The Feima Armed Escort (simplified: 飞马镖局, traditional: 飛马鏢局, pinyin: Fēimǎ Biāojú, jyutping: fei1 maa5 biu1 guk6) was the armed escort headed by Ma Xingkong, known in the jianghu as the “Hundred Victories Divine Fist” (百胜神拳). Its banner was a yellow flag embroidered in black silk with a winged horse (SIDE ch. 1). After Ma died at Shang Family Fort, his disciple Xu Zheng and daughter Ma Chunhua ran it, and its business fell away until Xu Zheng was killed on the road (SIDE ch. 4, 12).
History
The robbery at Shang Family Fort
Ma Xingkong, as Escort Chief, was escorting three hundred thousand taels of silver with Ma Chunhua, Xu Zheng, Escort Captains Qi and Yang, five scouts and more than ten porters when a rainstorm drove the party to shelter at Shang Family Fort in Wuding County, Shandong (SIDE ch. 1). There the bandit chief Yan Ji (later Baoshu) demanded half the silver. When Xu Zheng asked whether he had never heard of the Feima Armed Escort, Yan Ji mocked the name, pulled the escort’s flag from the cart, snapped the pole and stamped on the banner, which broke one of the gravest taboos of the jianghu. Yan Ji then beat Xu Zheng and kicked Ma Xingkong down with an unfamiliar move (SIDE ch. 1). Tian Guinong, sheltering there with Nan Lan, disarmed both sides and proposed to share the silver out among those present (SIDE ch. 1). When Yan Ji’s men later moved to carry the silver off, Old Madam Shang took Yan Ji into her inner hall, defeated him privately and sent the bandits away without it (SIDE ch. 3). She then persuaded Ma Xingkong to stay at the fort to recover, and sent for fellow escorts nearby to carry the silver on to Jinling in his place. Ma, his spirit broken by the defeat, closed his escort business for the time being and stayed at the fort for seven or eight months, teaching Shang Baozhen (SIDE ch. 3).
Ma Xingkong’s death
Old Madam Shang had kept Ma at the fort meaning to kill him, holding him partly to blame for her husband’s death. When she trapped her guests in the fort’s iron hall and set it alight, Ma escaped with the others, but she struck him from behind and knocked him back into the burning hall, where he died (SIDE ch. 4).
Under Xu Zheng
Soon after Ma’s death, Xu Zheng and Ma Chunhua married and took over the escort. Xu lacked his shifu’s standing and was blunt and headstrong, and his dealings in the jianghu went badly; three or four years of setbacks were patched up only by Ma Chunhua’s efforts, and the escort’s business collapsed until no large commissions came its way. Its flag was old and faded, and its only escort at the time Hu Fei met it was nine thousand taels for a salt merchant bound for Baoding in Northern Zhili, taken because the larger escorts charged too much. Never since the escort’s founding had it carried so small a consignment (SIDE ch. 12).
On that journey the escort was harried at an inn in Guangshui and again on the road some thirty li short of Wusheng Pass by a large band of skilled fighters from many regions posing as bandits. They jeered that the escort should be renamed the “Crawling Dog Armed Escort” now that Ma was gone. Hu Fei and Cheng Lingsu, travelling in disguise, took the couple’s side (SIDE ch. 12). Shang Baozhen then arrived and killed Xu Zheng with his palm in single combat, and Ma Chunhua in turn killed Shang Baozhen with his family’s Eight Trigrams dao (SIDE ch. 12). The “bandits” proved to be martial officers from Beijing, sent south in Fuk’anggan’s service to learn news of Ma Chunhua (SIDE ch. 13).
Organisation
The escort was led by an Escort Chief (总镖头), with escort captains, scouts and porters under him (SIDE ch. 1). Its reputation rested on Ma Xingkong himself: after his death the bandits sneered that only when Old Escort Chief Ma led the carts had the escort deserved the name “Feima” (SIDE ch. 12).
Notable members
- Ma Xingkong: Escort Chief, the “Hundred Victories Divine Fist” (SIDE ch. 1)
- Xu Zheng: Ma’s disciple, later head of the escort (SIDE ch. 1, 12)
- Ma Chunhua: Ma’s only daughter, Xu Zheng’s wife (SIDE ch. 1, 12)
- Escort Captain Qi and Escort Captain Yang (戚镖头, 杨镖头): captains in Ma’s party at Shang Family Fort (SIDE ch. 1)
See also
- Side Story of the Flying Fox factions
- Armed Escort — the trade
- Shang Family Fort — where Ma Xingkong was robbed and later died
- Pingtong Armed Escort — another escort of the period