Seven Eccentrics of Jiangnan

Seven Eccentrics of Jiangnan

Contents

Seven Eccentrics of Jiangnan (simplified: 江南七怪, traditional: 江南七怪, pinyin: Jiāngnán Qī Guài, jyutping: Gong1 Naam4 Cat1 Gwaai3) were seven sworn brothers and sisters of Jiaxing who became Guo Jing’s first shifus. Others called them, out of courtesy, the Seven Xias of Jiangnan (江南七侠); after Zhang Asheng’s death they were the Six Eccentrics (六怪), or the Six Xias of Jiangnan (江南六侠).

Members

The seven had sworn brotherhood and were as close as kin:

  • Ke Zhen’e (柯镇恶), the Flying Bat (飞天蝙蝠) — The eldest and head of the seven, blind, who fought with an iron staff and threw poisoned caltrops.
  • Zhu Cong (朱聪), the Swift-Handed Scholar (妙手书生) — A grimy, shabby scholar with a folding fan, whose quick hands could pick a man’s pockets with a tap on his shoulder.
  • Han Baoju (韩宝驹), the Divine Horse King (马王神) — A short, fat horseman with the Golden Dragon Whip, the most hot-tempered of the seven and Han Xiaoying’s cousin.
  • Nan Xiren (南希仁), the Southern Woodcutter (南山樵子) — A woodcutter who fought with a pure-steel carrying pole.
  • Zhang Asheng (张阿生), the Laughing Buddha (笑弥陀) — A huge butcher who carried a foot-long butcher’s knife, and who secretly loved Han Xiaoying.
  • Quan Jinfa (全金发), the Hidden Xia of the Busy City (闹市侠隐) — A young pedlar whose great iron steelyard served as spear, flying hook and chain hammer in one.
  • Han Xiaoying (韩小莹), the Yue Maiden Swordswoman (越女剑) — The youngest, a swordswoman of the Yue Maiden Swordplay handed down in Jiaxing.

History

The quarrel with Qiu Chuji

When Qiu Chuji came to Jiaxing in pursuit of Duan Tiande, he believed that the monk Jiaomu of Fahua Monastery was hiding him, and Jiaomu called on his friends the seven for help. Their meeting at the Drunken Immortal Wineshop, where Zhu Cong outdrank Qiu Chuji, ended in a fight at Fahua Monastery in which Jiaomu died and both sides were wounded.

To settle the quarrel, Qiu Chuji proposed a wager. He would find Bao Xiruo, the wife of Yang Tiexin, and the seven would find Li Ping, the wife of Guo Xiaotian. Both women were with child; Qiu would teach the Yang child and the seven the Guo child, and after eighteen years the two would meet at the Drunken Immortal Wineshop to see whose disciple was the better. Ke Zhen’e accepted.

Mongolia

The seven followed Duan Tiande’s trail north into the desert and searched the steppe for six years before they found Guo Jing, then a small boy. Soon afterwards they fought the Twin Evils of Dark Wind on a bare hill. Ke Zhen’e blinded Mei Chaofeng with his poisoned caltrops, and when Chen Xuanfeng struck at Han Xiaoying with the Nine Yin White Bone Claw, Zhang Asheng threw himself over her and took the blow. Before he died, Han Xiaoying promised to be his wife, and Guo Jing kowtowed to him as his fifth shifu. Chen Xuanfeng was killed in the same fight when the boy, seized by him, drove a dagger into his navel, the one weak point of his hardened body.

The six survivors stayed in the desert to teach Guo Jing, a slow pupil, and spent sixteen years in all in the cold north.

Return to the south

After Guo Jing came of age the six took him south. In Zhongdu they met Mei Chaofeng again and fought the retainers of Wanyan Honglie, and Qiu Chuji, seeing that his disciple Yang Kang had sided with the Jin, admitted that he had lost the wager.

Deaths on Peach Blossom Island

The six later went to Peach Blossom Island, where five of them were killed, four of them in the tomb of Huang Yaoshi’s wife. Ouyang Feng killed Zhu Cong and Quan Jinfa, who was found with half of his own steelyard beam driven into his chest. Yang Kang killed Han Baoju with the Nine Yin White Bone Claw, and Han Xiaoying, seeing it, cut her own throat with her sword, leaving an unfinished character written in blood on the coffin lid. Ke Zhen’e and Nan Xiren escaped from the tomb; days later Ouyang Feng and Yang Kang found Nan Xiren and set a poisonous snake on him, and he died unable to speak. Jewels from the tomb were planted on Zhu Cong’s body so that the killings would be blamed on Huang Yaoshi.

Huang Rong later laid out the truth at the Iron Spear Temple in Jiaxing. Yang Kang died there after striking her and taking Nan Xiren’s poisoned blood from the spikes of her Soft Hedgehog Armour.

Ke Zhen’e, the only survivor, appears again in The Return of the Condor Heroes.

See also

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