#Lù Róng’s “Water Margin” deck

The earliest definite written description of these cards comes from the Chinese scholar Lù Róng (陸容, 1436–1494). In his book 菽園雜記/菽园杂记 (Miscellaneous Records from the Bean Garden),This text appears in many collections, such as the Ming-period 今獻彙言 Jīnxiàn huìyán , or the Qing-period 墨海金壺 Mòhǎi jīnhú. he writes:

In my native city of Kunshan, everyone knows how to play cards, from scholar-officials to children. I spent eight years in the government at Kunshan, but I did not know how to play, and people sneered at me for my stupidity. Recently I have been able to look at their shape and make. There is one card each from 1 cash [錢/钱] to 9 cash, and one card each from 100 cash to 900 cash. Beginning from the 10,000 guan [貫] card, there are figures drawn on each.^{A[p. 405]}

The list of figures given by Lù Róng is as follows. The Chinese text can be exactly recovered by reading across each row.^{B[p. 90–91]}

Thus, Lù Róng describes a deck of 38 cards:

• 1–9 錢
• 100–900 錢
• 10,000–90,000 貫
• 200,000–900,000 貫
• 1,000,000 貫
• 10,000,000 貫
• 100,000,000 貫

In modern times, these cards are often referred to as “Water Margin cards” (水滸牌), but in fact, Lù Róng does not cite Water Margin at all. Instead he writes:The fact that Lù Róng doesn’t seem to know of the existence of Water Margin (or assumes that his audience will know the characters) argues for a later creation date for that work than is usually given. See, for example, 王 (2011).

盖宋江等皆大盗，详见《宣和遗事》及《癸辛杂识》。

Protector of Righteousness Sòng Jiāng and others are all thieves. For details, see Xuānhé Yíshì and Guǐxīn Záshí.

Indeed, the characters listed on the ‘myriads’ cards are all taken from the book 宣和遺事 Xuānhé Yíshì (“Neglected Events of the Xuanhe Reign”), a story published c. 1300 that would be one of the main sources of the later, more famous, book 水滸傳 Shuǐhǔzhuàn, commonly known in English as Water Margin.

in Xuānhé Yíshì (hereafter XHYS), Sòng Jiāng has only 36 bandit-followers, unlike the 108 bandits that appear in Water Margin.It is tempting to suggest, given that there are 38 cards in the deck and actually 38 bandit characters in XHYS — 36 along with their leader Sòng Jiāng, as well as Zhāng Héng, who is not part of the core group but joins later, and does appear in Lù Róng’s list — that originally every card had a corresponding figure. However, without further evidence this must remain a remote possibility. The differences between the list of bandits that appears on the deck and in Water Margin are as follows:It is worth noting that most of the changes that are listed here as occurring in Water Margin are also present in the earlier 宋江三十六人赞 Encomium to Sòng Jiāng and his Thirty-Six, a poem from the Yuan period by 龚开 Gong Kai (1222–1307). The only change that doesn’t appear is that 呼延绰 Hūyán Chuò still retains his name in Encomium.

六萬貫 6MC

The XHYS character 李海 Lǐ Hǎi is given instead of the corresponding WM character 李俊 Lǐ Jùn. Both of these have the same epithet “River Dragon”.

二十萬貫 20MC

张横 Zhāng Héng’s nickname is given as “Ten Feet of Steel”, which is his nickname in XHYS, instead of “Boatman”, his nickname in WM. In WM, “Ten Feet of Steel” is the nickname given to a different character, 扈三娘 Hù Sānniáng.

四十萬貫 40MC

The XHYS character 王雄 Wáng Xióng (賽關索 Competes with Guan Suo) is given instead of the WM character 楊雄 Yáng Xióng (病關索 Sick Guan Suo).

六十萬貫 60MC

The XHYS name 呼延绰 Hūyán Chuò is given instead of the WM 呼延灼 Hūyán Zhuó.

八十萬貫 80MC

This is the hardest divergence to explain, as 李進 Lǐ Jìn is not a character that appears in XHYS, and the nickname given is a duplicate of the 6MC card. However, there is a 李進義 Lǐ Jìnyì in XHYS,Who has the same nickname 玉麒麟 “Jade Qilin” as 盧俊義 Lú Jùnyì in WM. which could be the origin of the name. A possible explanation for the doubled “River Dragon” nickname is that a later copyist or copyists who were familiar with WM became confused about the names and conflated several different characters, truncating a hypothetical original 李進義 Lǐ Jìnyì into 李進 Lǐ Jìn and then giving him 李俊 Lǐ Jùn’s WM nickname in an effort to “correct” the text. More research into different editions of Lù Róng’s text, or intermediate texts between XHYS and WM may give a better answer.The Encomium mentioned above doesn’t seem to shed any light here.

The remainder of the cards have characters that are present in both XHYS and WM, with identical epithets.

#Pān Zhīhéng’s Water Margin deck

Pān Zhīhéng (潘之恒, 1556–1622) was a late Ming era poet who provided the next full description of a money-suited deck, written some time between 1613–1646.^D This work is available as part of the 續說郛 Xù Shuōfú collection.^E

Once again, I reproduce the list below, and the original Chinese text can be reconstructed by reading across each row. In addition to the information provided by Lù Róng, Pān Zhīhéng also lists the character’s corresponding stars and adds some additional notes for some of the cards. Three of the cards are noted as having “two heads”. This information may have been useful for playing the game 鬥雙頭 Dòu Shuāng Tóu “competing [for?/with?] two heads”, which is mentioned by Pān Zhīhéng in the same text. Unfortunately, no rules are recorded for this game.

When we look at the list of characters described by Pān Zhīhéng we see some interesting things. By this stage the characters contained in the deck have been updated or replaced and are now wholly drawn from Water Margin’s lists. It seems that the intent of the changes was to harmonize the deck with the content of WM, as each of the 5 “divergences” from WM mentioned above has been corrected:

1. 八十萬貫 80MC: The possibly “corrupted” name of 李進 Lǐ Jìn discussed above is replaced entirely by that of 朱仝 Zhū Tóng.
2. 六十萬貫 60MC: 呼延绰 Hūyán Chuò is replaced by the WM equivalent, 呼延灼 Hūyán Zhuó.
3. 二十萬貫 20MC: The name of 張橫 Zhāng Héng is replaced by 扈三娘 Hù Sānniáng who in WM has the same epithet 一丈青 “Ten Feet of Steel” that Zhāng Héng has in XHYS.

Then there is something of a dance amongst three cards:

1. 六萬貫 6MC: 李海 Lǐ Hǎi (who becomes 李俊 Lǐ Jùn in WM) is replaced by 史進 Shǐ Jìn.Interestingly, this name is similar to the removed “corrupted” Lǐ Jìn.
2. 李逵 Lǐ Kuí is replaced by 李俊 Lǐ Jùn,
3. and 四十萬貫 40MC: 王雄 Wáng Xióng is replaced by 李逵 Lǐ Kuí.

#The Water Margin deck after Pān Zhīhéng

From Pān Zhīhéng onwards the set of characters seems to be remarkably stable. In most of the decks derived from Chinese money-suited cards, the tens of myriads suit has been removed, but the myriads suit remains in the same order. It is often very hard to determine which cards are which as the names have mostly been dropped, but it is possible to identify characters by their customary attributes:

• The easiest character to identify is Zhū Tóng, who is almost always depicted with a young child. He remains on the 8M card in nearly all derived decks.
• Lǐ Kuí is often identifiable as well. He is either depicted with a child (in fact the same child associated with Zhū Tóng; in the book he ends up murdering the child) or with a pair of axes, his chosen weapon. Even if no child or axes are present, he is often shown with a wildly-painted face.
• Ruǎn Xiǎowǔ is usually depicted with a flower in his cap (according to Pān Zhīhéng;^D[93] the card is missing from later three-suited decks).

#References

1. ⁨Lo⁩, ⁨Andrew⁩ (2000). ‘⁨The Game of Leaves: An Inquiry into the Origin of Chinese Playing Cards⁩’. ⁨Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London⁩ vol. 63 (3): pages 389–406.

2. ⁨陸⁩, ⁨容⁩ [⁨Lù Róng⁩] (1475). ⁨菽园杂记⁩ volume 3.

3. ⁨王⁩, ⁨齐洲⁩ [⁨Wang Qizhou⁩] and ⁨王丽娟⁩ [⁨Wang Lijuan⁩] (2011). ‘⁨从《菽园杂记》、《叶子谱》所记“叶子戏”看《水浒传》成书时间⁩’. ⁨南开学报：哲学社会科学版⁩ (3).

4. ⁨Lo⁩, ⁨Andrew⁩ (2002). ‘⁨The ‘Yezi Pu’ (Manual of Leaves): A Card Manual for Games of the Late Ming Period [1368–1644]⁩’. ⁨Journal of the International Playing-Card Society⁩ vol. 31 (2): pages 86–96.

5. ⁨潘⁩, ⁨之恒⁩ [⁨Pān Zhīhéng⁩] (1646). ⁨葉子譜⁩ [Yèzi Pǔ]; ⁨續說郛⁩ [Xù Shuōfú] volume 39, series editor ⁨陶珽⁩ [⁨Táo Tǐng⁩].