Gao Qiu

Gāo Qiú (高毬), nicknamed the 'High Ball', is a character in the epic Chinese novel the "Water Margin".

Gao starts off as a street urchin who impresses important government officials with his skill at football, but he soon becomes a perpetual thorn in the flesh of the Liangshan bandits. His first run-in with a bandit-to-be is with Lin Chong, whom he frames out of vengeance for his nephew Gao Yanei, in a plot involving Lu Qian, a good friend of Lin's.

Gao rises through the government ranks and eventually becomes Prime Minister, manipulating the incompetent Emperor Huizong, and ensuring that corruption and decadence prevail. Together with Tong Guan and Cai Jing, Gao Qiu seeks to eliminate Chao Gai and Song Jiang, the leaders of the Liangshan rebels, who have sought to "deliver justice on Heaven's behalf". Following a series of five failed imperial military campaigns against the bandits, Song Jiang takes up the government's offer of an amnesty, believing that this will bring peace and unity to the country.

Although the campaign against the Liao Tartars is successful, close to two thirds of the 108 heroes are slain in the campaign against the Southern rebel Fang La. When Song and his remaining brothers return to the imperial court, having eliminated the rebels, Gao Qiu conspires with his cronies to kill Song and his deputies one by one.

Gao Qiu is the cousin of Gao Lian, an equally corrupt government official who also appears in the novel .