“River Backwaters” (“Shuihu Zhuan”) is an adventure-heroic epic based on folk tales and dramas, which glorifies the peasant uprising under the leadership of Song Jiang (12th century). The novel received the greatest distribution in the adaptation of Jin Sheng-tan (17th century), from which it was translated into Russian and other European languages. The heroes of his version of the epic break with society and create a kind of freemen, a kingdom of equality and brotherhood. Closer to the original, apparently, are the versions consisting of 100 and 120 chapters. Many episodes and scenes written in lively colloquial language have become a favorite theme of street storytellers. The composition and artistic style very accurately reproduce the techniques of oral folk tales. Source - TSB