Shang Baozhen (simplified: 商宝震, traditional: 商寶震, pinyin: Shāng Bǎozhèn, jyutping: soeng1 bou2 zan3) is the son of Shang Jianming and Old Madam Shang, and the young master of Shang Family Fort, in Jin Yong’s Side Story of the Flying Fox. A handsome, clear-browed young man of about twenty when the story opens, he is shrewd and quick-witted, and his mother raises him to avenge his father on Hu Yidao and Miao Renfeng (SIDE ch. 1, 3). He loves Ma Chunhua, kills her husband Xu Zheng, and dies by her hand (SIDE ch. 12).
Biography
The young master
Shang Baozhen is first seen in the fort’s training hall, throwing golden darts at acupoints on two moving boards painted with Hu Yidao and Miao Renfeng while his mother calls the targets (SIDE ch. 1). When Xu Zheng borrows the hall to fight the imperial guard He Sihao, Shang judges the bout and, though Xu has plainly won, calls it a draw so that the guard keeps face; Ma Xingkong sees at once that the young man has spared Xu an official’s grudge. Shang then flatters Xu, plays the novice and performs tantui badly on purpose (SIDE ch. 1, 12). When the bandit chief Yan Ji attacks the escort, he joins the fight with dao and palm and drives off two bandits, until Tian Guinong takes his dao from his hand; a golden dart he throws at Tian ends up in Xu Zheng’s leg (SIDE ch. 1).
His mother keeps Ma Xingkong at the fort to teach him fist arts, but her pride forbids him to become Ma’s disciple (SIDE ch. 3). At night she trains him in secret in Eight Trigrams bladework and scolds him for being distracted by “the Ma girl”. She tells him Ma Xingkong is his father’s enemy, which takes him aback; yet when she promises to ask for Ma Chunhua on his behalf he is overjoyed, and Ma’s announcement of her betrothal to Xu Zheng the next day leaves him stunned (SIDE ch. 3).
Hu Fei at the fort
When Hu Fei, working at the fort as the servant boy “Ping Fei”, defaces the target board, Shang strikes an innocent servant before apologising, then flogs the captured Hu Fei more than three hundred times; he stops only when Ma Chunhua cries out (SIDE ch. 3). That night she asks him to free the boy. He agrees, asking only to hold her hand, but Hu Fei has already freed himself, beats him, ties him in a willow tree and whips him in turn before announcing that he is Hu Yidao’s son (SIDE ch. 3).
Ma Chunhua helps him down as Fuk’anggan’s party rides by. Shang slaps one of the riders for a lewd remark and then fights a burly stranger who turns out to be his father’s shidi, Wang Jianjie; Shang’s Wandering-Body Eight Trigrams Palm cannot touch him, and Shang kowtows to him and Wang Jianying as his shishu (SIDE ch. 3). Later that day Xu Zheng, jealous, picks a fight with him in the corridor (SIDE ch. 3). At the banquet he fetches the antidote when Wang Jianying is wounded by a poisoned dart (SIDE ch. 3).
The iron hall
Shang and his mother slip out of the banquet hall, lock its iron doors and set it alight (SIDE ch. 4). When Hu Fei squeezes out through the dog hole, mother and son fight him together. Hu Fei presses Shang’s face against a red-hot dao lying on the ground, leaving a long burn down one side of his handsome face, and later kicks him far away as he tries to cut Hu Fei down (SIDE ch. 4).
Death
After his home is destroyed, Shang puts aside his idle habits and trains hard under his two shishu, and his Eight Trigrams Dao and Eight Trigrams Palm improve greatly (SIDE ch. 12). On the Wang brothers’ recommendation he enters Fuk’anggan’s household, and because he knows Ma Chunhua he comes south with the men sent to look in on her (SIDE ch. 13). He fights Xu Zheng, who has a dao, with bare hands, and kills him with Eight Trigrams Palm. Ma Chunhua takes his family’s dao from her husband’s hand, admires it, and as he smiles and reaches out for it she drives it into his side. His last words ask her why (SIDE ch. 12). He is buried in the woods in an unmarked grave beside Xu Zheng’s (SIDE ch. 13).
Relationships
- Old Madam Shang (Mother and teacher): Trains him strictly for revenge; they fight Hu Fei side by side (SIDE ch. 3, 4).
- Shang Jianming (Father): Died when Shang was young, before he could learn much of the Eight Trigrams School’s arts (SIDE ch. 3).
- Ma Chunhua (Love interest): He loves her from their months at the fort; she kills him (SIDE ch. 3, 12).
- Xu Zheng (Rival): Fights him at the fort and kills him years later (SIDE ch. 3, 12).
- Wang Jianying and Wang Jianjie (Shishu): His father’s shidi, who later teach him and bring him into Fuk’anggan’s service (SIDE ch. 3, 12, 13).
- Ma Xingkong (Teacher): Teaches him fist arts for seven or eight months without formal discipleship (SIDE ch. 3).
- Hu Fei (Enemy): The son of his father’s killer, whom he flogs and who burns his face (SIDE ch. 3, 4).
Martial arts
Shang is trained in his family’s Eight Trigrams School arts: golden darts, Eight Trigrams bladework including the Wandering-Body Eight Trigrams bladework (八卦游身刀法), and Eight Trigrams Palm with its Wandering-Body form (游身八卦掌) (SIDE ch. 1, 3). Ma Xingkong adds fist arts such as Tongbi Connected Fist, and at the fort Shang hides his real skill, which Ma judges far above Xu Zheng’s (SIDE ch. 1, 3). Years later his Eight Trigrams Dao and Eight Trigrams Palm have advanced a long way under his shishu (SIDE ch. 12).