The Beacon-Fire Folly is one volume in the Stories from the Eastern Zhou States series, drawn from the long historical romance Romance of the Eastern Zhou States, compiled and adapted by Feng Menglong of the Ming dynasty. It tells the widely circulated tale from the eve of the Western Zhou's fall. According to the novel, by the reign of King You of Zhou, the king was cruel and ungrateful and doted on the beauty Bao Si. After entering the palace, Bao Si, though honored as queen, never smiled all day, and the king tried every means without winning a smile from her. The sycophantic minister Guo Shifu offered a plan: the former kings had set up dozens of beacon towers below Mount Li, and when foreign invaders came, wolf-smoke was lit and drums beaten, and nearby lords would lead troops to the rescue upon seeing the signal; if the beacons were lit in peacetime and the lords made a fruitless trip, Bao Si would surely find it amusing. The king gladly adopted the plan and took Bao Si up Mount Li to light the beacons at night. The lords rushed over overnight but found no enemy and could only roll up their banners and return, and Bao Si indeed clapped and laughed. Afterward the king repeated mistake after mistake—deposing the legitimate heir and installing a concubine's son, trusting the wicked and flattering—until finally the Marquis of Shen, allied with the Western Rong, breached Haojing. When real crisis came, the beacons could no longer summon rescue, the king died and the state perished, the Western Zhou ended, and the history of the Eastern Zhou states began. This volume links the causes and consequences of this event in a storytelling style and explains the clues of Bao Si's origins, the king's deposition of the queen and installation of the heir, and the Marquis of Shen's bringing Rong troops into the capital. Compared with the brief records in historical texts, it emphasizes narrative turns and characters' choices, making it easy for ordinary readers to grasp in light reading the old warning that "one who breaks faith with others ultimately eats the fruit of his own doing," and it also prepares the way for continuing with the later stories of the Five Hegemons of Spring and Autumn and the Seven Warring States.
《东周列国志》一百零八回，写尽从西周末年到秦统一六国五百余年的兴亡盛衰，而全书的第一记重锤，就是“烽火戏诸侯”。这一册把这段家喻户晓的故事单独抽出来讲清楚：幽王为何失信，褒姒为何不笑，诸侯为何而来又为何散去，镐京又为何在一夜之间易主。故事里的每个细节几乎都成了后世的成语与典故——“千金买笑”“烽火戏诸侯”至今仍在用；而它的教训也格外直白：把信用于国家安危的信号当作儿戏，等到真正需要时便再无人响应。对于想接触古典名著又怕被半文半白的原文和庞杂人物吓退的读者，这是一个轻便的入口：先从一个完整的故事切入，再顺着线索去读春秋争霸、战国纷争。适合亲子共读、课堂讲述，也适合通勤途中随手翻几页。
Feng Menglong (1574–1646), courtesy name Youlong and style name Mohan Zhai Zhuren, was a native of Changzhou in Suzhou Prefecture (present-day Suzhou, Jiangsu). A Ming dynasty writer and dramatist, he devoted his life to collecting and editing popular literature. He compiled Yushi Mingyan, Jingshi Tongyan, and Xingshi Hengyan, known collectively as the "Three Words," which became representative anthologies of vernacular short stories. He also compiled Qingshi and Gujin Tangui, revised Xin Lieguo Zhi and Pingyao Zhuan, and served as magistrate of Shouning County in Fujian. His works draw on urban life and folk legends, employ lively vernacular language, and focus on human nature and social manners, exerting a lasting influence on later vernacular fiction and drama. The library holds 200 of his works, spanning classical literature and social fiction.
