Jiang Tieshan (simplified: 姜铁山, traditional: 姜铁山, pinyin: Jiāng Tiěshān, jyutping: goeng1 tit3 saan1) is the second of the four disciples of Great Master Wuchen, the King of Venoms (毒手药王), in Jin Yong’s Side Story of the Flying Fox. A big, heavy man of about forty with a fierce, fleshy face, he is married to his shimei Xue Que and has one son, Jiang Xiaotie (姜小铁) (SIDE ch. 9, 10). Cheng Lingsu thinks him blunt and high-handed, but the most upright of her three seniors (SIDE ch. 20).
Biography
The feud among the disciples
By Cheng Lingsu’s account, Jiang had long loved Xue Que in secret. After she poisoned the wife of their senior, Murong Jingyue, and Murong poisoned her in return, leaving her hunchbacked and lame, Jiang married her regardless. Murong then began to pursue Xue Que again, and the three disciples’ quarrel became a lasting feud that their shifu could not settle (SIDE ch. 10). Jiang and Xue Que live in an iron house at the Medicine King Manor (药王庄) by Dongting Lake, ringed by poison trees, where they have been besieged for half a year by a family named Meng (孟家) (SIDE ch. 10).
Black Tiger Wood
Their son Xiaotie lies poisoned, and a note in what looks like Murong’s hand summons Jiang and Xue Que to Black Tiger Wood (黑虎林) at night. Jiang calls on his “Murong shixiong” to show himself; Murong climbs out of a basket, and the three match palm force until Murong puts out the lantern with a bone-piercing nail and wounds Jiang in the dark; Murong and Xue Que then fight on with poison smoke. A glowing message from their shifu, signed “the monk Wuchen”, tells them to end their feud, and Cheng Lingsu reveals that he is dead. Jiang accuses her of poisoning Xiaotie and demands their shifu’s book. When she shows them his final words, which shame them for asking only after his legacy, all three turn on her; Hu Fei throws Jiang far across the ground, and he and Xue Que limp away (SIDE ch. 9).
Xiaotie’s cure
Cheng Lingsu has a blacksmith named Wang seal the iron house and fills it with the smoke of a candle made from Seven-Heart Begonia, which fells Jiang and Xue Que. Inside, the couple have been trying to boil the poison out of Xiaotie in a cauldron of hot water. Cheng Lingsu revives them and cures the boy; at her word the blacksmith, whom Jiang and his son had once beaten, thrashes Jiang with firewood, and Jiang takes the blows without hitting back for his son’s sake. He has already whipped Xiaotie for killing two of the Meng men with a poison that has no antidote, against a great prohibition of their school. Cheng Lingsu gives them herbs to drive off the Meng Family and leaves Murong with them, urging Jiang to make peace; grateful, Jiang gives up any thought of seizing his shifu’s book (SIDE ch. 10).
Death
Jiang is absent when Murong and Xue Que appear at the Grand Assembly of Zhangmen under Heaven, Murong calling her his wife (SIDE ch. 18). Xue Que later tells Cheng Lingsu that Jiang and Xiaotie are dead. Shi Wanchen, whom Murong had joined, killed Jiang and his son at Murong’s urging; Cheng Lingsu guesses that Jiang would not betray their shifu, and that Xue Que let her husband and son die (SIDE ch. 20).
Relationships
- Great Master Wuchen (Shifu): The King of Venoms.
- Xue Que (Wife): His shimei; later married Murong Jingyue.
- Jiang Xiaotie (Son): Died with him.
- Murong Jingyue (Shixiong): His rival for Xue Que for many years.
- Cheng Lingsu (Shimei): Cured his son and outwitted him.
- Shi Wanchen (Killer).
Martial arts
Jiang uses poison in his shifu’s manner, but like Xue Que he is no first-rate fighter (SIDE ch. 9, 20). Over years of fighting Murong, he and Xue Que found an antidote to Murong’s peach-blossom miasma bombs (桃花瘴) (SIDE ch. 20).