Li Quan

Li Quan

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Li Quan (simplified: 李全, traditional: 李全, pinyin: Lǐ Quán, jyutping: lei5 cyun4), a man of Weizhou (潍州), was the leader of the Loyalty Army, a Han force raised in Shandong against the Jin Empire. With his wife Yang Miaozhen and his elder brother Li Fu he won great victories over the Jin and was given high office by the Song court, but his army was torn by mutiny when the Mongols reached Qingzhou, and he finally surrendered to them.

Biography

The Loyalty Army

As the Jin suffered defeat after defeat at the hands of the Mongols, the Han people of Shandong rose in arms, seized much territory and formed the Loyalty Army under Li Quan. Li Quan was capable, but his wife was more formidable still; it was said of her, “Twenty years of the pear-blossom spear, and no match under heaven.” With Li Fu, the couple routed the Jin, drew righteous men from all over Shandong, and drove the Jin troops in Huainan and Shandong westward. The chancellor Shi Miyuan appointed Li Quan Commander-in-Chief of the Jingdong Circuit and formally recognised the Loyalty Army, with its headquarters at Chuzhou. After Li Quan repeatedly threw back a Jin advance across the Huai, the court promoted him further, but it remained suspicious of him and set the general Xu Guo over him as a check.

Xu Guo treated Li Quan and Yang Miaozhen with contempt and always sided against the Loyalty Army. While Li Quan was fighting the Jin at Qingzhou, his men behind the lines mutinied and killed Xu Guo’s household, and Xu Guo killed himself.

Qingzhou

When Guo Jing and Huang Rong came to Qingzhou to help him, Li Quan had grown proud with victory and was worried by the unrest in his ranks. Judging the young pair unlikely to be of much use, he thanked them briefly and had them fed, saying he would ask their help if he and his wife could not drive off the enemy. He spent his orders hunting down rebellious officers of his own army and driving out regular Song troops who had seized the pay stores, rather than preparing the defence, and had no clear idea whether the approaching enemy were Jin or Mongols. The Loyalty Army’s own generals mutinied and killed Li Fu, and Li Quan’s troops kept the refugees out of the city at bowpoint as the Mongol vanguard arrived.

Guo Jing took command at the gate on a feigned imperial decree and led volunteers out to meet the Mongols. Li Quan and Yang Miaozhen rode out to stand beside him and Huang Rong at the open gates, he with a dao and she with her spear, when Guo Jing bluffed the vanguard with an empty-city ruse and persuaded Tolui to withdraw. Afterwards Li Quan invited them to a feast, and on hearing that the Mongols would return the next day, proposed that Guo Jing, as an old friend of their commander, negotiate a surrender. Guo Jing refused angrily, and Li Quan and his wife withdrew in shame. Guo Jing predicted that Li Quan would surrender if the Mongols came again, and when they later surrounded him with no way out, he did.

Personality & traits

Li Quan was bold and martial, but proud, and his command was chaotic and riven by feuds. Guo Jing judged that he had no backbone.

Relationships

Yang Miaozhen

Yang Miaozhen was his wife, a woman general famed for her pear-blossom spear, and the more formidable of the two.

Li Fu

Li Fu was his elder brother, who fought beside him against the Jin and was killed by mutineers of the Loyalty Army.

Guo Jing

Guo Jing came to help him defend Qingzhou and despised his readiness to surrender.

Behind the scenes

Edition changes

In his afterword to the third edition, Jin Yong explains that he replaced the earlier edition’s episode of Lü Wenhuan defending Xiangyang with Li Quan and Yang Miaozhen leading the Loyalty Army in defence of Qingzhou, to fit history and geography better, leaving the defence of Xiangyang to The Return of the Condor Heroes. Li Quan therefore appears only in the third edition.

Historical basis

The historical Li Quan (died 1231) was a leader of the Red Coat Army (红袄军), the anti-Jin insurgents of Shandong. He went over to the Song in 1218, surrendered to the Mongols in 1227 after a long siege at Qingzhou, and was killed in 1231 attacking the Song at Yangzhou. His wife Yang Miaozhen took over his command after his death.

See also

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