"Water Margin" takes "knot righteousness" and "gather righteousness" as the structural clues of the whole book, and especially cites the word "righteousness" as the spiritual core of the whole book. Novels and operas since the Song and Yuan Dynasties like to fabricate stories of so-called "knot righteousness" and never tire of it. Not only the Three Kingdoms and the Water Margin, but also many other stories. The so-called "brothers with the same surname" is formally a "simulation" of China's long-standing patriarchal relations linked by blood. However, the emphasis on this "secondary relationship" has a deconstruction of traditional ideas in theory and practice, which is a manifestation of the changes in the social structure and social relations system in ancient China. Because the traditional moral thoughts derived from the patriarchal social relations system in ancient China-especially those of Dong Zhongshu and Zhu after repeated Confucian reforms-have always been headed by "loyalty and filial piety". Filial piety is the foundation, loyalty is the amplification of filial piety, and the supremacy of imperial power pushes loyalty to an absolute height. Now this irrelevant "sub-relationship" has been emphasized, and the status of "righteousness" has been improved. Although the meaning of "loyalty and filial piety" has not been denied, it has actually depreciated.
Judging from the meaning, many contemporary "popular literature" works such as Water Margin and Romance of the Three Kingdoms are basically the same. The "righteousness" in these popular literary works is related to the "righteousness" in China Confucian classics as an ideological category, but it is also very different, which shows that the ideological culture of ancient China society has undergone different variations under the new historical conditions. However, the "righteousness" emphasized in the Water Margin is not exactly the same as that in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. "Righteousness" is the highest moral concept in The Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Although its connotation is quite complicated, in short, it mainly emphasizes a moral principle between people. "Water Margin" is not about emperors and generals, but a legendary story of heroes in the grass. The banner of Liangshan hero is "doing justice for heaven", which can only be understood as "justice", so "doing justice for heaven" can only be understood as being a man. The court and the government can't solve the human injustice. It is up to the Liangshan heroes to straighten things out, punish the disabled and eliminate violence. This is the meaning of "doing justice for heaven". So "doing justice for heaven" is just another way of saying "doing justice for chivalrous people". In other words, Shuihu first emphasized "Xia".