The Cases of Judge Lan

Every other judge in this series is a legend. This one filed his own reports.

Lan Dingyuan really governed the district of Chaoyang in Guangdong in the

1720s, and he wrote down twenty four of his own cases himself, in the first

person, while the outcome of some of them was still going against him.

About the Book

This is the rarest thing in Chinese crime literature: a courtroom classic that

is not fiction. Lan Dingyuan was a scholar of the Yongzheng era who took charge

of one of the most ungovernable districts in the empire, a coastal county of

armed lineages, sea robbers, corrupt garrisons and villages that settled their

own disputes with spears.

He writes about a heretical sect stripping the credulous of their savings, a

corpse stolen by three villains to extort a family, a beggar found dead who

gains a wife and son after his death, sea robbers working both sides of the

Fujian and Guangdong coast, brothers ruining each other over a field, and a

petition submitted without a single word written on it. He is candid about the

tricks he used, the confessions he induced, and the times he was wrong.

The collection has a spine that no invented judge could give it. The scandal of

the adulterated relief grain, the cases of the western grain boatmen, and the

affair of Lin the Strategist all end the same way: with Lan himself impeached

and removed from office. The last cases are written by a magistrate who has

already lost his post.

About This Edition

This complete English translation presents all twenty four cases, rendered

directly from the Chinese text.

The first person voice and the sober administrative register are preserved

rather than novelised, official titles, ranks and measures are translated

consistently, and the proclamations and depositions are given in full, since

the detail is the point. Nothing is abridged.

Themes and Legacy

• Real cases from a real Qing magistrate, told by the man who tried them
• Local government, lineage feuds and coastal piracy in Guangdong
• Evidence, interrogation, confession and the limits of the law
• Corruption above as well as below the magistrate
• The historical reality behind the Judge Bao and Judge Dee legends

For Readers Who Love

The Cases of Judge Dee - The Cases of Judge Bao - The Cases of Judge Li -

True Crime History - Qing Dynasty History - Legal History

Meet the original detective heroes of Chinese literature. Long before modern crime fiction, China’s gong’an novels followed brilliant magistrates who solved impossible cases, exposed corruption and delivered justice to the powerless.