Author of Water Margin
A novelist of the late Yuan and early Ming, generally held to be the author of Water Margin. The novel tells how, at the end of the Northern Song, a hundred and eight good men are driven by a corrupt officialdom to Mount Liang, band together in righteous revolt, and at last, after accepting amnesty, come to ruin. "Driven to Mount Liang," "carrying out the Way on Heaven’s behalf" — what he wrote of is how ordinary people, pushed to the wall by a rotten age, take the desperate road. Water Margin’s portrayal of brotherhood and of "officials forcing the people to rebel" deeply shaped the Chinese imagination of the "good fellow" and of "revolt."
The most moving thing in Water Margin is not the fighting and killing, but the process by which each good man is driven step by step to the wall: Lin Chong, a law-abiding drill instructor, is framed by Gao Qiu, his home and family destroyed, and only then, on a snowy night, does he go up to Mount Liang. The proverb "driven to Mount Liang" comes from this — it lays bare the book’s core: it is not that good men are born to rebel, but that this age has no room for good men.
The authorship of Water Margin is also disputed (Shi Nai’an, Luo Guanzhong, or the two in collaboration); this site follows the standard account while noting the dispute.
Below are how modern works borrow or reinterpret this name or story — not the original material. The two differ, so keep them apart.