Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia houses a number of rare books. A new addition to the collection is a book titled “Xinke Huizheng Shibaguo Doubaozhuan” (A meeting of 18 countries compettion for value of their treasures), which was published in China during the Ming Dynasty. This is a popular novel about a famous literary and military general named Wu Zixu who actually existed during the Spring and Autumn period. This novel has never been known to exist. However, the story of this novel was not no one had ever heard. On the contrary, it is a variation of a story that has been enjoyed in various forms, such as plays, storytellings, and other novels, from the Yuan dynasty before the Ming dynasty to the present day. In this lecture, I would like to give an overview of this book, and also tell on the reason of many other novels published in China during the Ming and Qing dynasties that have survived in Japan.

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