The novel Forgotten Tales of the Sui (Sui shi yiwen 隋史遺文 , 1633) was in fact nearly forgotten in China, because much of its best parts were copied into the better known Romance of the Sui and the Tang (Sui Tang yanyi 隋唐演義 , 1695). Those best parts were the adventures of Qin Shubao 秦叔寶 . But the earlier novel has a fuller version and that is what is translated here: the coming-of-age tale of Qin Shubao as the scion of a line of righteous generals as he tries to establish himself in a perilous world and, through military prowess, earn the weapons inherited from his famous forebears.
