In 1949, while posted in Tokyo, Robert van Gulik published a translation titled Dee Goong An: Three Murder Cases Solved by Judge Dee in a limited edition of twelve hundred copies. In 1976, Dover Publications Inc. published a mass-market paperback edition, making this book accessible to the general public. In the afterword to his translation, Van Gulik noted that his translation covered the first thirty chapters of a Chinese book entitled Four Great Strange Cases of the Reign of Empress Wu. These chapters deal with the early part of Judge Dee’s career as a district magistrate, when he solved crimes and punished criminals. He did not translate the remaining thirty-four chapters that deal with a later part of Dee’s career as a statesman at the imperial court in the capital. The present book is a translation of the second part of the Chinese novel, describing how Governor Dee rids the court of Empress Wu Zetian of treacherous officials and how he convinces the Empress to keep her own son as the crown prince, instead of replacing him with her nephew, Wu Chengsi. Although the various plots in these chapters are fictional, the general setting does reflect the corruption, strife and degeneration at the Tang court during Empress Wu’s reign. Quite a number of the characters in this novel are historical figures. The author has woven into his storylines numerous events that can be traced back to the historical records in the Old Tang History. The present story is not a detective story, but a story about perverse behaviour and power struggles at the imperial court. Readers who expect to find another Judge Dee story here are going to be disappointed; readers ready to see a ruthless and diabolically clever Governor Dee who finds inventive solutions to knotty problems should brace themselves for the offensive in which Governor Dee chastises his adversaries. - from Translator's Preface