The novel "The Story of the Mandarin Duck with the Copper Lock" was written in mid-to-late December 2012, and began to be published on the reading channel of **.com, and it took a whole year to complete the draft in December 2013.

After reading it, some readers suggested that I send it, so I started serializing it in April of 13.

In fact, this novel was just a short story at that time, about sixty or seventy thousand words, with the development of the storyline, readers kept sending me private messages, hoping that I could continue to write, and then, in addition to work and study, I continued to write, thank you very much for the strong support given by readers, so that I can successfully complete this novel.

I started writing the novel "The Story of the Mandarin Duck in the Copper Lock", mainly because I like the history of the Han Dynasty, especially the heroes of the Han Dynasty, so this novel was born.

Throughout modern novels, there are not a few characters with distinct personalities, because I use the language and stories of the main characters to set off the two sides of human nature, so that the characters have distinct personalities and show them at a glance. Like Helianto and Murong Detao, these two characters express the two sides of human nature very clearly.

In addition, the development of the story is reasonable, and the ending is unexpected according to the development of the story, which is also a feature of this novel mentioned in the reader's book review.

Because "The Legend of the Mandarin Duck with the Copper Lock" is mainly written about the descendants of Li Ling, the grandson of Li Guangzhi, the "flying general" of the Han Dynasty, so it is necessary to have a detailed understanding of the record of Li Ling in the "Historical Records", although there are very few places involving Li Ling in the novel, but about him in the Xiongnu, and married Tuoba as his wife, the surname of the descendants, are all based on historical facts, and it is not a complete joke.

There are indeed relevant records in the history books, and it is recorded in the "Book of Nanqi and the Biography of Wei Yu": At the beginning, the Xiongnu female name Tuoba, his wife Li Ling, Hu vulgar took her mother's name as her surname, so after the captive was Li Ling, the captives were very secretive, and it was said that it was the latter of the tombs, and they were killed, and they changed their surnames. Wei Yu refers to the Northern Wei Dynasty's Tuoba Xianbei, because Li Ling has a wife's name Tuoba, so the descendants take this as the surname.

It is recorded in this history book that after Li Ling surrendered to the Xiongnu, he married Tuoba clan, the daughter of Xiongnu Shan Yu, and according to the habit of the Hu people, he often had to follow his mother's surname, so Li Ling's descendants were surnamed Tuoba. also because Li Ling was captured and surrendered to the Xiongnu, and there is also a saying that Li Ling taboos this shame, so he let the descendants have the surname Tuoba.

Of course, it is mentioned in the history books that shortly after Li Ling's death, there was civil strife within the Xiongnu, and Li Ling's son moved to the east of Daze. Around the end of Emperor Xuan of the Han Dynasty, the Tuoba tribe of Li Ling's descendants formed a Xianbei Tuoba tribe through marriage and other means. Hundreds of years later, this tribe established the Northern Wei Dynasty. In 450 AD, there was a tragedy in the Northern Wei Dynasty, due to environmental changes, the Northern Wei royal family occupied the Tuoba surname of Li Ling's descendants, and in order to save themselves, Li Ling's descendants restored the surname Li. This point has been mentioned in the "Epitaph of Li Xian" unearthed in Guyuan, Ningxia.

Therefore, in the novel, I arranged a love story between a Murong Xianbei woman and a Tuoba man.

Regarding the surnames of the Xiongnu and the official positions of the Xiongnu, there is also some basis, and it is not completely adapted.

Most of the surnames of the characters in the novel are compound surnames, such as: Helian, Yuwen, Buliu Khan, etc., in the Qin and early Han dynasties contained in Sima Qian's "Historical Records", most of the Xiongnu had no surnames at all except for a few nobles.

In the "Biography of the Xiongnu" in the "Historical Records" and the "Biography of the Xiongnu" in the Book of Han, the Xiongnu nobles with different surnames only have the three surnames of Huyan, Lan and Xubu, but in the Eastern Han Dynasty, the surnames of the nobles with different surnames increased to four. "Book of the Later Han Dynasty" volume 89 "Biography of the Southern Xiongnu" contains: Shan Yu surname is false, and the different surnames are Huyan, Xubu, Qiulin, and Lan. Huyan's is on the left, and Lan's and Subu's are on the right.

The Book of Han, volume 94, "The Biography of the Xiongnu", records that Wang Zhaojun's two daughters, those who marry into the Subu tribe are the second in the subordination, and those who marry into the tribe are the second. Wen Ying commented: "When the Huns are also in the Huns." Wen Ying was a native of the Eastern Han Dynasty, and was engaged in Jingzhou at the end of the Han Dynasty, and Wei Jian'an was a minister of Ganling, so his knowledge was quite credible.

Sima Qian's official positions in the "Biography of the Xiongnu" only have the left and right bone duhous, while in the "Southern Xiongnu Biography" in the "Book of the Later Han", there are many Gudu marquis such as Han, Dangyu, Huyan, Lang, Li and Xubu, which shows that after Sima Qian, especially since the Eastern Han Dynasty, there was a large increase in the number of nobles with different surnames in the Xiongnu regime, and began to use the tribal name as the surname.

This novel has been serialized, and there are still many deficiencies, I hope that the majority of readers will give more valuable suggestions after reading, and thank readers again for their support.

December 23, 2013

Author: Han Yu