income was 397.6 RMB (about 130 US dollars) in rural regions of mainland
China and 748.9 (250 US dollars) in urban regions.
76
To most mainland Chinese in the 1980s, it
was unimaginable for them to spend about the whole year of their income to purchase a videogame
console without game ROM cartridges, each costing dozens of dollars. To make things worse, the
bias of policymakers and the older generation they represented made them built a high tariff wall
against foreign videogame companies. Consequently, the state further raised the cost for mainland
Chinese to access foreign videogames by imposing a 130% tariff and 17% of value-added tax on
imported consoles and other gaming devices.
77
Even in 1993, the cost of NES in China was 800

75
Colin Moriarty, “The Real Cost of Gaming: Inflation, Time, and Purchasing Power,” IGN, October 15,
2013, https://www.ign.com/articles/2013/10/15/the-real-cost-of-gaming-inflation-time-and-purchasing-
power.
76
National Bureau of Statistics of China, “Nian Du Shu Ju 年度数据 [Annual Data]” National Data,
1985, http://data.stats.gov.cn/easyquery.htm?cn=C01&zb=A0A07&sj=1985; Ibid,
http://data.stats.gov.cn/easyquery.htm?cn=C01&zb=A0A07&sj=1985.
77
Sara Liao, “Japanese Console Games Popularization in China: Governance, Copycats, and Gamers.”
53

RMB (about 150 US dollars) even though semi-legal approaches, while Little Overlord, the
copycat of NES, only cost one-third of its price.
78

Last but not least, most universities and other educational institutions in the mainland were
hardly able to communicate with their peers in the west or even shut down during the Cultural
Revolution. In other words, they were unable to follow up on the latest trend in the west, such as
computer technologies and game design theories or experience. Therefore, the mainland Chinese
intellectuals were recovering themselves and were unprepared to make their own Xia videogames
in the 1980s. Even the Little Overlord, the self-proclaimed first game console of China, was only
a copycat of NES with limited compatibility with PC, in terms of its hardware designs and most
game software.
79
Hong Kong and Taiwan, on the other hand, had better capabilities to build a
videogame industry. Nevertheless, due to the factors mentioned above, videogames were much
harder than novels and movies to penetrate the newly opened mainland market, and the market of
Hong Kong and Taiwan were much less promising than their mainland counterpart. For this reason,
videogames were much less attractive for talents and investments.

78
Du Mou, “Xiao Ba Wang 30 Nian Bian Xing Ji: Shan Zhai Qi Jia, Bai Gei Zi Ji,” 小霸王 30 年变形
记：山寨起家，败给自己 [The Transformation of Little Overlord in 30 Years: Succeed in Copycat,
Lose to Itself] Sina Forums, May 19, 2019, https://tech.sina.com.cn/csj/2019-05-19/doc-
ihvhiews2957240.shtml.
79
Ibid.
54

As a result, although the mainland entertainment market was opened by Deng Xiaoping’s open
and reform policies, videogames faced critical obstacles and failed to seize the market in the 1980s.
Meanwhile, Hong Kong and Taiwan novels and movies, especially those of the Xia genre,
successfully filled the entertainment vacuum created by the Cultural Revolution and dominated
this market. Thanks to the first-move advantage, when the first wave of Xia videogames, as well
as the whole Chinese videogame industry, started to rise, novels and movies already became an
established and pre-existing industry of entertainment with enormous influence and fandom. To
companies in the videogame industry in the early 1990s, the pre-existing fandom and influence of
novels and movies were critical for them to advertise their products. For this reason, even the net
profit of Little Overlord was only 8 million RMB (roughly 1.5 million US dollars) in 1992, they
were still willing to spend a big share of it to invite Jackie Chan to endorse their products.
80

(3): The First Wave of Xia Videogames: Interactive Adaptations of Jin, Gu, and Liang
Since the early 1990s, those obstacles for videogames to enter the mainland market were
relieved by the rise of PC, and the mainland became more prepared for the rise of the first wave of
Xia videogames in the platform of PC. One of the most important reason is the rise of games on

80
Ibid.
55

personal computers. The release of affordable and powerful processors such as Intel 80386, 80486,
and Pentium explored the potential of PC as a gaming device. Those processors and other hardware
tremendously improved the graphic of PC games, and led PC games and console games “came
together on a collision course.”
81
In 1990, the combination of all PC platforms had penetrated 23%
of American households and just 7% behind the penetration of NES, one of the most successful
game consoles at that time.
82
Yet unlike game consoles like NES, PC was not designed and sold
as a device dedicated to interactive entertainment. The vice president of IBM once publicly
claimed that “people buy game machines to play games and but PC to bring work to home.”
83
In
South Korea, a neighboring Confucianist country where diligence on studies was praised and
games were condemned, PC was also advertised as a learning machine instead of a game console.
84

Therefore, PC was not categorized by Chinese customs as game consoles that suffered from 130%
of tariffs.
Those reasons also facilitated the leadership of PRC to show a more benign attitude to PC
than consoles. Back in 1984, Deng Xiaoping had called that “the popularization of computer

81
“Fusion, Transfusion or Confusion: Future Directions in Computer Entertainment,” Computer Gaming
World, 1990 December, 26.
82
Ibid, 28.
83
Ibid.
84
Inkyu Kang, “It All Started with a Bang: The Role of PC Bangs in South Korea’s Cybercultures,” in
The Korean Popular Culture Reader (Durham: Duke University Press, 2014), 55-75.
56

technologies should start with children.”
85
In response to Deng’s endorsement of PC as something
beyond a game device, the high tariff against foreign PC was dramatically lowered since 1990,
and the general public also had less bias against PC than game consoles.
86
The use of Little
Overlord as only a study machine only existed in its advertisements, but in reality, it was still used
and perceived by most of its users as a game console.
87
Unlike the Little Overlord, PC was widely
used and perceived as office equipment and study devices in educational institutions, and such
tangible facts convinced more and more parents that PC could be really used as a learning machine.
Also, a lot of educational software was made to serve these functions. That kind of software not
only taught knowledge in other fields but computer science as well.
88
The boost of this kind of
software and other forms of computer education allowed more and more Chinese to access or even
participate in the design of the first wave Xia videogames that based on PC platforms.
It is important to bear in mind that PC as a platform had a profound influence on the
development of three waves of Chinese Xia videogames. In comparison with other platforms in

85
Lv Li, “30 Nian Dian Nao San Ci Da Fei Yue,” 30 年电脑三次大飞跃 [Three Major Leaps of
Computer in 30 Years] Hua Xi Du Shi Bao, November 18, 2008,
http://news.ifeng.com/special/30yearsit/200811/1118_5053_883865.shtml.
86
Ibid.
87
Du Mou, “Xiao Ba Wang 30 Nian Bian Xing Ji: Shan Zhai Qi Jia, Bai Gei Zi Ji.”
88
FD, “Huai Jiu: 90 Nian Dai De Dian Nao Ru Men Jiao Xue Ruan Jian Hong En Kai Tian Pi Di Zeng
Qiang Ban Bu Fen Nei Rong Yan Shi,” 【怀旧】90 年代的电脑入门教学软件【洪恩开天辟地增强
版】部分内容演示 [Nostalgia: Displaying A Part of Content of Hong En Kai Tian Pi Di,A Computer
Educational Software in the 1990s] Video site, Bilibili, March 30, 2016,
https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1Ks411z7GQ?p=1.
57

the early 1990s, PC was more friendly to both Xia game designers and players. Firstly, unlike
arcades and consoles, the platform of PC does not belong to a single company, and they did not
have to be responsible for copyright infringement, offensive or sensitive contents, and other
problems in games on their platform. Thus, first wave Xia game designers could have more options
in adapting movies and novels. Secondly, it was much easier to pirate games on PC than arcade
and consoles. In the era in which videogames were distributed by disks instead of internet
downloads, pirate disks made first and second waves of Xia videogames more accessible for
players in terms of both lowering the price and increase the number of copies. In addition, unlike
consoles and arcades, Xia game designers could publish games on PC without the permission of
platform holders. So, it lowered the cost of starting companies, especially independent game
designers of third-wave Xia videogames, to publish their games and compete with established
second wave companies.
Though the rise of PC set the stage to popularize videogames in the Chinese entertainment
market in the early 1990s, the consumers in both mainland, Hong Kong, and Taiwan market were
preoccupied with novels and movies from Hong Kong and Taiwan, especially those of Xia genres.
Thus, to videogame producers in Hong Kong and Taiwan, following the trend and adapting
familiar genres in both Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the mainland was a good strategy for them.
58

Just as Xia movies started from mimicking nationalist and escapist Xia novels, a full-fledged
form of art at that time, Xia videogames also followed a similar path when they took their first
step. Many producers of the earliest Xia videogames chose to adapt the well-known works of Jin,
Gu, and Liang to attract potential customers who had less knowledge about interactive
entertainment than novels or movies.
In 1993, Soft-World technology, a Taiwanese IT company, released Xiao Ao Jiang Hu, the first
interactive adaptation of Jin’s novels.
89
The gameplay and storytelling of this game accurately
represented the lack of game designing experience of Soft-World and its marketing strategy. The
size of the game was over 20 Megabyte (MB), which was significantly larger than its contemporary
PC videogames. The game files of the MS-DOS version of Mortal Kombat II and DOOM, two of
the most prominent PC videogames in 1993 with relatively advanced graphics, were only 8.92 and
9.98 MB. However, the large size of the game file was not used to improve the quality of its
gameplay and graphic. The graphic of Xiao Ao Jiang Hu, as was shown in figure 2, was visibly
worse than Mortal Kombat II and DOOM. In comparison to those in the other two games, its

89
“Li Shi Shi Ji,” 历史事纪 [The Timeline of the Brand] Company website, Soft World, 2019,
http://www.soft-world.com/About/History?EKind=1.
59

characters and environmental materials of Xiao Ao Jiang Hu was highly repetitive and lacking
details.
90

In Mortal Kombat II and DOOM, the UIs were aesthetically well-designed to suit the context
of the game and clear enough to provide any information that was necessary for players to know.
The UI Xiao Ao Jiang Hu, on the other hand, failed to serve those functions. The only two sections
of UI of Xiao Ao Jiang Hu were shown in the figure. The first one is the combat UI. The red bar
in the top right corner indicates the health of the enemy who currently attacked by the protagonist,
and the red and blue bar represents the health and spirit/mana of the protagonist. The second
section is non-combat UI, which only includes the inventory. The content of the inventory UI
contains only a dull gray rectangle with icons and names of items.
91

90
Ed Boon, Mortal Kombat II, MS-DOS, English Mortal Kombat (Midway, 1993),
https://gamesnostalgia.com/game/mortal-kombat-ii; John Carmack, John Romero, and Dave Taylor,
DOOM, MS-DOS, English, Doom (id Software, 1993), https://gamesnostalgia.com/game/doom; Xiao Ao
Jiang Hu 笑傲江湖 [The Smiling, Proud Wanderer], MS-DOS, Chinese (Taibei: Soft-World, 1993).
91
Ibid.
60

Figure 2: Mortal Kombat II (left), DOOM (right), and Xiao Ao Jiang Hu (bottom)
The quality of the gameplay of Xiao Ao Jiang Hu as interactive entertainment was also not the
focus of its designers. In Mortal Kombat II and DOOM, there were various kinds of maps and
items to offer players positive feedback and novelty. Yet that was not the case in Xiao Ao Jiang
Hu. The only two kinds of maps were forest and stone rooms, and the only two kinds of items were
potions and books. Despite their diverse names, the only function served by potions was recovering
the protagonist’s health and mana. The total amount of books in the game was three, two martial
arts guides that unlocked new moves, and a music score that changed the theme of the game.
61

Though it was designed as an Action Role Playing Game (ARPG), the maximum health, mana,
attack, and other attributes of the protagonist were constant and could not be improved as in other
RPG or ARPGs. Yet the challenges caused by enemies were soaring with the advance of the main
story. In other words, the more time players spend in this game, the more likely they would feel
frustrated and quit the game. For those reasons, Youyanshe, a well-known Chinese game media,
gave the quality of its gameplay a zero.
92

Though its quality as a videogame was inadequate, this game was successful in adapting its
original novels and movies that were eminent in the Chinese market. Even Jin’s movies, as
mentioned above, were not as popular as his novels, the game still adapted more from movies than
novels, for the nature of Xia movies as a medium could offer more vivid Xia figures to game
designers than novels do. Consequently, the plot and character design of this Jin-authorized game
were based on the movie adaptation in 1990 more than novels, as was shown in Figure 3. It was
clear that Zhiguan planned to invoke the image of those characters to attract attention from the
fandom of Xia movies that were familiar with the movie adaptation of Xiao Ao Jiang Hu that was

92
Man Tou Fen Si, “Zhi Guan Ban Xiao Ao Jiang Hu: Zhe You Xi Dong Hua Neng Da 100 Fen, You Xi
Xing Ling Dan,” 智冠版《笑傲江湖》：这游戏动画能打 100 分，游戏性零蛋 [Zhi Guan’s Xiao Ao
Jiang Hu Game: Full Marks on In-Game Cinematic, 0 on Gameplays] You Yan She, December 5, 2016,
https://www.yystv.cn/p/924.
62

Figure 3: Same Characters in Videogames(left) and Movies(right) of Xiao Ao Jiang Hu
made in 1990.
93
Though this game was authorized by Jin as an adaptation of his novels, it was
never authorized by the copyright holder of the movie. In other words, this game was in the gray
area of copyright infringement. In other platforms like consoles and arcades, such design tends to
be self-censored, as the platform holder should be responsible for potential copyright infringement.

93
Ibid.
63

Nevertheless, PC games with such design could be published without obstacles until the copyright
holder of original movies won lawsuits against game companies.
What was more impressive to the fandom of Xia novels and movies about Xiao Ao Jiang Hu
was its in-game cinematics. As mentioned above, Xiao Ao Jiang Hu had an abnormally bigger
game file than its peers with superior quality of graphics and gameplay. Most of its game files, as
well as the resources of developing company, were not spent in graphics nor gameplay but its in-
game cinematics. There were four pieces of cinematics in the game with a total length of three
minutes. Unlike the interactive sections, those cinematic pieces were fully animated and had well-
designed martial arts actions and gorgeous graphics. Moreover, the company of Zhiguan even hired
voice actors for every character in those cinematics. Those approaches Zhiguan used in making
cinematics were learning from the mature film-making process of Xia movies in Hong Kong and
Taiwan.
94
Thus, it was easier for commentators and potential players to recognize the quality and
styles of its cinematics. Even Youyanshe, the media that gave a zero to its gameplay, granted a full
mark to in-game cinematics of Xiao Ao Jiang Hu.
95

94
Xiao Ao Jiang Hu; for the four in-game cinematic, see Lau Alan, “1993 Zhi Guan Xiao Ao Jiang Hu,”
Youtube, 2008, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TJzFlTYrs4,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwlvBtJHfxk, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXuToL4nfdw,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJxTZglXFoQ.
95
Man Tou Fen Si, “Zhi Guan Ban Xiao Ao Jiang Hu: Zhe You Xi Dong Hua Neng Da 100 Fen, You Xi
Xing Ling Dan.”
64

In conclusion, most games made around 1993, such as Mortal Kombat II and DOOM, were
focusing on their graphics and gameplay rather than exquisite in-game cinematic, and many of
them did not have in-game cinematics at all. Nevertheless, Zhiguan made a designing strategy that
was contrary to its peers’ to suit the status quo of the Chinese entertainment market. As shown in
figure 4, the quality of graphics of the same character in the game map, portrait, and cinematics
could offer a glimpse of the priority of the game’s interactive, adapting, and cinematic sections in
the development process of Zhiguan. Unlike Mortal Kombat II and DOOM, Xiao Ao Jiang Hu was
Figure 4: Same Characters in Game Maps(left), Portraits(right), and Cinematic(bottom)
65

not a proper interactive entertainment that aimed to explore the potential of Xia works to become
an interactive Xia world and contribute to a mature videogame industry. Instead, Zhiguan was
mimicking the stories, character designs, and even film-making approaches of most popular novels
and movies in the mainland market. By doing so, Zhiguan successfully attracted the mass fandom
of both Xia novels and movies to play this game and introducing Xia videogames in a market
where was dominated by Xia novels and movies.
Following such designing strategies, Zhiguan and other companies made many other
adaptations of Jin, Gu, and Liang’s works. In those games, the balance between the resources spent
on improving interactive qualities and adapting original works was not as asymmetric as it was in
Xiao Ao Jiang Hu. Yet those games were still relying on the famous IP of Jin, Gu, and Liang to
attract potential players from the fandom of Xia novels and movies, instead of learning from Xia
novels before Jin’s generation until the rise of the second wave of Xia games.
96

(4) The Second Wave Xia Videogames: Success and Stagnant

96
ACG Xiao Xiao Zhi, “Ji Nian Jin Yong Xian Sheng Xian Shi, Zhi Guan Yu Yu Quan Wo Men Wan Jia
Zui Chu De Wu Xia Meng,” 纪念金庸先生仙逝，“智冠” 与“ 昱泉” 我们玩家最初的武侠梦 [In
Memory of Jin Yong: “Zhi Guan” and “Yu Quan”, the First Martial Xia Dream of We Players] Shen Me
Zhi De Mai, November 3, 2018, https://post.smzdm.com/p/ax08w9qw/.
66

In the beginning, the designing strategy of the First Wave Xia Videogames was effective in
terms of introducing interactive entertainment to fans of Xia novels and movies by adapting the
works they familiar with. However, both the number of potential players from novel or movie
fandoms and adaptable novels or movies they familiar with was limited. Consequently, when more
and more interactive adaptations of the works of Jin’s generation were made by Zhiguan and other
companies, those limited resources were soon exhausted by such saturated adaptation. For instance,
Xiao Ao Jiang Hu was adapted four times by Yuquan alone until 2001. Though their graphics and
gameplay were greatly improved than the 1993 version, none of them received as much attention
as their predecessor did.
97

In other words, merely adaptations of works of Jin’s generation were no longer enough to
satisfy the need of the very market it created, and players were expecting game designers to jump
out the patterns of the first wave Xia videogames. Their calls were answered by the new generation
of Xia videogames that represented by the Three Swords, which were Xian Jian Qi Xia Zhuan,
Xuan Yuan Jian II, and Jian Xia Qing Yuan. They were usually addressed together as Three Swords,

97
Ibid.
67

as the most successful second wave Xia videogames, all of them shared the word sword (Jian) in
their titles, and they resemble each other in designing patterns.
98

Before introducing the first transit of waves of Xia videogames, it is worth to keep in mind
that although the development of these three waves follows a chronological order, there was no
clear point of time that separated each wave. In fact, those waves tended to be overlapped with
each other, and the replacement of one wave of another was a gradual process that proceeded
slowly but surely. Which means, the first wave of Xia videogames were still able to preserve a
small amount of fandom even after the second wave of Xia videogames started to decline.
The most significant change between the first wave and the second wave Xia videogames
was their plots shifted from the complete adaptation of works in Jin’s generation to original
stories inspired by various Xia novels from the Tang dynasty to the generation of nationalists and
escapists. Tracing back the lineage of Xia novels, many producers founded escapists and
nationalist Xia novel that inspired the works of Jin’s generation. Unlike the first wave of Xia
videogames, the second wave of Xia videogames did not emphasize the authenticity of original
plots in novels or movies to attract players from other fandoms.

98
Cai Minghong, Xuan Yuan Jian II, MS-DOS, Xuan Yuan Jian (Taiwan: Dayu, 1994); Yao Zhuangxian,
Xian Jian Qi Xia Zhuan, MS-DOS, Xian Jian Qi Xia Zhuan (Taiwan: Dayu, 1995); Xi Shan Ju, Jian Xia
Qing Yuan, MS-DOS, Jian Xia Qing Yuan (Zhuhai: Jin Shan, 1997).
68

Although none of the Three Swords were adapting the whole story of their divine Xia,
escapist, and Gongan predecessors, many elements in those works still used by the game
designers in the Three Swords. For instance, the three protagonists of Xuan Yuan Jian II were
named after characters in Liao Zhai Zhi Yi, a collection of mystic stories written in the Qing
dynasty, and the setting of those characters were based on the original story in Liao Zhai Zhi Yi.
99

In Xian Jian Qi Xia Zhuan, the divine martial arts school that the protagonist attended was called
Shu Shan Pai (The School of Mountains of Sichuan). Its name directly came from the title of Li
Shoumin’s Shu Shan Jian Xia Zhuan, one of the most well-known escapist novels in the ROC
period.
100
Both the main story of Xian Jian Qi Xia Zhuan and Jian Xia Qing Yuan had the
scenarios that protagonists were helping good officials by investigating crime scenes or
assassinate evil officials to serve the common justice of Xia and officials.
101
Though the
cooperation between Xia and officials were temporal and none of those Xia characters swore
their loyalties to officials, it is fair to say that those scenarios were inspired by Shi Gong An and
other Gongan novels in the Ming and Qing dynasty.

99
Pu Songling, Liao Zhai Zhi Yi 聊斋志异 [Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio], vol. 1, 2 vols.
(Shanghai: Shang Hai Gu Ji Chu Ban She, 1979), 67-71; Cai Minghong, Xuan Yuan Jian II.
100
Li Shoumin, Shu Shan Jian Xia Zhuan; Yao Zhuangxian, Xian Jian Qi Xia Zhuan.
101
Yao Zhuangxian, Xian Jian Qi Xia Zhuan; Xi Shan Ju, Jian Xia Qing Yuan.
69

Due to its originality, the main story of Three Swords did not have to follow the pre-existing
story of original novels that almost every player familiar with. For the first time in the history of
Chinese Xia Videogames, the decisions of players could decide the fate of many characters or even
the entire game world. One could say that such kind of interactivity was just an illusion that granted
players the freedom to choose one of many options that preset by game designers. However, to
players who were new to the world of interactive entertainment, it promised them the possibilities
to create interactive Xia worlds according to their will.
The gameplays of Three Swords were also improved in comparison with Xiao Ao Jiang Hu,
yet their game mechanics were analogous. All of them were RPG that consist of map scenes and
combat scenes. In the map scenes, players need to control their characters through a third-person
perspective to go through mazes that contain enemies and treasures to access the next section of
the main story. In Xian Jian Qi Xia Zhuan and Jian Xia Qing Yuan, the enemies in the map were
visible and will start combat once the character was getting close to them. While in Xuan Yuan
Jian II, enemies were invisible, and each step player walk on the map has a chance to encounter
an enemy. When an enemy is encountered, the player will enter the combat scene where playable
characters and enemies need to act based on the rule of turns. In each turn, a character’s amount
of available acts is fixed, yet the sequence for characters to act is based on their dexterity or other
70

attributes. The available commands and UI design in the combat scene in the Three Swords, as
shown in figure 5, were also very similar to each other. -
Figure 5: Map(left) and Combat Scene(right) in the Three Swords
102

102
From top to bottom: Jian Xia Qing Yuan, Xuan Yuan Jian II, and Xian Jian Qi Xia Zhuan. The four
commands in the combat scene were attack, (character) status, items, and skills in Jian Xia Qing Yuan,
attack, skills, items, acts(include defense, flee, and summon monsters to help) in Xuan Yuan Jian II, and
71

The new features in the second wave Xia videogames, such as improved graphics, new game
mechanics, a new genre of stories, and their originality, easily impressed players who had very
little knowledge about Xia stories before Jin’s generation and only played first wave Xia
videogames before.
When the second wave of Xia videogames started to emerge, the Internet was far from widely
used by PRC citizens. By the end of 1997, only less than 300 thousand of PC in China could access
the Internet, and only 24.8% of them intended to get information about general entertainment that
has Xia videogames as a minor fraction of it.
103
At that time, the videogame magazines were still
the major source for players to access information about videogames and PC in general and discuss
them with other players. Among those magazines, Popsoft was a prominent one that known for its
comprehensive coverage of diverse fields, preference on PC games over other platforms, and a
monthly top game list that purely based on the high volume of votes from its readers and had no
restriction on the release time of the games. In the year of 1996 alone, more than 200,000 votes on
the top game list were made by over 30,000 individual readers.
104

attack, skills, collaborate attack, and acts(include defense, flee, items, auto attack, and character status) in
Xian Jian Qi Xia Zhuan.
103
“Zhong Guo Hu Lian Wang Luo Fa Zhan Zhuang Kuang Tong Ji Bao Gao (1997/10)” 中国互联网络
发展状况统计报告(1997/10) [Statistical Report on Internet Development in China] (Beijing: CNNIC,
1997), http://www.cnnic.cn/hlwfzyj/hlwxzbg/hlwtjbg/201206/P020120612485123735661.pdf.
104
Kun, “Yi Jiu Jiu Liu Nian Nian Zhong Bang Ping Ji Shi Er Yue Bang Ping,” 一九九六年年终榜评暨
十二月榜评 [Editor’s Comment on the Top Games of 1996 and December,] Popsoft, 1997, vol 1, 111.
72

In October of 1995, three months after Xian Jian Qi Xia Zhuan was released, it was
recommended by the Popsoft for the first time and appeared on the cover. Before that, readers of
the Popsoft relying on those magazines to access information about games, so most of them have
never heard of Xian Jian Qi Xia Zhuan. Therefore, Xian Jian Qi Xia Zhuan was not even getting
enough vote to made into the top 20 game list of September. On the list of September. Xuan Yuan
Jian II and its sequel got the 7
th
and 4
th
position and two first wave adaptations of Jin’s novel tied
for the rank 14
th
. Yet after many players followed the recommendation of Popsoft and played the
game, the rank of Xian Jian Qi Xia Zhuan soared from unranked to the 5
th
of the top game list in
October. In December 1995, Xian Jian Qi Xia Zhuan seized the top of the list and stayed at the top
positions until the mid-2000s. The rest of the Three Swords also regularly voted as the top 10 of
the list. Even Diablo, Doom II, Warcraft I, Warcraft II, and other world-famous games were unable
to challenge them.
As an editor of Popsoft said, the quality of Xian Jian Qi Xia Zhuan does not deserve the 1
st

rank of the top game list.
105
Its abnormal high popularity was initially caused by the surprise of the
revolutionary change of second wave Xia videogames. Such popularity that represented in the top
game list further encouraged more players to try the Three Swords and join the fandom. This

105
Yu, “Wu Yue Bang Ping,” 五月榜评 [Editor’s Comment on the Top Games of May,] Popsoft, 1997,
vol 6, 80.
73

infectious popularity created a fandom that worshipped them as the best domestic videogames and
kept voting them to keep them on the list. The fandom’s way of voting was keeping the Three
Sword-like videogames on the list while occupying positions of other creative domestic and
foreign games. Such a result was clearly contradicted with the intention of the editors to create this
list. Thus, the attitude of editors toward the place of the Three Swords on the top game list was
also shifted. In January of 1996, editors of Popsoft were celebrating the first time Xian Jian Qi Xia
Zhuan made to the top of the list as a domestic videogame.
106
Yet by November 1997, the very
same group of editors started to hint that Xian Jian Qi Xia Zhuan did not deserve the first place by
criticizing the irrationality of its fans for voting it over new games with significantly superior
qualities.
107

The success and popularity of the Three Swords encouraged other game companies to mimic
their design patterns that were very similar in the first place. As Kun, an editor of Popsoft, said,
the second-wave Xia videogames were “no longer creative” by mimicking the Three Swords, and
they “look just like Xian Jian Qi Xia Zhuan were translated in alternative ways.”
108
The designers

106
Zhong Yishan, “Shi Er Yue Bang Ping,” 十二月榜评 [Editor’s Comment on the Top Games of
December,] Popsoft, 1996, vol 1, 78-80.
107
Xiang, “Shi Yue Bang Ping,” 十月榜评 [Editor’s Comment on the Top Games of October,] Popsoft,
1997, vol 11, 111.
108
Yao Zhuangxian, Xian Jian Qi Xia Zhuan; Xi Shan Ju, Jian Xia Qing Yuan; Cai Minghong, Xuan Yuan
Jian II; Kun, “Shi Yi Yue Bang Ping,” 十一月榜评 [Editor’s Comment on the Top Games of November,]
Popsoft, 1997, vol 12, 111.
74

of the Three Swords were also enjoying the comfort zone created by the irrational support of their
fandom. So, they were avoiding to change the old design patterns in their sequels, for they could
not take the risk of losing the support of their fans. Consequently, the Three Swords made over 20
sequels in total by 2019, and minimal changes in game designs were made in each new sequel.
The fandom in videogame magazines, the major way for players to access videogame
information, not only hindered Xia videogames that tried to jump out the patterns of the Three
Swords to be needed by players, but also impeded those games from being purchased by players.
In contrast to other platforms like arcades and consoles, the developers of PC were hardly
responsible for advertising and distributing games for the platform. However, due to the openness
of PC and its lack of anti-piracy measures, games in PC were easier to be pirated in comparison to
other platforms. Therefore, rampant piracy in China, especially the mainland, helped local players
to purchase game disks at more affordable prices. Until the early 2010s, the dominant way for
mainland players to access videogames was buying disk from local vendors, and a big share of
those disks are cheap pirate copies. Like players, those vendors also relied on the top game list of
Popsoft or other lists based on popular vote to replenish their stock. Thus, the Xia genre of
videogames those vendors could offer tended to be those that got the most coverage on videogame
magazines, which were Three Swords, their sequels, and their imitators. The unequal opportunity
75

for Three Swords-like and non-Three Swords-like videogames to be purchased by players further
precipitated the chances for Three Swords-like videogames to get more votes and occupy better
positions in the top game list, and the result of the top game list would influence the stock of local
game vendors. Such a vicious cycle made the creative startup companies could hardly challenge
the established market of their second-wave predecessors in the field of single-player Xia
videogames. Consequently, the Xia videogames were, as many critics argued, fell into a stagnant
of repeating the successive patterns of the Three Swords until the early 2010s.

(5) The Third Wave Xia Videogames: Diverse in Gameplay and Storytelling
The stagnation of Xia videogames was caused by videogame magazines and local game disk
vendors, and it was ended due to their decline. From 1997 to 2013, the number of Internet users in
PRC took a thousandfold leap from 620 thousand to 618 million.
109
Since 2010, major platforms
for players to discuss videogames were shifted from paper magazines to cyber communities, and
many videogame magazines were discontinued due to the shrink of their readership. In November
2013, Home Computers and Games (Jia Yong Dian Nao Yu You Xi), a videogame magazine that

109
“Zhong Guo Hu Lian Wang Luo Fa Zhan Zhuang Kuang Tong Ji Bao Gao (2014/1)” 中国互联网络发
展状况统计报告(2014/1) [Statistical Report on Internet Development in China] (Beijing: CNNIC, 2014),
http://www.cnnic.cn/hlwfzyj/hlwxzbg/hlwtjbg/201403/P020140305346585959798.pdf; “Zhong Guo Hu
Lian Wang Luo Fa Zhan Zhuang Kuang Tong Ji Bao Gao (1997).”
76

rivaled Popsoft in the 1990s and 2000s, published their last volume.
110
Even Popsoft had to
terminate the employment of most of its staff except ten editors in 2013, and such a radical
approach only prolonged the inevitable for three more years.
111

The disks, as the traditional way to distribute legal or pirate games to players, also became
increasingly less significant for Chinese players. The online game stores like Steam and pirate
game website such as 3DM offered more efficient ways for players to access games and services
that could not be provided by local disk vendors. Firstly, downloading games online was much
convenient for players in comparison with heading to local stores to pick the game disk they want.
Besides that, the approach of replenishing the stock according to the popularity of certain statistics
was critical for disk vendors yet did not apply to online game stores nor pirate game websites.
Thus, games with less popularity would have more chance to be accessed and noticed than the disk
era. Many online game stores and pirate game websites, include Steam and 3DM, also served as
discussion boards for players to exchange their opinions in a faster and more efficient way than
voting for top game lists on videogame magazines that published once or twice per month.

110
Sina Technology, “Guo Nei You Xi Za Zhi Jia Yong Dian Nao Yu You Xi Xuan Bu Ting Kan,” 国内游
戏杂志《家用电脑与游戏》宣布停刊 [Chinese Videogame Magazine Home Computers and Games
Will Discontiune] Sina, November 15, 2013, http://tech.sina.com.cn/it/2013-11-15/14398917552.shtml.
111
Cen Zhou, “Chuang Kan 21 Zai De Da Zhong Ruan Jian Xiu Kan Yi Ben Za Zhi De Zheng Zha Zhi
Lu,” 创刊 21 载的《大众软件》休刊一本杂志的挣扎之路 [21 Years Old Magazine Popsoft Will
Discontiune: A Struggle Road of A Magazine] Sohu, December 27, 2016,
http://media.sohu.com/20161227/n477080672.shtml.
77

Therefore, players’ recommendations of less famous but creative Xia videogames would not be
overwhelmed by votes and articles about Three Swords-like videogames due to limited spaces of
magazines, and they would have higher chances to be listened by other players.
As a result, the new environment for players to exchange their opinions and access to games
set the stage for the third wave Xia videogames to thrive. Those Xia videogames chose not to
comply with the patterns of the Three Swords and other second wave Xia videogames. Yet unlike
their second wave predecessors, neither the gameplays nor storytellings of the third wave Xia
videogames had many common patterns to share. In other words, the diversity of designing
patterns in the third wave was unprecedented. In terms of gameplay, Battle Royale, Roguelike, or
even Incremental mechanics were all applied by designers in their Xia games, and many of them
sold tens of thousands of copies and received positive reviews on Steam.
112
In terms of storytelling,
most third-wave Xia videogames were telling original stories with elements from existed Xia
stories. Yet unlike their second-wave predecessors, many third-wave Xia videogames were taking

112
Battle Royale: a type of game that put multiple players in random positions of a map and let them
cooperate with or kill each other, the last player/group standing will be the victor. For Xia Battle Royale
game, check The Swordsmen X, PC (Shanghai: Cubegame, 2018),
https://store.steampowered.com/app/840140/_The_Swordsmen_X/. Roguelike: a type of game that player
had to start over when died. Yet the maps of roguelike games were randomly generated, so the experience
in each rounds still varies. For Xia Roguelike game, check Bloody Spell, PC (Tianjin: Yi Long You Xi,
2019), https://store.steampowered.com/app/992300/_Bloody_Spell/. Incremental: also known as idle
games. It requires minimum amount of intervention from players. The game progress would advancing
and the resources of players would growing even player is absent. For Xia incremental game, check Lan
Ren Xiu Xian Zhuan, PC (Tuo Geng De Xiu Luo, 2018), https://store.steampowered.com/app/892420/.
78

elements from Xia stories of pre-Tang dynasties where reputation and virtues instead of personal
strength were what a Xia truly needs.
The Scroll of Taiwu was the best example of both applying newer game mechanics and
inheriting older cultural legacies. In comparison with second-wave games with pre-determined
characters and plots and limited areas to explore based on the progress of the main story, The Scroll
of Taiwu created a sandbox that offered players the freedom to customize their characters and
explore the world freely. In The Scroll of Taiwu, the only objective given to the player was to visit
seven demons on the map and challenge them based in a sequence based on the option of players.
Besides that, there was no main story to obligate players about how they should play this game. In
fact, players were free to choose their approaches to improve themselves to defeat those booses.
Besides, the non-player characters (NPC) would interact with each other based on their patterns of
personalities, and the game world would run itself without the intervention of players. There were
some quasi-roguelike elements, such as the bosses and maps of each new game could be different,
and the life of player character will end if he or she was killed. However, unlike many other rogue-
like games, the game world would not be reset, and the progress of the main story, which is
79

defeating seven demons, will be saved. Instead, the player character could reincarnate into the
body of one of his/her companions, and his/her martial skills and knowledge would be inherited.
113

The importance of personalities, virtues, and reputations was emphasized in wandering and
powerful Xia stories before the Tang dynasty and was implemented in The Scroll of Taiwu. In this
game, those factors would dramatically change the game experience of players. When the player
character is created, the player needs to select one personality out of five. Those personalities, from
positive to negative, were principled, merciful, neutral, rebellious, and egotistical. The personality
of players is not fixed, and it could be changed according to the choices made by players in the
game. In the game procedures, the player will frequently make decisions from options that accord
with each personality. As shown in figure 6, options based on different personalities would
significantly change the future development of characters or the game world. Besides, If the
player’s choice is identical to his/her current personality, the mood of the player will increase. If
not, the player’s current personality will make a lesser change toward the personality of the option
he/she made according to the negative/positive spectrum. If the player’s mood is too low, he/she
will lose sanity. When sanity is too low or too many crimes are committed, the player’s personality
will be turned to rebellious or egoism or even possessed by demonic forces and become a non-

113
The Scroll of Taiwu, PC, Chinese (Kunming: ConchShip Games, 2018),
https://store.steampowered.com/app/838350/_The_Scroll_Of_Taiwu/.
80

playable enemy. This means the old player character is considered dead, and a new player character
needs to be selected.
114

The idea of exerting positive influences in local regions and attracting followers was one of
the major approaches for powerful Xia in the Han dynasty to justify themselves. In The Scroll of
Decision
when
Personal
ities of decisions
Refuse the NPC’s request of the
player’s item
Handle the
remaining enemies
of a hideout
Handle a demon-
possessed enemy
you defeated
Principled Scold NPC and let him know he’s
wrong: Reduce player’s relation
with this NPC. If the reputation of
the NPC is negative (rebellious or
egoism), the player will gain
reputation
Let none evil
survive: Local
contribution +1. All
towns in the current
map get +1 security
Scold NPC and
tell them what is
the right thing to
do: Fully restore
NPC’s sanity
Merciful Refuse politely and give NPC other
kinds of help instead: Not change
relations. Increase/decrease player’s
reputation according to the
reputation of NPC
Only forgive those
who repent: All
towns in the current
map get +1 culture
Persuade NPC to
restore his/her
sanity: Increase
your relation with
NPC
Neutral Refuse NPC politely: Reduce little
relation
Civilize them: All
towns in the current
map get +1 security
and culture
Wait until NPC
restore sanity by
him/herself: Reset
the reputation of
NPC to zero
Rebellious Make a fool of him and let NPC feel
ashamed: Reduce a lot of relations.
Increase/decrease reputation in
opposite to NPC’s reputation
Have a party with
remaining enemies:
Get money and
prestige
Confuse NPC
what he/she
should do: The
NPC will stay
there and not leave
Egoism Offer a cost which he could not
afford: Reduce a lot of relations.
Increase/decrease reputation in
opposite to NPC’s reputation
Threaten the rest of
them and let them
serve you: Get a
companion who
will lose 6000
relations with you
in each year
End NPC’s life:
NPC is killed, and
his/her friend will
not seek revenge
Table 1: Examples of How Personalities Influence the Game Experience

114
Ibid.
81

Taiwu, players are encouraged by game mechanics to follow this idea. At the beginning of the
game, the protagonist was told to restore the prosperity of his village. It is because of most of the
activities that can help the player to defeat demons, such as learning material arts, collecting
resources, and crafting equipment and medicines, must be fulfilled in corresponding buildings. In
order to build these buildings, the player must make impress NPCs by his/her personality and
virtues and recruit them as companions. Besides collecting resources to construct buildings, those
companions could also help players in battle by attacking enemies or take damage for players.
Most important of all, those companions, unlike NPCs in many other games, could be turned to
the player character. As mentioned above, the player must pick a successor when the old player
character killed by enemies, die of old age, or lose his/her sanity. Though the successor of the
player character, as mentioned above, would inherit the knowledge and martial skill of the old
player character, the talent, traits, and part of the equipment of the old player character cannot be
inherited. Because it is almost impossible to defeat all seven demons within the lifespan of the first
player character, attracting talented companions is one of the most important things to do for the
sake of benefit in the long run.
115

115
Ibid.
82

Unlike established game companies, the developer team of The Scroll of Taiwu only has five
members and could not afford expensive advertisements. The only advertisement they did was
introduce their game in Steam, 3DM, and other videogame sites. However, under the new
environment of digital distribution of videogames, the combination of its creative game mechanics
and the Xia attributes in pre-Tang dynasties made The Scroll of Taiwu easily caught the attention
of Xia videogame communities. In the first month after it was first released, 600 thousand of its
paid units were sold from Steam.
116
Now it is considered as the most successful third-wave Xia
videogame with the highest amount of sold copies in that genre. Though Simplified Chinese is the
only available language for it, The Scroll of Taiwu still sold for over two million copies.
117
Its
amount of sale that mostly contributed by Chinese players could even rival the total amount of sale
of world-famous games such as Left 4 Dead 2, Devil May Cry V, and even Sekiro: Shadow Die
Twice, the game of the year according to The Game Award 2019.
118

116
Charles Singletary Jr, “Steam Tops 30 Million Domestic Chinese Users, Strengthens Base for Local
Development,” Shacknews, October 22, 2018, https://www.shacknews.com/article/108041/steam-tops-
30-million-domestic-chinese-users-strengthens-base-for-local-development.
117
“The Scroll of Taiwu,” Steamspy, April 30, 2020, https://steamspy.com/app/838350.
118
“Games with Chinese Support,” Steamspy, May 1, 2020, https://steamspy.com/language/Chinese;
“2019 Nominees,” The Game Awards, December 12, 2019, https://thegameawards.com/winners.
83

Conclusion
This thesis has looked at how shifts in media and genre forms across a selective intertextual
history of Xia figures in Chinese history influenced the creation and development of Xia figures
and texts, and then applied these insights to enable a critical interpretation of what I argue are three
stages of development of Xia videogames. It is clear that the gameplay of Xia videogames was
developed from poorly crafted prototypes to Three Swords-like RPGs to the diverse forms in the
third wave. The storytelling, on the other hand, developed from the mere adaptations of most recent
novels and movies to original stories that took elements from multiple kinds of Xia figures and
texts between the Tang dynasty to the ROC period that generally emphasizes fighting prowess. In
the third wave, many games were looking back to the very early stage of Xia attributes, where
reputations, personalities, and virtues were the most important for a Xia. Generally speaking, in
each new wave of Xia videogames, newer game mechanics were applied, and older legacies of
Xia cultures were inherited. Therefore, unlike what many commentators argued, the Xia
videogames were far away from being stagnant and unchanging, except the period where the
market was dominated by Three Swords-like games.
119

119
Si Ma XX, “Wu Xia You Xi De You Sheng Zhi Si” 武侠游戏的由生至死 [From Live to Death of
Martial Xia Videogames], 2005, vol 12A, 130-33.
84

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Asset Metadata

Creator Zhang, Yanchen (author)

Core Title The lineage of figures and attributes of Xia embodied in Chinese Xia videogames

School College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Degree Master of Arts

Degree Program East Asian Area Studies

Publication Date 07/25/2020

Defense Date 07/22/2020

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag Chinese culture,History,Martial arts,OAI-PMH Harvest,video games,videogames,xia

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Bernards, Brian (committee chair), Goldstein, Joshua Lewis (committee member), Watson, Jeff (committee member)

Creator Email yanchen@usc.edu,zyc16292010@gmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c89-344557

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