The Chinese Nail Murders

Preface

The Chinese Nail Murders is the concluding novel of my series "Judge Dee Mysteries."

The present novel tells how the master detective of ancient China solved three crimes, a few months after he had been ap­pointed magistrate of Pei-chow, a distant frontier district in the barren north of the Chinese Empire. A sketch map of the town is given on the endpapers, and in the Postscript will be found a list of Chinese sources, together with some general remarks on "Judge Dee Mysteries" and how and why they were written.

The novels of this series cover only the earlier half of Judge Dee's career, when he was serving as magistrate in various districts in the provinces. About this phase the Chinese historical records have little to say beyond the fact that he solved a great number of mysterious crimes. Concerning Judge Dee's career at court, how­ever, those records go into considerable detail, for then the judge became a figure of national importance. He was one of the very few statesmen who could bring some influence to bear on Empress Wu, the cruel and dissolute but extremely capable woman who for fifty years ruled the T'ang Empire with an iron hand.* How Judge Dee tried to reform a corrupt administration and, falsely accused, was sentenced to be tortured to death; by what stratagem he succeeded in escaping from prison and how he ef­fected his return to power; how thereafter he prevented the Em­press from committing many a cruel deed and how, as crowning achievement of his career, he thwarted her scheme to place an unrightful heir on the Dragon Throne—all this proves clearly that fact is indeed stranger than fiction.

Judge Dee died in A.D. 700, seventy years old, after having oc­cupied with distinction the highest civil and military posts in the Empire. He was survived by two sons, each of whom had a mod­erately successful official career. The historical records state, how­ever, that Judge Dee's grandson, Dee Djien-mo, who died as Metropolitan Governor, again possessed the mellow wisdom and deep humanity of his famous grandfather.

During the ensuing centuries the Dee family from T'ai-yuan did not become prominent again in national affairs, although it did produce a few scholars and poets. The family still exists to­day. In 1936 I met in Shanghai one of Judge Dee's descendants, an amiable elderly gentleman who enjoyed some reputation as a connoisseur of antique paintings. But our conversation was limited to the exchange of the usual courtesies, for I could not then have foreseen that fourteen years later I would start to write several novels about his illustrious ancestor.

Robert van Gulik

* The second part of Judge Dee's career has been vividly described by Lin Yutang in his recent historical novel, Lady Wu, a True Story (W. Heinemann Ltd., London 1959, Chapter 37); there his name is transcribed Di Renjiay.