Jianghu

Jianghu (江湖; jiānghú; gong¹wu⁴; 'rivers and lakes') is a Chinese term that generally refers to the social environment in which many Chinese wuxia, xianxia, and gong'an stories are set. The term is used flexibly, and can be used to describe a fictionalized version of imperial China (usually using loose influences from across the 221 BC – 1912 AD period of time); a setting of feuding martial arts clans and the people of that community; a secret and possibly criminal underworld; a general sense of the "mythic world" where fantastical stories happen; or some combination thereof. A closely related term, wulin (武林; wǔlín; 'martial forest'), refers exclusively to the community of martial artists that inhabit a jianghu setting. The term wulin has been borrowed into Korean as murim (무림) to refer to fiction set in Chinese-inspired martial arts worlds.

The term originates from the Daoist classic Zhuangzi, where it is used several times; most notably, in the chapter "The Great and Most Honoured Master" (da zongshi):

When the springs are dried up, the fishes collect together on the land. Than that they should moisten one another there by the damp about them, and keep one another wet by their slime, it would be better for them to forget one another in the rivers and lakes. （出泉涸，魚相與處於陸，相呴以濕，相濡以沫，不如相忘於江湖。）[...] Hence it is said, "Fishes forget one another in the rivers and lakes; men forget one another in the arts of the Dao. （故曰：魚相忘乎江湖，人相忘乎道術。）

The image of the rivers and the lakes is associated with eremitism in Chinese historiography and literature. One prominent example is the story of Fan Li from the Spring and Autumn period, of whom it is said in Shiji, "took a flat-bottomed boat and floated along the rivers and lakes" (乃乘扁舟浮於江湖) to retreat from court life and live in seclusion. The term "five lakes" serves a similar function to jianghu in this particular context.

Thus, the term jianghu has been used in dynastic Chinese literature as a kind of literary euphemism or poetic trope to evoke distance (from other people or from politics), exile, dislocation, seclusion or hermitism. Famously, in Song dynasty poet Fan Zhongyan's Yueyang Lou Ji, jianghu is set up in opposition to the courts and temples, meaning a world in its own right. Other examples of poetic and literary uses of jianghu include: Ouyang Xiu's literary essay on his boat, Huafang Zhai ("Painted Pleasure-Boat Studio"); Du Fu's poem, Tianmo huai Li Bai ("Thinking of Li Bai at the End of the Sky"), in which he reminisces about Li Bai, who had been banished after the An Lushan Rebellion; Bai Juyi's preface to his poem Pipa xing ("Song of the Pipa") where he describes himself as "floating desolately among the rivers and lakes"; Du Mu's poem Qian huai ("Dwelling on exile" or "My Lament"); among many others. In the Southern Song dynasty, there also emerged a group of poets who became retroactively known as the Jianghu shipai ("Jianghu school of poetry"), named after a title of a collection of their works by literary scholar and collector Chen Qi ("Rivers and lakes collection").

Over the centuries, jianghu gained greater acceptance among the common people outside of the elite literati and gradually became a term for a sub-society parallel to, and sometimes orthogonal to, mainstream society. This sub-society initially included merchants, craftsmen, beggars and vagabonds, but over time it assimilated bandits, outlaws and gangs who lived "outside the existing law". During the Song and Yuan dynasties, bards and novelists began using the term jianghu in the process of creating literature covering a fictional society of adventurers and rebels who lived not by existing societal laws, but by their own moral principles or extralegal code of conduct. The core of these moral principles encompassed xia (俠; 侠; xiá; 'chivalry'), yi (義; 义; yì; 'righteousness'), li (禮; 礼; lǐ; 'virtue'), zhong (忠; zhōng; 'loyalty') and chou (仇; chóu; 'vengeance/revenge'). One of the most notable sources for helping develop the xiayi genre (prototypical version of the modern wuxia genre) and the concept of jianghu as it is understood in modern wuxia fiction is the 14th-century novel Water Margin. In the novel, a band of noble outlaws, who mounted regular sorties in an attempt to right the wrongs of corrupt officials, have retreated to their hideout. These outlaws were called the Chivalrous men of the Green Forests (绿林好汉; 綠林好漢; lǜlín hǎohàn) and they then proceed to have various adventures, mixing heroism with more roguish activities. Stories in this genre bloomed and enriched various interpretations of jianghu. At the same time, the term jianghu also developed intricate interconnections with gang culture because of outlaws' mutually shared distaste towards governments.

In modern Chinese culture, jianghu is commonly accepted as an alternative universe coexisting with the actual historical one in which the context of the wuxia genre was set. Unlike the normal world, in the jianghu, the youxia (wanderers or knights-errant) are free to act on their own initiative, including with violence, to punish evil and foes, and to reward goodness and allies. While the term literally means "rivers and lakes", it is broader than that: roads, inns, bandit lairs, deserted temples, and the wilderness are all classic places associated with the jianghu, places far from government interference. Vigilantism is normal and accepted in a way that would be impermissible in a more realistic setting. Different wuxia novels have their own versions of the jianghu and its implications. Authors vary on whether they have one consistent setting or reinvent the jianghu in each work; Jin Yong's Condor Trilogy has one continuity, whereas Gu Long's jianghu would be distinct in every novel, for two examples.

The inclusion of martial arts as a feature of jianghu was a recent development in the early 20th century. Novelists started creating a fantasy world of jianghu in which characters are martial artists and in which the characters' enforcement of righteousness is symbolised by conflicts between different martial artists or martial arts schools and the ultimate triumph of good over evil. Martial arts became a tool used by characters in a jianghu story to enforce their moral beliefs. On the other hand, there are characters who become corrupted by power derived from their formidable prowess in martial arts and end up abandoning their morality in their pursuit of power. Around this time, the term jianghu became closely related to a similar term, wulin (武林; wǔlín; mou⁵lam⁴; 'martial forest'), which referred exclusively to a community of martial artists. This fantasy world of jianghu remains as the mainstream definition of jianghu in modern Chinese popular culture, particularly wuxia culture.