Ruan Xiaoqi阮小七

History vs. fiction

The water margin leader who was demoted to commoner for wearing the imperial robe

• novel inventionRuan Xiaoqi was impeached by treacherous court officials and stripped of his rank and reduced to commoner status for playfully wearing Fang La's ochre-yellow robe after the suppression of Fang La.

  The names of the three Ruan brothers (Ruan Xiao'er, Ruan Xiaowu, and Ruan Xiaoqi) do appear in the early work "Da Song Xuanhe Yishi" (Events of the Xuanhe Era of the Great Song Dynasty), making them core figures in the Water Margin story. However, in official histories such as the "Song Shi" (History of Song), there is no record of their participation in the campaign to suppress Fang La, nor is there the vivid detail of Ruan Xiaoqi being impeached by treacherous court officials for wearing imperial robes that exceeded his rank, stripped of his official title, and demoted to commoner. The novel's design of this ending aims to expose the reality of treacherous officials holding power in the court, which is indeed literary fiction. The original text states: "却见是阮小七穿了御衣服，戴著平天冠，在那里嬉笑。" Subsequently, it says he was "又见说朝廷追夺了阮小七官诰，不合戴了方腊的平天冠，龙衣玉带，意在学他造反，罚为庶民" and "罚为庶民" (from "Water Margin", Chapter 119).