Outlaws of the Marsh, One of the best known and best loved of the ancient Chinese novels which have come down through the ages, written in the fourteenth century, is a fictional account of twelfth-century events in the final years of Hui Zong, a Song Dynasty emperor who reigned from 1101 to 1125. It tells why and how one hundred some-old men and women are forced by the harsh feudal officialdom and banded together on a marsh-girt mountain, became leaders of an outlaw army of thousands and fought brave and resourceful battles against pompous, heartless tyrants.