The Great Hunting Gang

Name: The Great Hunting Gang
ISBN: 9787517106012

Xu DahuiChina Yanshi Press · ChinaJun 2023

3.3

Word count: 932K words
Chapters: 132
ISBN: 9787517106012

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Summary

Astride a fiery horse, a sand gun over his shoulder, Zhao Laobai, gun chief of the Three Rivers Hunters' Guild, takes over the guild from his hunter father and hunts in White Wolf Mountain, chasing wolves and stalking bears. Amid the thrilling, perilous battues, desire grows apace with the gunpowder. The son of a widow is taken back after her death to be raised in Zhao Laobai's courtyard, but the truth of his identity must, alas, stay secret, in a tangled love story interwoven with the loss and recovery of human nature. As the history of the Three Rivers shifts and the winds of change blow, people change with them, and two half-brothers take utterly different paths in life. Zhou Qingxi turns traitor, throwing in his lot with the Japanese, while Zhao Yonghe leads the hunters' guild, a band of hot-blooded men, onto the road of resistance against Japan, national hatred and family grievance interwoven, kindness and ugliness dancing together, the hunters' guns aimed at the nation's enemies and not only at roe deer and wild boar... In this strange and dangerous world of the hunt, man contends with beasts in life-and-death struggle, and must face human foes as well. Written by Xu Dahui, The Great Hunting Guild is a strikingly individual, weighty novel of the eerie and the adventurous, steeped in hunting culture and strong local color.

Editor's review

The Great Hunting Guild is a novel by Xu Dahui set against the hunting culture of the mountains and forests of the Northeast. Staged in the Guandong land of the late Qing and early Republic, it follows the rise and fall of the "Great Hunting Guild," a peculiar community, to portray survival and human struggle on the Northeast frontier in a particular historical era. Xu Dahui's writing is coarse-grained and vital: he not only depicts the danger and craft of hunting but elevates it into a cultural symbol for exploring the deep tensions between man and nature, tradition and modernity, and the code of the jianghu versus the tide of the times. The characters are vivid and three-dimensional; loyalty and betrayal within the guild, and the harshness and change of the world outside, weave into a weighty historical canvas. As a novel rich in regional color, its value lies not only in the legendary quality of its story but in its literary record of a vanishing way of life. For readers, it is an immersive journey into the mountain-forest culture of the Northeast, conveying, beyond grand historical narrative, the tenacious vitality and tragic beauty of marginalized communities.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers interested in Northeast regional culture and modern history
Readers who enjoy long novels with a strong jianghu atmosphere and a sense of fate
Enthusiasts who want to learn about traditional hunting culture and mountain-forest survival wisdom
Readers who appreciate solid writing and deeply drawn characters

Not a good fit for

Readers seeking light entertainment or fast-paced web fiction
Readers wholly unfamiliar with and uninterested in this particular regional history and culture

Reading tips

While reading, it may help to consult background material on Northeast China in the late Qing and early Republic to better understand the story's context.
Pay attention to the novel's multilayered depiction of hunting as a core activity—at once a means of livelihood and a vehicle of power, ethics, and belief.
Savor how the author uses the individual fates of guild members to reflect the hesitation and choices of a whole traditional community amid epochal change.

About the publisher

China Yanshi Press China · Founded in 1995

China Yanshi Press is a comprehensive publisher whose output covers politics, law, economics, management, history, culture, and cadre education, alongside general-interest titles in documentary literature, inspirational growth, essays and miscellaneous works, classics, youth literature, and social novels. Its library currently holds 146 titles. Representative books include classics such as The First Half of My Life: Complete Edition and Liang Qichao's Family Letters, inspirational works such as Dale Carnegie's The Quick and Easy Way to Effective Speaking, and technical titles such as Theory and Technology of Humanoid Robots. Its authors include Aisin-Gioro Puyi, Liang Qichao, Hu Shi, and Dale Carnegie. The press has built considerable strength in documentary literature and classic works while also serving academic theory and general reading, showing a publishing profile that values multiple fields. Public information is limited, and the above is based mainly on the books held in the library.

版权信息
第一章腊月里开围
一
二
三
四
第二章半路遇警察
一
二
三
四
第三章地仓子里回忆
一
二
三
四
第四章木屋青涩偷情
一
二
三
四
第五章狼自断爪逃脱
一
二
三
四
第六章码踪遭遇黑熊
一
二
三
四
第七章秘救抗联战士
一
二
三
四
第八章过去的没忘掉
一
二
三
四
第九章悲情鹰把头之女
一
二
三
四
第十章民间陋俗制造
一
二
三
四
第十一章再遇借种女人
一
二
三
四
第十二章炮头带回男孩
一
二
三
四
第十三章风雪猎帮宿营地
一
二
三
四
第十四章收围前特别安排
一
二
三
四
第十五章煮肉全村人吃
一
二
三
四
第十六章集家并村消息
一
二
三
四
第十七章心房拥挤三个女人
一
二
三
四
第十八章捅破那层窗户纸
一
二
三
四
第十九章借熊杀人未遂
一
二
三
四
第二十章进城买禁售药
一
二
三
四
第二十一章画地为牢修人圈
一
二
三
四
第二十二章密商潜入部落村
一
二
三
四
第二十三章两方都在做准备
一
二
三
四
第二十四章山野外去拉鹰
一
二
三
四
第二十五章袭击部落村计划
一
二
三
四
第二十六章赵家猎帮从此消失
一
二
三
四
附录

FAQ

Is The Great Hunting Guild purely a novel about hunting?

Not at all. Hunting is the novel's central plot vehicle, but the author's intent goes far beyond it. Through the microcosm of the "hunting guild," the work portrays the complex human relations, jianghu rules, and the predicament and perseverance of a traditional way of life under the impact of historical change in late Qing and early Republican Northeast China, carrying profound cultural and historical import.

What is the creative background of author Xu Dahui?

Xu Dahui is an author deeply devoted to Northeast themes. His works are mostly set in the Guandong land, and he excels at mining regional historical and cultural resources and creating characters with grassroots vitality and a jianghu aura. His style is often solid and rugged, imbued with strong rustic feeling and a sense of fate; The Great Hunting Guild is a typical representative of this creative character.

Is the book difficult to get into?

The novel contains some Northeast dialect and hunting jargon, as well as a specific historical and geographical background, which may take some getting used to at first. But once interest in the story and characters takes hold, these elements become features that deepen immersion rather than insurmountable obstacles. The narrative is clear and fluid, and the core plot is easy to follow.

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About the author

Xu Dahui Author · Chinese · 1956

Xu Dahui, who also writes under the pen names Yanweizi and Zhengyan, was born in September 1956 in Shuangliao, Jilin. He is a member of the China Writers Association and holds a second-level literary creation professional title. He graduated from the Jilin Writers Advanced Study College in 1987 and has served as deputy editor-in-chief of the magazine Guandong Writers and as vice chairman and secretary-general of the Siping Writers Association. He began publishing in 1976 and has written 42 novels, including Undercover, Fleeing, The Rival and Snow Wolf, several of which have been adapted for television. His work spans otherworld fantasy, social fiction, mystery and suspense, and documentary literature. Representative titles include Risking Life, Snow Wolf, Huazi House, Control, Betrayal, Gunpoint, The Last Opium Pipe and Wolf Smoke, with 22 titles held in the collection. His writing tends toward tight plotting and sharp conflict, often moving between suspense and social reality.