The Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty

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Name: 成化十四年, Chéng Huà Shísì Nián, The Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty, The Fourteenth Year of Chenghua
Abbreviation(s): FYC
Creator: 梦溪石 /Mèng Xī Shí (book), Jackie Chan (TV series)
Date(s):
Medium: book, TV series
Country of Origin: China
External Links:
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The Fourteenth Year of Chenghua (成化十四年) is a Chinese novel by Meng Xi Shi (梦溪石) that was adapted into a live-action TV show produced by Jackie Chan. The English title of the show is The Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty.

Canon

The novel was originally serialized on Jinjiang Literature City from September 2014 to March 2015.[1]

The story follows Tang Fan (courtesy name Runqing), an official in the Shuntian Prefecture during the reign of the Chenghua Emperor. Tang Fan is called out to solve a murder case, during which he meets Sui Zhou (courtesy: Guangchan), a member of the Imperial Brocade Guard, and Wang Zhi, an Imperial Eunuch.

The novel follows Tang Fan’s political career as he moves from minor official to Head Vizier, each of his promotions primarily resulting from solving one mystery or another. It also traces his many relationships with his family, friends, colleagues, and his eventual lover.

Adaptations

Live Action

The Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty is a 2020 Chinese television series produced by Jackie Chan. It stars Darren Chen as Tang Fan, Fu Meng-po as Sui Zhou and Liu Yaoyuan as Wang Zhi. It is available in full for free through iQiyi. It ran for 48 episodes, April 1 – April 24, 2020.

Fandom

Chinese-speaking Fandom

English-speaking Fandom

The English fandom arose in response to the airing of the tv show, and as a result, most fanworks are based on tv canon rather than novel canon. On AO3 as of December 2022, the TV tag 成化十四年 | The Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty (TV) has 639 fanworks (596 in English) versus nine (all in English) for the book tag 成化十四年 - 梦溪石 | The Fourteenth Year of Chenghua - Mèng Xī Shí. Both book and tv fandoms are small enough to be eligible for Yuletide, and Yuletide fans wrote TV canon stories in 2020-2022. The tv fandom was the fourth most popular Yuletide fandom in 2020, with 17 stories posted. Enthusiasm seemed to have waned in 2021; only 6 stories were posted. In 2022, 5 stories were posted.

Fans have also written a tiny amount of RPF featuring the actors who play Tang Fan and Sui Zhou: Chen Kuan-hung and Fu Meng-po. Most of the works on AO3 are in English.

Fan Translations

The novel is usually referred to as The Fourteenth Year of Chenghua, which is a literal translation of the Chinese title. The most complete translation available was done by Chichi, though other translators' work is tracked on Novel Updates.[2]

On March 28, 2020, a fan posted a request to the Novel Update Forums for the novel to be translated:

The novel is by Meng Xi Shi, english speaking danmei fans know this author by the following very popular novels: Thousands Autumns and Wushuang.

The sleuth of Ming Dynasty is considered one of the most well received novels by her, and unlike some of other novels by Meng Xi Shi, the main couple gets together in the main story. The novel has a live action adaptation directed by Jackie Chan with Darren Chen as its main lead and it’s coming out in April.

It looks pretty good but it’s also going to censor the relationship between the main leads and likely the novel plot itself. So I really hope someone picks it up so we could know how the main two leads and their relationship are really like in the novel.[3]

On April 6, 2020, jintingmei of the Golden Pavillion team replied to the thread with a link to a translation of chapter one and the comment, "Teaser if anyone wants a sample before they pick up. I don't have space in my schedule so I don't want to make people wait."[3] The first translator to attempt the project was xoai ngon, who posted their translation in a Google Doc starting with chapter 1 on April 6, 2020 and reaching chapter 20 on September 21, 2020 before abandoning it. Nastriumden also started translating, posting chapter one on April 8, 2020 and reaching chapter 60 on October 6, 2020. Nastriumden posted this and other translations on their blogspot blog and was very prolific, but their blog also prominently displayed a warning: "I'm not a Chinese speaker or even and English speaker and my Translation is sub par".[4] Then, between March and May 2021, nottegram posted a complete translation on their blogspot blog, but the entire blog was later deleted.[5]

In November 2020, Chichi asked the DanmeiNovels subreddit what translation they should pick up after completing Lord Seventh and noted in the comments that several people had recommended The Fourteenth Year of Chenghua, but that they were intimidated by its length.[6] Chichi started translating from chapter 1 on December 21, 2020, completing the whole novel and the extras on January 14, 2022. They later tweeted that the translation was 741.5k words/1155 pages long.[7]

Shipping

Shipping usually features the major characters of the story.

The most popular ship is the (novel) canon ship of Tang Fan/Sui Zhou, with 345 results on AO3.

Example Fanworks

Fanfiction

Video

Fannish Resources

References

  1. ^ jjwxc link, Archived version (Accessed 20 September 2022.)
  2. ^ The Fourteenth Year of Chenghua - Novel Updates, Archived version (Accessed 9 September 2022.)
  3. ^ a b {Picked Up} The Sleuth Of Ming Dynasty {成化十四年}, Archived version, discussion in 'Novel Pickup Request' started by mejojo, Mar 28, 2020.
  4. ^ The Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty Chapter 1: Someone has been murdered, Archived version, 8 April 2020. (Accessed 9 September 2022.)
  5. ^ Wayback Machine copies: chapter 1, 14 March 2021. chapter 169, 9 May 2021. table of contents
  6. ^ comment thread in Translation Pickup Suggestions, Archived version, r/DanmeiNovels, 13-14 November 2020.
  7. ^ tweet by chichimaera, Archived version, 20 January 2022.
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