3 h 2 minAudiobook7 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What happens when a judge who cannot be bribed stands between poor people and the powerful?
The Cases of Magistrate Hai Rui gathers Chinese court-case tales around a real Ming dynasty official. In these stories, Hai Rui listens to the poor, refuses bribes, and faces powerful people without fear. A crime is committed or a wrong is suffered. The magistrate steps in, bringing the hope of justice into a world shaped by corruption.
The anonymous tales belong to the gong an tradition: public case stories. Their loose, episodic form offers separate encounters with wrongdoing rather than one tightly plotted novel. Behind the legendary judge stands an official who writes a bold letter to the Jiajing Emperor and presses powerful families to return land taken from farmers. His life gives the tales their force.
What you’ll discover
- The man behind the legend Meet the real official whose modest beginnings stand beside his lasting image as an incorruptible judge.
- A voice for the poor Encounter a magistrate who listens to people the powerful would rather ignore.
- The public case tradition Explore tales that bring crimes and wrongs before a judge determined to confront them.
- Courage before an emperor Discover the bold formal letter that marks Hai Rui’s defiance of the Jiajing Emperor.
- Land and the powerful See how his efforts to restore farmers’ land strengthen his reputation as their friend.
Who will love it
Readers who love tales of honest officials, clever judges and courtroom showdowns will feel at home here, and so will anyone curious about Ming China, with its palaces, examinations, eunuchs and wandering bandits.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A strange birth and a mother's strict lessons
- Ghosts at the inn and a marriage by trickery
- The tofu seller's daughter and a shoe
- A magistrate who beats the duke's flag officer
- Facing down the chancellor in the capital
- Saving the crown prince and surviving prison
- Bandits, tyrants and missions to the frontier
- What the story is really about
- How the story is told
Who’s who
- Hai RuiA plainspoken scholar and later magistrate and minister, born with Heaven's favor, who refuses bribes and will risk his life to punish wrongdoing.
- Yan SongA former fortune-teller who rises through flattery to become chancellor, and who schemes against anyone who stands in the way of his family's power.
- Madam MiaoHai Rui's mother, who teaches him herself and insists that he seek office rather than stay home at her side.
- Gonghua (Madam Zhang)A girl Hai Rui frees from a ghost, who becomes his devoted wife and shares every hardship of his career.
- YuanchunThe tofu seller's gifted daughter, who sees through Yan Er, becomes a consort and later empress, and never forgets Hai Rui's kindness.
- Yan ErYan Song's steward, a cheat who lends silver at ruinous rates and wants Yuanchun for himself.
- Hai AnHai Rui's loyal servant, once a thief, who follows him through prisons, frontiers and courtrooms.
- Feng BaoA clever palace eunuch who serves Yuanchun and her son and helps rescue Hai Rui more than once.
Formats and delivery
- eBook
- On your phone, tablet, computer or Kindle, with the type as large as you like.
- Large-print eBook
- The same book in bigger, clearer type, from the first page.
- Audiobook
- 3 h 2 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 7 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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Die Fälle des Richters Hai Rui
by Anonym
A poor scholar with nothing but his honor stands up to a chancellor who controls an emperor.
Challenging2–5 hours to read25 languages
Excellent
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Read free3 months free · cancel anytimeFree for 3 months, then 0,14 USD a dayCancel anytimeHow it works
In short
What if a man could not be bought at any price? Hai Rui, an official of the Ming dynasty under the Jiajing Emperor, is exactly that man.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A strange birth and a mother's strict lessons
The novel opens with Hai Xuan, a kind and childless man of Qiongzhou. In a thunderstorm he shelters a strange hairy beast under his writing desk, and the lightning that hunts it goes out when it reaches him. Soon his wife Miao finds she is expecting.
In a dream, three men in blue explain that the beast is a zhi, known for its upright nature. Heaven sends it to be born as a human child to repay his goodness. The boy is named Hai Rui and grows up bright and blunt.
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What is The Cases of Magistrate Hai Rui about?
It follows the Ming official Hai Rui from his strange birth and strict upbringing through his years as a magistrate, envoy and minister, as he refuses bribes and stands up to the corrupt chancellor Yan Song and his family.
Is The Cases of Magistrate Hai Rui a true story?
Hai Rui was a real official of the sixteenth century, and Yan Song and the Jiajing Emperor were real. But the novel adds ghosts, dreams, invented cases and folk tales.
Who is Yan Song in the story?
He is the chancellor who rises from fortune-telling to run the court. He sells offices, takes bribes and protects his son Shifan, and he becomes the great enemy Hai Rui keeps meeting again.
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