Feng Tiannan (simplified: 凤天南, traditional: 凤天南, pinyin: Fèng Tiānnán, jyutping: fung6 tin1 naam4), called “Tyrant of the South” (南霸天), was a wealthy magnate of Foshan, Guangdong, and zhangmen of the Wuhu School, which he founded. His persecution of the vegetable grower Zhong Asi set Hu Fei on his trail across China. He was the father of Yuan Ziyi, who saved him from Hu Fei three times, and Hu Fei finally killed him at Fuk’anggan’s Grand Assembly of Zhangmen under Heaven (SIDE ch. 5, 14, 19).
Biography
The Tyrant of Foshan
Feng Tiannan won his name in Lingnan with a gold-plated steel staff, founded the Wuhu School and settled in Foshan. There he owned a great pawnshop, the Hero Tower wineshop and a gambling house, the Hero Meeting Hall; he was held the best fighter in Guangdong, had friends among high officials as far as the capital, and took a cut of whatever his Wuhu School brethren made (SIDE ch. 5). By his own account he had killed more men than he could count, and his son Feng Yiming had killed thirty or forty (SIDE ch. 7).
Years before, he forced himself on Yingu, a fisherman’s daughter who brought fish to his house. When her father came to protest, Feng had him beaten as a blackmailer; he took to his bed and died months later. Yingu, driven from her family, bore a daughter, Yuan Ziyi, and begged in Foshan. When a fish-market hand married her and offered to raise the child as his own, Feng sent a dozen of his disciples to break up the wedding and drive the man out of town, then had him killed on the road. Yingu buried him and fled with her daughter (SIDE ch. 14).
Zhong Asi
Wanting to build a Seven Phoenix Tower for his newly taken seventh concubine, Feng Tiannan set his heart on the few mu of vegetable ground that fed Zhong Asi’s family, and Zhong refused to sell. When one of Feng’s geese went missing, his household accused Zhong’s two small sons of eating it; the younger boy, only five and unable to speak clearly, kept saying what sounded like “ate me”; he meant that he had eaten snails. Feng had Zhong Asi jailed and tortured by the local magistrate’s office. Zhong’s wife took the boy to the North Emperor Temple and, before the god and her neighbours, cut open his belly: it held only snails. She went mad, and Feng’s men went on hunting the elder boy with dogs (SIDE ch. 5).
Hu Fei, arriving in Foshan, wrecked Feng’s wineshop, pawnshop and gambling house, dragged Feng Yiming to the temple, and beat Feng Tiannan in a fight, snapping off his queue and breaking his foot with his own staff. Feng admitted the wrong, promised compensation and swore to leave Foshan within three days. When Hu Fei was lured away, Feng killed Zhong Asi, his wife and their elder son in the temple, then burnt his own properties and vanished (SIDE ch. 5).
Flight
In Foshan, when Hu Fei was about to cut open Feng Yiming, Feng made a show of cutting his own throat, a ploy to buy time, and a ring thrown by an unseen woman knocked the dao aside (SIDE ch. 5). Hu Fei caught up with father and son at the Xiangfei Temple, and when Feng, beaten, swung his staff at his own head, Yuan Ziyi’s whip stopped it; she then fought Hu Fei in the dark while the Fengs escaped (SIDE ch. 7). Her shifu had told her that her father would surely come to a violent end, and that she might save him three times to repay her debt as a daughter and then have nothing more to do with him (SIDE ch. 14). On his way north Feng gave Hu Fei a great house and lands at Yitang town, and in Beijing he paid Zhou Tiejiao and his fellows to mediate. When Hu Fei still refused to be reconciled, Feng fled once more, abandoning the officers who had tried to shield him, and Yuan Ziyi saved him for the third time (SIDE ch. 13, 14, 19).
The Grand Assembly
Feng Tiannan came to the Grand Assembly as zhangmen of the Wuhu School and won a Jade Dragon Cup, felling challenger after challenger with silver needles that seemed to fly from nowhere. The needles were in fact shot from Tang Pei’s boots. Feng had learnt that Tang Pei had violated Yingu and driven her to hang herself, and had bought his help with a promise of ten thousand taels a year and a hint that he would otherwise tell (SIDE ch. 18, 19). A shield hidden in his staff, painted with five tiger heads, turned the hidden weapons of the Lanzhou hidden-weapon expert Ke Zirong (SIDE ch. 18).
At the assembly Hu Fei cut his staff into pieces with the Tianlong School’s treasured dao. Tang Pei, accused by Yuanxing, named Feng as her father and his accomplice; Feng had not known she was his daughter until that moment, and he dismissed her mother as a woman he had dropped once he had had her (SIDE ch. 19). As Tang Pei fled, Feng ran for a side gate. At Yuanxing’s cry Hu Fei threw the treasured dao after him, and it cut away his right arm with half his chest and back. He died there, and Yuanxing thanked Hu Fei for avenging her mother, though her feelings at the sight of him were torn: he was still her father (SIDE ch. 19).
Personality
Feng Tiannan was ruthless and calculating; Hu Fei, watching him burn a decade’s fortune to escape, grudgingly admired his daring and his cunning (SIDE ch. 5). He showed a jianghu man’s hardness in defeat, refusing to beg for himself, but would do anything to save his son (SIDE ch. 5, 7). At the assembly he spoke carefully and flattered Fuk’anggan’s officers (SIDE ch. 18).
Relationships
- Feng Yiming (Son): His only son, whom he would not abandon (SIDE ch. 5, 7).
- Yuan Ziyi / Yuanxing (Daughter): The child of his assault on Yingu; she saved him three times, then helped bring about his death (SIDE ch. 14, 19).
- Yingu: Yuan Ziyi’s mother, whom he assaulted and hounded out of Foshan (SIDE ch. 14, 19).
- Zhong Asi: The vegetable grower whose family he destroyed (SIDE ch. 5).
- Tang Pei: His secret helper at the assembly, bought with money and blackmail (SIDE ch. 19).
- Hu Fei: Pursued him from Foshan to Beijing and killed him (SIDE ch. 5, 19).
Martial arts
Feng Tiannan fought with a gold-plated steel staff longer than an ordinary staff, which only his great strength let him wield; he had trained with it for some thirty years. It concealed a light, tough shield (SIDE ch. 5, 18). The silver needles credited to him at the assembly were Tang Pei’s (SIDE ch. 19).
Behind the scenes
In a note to chapter 5, Jin Yong says that the mother who cut open her son’s belly in the Foshan ancestral temple to disprove a charge of goose-stealing is a true story still told in Foshan, and that a stone before the North Emperor’s image there bears faint bloodstains; the names and the rest of the story are his invention (SIDE ch. 5). In his afterword he cites Feng Tiannan’s gifts and the mediators’ pleas as tests Hu Fei was written to withstand: he would not be moved by beauty, by pleading or by face (SIDE afterword).