Robert Van Gulik
The Chinese Gold Murders
A Judge Dee Detective Storywith ten plates drawn by the author in Chinese style
PREFACE
THE CHINESE GOLD MURDERS takes us back to the beginning of Judge Dee's career when, thirty-three years of age, he had been appointed to his first post in the provinces, viz. that of magistrate of Peng-lai, a port city on the northeast coast of Shantung Province.
Then the Tang Emperor Kao-tsung (64ß-683) had just succeeded in establishing Chinese suzerainty over the greater part of Korea. According to the chronology of judge Dee Mysteries, Judge Dee arrived in Peng-lai in the summer of A.D. 663. [1] During the successful Chinese Korea campaign in the autumn of the preceding year, when they defeated the combined Korean-Japanese forces, the girl Yü-soo had been carried away as a war slave. Chiao Tai had taken part in the previous campaign of 661 as a captain over hundred.
The reader will find a pictorial map of Peng-lai in the front of the book, and in the Postscript information on the ancient Chinese judicial system, taken over, with a few changes, from the preceding volume of the series, together with an account of the Chinese sources utilized.
ROBERT VAN GULIK
SKETCH MAP OF PENG-LAI
1. Tribunal
2. Temple of Confucius
3. Temple of War God
4. Temple of City God
5. Drum Tower
6. Nine Flowers Orchard
7. Hostel
8. Crab Restaurant
9. Wharf
10. River
11. Korean Quarter
12. Creek
13. Rainbow Bridge
14. White Cloud Temple
15. Flower Boats
16. Watergate
17. Town House Dr. Tsao
18. Yee's house
19. Koo's house
20. Restaurant
ILLUSTRATIONS
The parting of three friends
A sword duel on the highway
Judge Dee inspects the library
A meeting in a flower boat
Koo Meng-pin before the bench
Judge Dee questions an old peasant
A cremation oven in a temple
A girl surprised in a mulberry bush
Judge Dee visits a dying man
A philosopher loses an argument
A map of the district Peng-lai is in the front of the book,
A map of a section of Peng-lai.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
It should be noted that in Chinese the surname-here printed in capitals-precedes the personal name.
Main Characters
DEE Jen-djieh, newly appointed magistrate of Peng-lai, a town district on the northeast coast of Shantung Province. Referred to as "Judge Dee," or "the judge," "the magistrate," etc.
HOONG Liang, Judge Dee's confidential assistant and sergeant of the tribunal. Referred to as "Sergeant Hoong," or "the sergeant."
MA Joong amp; CHIAO Tai, the two trusted assistants of judge Dec.
TANG, senior scribe of the tribunal of Peng-lai.
Persons connected with "The Case of the Murdered Magistrate"
WANG Te-hwa, Magistrate of Peng-lai, found poisoned in his library.
Yü-soo, a Korean prostitute.
YEE Pen, a wealthy shipowner.
PO Kai, his business manager.
Persons connected with "The Case of the Bolting Bride"
KOO Meng-pin, a wealthy shipowner.
Mrs. Koo, née Tsao, his bride.
TSAO Min, her younger brother.
TSAO Ho-hsien, her father, doctor of philosophy.
KIM Sang, Koo Meng-pin's business manager.
Persons connected with "The Case of the Butchered Bully"
FAN Choong, chief clerk of the tribunal of Peng-lai.
WOO, his manservant.
PEI Chiu, his tenant farmer.
PEI Soo-niang, Pei's daughter.
AH Kwang, a vagabond.
Others
HAI-YÜEH, abbot of the White Cloud Temple.
HUI-PEN, prior of that temple.
TZU-HAI, almoner of that temple.
FIRST CHAPTER
Meeting and parting are constant in this inconstant world,
Where joy and sadness alternate like night and day;
Officials come and go, but justice and righteosness remain,
And unchangeable remains forever the imperial way.
THREE men wer silently sipping their wine on the top floor of the Pavilion of Joy and Sadness, overlooking the highway crossing outside the north gate of the imperial capital. Ever since people could remember, this old, three-storied restaurant, built on a pine-clad hillock, had been the traditional place where metropolitan officials were wont to see off their friends leaving for posts in the interior, and where they came again to bid them welcome when, their term of office completed, they returned to the capital. As indicated in the above-quoted poem engraved on its main gate, the pavilion derived its name from this double function.
The sky was overcast, the spring rain was coming down in a dreary drizzle that looked as if it would never cease. Two workmen in the cemetery down at the back of the hillock had sought shelter under an old pine tree, huddling close together.
The three friends had partaken of a simple noon meal; now the time of parting was drawing near. The difficult last moments had come, when one gropes in vain for the right words. All three were about thirty years old. Two wore the brocade caps of junior secretaries; the third, whom they were seeing off, the black cap of a district magistrate.
Secretary Liang put down his wine cup with a determined gesture. He said testily to the young magistrate, "It's the fact that it's so completely unnecessary that irks me most! You had the post of junior secretary in the Metropolitan Court of justice for the asking! Then you would have become a colleague of our friend Hou here, we could have continued our pleasant life together here in the capital, and you-"
Magistrate Dee had been tugging impatiently at his long, coalblack beard. Now he interrupted sharply.
"We have been over this many times already, and I-" He quickly caught himself up and went on with an apologetic smile, "I told you that I am sick and tired of studying criminal caseson paper!"
"There is no need to leave the capital for that," Secretary Liang remarked. "Aren't there enough interesting cases here? What about that secretary of the Board of Finance, Wang Yuan-te his name is, I think, the fellow who murdered his clerk and absconded with thirty gold bars from the Treasury? Our friend's uncle Hou Kwang, secretary-general of the Board, asks the Court every day for news, isn't it, Hou?"
[1] In the year 665 Judge Dee was transferred from Peng-lai to Hanyuan, and thence in 658 to Poo-yang in Kiangsu Province. In 670 he was appointed to the magistracy of Lan-fang, on the western frontier, where he stayed five vears. In 676 he was transferred to Pei-chow in the far north, where he solved his last three cases as district magistrate. In the same year he was appointed President of the Metropolitan Court of justice, in the Imperial Capital.