游侠列传

The chapter is about private men of the Han who stood outside the official order and rescued people in trouble at the risk of their own lives, such as Zhu Jia, who hid hundreds of hunted men. Sima Qian admits that their deeds often broke the law, but says 其言必信，其行必果 'their word is always kept, their deeds always carried through'. Its sketch of one of them as 短小精悍 'short but sharp and tough' is the source of that idiom.

These are the first biographies of 游侠 in Chinese history writing, and the ideal they set, a promise kept above the law and above one's own life, runs through all later 武侠 fiction.