What was the earliest version of the book Water Margins like?
The earliest version of the Water Margins could be traced back to the Song Dynasty more than 1200 years ago. According to historical records, the earliest version of the novel was written by Shi Naian, a writer of the Song Dynasty. It was called the first chapter of the Water Margins. After that, it was revised and deleted many times, and finally formed the current version. In the earliest version of the story, the background of the Water Margins took place at the end of the Northern Song Dynasty. It told the story of a group of righteous thieves. These righteous bandits later joined Song Jiang and the others in the Liangshan Lake Uprising and fought fiercely with the imperial court. In the novel, the images of Song Jiang and the others were deeply loved by readers, and their righteous deeds and loyalty were widely praised. As time went by, the story of the Water Margins was constantly adapted, added, and deleted into many different versions of books, such as the Water Margins, the abridged version of the Water Margins, and the annotation version of the Water Margins. These versions of the Water Margins were different in terms of storyline and character image, but they were all welcomed by readers and became classics in the history of Chinese literature.
