Battle on Poyang Lake

The Ming novel Record of the Heroes and Martyrs (Yinglie zhuan) is a vernacular retelling of the founding of the Ming dynasty, written in the fashion of other, better-known military romances such as Romance of the Three Kingdoms. As such, it mixes vernacular fiction rhetorical devices, dynasty-building mythos, and historiography.

This mini-project focuses on the novel's depiction of the Battle on Poyang Lake. Here, the narrative makes several diagetical and extra-diagetical comparisons to the famous Red Cliff episode from Romance of the Three Kingdoms.