The novel Forgotten Tales of the Sui (Sui shi yiwen 隋史遺文, 1633) was in fact nearly forgotten in China, because much of its best parts were copied into the better known Romance of the Sui and the Tang (Sui Tang yanyi 隋唐演義, 1695). Those best parts were the adventures of Qin Shubao 秦叔寶. But the earlier novel has a fuller version and that is what is translated here: the coming-of-age tale of Qin Shubao as the scion of a line of righteous generals as he tries to establish himself in a perilous world and, through military prowess, earn the weapons inherited from his famous forebears.

Yuan Yuling 袁于令 (1599–1674) was a Suzhou dramatist and writer whose circle of creative friends included Feng Menglong 馮夢龍 (1574–1646), the editor of three collections of vernacular short stories. As did Qin Shubao, Yuan faced loyalty tests: whether to serve in the administration of the new Manchu Qing regime or to go into retirement. Initially, Yuan held several Qing official positions but retired to roam the lower Yangtze region in his later years, creating a multifarious reputation for himself.

Robert E. Hegel 何谷理 is Liselotte Dieckmann Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature and Professor Emeritus of Chinese at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, where he taught for more than forty years. His primary field was Ming–Qing vernacular fiction, novels in particular, but in recent years he published studies of the narrative structures of archived homicide reports from the Qing and the developing print culture of the lower Yangtze region.