Traditional Factors in Chinese Detective Stories in Late Qing and the Early Republic of China

In the traditional narration of literary history, the public case novels since Ming and Qing Dynasties are often described as gradually declining after entering the late Qing Dynasty, and gradually replaced by imported detective novels. The image of this process is “the transition between Bao Zheng and Holmes”. But at the same time, we often ignore the potential/obvious influence of the case novels on Chinese detective novels in late Qing and the early Republic of China. For example, the plot factors of “legend” rather than science, the character identity of public errand rather than private detective, the shadow of traditional swordsman image, the creative purpose of educating readers with novels, and even the author’s own “nationalism” tendency, etc.