p. 254:  Shui-hu-chuan has been translated by Pearl Buck, All Men are Brothers.  Parts of Hsi-yu-chi have been translated by A. Waley, Monkey, London 1946. San-kuo yen-i is translated by C. H. Brewitt-Taylor, San Kuo, or Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Shanghai 1925 (a new edition just published).  A purged translation of Chin-p’ing-mei is published by Fr. Kuhn Chin P’ing Mei, New York 1940.

p. 255:  Even the “murder story” was already known in Ming time.  An example is R. H. van Gulik, Dee Gong An.  Three Murder Cases solved by Judge Dee, Tokyo 1949.

p. 256:  For a special group of block-prints see R. H. van Gulik, Erotic Colour Prints of the Ming Dynasty, Tokyo 1951.  This book is also an excellent introduction into Chinese psychology.

p. 257:  Here I use work done by David Chan.

p. 258:  I use here the research of J. J. L. Duyvendak; the reasons for the end of such enterprises, as given here, may not exhaust the problem.  It may not be without relevance that Cheng came from a Muslim family.  His father was a pilgrim (Bull.  Chin.  Studies, vol. 3, pp. 131-70).  Further research is desirable.—­Concerning folk-tales, I use my own research.  The main Buddhist tales are the Jataka stories.  They are still used by Burmese Buddhists in the same context.

p. 260:  The Oirat (Uyrat, Ojrot, Oeloet) were a confederation of four tribal groups:  Khosud, Dzungar, Doerbet and Turgut.

p. 261:  I regard this analysis of Ming political history as unsatisfactory, but to my knowledge no large-scale analysis has been made.—­For Wang Yang-ming I use mainly my own research.

p. 262:  For the coastal salt-merchants I used Lo Hsiang-lin’s work.

p. 263:  On the rifles I used P. Pelliot.  There is a large literature on the use of explosives and the invention of cannons, especially L. C. Goodrich and Feng Chia-sheng in Isis, vol. 36, 1946 and 39, 1948; also G. Sarton, Li Ch’iao-p’ing, J. Prusek, J. Needham, and M. Ishida; a comparative, general study is by K. Huuri, Studia Orientalia vol. 9, 1941.—­For the earliest contacts of Wang with Portuguese, I used Chang Wei-hua’s monograph.—­While there is no satisfactory, comprehensive study in English on Wang, for Lu Hsiang-shan the book by Huang Siu-ch’i, Lu Hsiang-shan, a Twelfth-century Chinese Idealist Philosopher, New Haven 1944, can be used.

p. 264:  For Tao-yen, I used work done by David Chan.—­Large parts of the Yung-lo ta-tien are now lost (Kuo Po-kung, Yuean T’ung-li studied this problem).

p. 265:  Yen-ta’s Mongol name is Altan Qan (died 1582), leader of the Tuemet.  He is also responsible for the re-introduction of Lamaism into Mongolia (1574).—­For the border trade I used Hou Jen-chih; for the Shansi bankers Ch’en Ch’i-t’ien and P. Maybon.  For the beginnings of the Manchu see Fr. Michael, The Origins of Manchu Rule in China, Baltimore 1942.