Shang Family Fort

Shang Family Fort

Contents

Shang Family Fort (simplified: 商家堡, traditional: 商家堡, pinyin: Shāngjiā Bǎo, jyutping: soeng1 gaa1 bou2) was the walled estate of the Eight Trigrams School fighter Shang Jianming in Wuding County, Shandong, built by Shang himself (SIDE ch. 1, 3). After his death his widow, Old Madam Shang, lived there with their son Shang Baozhen, training the boy for revenge on Hu Yidao and Miao Renfeng (SIDE ch. 1). The fort was burned down on the night she trapped her guests in its iron hall (SIDE ch. 4).

Overview

The fort had high walls and wide gates, and took in both farmland and dwellings (SIDE ch. 3). Its ridge beam in the main hall bore a Eight Trigrams diagram in gold lacquer (SIDE ch. 1). The practice hall held racks of dao, spears, jians and halberds, sandbags, archery targets, stone locks and stone drums, with seventy-two plum blossom posts set in the ground on its west side (SIDE ch. 1). Shang Jianming’s spirit hall stood in the last building at the rear, beyond three courtyards (SIDE ch. 3).

The iron hall

The great hall had been built to kill. Its front and rear doors were thick iron, the inner door painted with a Eight Trigrams; it had no window opening to the outside, only a row of long windows serving as a screen at the entrance; its plastered walls were solid granite, and its roof was iron plate. The only other opening was a dog hole at the foot of a wall (SIDE ch. 4). Shang Jianming had built it after killing Miao Renfeng’s brothers and sister, expecting Miao to come for him and meaning to trap him there if he lost; but it was Hu Yidao who came, and Shang, holding him in contempt, was killed before he could use it (SIDE ch. 4).

History

The rainstorm

A rainstorm drove several parties to shelter at the fort on one day: Ma Xingkong of the Feima Armed Escort with his silver carts, three imperial bodyguards led by He Sihao, the one-armed Ping Asi with the boy Hu Fei, and Tian Guinong with Nan Lan (SIDE ch. 1). The bandit chief Yan Ji (later Baoshu) came to rob the escort, and Miao Renfeng came after his wife and left with his daughter (SIDE ch. 1, 2, 3). Old Madam Shang defeated Yan Ji privately in the spirit hall, cut off his queue and sent his band away (SIDE ch. 3).

The months after

Ma Xingkong stayed to recover and taught Shang Baozhen, while Ping Asi and Hu Fei, calling themselves Ping Si and Ping Fei, took work at the fort as a gardener and a sweeper of the practice hall (SIDE ch. 3). Old Madam Shang, who had kept Ma there meaning to kill him, caught Hu Fei and had him bound; Shang Baozhen whipped him, and Ma Chunhua pleaded for him (SIDE ch. 3, 12). Hu Fei freed himself (SIDE ch. 3).

Fuk’anggan, passing as “Young Master Fu”, then came with Wang Jianying, Wang Jianjie, Chen Yu and others. While his men kept everyone occupied, he seduced Ma Chunhua in the fort’s garden (SIDE ch. 3). Zhao Banshan arrived in pursuit of Chen Yu (SIDE ch. 3).

The iron hall fire

While Zhao Banshan dealt with Chen Yu before the company, Old Madam Shang and her son slipped out, closed the iron doors front and back, and had the fort’s men pile firewood around the hall and on its roof and set it alight. Chen Yu died stuck to the red-hot door. Hu Fei got out through the dog hole, fought Old Madam Shang and the fort’s men outside, and cut the door’s catch to free the others. As the guests escaped, Old Madam Shang struck Ma Xingkong back into the fire, then walked into the burning hall herself and sat down among the flames holding her husband’s Purple-Gold Eight Trigrams Dao (SIDE ch. 4). When Zhao Banshan and Hu Fei looked back from a li away, the fort was still burning red across half the sky (SIDE ch. 4).

Afterwards

Hu Fei’s experience of the iron hall made him wary of attacking Feng Tiannan in his own house years later (SIDE ch. 5). Shang Baozhen, the fort lost, learned under the Wang brothers and entered Fuk’anggan’s service (SIDE ch. 12, 13).

Inhabitants

See also

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