Fuk’anggan (simplified and traditional: 福康安, pinyin: Fúkāng’ān, jyutping: fuk1 hong1 on1) is a Manchu nobleman and commander of the Qing court, in the novel the secret son of the Qianlong Emperor. As “Young Lord Fu” he seduced Ma Chunhua at Shang Family Fort; years later, as Minister of War, he brought her and their twin sons to Beijing, where his mother had her poisoned. He convened the Grand Assembly of Zhangmen under Heaven, which Cheng Lingsu broke up (SIDE ch. 3, 4, 13, 15, 17–19).
Biography
Family and rank
Fuk’anggan’s nominal father was Fuheng, younger brother of the Qianlong Emperor’s empress, who served twenty-three years as chief minister and is dead when the story takes place. His mother, a celebrated Manchu beauty, had an affair with the emperor at court, and Fuk’anggan was its child. For that reason, the narrative says, he was never married to a princess, although his two elder brothers were (SIDE ch. 15). His secret parentage is one that no one may mention on pain of death for his whole family (SIDE ch. 19). His wife is a woman of the Hailan clan (SIDE ch. 15).
He has put down the Jinchuan uprising and has served as Manchu dutong of the Plain White Banner, General of Shengjing, and Viceroy of Yun-Gui and of Sichuan. In the novel’s present he is Minister of War, Minister of the Imperial Household Department and Grand Guardian of the Heir Apparent, in command of all the empire’s armies (SIDE ch. 13, 15). Some ten years earlier he had been captured by the Red Flower Society, who released him only after forcing the emperor to rebuild the Shaolin Monastery in Fujian and to leave the society’s men alone; he counts it among the worst humiliations of his life (SIDE ch. 4, 14, 19).
Shang Family Fort
In his early thirties, handsome and richly dressed, he arrives at Shang Family Fort with a party that includes the Eight Trigrams School brothers Wang Jianying and Wang Jianjie, who introduce him only as “Young Lord Fu”. Seeing Ma Chunhua, he lures her into the garden with his flute, having set Chen Yu of the Taiji School and others to keep her father, her fiancé and the Shangs busy, and they become lovers (SIDE ch. 3). After the fire at the fort, her fiancé Xu Zheng attacks him and he backs away while she shields him; then, seeing Zhao Banshan of the Red Flower Society, he runs north and leaves her behind (SIDE ch. 4).
Ma Chunhua and the twins
Years later, on a whim, he sends officers south to see how Ma Chunhua is faring. They learn from her that she has twin sons by him, and Shang Baozhen, who is with them, kills her husband Xu Zheng. Fuk’anggan, nearly forty and without a son, is delighted and has mother and sons brought to his residence (SIDE ch. 12, 13, 15).
His mother will not tolerate a Han woman from an escort house, trained in arms, under the same roof as two princesses. Fuk’anggan had meant only to send Ma Chunhua away to the frontier, but when his mother sends her poisoned ginseng broth and tells him to give her a fine funeral, he turns pale, spills his tea and does nothing to stop it (SIDE ch. 15). The same night, suspecting Hu Fei of an affair with Ma Chunhua, he orders him secretly killed (SIDE ch. 15). Hu Fei carries the poisoned woman away and later steals the twins back from the residence; Fuk’anggan recovers them before the Assembly (SIDE ch. 15–17).
The Grand Assembly
At the Mid-Autumn Festival he hosts the Grand Assembly of Zhangmen under Heaven in his residence. He presents twenty-four cups sent by the emperor, Jade Dragon Cups, Golden Phoenix Cups and Silver Carp Cups, four of them for the four leading zhangmen present and the rest to be won in contests between the schools, and warns that any school that later loses its cup to another will lose its rank with it (SIDE ch. 17). Yuanxing and Hu Fei read his purpose the same way: to bind the jianghu to him with office and wealth, to use them against the Red Flower Society, and to set the schools fighting one another over empty honours so that none has strength left to resist the Qing (SIDE ch. 14, 17, 19). The narrative adds that from the middle of the Qianlong reign such feuding did overrun the wulin, and that this assembly was a principal cause (SIDE ch. 18).
The assembly goes badly for him. The Chang brothers of the Red Flower Society snatch two prisoners from under his guards; one of the Red Flower Society’s men carries off a Jade Dragon Cup (SIDE ch. 17, 18). Cheng Lingsu poisons the seven remaining Jade Dragon Cups so that the winners drop and smash them; Yuanxing convinces him that Tang Pei is in league with the Red Flower Society; and when Cheng Lingsu’s smoke gives the whole hall stomach pains, the guests, believing he is poisoning them, break out of his residence. Fuk’anggan himself retires to his inner rooms to take antidotes (SIDE ch. 19). Afterwards he sends officers south to hunt down the Red Flower Society, Hu Fei, Cheng Lingsu and Ma Chunhua and recover his sons, to arrest Tang Pei and Yuanxing, and to seize Shi Wanchen, whom his side blames for the poisoning (SIDE ch. 20).
The twins, meanwhile, are rescued by the Chang brothers and sent to Huijiang (SIDE ch. 19).
Personality
Fuk’anggan keeps his troops under strict discipline and has won every campaign he has fought (SIDE ch. 17), and he turns the loss of a Jade Dragon Cup to advantage on the spot by offering it to whoever can win it back (SIDE ch. 18). In private he gives way to his mother, and he lets Ma Chunhua be poisoned rather than cross her (SIDE ch. 15). Hu Fei holds him the worst of the Qing oppressors after the emperor himself (SIDE ch. 19).
Relationships
- Qianlong Emperor (Natural father): The emperor favours him above all his officials (SIDE ch. 4, 15).
- His mother, Fuheng’s widow: Poisons Ma Chunhua while keeping the twins (SIDE ch. 15).
- Ma Chunhua (Lover): Mother of his twin sons (SIDE ch. 3, 13, 15).
- Wang Jianying and Wang Jianjie: Eight Trigrams School brothers in his service (SIDE ch. 3).
- Hu Fei: Carries off the poisoned Ma Chunhua, steals back the twins and helps wreck his assembly (SIDE ch. 15, 16, 19).
- The Red Flower Society: His captors of ten years before, whom the assembly was partly meant to counter (SIDE ch. 14, 17).