Abstract:
Those legal case plays in the Yuan Dynasty portrayed the images of a series of honest and upright officials, such as Bao Zheng and Zhang Jing. In these honest and upright officials, the authors embodies some common personality and ideological distinctions, including cleanness and honesty, strictly carrying out the law, straightforwardness and persistence, reporting the truth directly to the emperor for the interests of people, blowing the despots to rid people of harm, and dealing with legal cases intelligently, wittily and shrewdly. This was just an externalization of the author’s lofty ideal and also represented people’s firm will to fight with the dark force and fearless courage to face the powerful. These images of honest and upright officials were the avatar of clean and honest government people were longing for and revealed effects of worship of “honest and upright officials” in classical Chinese culture.
