Japanese Literature Summaries
日本語

Li Ling — Summary and Characters

Three men at the mercy of fate

Author
Nakajima Atsushi
Published
July 1943
First appeared in
Bungakukai
Form
Novel
Genres
  • Historical
  • Psychological
Length
33,947 characters
Reading time
About 1 hr 8 min
Orthography
Modern script and kana

About this work

Nakajima Atsushi's finest historical story, published posthumously in Bungakukai in July 1943. Around the Former Han general Li Ling, defeated by the Xiongnu and surrendering, it sets three lives against one another: Li Ling himself; Sima Qian, the historian castrated for defending him; and Su Wu, held nineteen years by the Xiongnu without once bending. A steady look at the unreasonableness of a fate beyond human will, carried by prose of great formality in the Chinese manner.

Summary

Li Ling, a general of the Han, leads five thousand foot deep into the heartland of the Xiongnu and fights on without relief; but his arrows give out, and he is taken and surrenders. Meaning to stay alive and wait for a chance to make good, Li Ling finds instead that the enraged Emperor Wu has put his whole family to death; and with his road back to the Han cut off he passes his days among the Xiongnu in humiliation and torment, generously treated though he is by the Chanyu. Meanwhile Sima Qian, the court historian who spoke in Li Ling's defence, suffers the humiliation of castration for that offence, and stakes his life on writing the Records of the Grand Historian so that the truth may be handed down. And Su Wu, the Han envoy taken by the Xiongnu before Li Ling, endures nineteen years of herding sheep in a land of bitter cold and never bends. The unyielding figure of Su Wu, who had once been his colleague, lies over Li Ling's own weakness in having gone on living, and torments him to the end.

Characters

Chapter-by-chapter synopsis

The app covers this work chapter by chapter (full text in the app).

  1. 1. About This Work
  2. 2. Main Characters
  3. 3. Supporting Characters
  4. 4. The Lone Army at Mount Junji — A March North Without Cavalry
  5. 5. Blades Broken, Arrows Spent — Li Ling's Surrender
  6. 6. The Court Council at Chang'an and Sima Qian's Castration
  7. 7. “Transmitting, Not Creating” — Sima Qian Living On in the Records
  8. 8. Li Ling in the Hu Country — The Slaughter of His Clan and the Kingship of the Right
  9. 9. Su Wu by Lake Baikal
  10. 10. Conclusion — Each Man's End
  11. 11. Key Motifs and Foreshadowing

The opening (original text)

In the ninth month, autumn of the second year of Tianhan in the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han, Li Ling, commandant of cavalry, took five thousand foot soldiers and set out north from the frontier post of Zhelu. For thirty days they went north, threading the barren hill country where the southeastern end of the Altai range runs down into the Gobi. The north wind blew cold through their war clothes, and the feeling of a lone army come ten thousand li was very deep.

Li Ling by Nakajima Atsushi (Aozora Bunko)

The ending (original text)

In the account of the Xiongnu in the History of the Han it is recorded that afterwards a son whom Li Ling had by a woman of the Hu country set up the commandant of Wuji as Chanyu, opposed the Chanyu Huhanye and in the end failed. This was in the second year of Wufeng in the reign of Emperor Xuan, and so exactly eighteen years after Li Ling's death. He is given only as Li Ling's son; no name is recorded.

Li Ling by Nakajima Atsushi (Aozora Bunko)

Famous passages

In the ninth month of the autumn of the second year of Tianhan, under Emperor Wu of Han, the cavalry commandant Li Ling led five thousand foot soldiers north from the border fortress of Juyan.

A firm opening that traces the manner of a history book. This posthumous work of Nakajima Atsushi sets three men against one another: Li Ling, who surrendered to the Xiongnu; Su Wu, who kept his integrity; and Sima Qian, who wrote the Records of the Grand Historian.

Read the original

The original Japanese text is available at Aozora Bunko, and the app downloads the same text for its vertical-text reader.

Aozora Bunko library card

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