A screenshot from the Sina weibo account of Henan Daily.

Chinese novelist and dean of the College of Liberal Arts at Zhengzhou University Ling Jiefang – known by his penname Eryuehe – died early this morning at the age of 73.

Publishing his first work in 1986, Eryuehe was most famous for his Emperor Series, comprising The Great Emperor Kangxi,Emperor Yongzheng, and Emperor Qianlong. Due to widespread piracy, there are no accurate statistics of how many copies of the books have been sold, but it is said to have surpassed 10 million.

The three novels were all adapted into popular TV series broadcast at the end of 1990s and start of the 2000s, starring famous Chinese actors and actresses such as Chen Daoming, Tang Guoqiang, and Siqin Gaowa.

They tell the stories of the three-generation emperors, Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong, in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), under whose reins the country prospered while being confronted with problems such as corruption, rivalry among royal siblings jostling for power, invasions, and territory disputes.

Thanks to his vivid and profound description of the shocking corruption of the Qing Dynasty, Eryuehe was often regarded as an “expert of anti-corruption”. In 2014, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection invited him as the first guest speaker for its online program Listen to Masters .

Due to eye diseases caused by diabetes, in recent years Eryuehe was unable to read or write for long periods, but he kept speaking on anti-corruption. As a historical novelist, he was sensitive to many social problems, corruption in particular.

"I would think about the social phenomena that I observed and use my influence to make my contribution to the solutions," he said in an interview.

He observed that corruption did not only exist among the rich and the powerful, but also had become a universal social phenomenon as a consequence of consumerism.

The solution to corruption lied in home education, he said.

"Read books and newspapers carefully, and learn to live well," he said.