History Literature / JudgeDee

* DismemberingTheBody: The letter of the law called for the criminal in question to be cut to pieces while still alive, but due to a posthumous plea by his father (a noted court official) the criminal was allowed a quick death with the dismemberment coming afterwards.

* NotMeThisTime: In ''The Chinese Maze Murders'', Judge Dee hears many horrid tales about [[SmallTownTyrant Chian]]: that he has been extorting merchants, kidnapping people for slave labor, burning down the homes of his enemies, filling false reports to the Imperial Court, and committing murders. After he arrests Chian, Dee learns that Chian is guilty of most of these offenses (and a few even worse acts of treason that don't initially come to light) but not murdering a previous magistrate or abducting a blacksmith’s daughter to be his concubine.

* ScamReligion: A particularly nasty example in ''The Chinese Bell Murders''. A local Buddhist temple purports to invoke supernatural aid in curing infertility in exchange for donations. [[spoiler: It turns out the "monks" are actually criminals pretending to be monks, that they carefully vet the couples visiting the temple to identify cases where the problem probably lies with the man, and that when the women are sequestered inside inner cloisters to pray, the fake monks sneak in through secret passages and gang rape them, jeering about how they'll need to keep playing blackmail money or be DefiledForever.]] Fortunately, Judge Dee and his team dismantle it.

* BunnyEarsLawyer: Dee's colleague Lo appears to be overly fond of drinking and womanizing (a GoldDigger once almost manages to get her claws into him), but when Dee works with him on a case is pleasantly surprised by Lo's insight and experience. Also, late magistrate Wang in ''Chinese Gold Murder''.

* ''Judge Dee At Work'' (1967): a collection of short stories including a chronology of the series. Features unrelated cases from various points of Dee's career.

* ''The Monkey And The Tiger'' (1965): Two separate cases at far different times in the Judge's career. The first involving a murdered tramp who isn't just a tramp. The second the murder of a young girl - but which girl? - at a lonely manor under siege by bandits.

** "Necklace and Calabash": After acknowledging his plot's failure, [[spoiler:the grand eunuch]] takes poison and gives the judge a list of all the conspirators, saying they'll be his slaves in the afterlife once they're executed.

** In ''Poets And Murder'' from the original series, a girl lives in the Shrine of the Black Fox, which is infested by foxes, and is believed to be possessed by a fox spirit. [[DownerEnding Unfortunately, she catches rabies from her foxes, goes mad, and dies horribly.]]

* BabiesEverAfter: Ma Joong marries Blue-White and her sister Coral at the end of ''Willow Pattern'' and is reported to have a family of eight in ''Murder in Canton'' just four years later.

* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: Shortly after their first meeting, Chiao Tai inspects the Judge's sword, the legendary ''Rain Dragon'', and exclaims in admiration, [[spoiler:"If it should be ordained that ever I should die by the sword, I pray that it may be this blade that is washed in my blood!"]] And in the last book ''Murder In Canton'', a villain steals ''Rain Dragon'', and [[spoiler:Chiao Tai is killed in preventing him from killing Judge Dee with it.]]

** At the end of ''The Willow Pattern Murders'', the judge asks Coral if she was ever paid for her dancing for an old pervert, then reassures her by saying that there's no law against dancing for free and thus it didn't count as illegal prostitution.

** In ''Murder In Canton'' the Judge arranges for a prostitute who gave him valuable information to be bought out of her unfortunate profession, gifted with a reward sufficient to reestablish herself in respectable society, and transport back to her native place.

* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: The poetess accused of murder in ''Poets And Murder'' is essentially Yu Xuanji, the famous historical Tang Dynasty poet.

** It's believed by the conspirators of ''Necklace And Calabash'' that the Emperor of all people is harboring unnatural feelings for the Third Princess, and could be blackmailed into obedience. [[spoiler:Especially since she ''isn't'' his daughter.]]

* ''Hoong Liang'' -- An old family retainer who the Judge appoints his sergeant of the tribunal. Most often referred to as "Sergeant Hoong".

* BlindIdiotTranslation: The French translation dutifully notes every time a character says something "[[DeadpanSnarker dryly]]". Unfortunately, in French the meaning is closer to "sharply", making the judge seem short-tempered instead of sarcastic.

* DefiledForever: Present in Judge Dee's world, but much more nuanced than you might expect. On the one hand, women are expected to remain virgins until marriage, and to commit suicide if raped, especially if they're married. On the other, Dee's own Third Lady is a rape survivor, and he fully accepts her as his wife. After leaving their "unfortunate profession", even "common prostitutes" are depicted as able to find happy marriages with "honest farmers", and high-class courtesans are seen as suitable wives even for gentleman-scholars.

* DragonsUpTheYinYang: The correct orientation of the ''taijitu'' symbol is a plot point in "The Haunted Monastery", as it [[spoiler:lets the judge figure out it's hiding a secret passage]].

** The judge once had to deal with the fallout of a high-ranking official committing suicide after being spurned by a courtesan, who was found dead soon after. [[spoiler:The man's suicide had nothing to do with the courtesan, she just assumed he'd killed himself out of despair [[NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity and used his death as publicity]]. In fact, he thought he'd caught leprosy like his father and killed himself before he became too disfigured, the father thought the girl was responsible as she claimed and killed her out of grief.]]

** One biological eunuch is also driven mad by unfulfilled sexual lust [[spoiler:in ''The Chinese Nail Murders'', and he even murders Sergeant Hoong.]]

** Mo Mo-te in ''The Haunted Monastery'' presents himself as an itinerant Taoist friar, which means, of course, that he is actually a petty crook. [[spoiler:However, he is ''not'' the criminal behind the murders, and actually came to the monastery to hunt down the one responsible for murdering his sister.]]

* EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep: The names of Dee's First and Second Ladies are never revealed. Only Third Lady, whom he met in the course of his work, is ever named, and even then we only learn her family name, not her personal name. Once married to the judge, all his wives are known simply as "[ordinal number] Lady".

* FakedGiftAcceptance: {{Justified|Trope}} in ''Chinese Bell Murders''. The abbot of a Buddhist monastery suspected of scamming the women who come to pray for fertility presents the judge with several ingots of precious metal which he accepts, to Sergeant Hong's chagrin. At the end, the judge reveals the money was used solely to trap the villain by buying a pair of young prostitutes and having them spend a night in the temple to find out what was going on ([[spoiler:the monks rape the women who spend the night in the temple, counting on the social stigma of knowingly bearing a bastard to silence them]]). The reason he couldn't reassure the sergeant earlier was because of the increasing influence of Buddhism in Chinese society, who would have accused the judge of slander.
* AFamilyAffair: One case involved a young man having an affair with one of his father's young concubines, even planning to murder his father and frame a local artist [[spoiler:who claimed the father was a traitor to his country]]. Unfortunately, in Confucianist China the issue of disrespecting one's father is so important that the son might as well have been screwing his biological mother, and the judge [[spoiler:indirectly orders him to commit suicide (the father was murdered, [[RewardedAsATraitorDeserves but for]] [[AssholeVictim entirely different reasons]] by someone else)]].
* FamilialFoe: The BigBad of ''The Chinese Bell Murders'' has spent decades framing, killing, and otherwise persecuting three generations of a family that he briefly married into and feels envious of. Ironically, the person begging the local judges to make him pay for his crimes is [[spoiler:his wife and not his mother-in-law as everyone assumed.]]

* HereditaryCurse: Tang in ''Chinese Gold Murder'' mentions his grandfather having the same [[spoiler:weretiger]] curse as himself.

* HookerWithAHeartOfGold: Pretty much every prostitute except the high-class courtesans, who will gleefully make it known young men killed themselves after being spurned as it does wonders for their reputation. Brothel owners, on the other hand, are vicious harpies only too glad to ignore an abducted woman's story if it gets them another "employee".

* KneelBeforeFrodo: Apricot, a common prostitute that Judge Dee has bought out of her "unfortunate profession", gives him crucial assistance in solving an extremely difficult case in ''The Chinese Bell Murders'' at significant personal cost. When the Judge greets her, ''he bows to her'', and the other high-ranking officials with him follow his lead.

* LargeAndInCharge: The Judge is somewhere around six feet tall. In the short story ''The Coffins Of The Emperor'', he meets the Marshal of the Imperial Army, who is taller still and towers over his officers.

** In ''The Coffins Of The Emperor'' the confessed murderer is permitted to "die as an officer" by cutting his own throat.

* NamedWeapons: The Judge's sword is the ancient and legendary ''jian'' "Rain Dragon".
* NeverMyFault: Hwang San from ''The Chinese Bell Murders'', who blames everything on his "bad luck". He loses a fight to Ma Joong because he makes a rookie mistake? Bad luck. His kung fu master had a beautiful daughter who had no interest in him? What bad luck! He really had no choice but to rape her, and then had to flee for his life. He mugs a wealthy-looking merchant, kills him, and finds nothing but "worthless receipts"? Bad luck. He rapes and murders a young maiden and steals her gold hair pins (the only thing of value she had), which turn out to be cursed (and which allow the crime to be traced to him)? Bad luck.

** In 'Poets and Murder' he arranges for the wife of a poor shopkeeper to get all the sewing from the Chinwa Residence which should give them a good income and improve their standard of living. [[spoiler:He would have given them custody of a poor girl living alone in an abandoned temple, but she died of rabies before this could be carried out.]]
** In 'Murder In Canton' the Judge arranges for a prostitute who gave him valuable information to be bought out of her unfortunate profession, gifted with a reward sufficient to reestablish herself in respectable society, and transport back to her native place.
* NobodyHereButUsStatues: The Big Bad of ''Haunted Monastery'' hides his victim by disguising her as one of the figures in a hall of horrors.

* NotMeThisTime: In ''The Chinese Maze Murders'', Judge Dee hears many horrid tales about SmallTownTyrant Chian: that he has been extorting merchants, kidnapping people for slave labor, burning down the homes of his enemies, filling false reports to the Imperial Court, and committing murders. After he arrests Chian, Dee learns that Chian is guilty of most of these offenses (and a few even worse acts of treason that don't initially come to light) but not murdering a previous magistrate or abducting a blacksmith’s daughter to be his concubine.

* OffendedByAnInferiorsSuccess: In "The Emperor's Coffins", the marshal presents the judge with a difficult case: one of his generals (Sang) accused another (Liou) of treason and colluding with the enemy. It turns out Sang was the traitor, disliking that Liou had been promoted to such a high rank at a much lower age than himself.

* PlatonicProstitution: The Judge never accepts anything but information - and perhaps a cup of tea - from a prostitute, and he usually repays them by buying them out of their "unfortunate profession", or arranging for their regular lover to make honest women of them. Ma Joong, on the other hand, is more than happy to ignore the platonic side, and gets the information anyway. Chiao Tai too, though his tend to end in tragic romance instead.

* RevengeViaStorytelling: In "The Willow Pattern", Ma Joong is told to look through a crack in a wall by a puppeteer named Yuan and sees a naked and bound woman being whipped to death by a man. Furiously, he tries to go for help, but then Yuan shows him it was just done with paper cutouts. We later learn that this was based on Yuan's own life story (his wife was abducted, raped and whipped to death by a degenerate aristocrat) and this was the only form of revenge he had. The murder is avenged by the end, but the judge tells Yuan off for poisoning his and his daughters' lives by endlessly retelling the story.

* TerminallyIllCriminal: In "The Red Pavilion", the murderer is a leper who killed the woman he mistakenly thought was the reason his son had killed himself. She claimed this was the case to boost her reputation, but the son thought he'd contracted leprosy like his father.

* TokenEvilTeammate: The tribunal's head constable is almost universally a greedy, lazy, easily-corruptible brute and the constables not much better before the judge's lieutenants whip them into shape. The French translation goes further by calling them "sbires", which has the same negative connotations as "henchmen" or even "{{mooks}}".
* TomboyAndGirlyGirl: Blue-white and Coral from ''The Willow Pattern'' are a tough, outspoken fighter and a shy, discreet dancer and musician, respectively. [[spoiler:Ma Joong ends up marrying both.]]
* TopWife: The titular character has three wives, the first of whom (aptly named "the First Lady" by the books) is the daughter of his father's BestFriend and generally runs the Judge's household though she delegates certain duties to Second and Third Lady. The other two view her as their 'Elder Sister' and superior, even though Dee himself does his best not to play favorites.

** In ''The Chinese Nail Murders'', the judge's failure to extract a confession from the murderess leads him to publicly declare he'll resign and accept the punishment given to the murderess. Fortunately, [[spoiler:someone who already used the exact same method to get rid of her AssholeVictim husband tells him what to look for.]]

* VirtuousVegetarianism: Zigzagged. The Taoist monks in ''The Haunted Monastery'' are enlightened vegetarians. However, the particularly [[EvilVegetarian depraved villain]] is ''also'' a vegetarian -- he's even noted as enjoying the food.

** "The Chinese Maze Murders'': A murdered general's son and the general's concubine commit suicide and are praised for showing such filial devotion to their father/husband. [[spoiler:The son and concubine were lovers, with the son plotting his father's death. He failed (the general was killed by an unrelated revenge plot), but the judge makes it very clear to him that a rotten branch must be cut off to preserve a family tree, resulting in their deaths.]]

* SelfImposedExile: In "The Chinese Maze Murders", the judge finds the reason for which a brilliant official voluntarily ended his own metropolitan career and buried himself in a town of the Tartar border, refusing even a request by the Emperor to resume his duties: Yoo Shou-chien discovered that where he had tried to practice exemplary virtue during his life, he had entirely failed to transmit any of those virtues to his eldest son. As said son later [[spoiler:commits several murders, including an official magistrate, and plots to create his own satellite kingdom, not to mention despoiling his father's second wife and son of any belongings,]] you kind of see his point.

* TourismDerailingEvent: In "The Chinese Bell Murders", the local Buddhist monastery holds a statue of Guan-Yin that women pray to in order to conceive a child, then spending the night at the temple in individual pavilions that are locked in the husband's presence. [[spoiler:In fact, the pavilions have a secret mechanism that allows the monks to enter undetected and rape the women, counting on the social stigma to keep them quiet and a sizable donation from the father if a child is born]]. The Judge brings an end to that lucrative arrangement, resulting in the Buddhist faction losing power at court due to the scandal, and the temple is mostly razed, with the surviving community forbidden from growing past four people.

* BadassLongRobe: This being ImperialChina even the badasses wear dresses.

* AdaptationalAngstUpgrade: The original ''Dee Goong An'' story that the titular ''Chinese Nail Murder'' is based on is resolved when [[spoiler:the Judge fakes an afterlife trial with his assistants, leading to the murderess' confession]]. In the latter story, [[spoiler:not only is the judge given the solution by a woman who used that very method to get rid of her abusive husband, she does it knowing he'll have to arrest and try her and commits suicide to spare him that fate.]] And [[spoiler:Sergeant Hoong is murdered]], although in connection to a different case, and the judge ends up sort of KickedUpstairs by the end, putting an end to the everyday comradeship he had with his lieutenants. Small wonder that the judge looks to have aged about a decade by the end of the story.

* FakedGiftAcceptance: {{Justified|Trope}} in "The Chinese Bell Murders". The abbot of a Buddhist monastery suspected of scamming the women who come to pray for fertility presents the judge with several ingots of precious metal which he accepts, to Sergeant Hong's chagrin. At the end, the judge reveals the money was used solely to trap the villain by buying a pair of young prostitutes and having them spend a night in the temple to find out what was going on ([[spoiler:the monks rape the women who spend the night in the temple, counting on the social stigma of knowingly bearing a bastard to silence them]]). The reason he couldn't reassure the sergeant earlier was because of the increasing influence of Buddhism in Chinese society, who would have accused the judge of slander.

** In ''Poets And Murder'' from the original series, a girl lives in The Shrine Of The Black Fox, which is infested by foxes, and is believed to be possessed by a fox spirit. [[DownerEnding Unfortunately, she catches rabies from her foxes, goes mad, and dies horribly.]]

Judge Dee believes in the spirit of justice, rather than the letter of the law. His aim is not just to punish the wrongdoer but to reward those who do right, and ameliorate the sufferings of the victims as far as is possible. He often goes out of his way to help somebody only tangentially connected with his cases.

Prevention, not correction, should be his primary aim.''

->''A judge must brave the foaming billows of hate, deceit and doubt,\\

It is the 7th century AD, and Tang dynasty China is the greatest power in Asia, if not the world. Peace and good order are maintained throughout the empire by a large, efficient bureaucracy of highly-educated gentleman-scholars. Dee Jen-Djieh begins his career as a District Magistrate, the lowest rung of the provincial government. Over the years, he confronts and solves mysteries ranging from conspiracies against the throne to domestic disputes, with the help of his small staff of assistants:

** The central place of filial piety is repeatedly displayed, especially in the crime that gets the judge the angriest we see in the series: [[spoiler:General Ting's son was having an affair with one of his father's concubines, and tried to poison him. The judge outright tells him to [[DrivenToSuicide commit suicide]].]]

** The only real crime he can accuse the BigBad of ''The Chinese Nail Murders'' is smuggling salt, which is a state monopoly but hardly an instant death sentence, giving him the time to bring his connections and influence to get acquitted. [[ConfessToALesserCrime So he gets the man to confess]] to having trapped the judge [[spoiler:and his lieutenants under a huge bronze bell (where they nearly suffocated)]] as a "prank" before letting other (corrupt) officials decide the man's punishment for smuggling, then reveals that an attack on an Imperial functionary is legally considered a crime against the state, meaning an instant death sentence and a first-priority treatment for the examination of his case by the higher courts, meaning all his friends in high places won't be able to help him.

''Judge Dee'' is a series of PoliceProcedural novels and short stories set in ImperialChina and written by the Dutch diplomat and sinologist Robert van Gulik. The series was InspiredBy the 18th century Chinese novel 狄公案 (''Dí Gōng'àn'') or ''Cases Of Judge Dee'', which van Gulik had translated during his war service, and had published in 1949 as ''Celebrated Cases Of Judge Dee''.

** The only real crime he can accuse the BigBad of ''The Chinese Nail Murders'' is smuggling salt, which is a state monopoly but hardly an instant death sentence, giving him the time to bring his connections and influence to get acquitted. [[ConfessToALesserCrime So he gets the man to confess]] to having trapped the judge [[spoiler:and his lieutenants under a huge bronze bell (where they nearly suffocated)]] as a "prank", then reveals that an attack on an Imperial functionary is legally considered a crime against the state, meaning an instant death sentence and a first-priority treatment for the examination of his case by the higher courts, meaning all his friends in high places won't be able to help him.

* FamilialFoe: The BigBad of ''The Chinese Bell Murders'' has spent decades framing, killing, and otherwise persecuting three generations of a family that he feels envious of. Ironically, the person begging the local judges to make him pay for his crimes is [[spoiler:his wife and not his mother-in-law as everyone assumed.]]

* FamilialFoe: The BigBad of ''The Chinese Bell Murders'' has spent decades framing, killing, and otherwise persecuting three generations of a family that he feels envious of.

* HookerWithAHeartOfGold: Pretty much every prostitute except the high-class courtesans. Brothel owners, on the other hand, are vicious harpies only too glad to ignore an abducted woman's story if it gets them another "employee".

** Violet Liang from ''The Emperor's Pearl'' single-handedly cripples three armed male thugs, and drags them to Dee's tribunal, where they can't wait to confess and be locked up safely in jail.

* FanDisservice: There tends to be at least one illustration of a topless woman per book, but they typically show women who are in the process of being attacked by potential rapists or are recounting their story to Judge Dee soon afterward.

* DeathBySex: There is one case, where a bridegroom thinks he has done this to his bride on their wedding night, freaks out, goes into hiding, and is accused of murder. [[spoiler:Turns out that she had only fainted.]]

* DamselOutOfDistress: In ''The Chinese Lake Murders'' and ''The Willow Pattern'' the young ladies prove to be anything but helpless - even if they ''are'' distressed.

* DefiledForever: Present in Judge Dee's world, but much more nuanced than you might expect. On the one hand, women are expected to remain virgins until marriage, and to commit suicide if raped, especially if they're married. On the other, Dee's own Third Lady is a rape survivor, and he fully accepts her as his wife. After leaving their "unfortunate profession" even "common prostitutes" are depicted as able to find happy marriages with "honest farmers", and high-class courtesans are seen as suitable wives even for gentleman-scholars.

** The distressing practice of selling young girls into prostitution is treated as a matter of routine, even by the girls themselves. To be fair in most cases it's shown that it was that or starvation for the whole family. However one girl, sold by her gentleman-official father to pay his drinking debts, is clearly embittered.

** The central place of filial piety is repeatedly displayed, especially in the crime that gets the judge the angriest we see in the series: [[spoiler:General Ting's son was having an affair with one of his father's concubines, and tried to poison him. [[DrivenToSuicide The judge outright tells him to commit suicide.]]]]

** The Judge is only moderately convincing as a low-class criminal (he's much better in more distinguished roles like fortune-tellers and traveling doctors) but his big ex-outlaw bruisers Ma Joong and Chiao Tai can easily pass.
** Tao Gan actually IS a barely-reformed criminal and MasterOfDisguise.

** The judge once had to deal with the fallout of a high-ranking official committing suicide after being spurned by a courtesan, who was found dead soon after. [[spoiler:The man's suicide had nothing to do with the courtesan, she just assumed he'd killed himself out of despair [[NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity and used his death as publicity.]] In fact, he thought he'd caught leprosy like his father and killed himself before he became too disfigured, the father thought the girl was responsible as she claimed and killed her out of grief.]]

* EunuchsAreEvil: A given in the Judge's world; 'The necessary but horribly dangerous source of evil in every palace!'.

* EverybodyWasKungFuFighting: As this is ImperialChina not only the Judge and his lieutenants Ma Joong and Chiao Tai know kung-fu (or "Chinese boxing" as Van Gulik calls it), but so do a number of supporting characters, both friend and foe.
* EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep: The names of Dee's First and Second Ladies are never revealed. Only Third Lady, whom he met in the course of his work, is ever named, and even then we only learn her family name, not her personal name. Once married to the judge, all his wives are known simply as <ordinal number> Lady.

* BlindfoldedTrip: In one story, the victim thinks he was taken somewhere in the mountains in a closed palanquin. Tao Gan, however, thinks it's a ruse- he thinks it more likely that the carriers simply tilted the palanquin and walked around the inner courtyard of a large house, with the occasional "Watch the cliff!" for effect.

* BandOfBrothels: The sex trade is legal and licensed in Tang China. It is the dominant trade on Paradise Island, the setting for the ''Red Pavilion''. Unusually the guild head is portrayed sympathetically. Normally the Judge despises madams and pimps as much as he is sympathetic to the women themselves.

** At the top of the list are Ma Jong and Chiao Tai of course, oath-brothers and comrades-in-arms from their days as outlaws.

* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: Shortly after their first meeting, Chiao Tai inspects the Judge's sword, the legendary ''Rain Dragon'', and exclaims in admiration: [[spoiler:"If it should be ordained that ever I should die by the sword, I pray that it may be this blade that is washed in my blood!"]] And in the last book ''Murder In Canton'', a villain steals ''Rain Dragon'', and [[spoiler:Chiao Tai is killed in preventing him from killing Judge Dee with it.]]

* BlindIdiotTranslation: The French translation dutifully notes every time a character says something [[DeadpanSnarker "dryly"]]. Unfortunately, in French the meaning is closer to "sharply", making the judge seem short-tempered instead of sarcastic.

* ''Hoong Liang'' - An old family retainer who the Judge appoints his sergeant of the tribunal. Most often referred to as "Sergeant Hoong".
* ''Ma Joong'' - A former highwayman turned investigator. The uneducated son of a poor fisherman, in addition to his great size and strength he is a master martial artist, holding the "highest rank in boxing" (kung-fu, in modern terms). Admires strong-minded young women of common rank.
* ''Chiao Tai'' - Ma Joong's best friend. Another ex-highwayman and fellow investigator, he is a rather mysterious fellow, obviously of gentle if not noble birth, with peculiarly [[FatalAttractor fatal luck]] in love. He is an ex-soldier who [[{{Wuxia}} turned outlaw to pursue revenge]] on a superior officer who [[BestServedCold betrayed]] him and his men. However, when he finally catches up with his man, as a recent murder victim, he decides he wasn't worth the killing anyway.
* ''Tao Gan'' - con-man, swindler and gambler who, like his colleagues, turns over a new leaf as a member of Dee's staff.

* ArtisticLicenseHistory: Leaving aside the transplantation across time and the fictional nature of the cases, the biggest error the series commits is its depiction of Chinese polygyny. [[note]]Polygyny where wives are of equal status had always been illegal in China, and had been considered a crime in some dynasties. In family laws from the Tang to Qing dynasties, the status of a wife, concubines and maid-mistresses couldn't be altered.[[/note]]

** The sequels have a Huli Jing show up (sort of): a priest explains that he was always sort of shunned because his father had been tricked into marrying a fox-woman, who turned back into a fox some time after he (the priest) was born. The judge (and everyone else) stare at him in silence for a while, because it's blindingly obvious that the wife ran off with another man, the father passing it off as the fox spirit going back to the wild.
* AsiansLoveTea: The titular character downs ''gallons'' of tea in the course of his cases. This being ImperialChina [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_tea_culture everybody else is equally addicted]] (except for his faithful Lieutenants Ma Joon and Chiao Tai who prefer 'the amber liquid', i.e. wine). A cup of tea is even offered to witnesses and criminals in court, to revive them after a round of beating or being overpowered by emotion.
* AsYouKnow: The characters are presumably familiar with incense clocks, the Imperial government, manners in the 'Flower and Willow' world etc., but they are kind enough to give, and listen to, explanations of things they already know, for the benefit of western readers who do not.
* AuthorityEqualsAsskicking: The judge is a swordsman, stick fighter, and pretty good at kung-fu. He can handle most villains without the assistance of his loyal lieutenants, but he is not the best fighter on his team. Chiao Tai is a superior swordsman and archer, and Ma Joong a better boxer and wrestler.