On Chin Ping Mei's Inheritance from Historical Records

The historical biographies with Historical Records as a representative not only nourished the ancient Chinese novels, but enriched their theoretical resources. It was a notable feature for the Qing scholar Zhang Zhu-po to make comment on Chin Ping Mei from a perspective of Historical Records. And his view that the novel inherited all the essence of Historical Records was brief and impressing. From the artistic features of this history masterpiece, the novel Chin Ping Mei has really got the essence of the masterpiece in many aspects, such as documentary style, narrative themes and style with combination of doubt about and belief in the life experience of young officials, technique of shaping Wu Yue-niang, and judgments implied in narration.