The Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty

The Fourteenth Year of Chenghua (成化十四年) is a Chinese novel by Meng Xi Shi (梦溪石) that was adapted into a live-action TV show produced by Jackie Chan. The English title of the show is The Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty.
==Canon== 
The novel was originally serialized on Jinjiang Literature City from September 2014 to March 2015. (Accessed 20 September 2022.)
The story follows Tang Fan (courtesy name Runqing), an official in the Shuntian Prefecture during the reign of the Chenghua Emperor. Tang Fan is called out to solve a murder case, during which he meets Sui Zhou (courtesy: Guangchan), a member of the Imperial Brocade Guard, and Wang Zhi, an Imperial Eunuch.
The novel follows Tang Fan’s political career as he moves from minor official to Head Vizier, each of his promotions primarily resulting from solving one mystery or another. It also traces his many relationships with his family, friends, colleagues, and his eventual lover.
==Adaptations== 
===Live Action=== 
The Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty is a 2020 Chinese television series produced by Jackie Chan. It stars Darren Chen as Tang Fan, Fu Meng-po as Sui Zhou and Liu Yaoyuan as Wang Zhi. It is available in full for free through iQiyi. It ran for 48 episodes, April 1 – April 24, 2020. 
==Fandom==
===Chinese-speaking Fandom=== 
===English-speaking Fandom=== 
The English fandom arose in response to the airing of the tv show, and as a result, most fanworks are based on tv canon rather than novel canon. On AO3 as of December 2022, the TV tag 成化十四年 | The Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty (TV) has 639 fanworks (596 in English) versus nine (all in English) for the book tag 成化十四年 - 梦溪石 | The Fourteenth Year of Chenghua - Mèng Xī Shí. Both book and tv fandoms are small enough to be eligible for Yuletide, and Yuletide fans wrote TV canon stories in 2020-2022. The tv fandom was the fourth most popular Yuletide fandom in 2020, with 17 stories posted. Enthusiasm seemed to have waned in 2021; only 6 stories were posted. In 2022, 5 stories were posted.
Fans have also written a tiny amount of RPF featuring the actors who play Tang Fan and Sui Zhou: Chen Kuan-hung and Fu Meng-po. Most of the works on AO3 are in English.
====Fan Translations====
The novel is usually referred to as The Fourteenth Year of Chenghua, which is a literal translation of the Chinese title. The most complete translation available was done by Chichi, though other translators' work is tracked on Novel Updates. (Accessed 9 September 2022.)
On March 28, 2020, a fan posted a request to the Novel Update Forums for the novel to be translated:
On April 6, 2020, jintingmei of the Golden Pavillion team replied to the thread with a link to a translation of chapter one and the comment, "Teaser if anyone wants a sample before they pick up. I don't have space in my schedule so I don't want to make people wait." The first translator to attempt the project was xoai ngon, who posted their translation in a Google Doc starting with chapter 1 on April 6, 2020 and reaching chapter 20 on September 21, 2020 before abandoning it. Nastriumden also started translating, posting chapter one on April 8, 2020 and reaching chapter 60 on October 6, 2020. Nastriumden posted this and other translations on their blogspot blog and was very prolific, but their blog also prominently displayed a warning: "I'm not a Chinese speaker or even and English speaker and my Translation is sub par"., 8 April 2020. (Accessed 9 September 2022.) Then, between March and May 2021, nottegram posted a complete translation on their blogspot blog, but the entire blog was later deleted.Wayback Machine copies: chapter 1, 14 March 2021. chapter 169, 9 May 2021. table of contents
In November 2020, Chichi asked the DanmeiNovels subreddit what translation they should pick up after completing Lord Seventh and noted in the comments that several people had recommended The Fourteenth Year of Chenghua, but that they were intimidated by its length., r/DanmeiNovels, 13-14 November 2020. Chichi started translating from chapter 1 on December 21, 2020, completing the whole novel and the extras on January 14, 2022. They later tweeted that the translation was 741.5k words/1155 pages long., 20 January 2022.
==Shipping== 
Shipping usually features the major characters of the story. 
* Tang Fan/Sui Zhou
* Sui Zhou/Tang Fan/Wang Zhi 
* Tang Fan/Wang Zhi 
* Wang Zhi/Ding Rong 
The most popular ship is the (novel) canon ship of Tang Fan/Sui Zhou, with 345 results on AO3. 
==Example Fanworks==
===Fanfiction===
===Video===
*ME! by lolachrome, premiered at con.txt 2020 (2020-07-26)
*Breakfast Song by alpheratz (2021-04-18)
==Fannish Resources==
*television, RPF, and book fanworks at AO3
*Sui Zhou Clothes Off! Fic and Art Fest (February 2021)
==References==
Category:The Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty