Shang Jianming (simplified: 商剑鸣, traditional: 商劍鳴, pinyin: Shāng Jiànmíng, jyutping: soeng1 gim3 ming4), known in the jianghu as “Eight Trigrams Dao” (八卦刀), was a fighter of the Eight Trigrams School from Wuding County, Shandong, a disciple of Wang Weiyang and the man who built Shang Family Fort. He is dead before Side Story of the Flying Fox opens and is known only through what others tell of him. He killed four members of Miao Renfeng’s family and was himself killed by Hu Yidao, and his widow, Old Madam Shang, lived on only to avenge him (SIDE ch. 1, 3, 4; ch. 4).
Biography
The Eight Trigrams School
Shang Jianming learnt the Eight Trigrams arts under Wang Weiyang. Madam Hu knew him as a strong Eight Trigrams School fighter, formidable with both the Eight Trigrams Palm and the Eight Trigrams dao (ch. 4). Relations between him and his shifu were no more than ordinary, and after leaving the school he seldom kept in touch; Wang’s sons Wang Jianying and Wang Jianjie, his shidi, learnt of his death only years later, on a visit to the fort. Wang Jianying, who had never got on with him, says he was not upright even as a student (SIDE ch. 3, 4).
Years before the novel opens he fought Ma Xingkong of the Feima Armed Escort on the Ganliang road and wounded him with a dao cut and a palm strike. Ma needed three years to recover and never travelled that road again. Old Madam Shang later maintained that her husband had also taken an internal injury in that fight (SIDE ch. 1, 3).
The Miao family
Hearing that Miao Renfeng was called “He Who Has Fought All Under Heaven and Found No Equal”, Shang Jianming refused to accept it and went to Miao’s home to challenge him. Miao was away in Lingnan. After a few words with his brothers a fight broke out, and Shang killed Miao’s two brothers and his sister with heavy blows, then killed his sister-in-law, who knew no martial arts, with a single palm. Miao, with his family’s feud with the Hu Family still unsettled, did not go to Wuding for four years (ch. 4).
Shang knew that Miao would come for him one day. At the fort he had built he added an iron hall, meaning to trap Miao inside it if he could not beat him in a fight (SIDE ch. 4).
Death
During the Cangzhou duel between Hu Yidao and Miao Renfeng, Miao told Madam Hu of the killings as unfinished business, and she answered that the Hus would see to it. That night Hu Yidao rode to Wuding and back, killing five horses on the way. He caught Shang’s seven linked darts, then broke the twenty-ninth move of his Eight Trigrams bladework with a move of Miao Family Swordplay he had learnt from Miao the day before, and killed him with a jian rather than a dao. At the end of the next day’s fight he gave Miao the head, together with the seven darts, which were engraved “Eight Trigrams School, Shang” (ch. 4). Miao Renfeng’s own account confirms that Hu Yidao beat Shang’s Eight Trigrams dao with Miao Family Swordplay (ch. 5).
Shang Jianming had never met Hu Yidao and thought little of him, and he was killed before he could use the iron hall (SIDE ch. 4).
Aftermath
Old Madam Shang kept her husband’s purple-gold dao wrapped behind his spirit tablet, trained their son Shang Baozhen to avenge him, and held Hu Yidao, Miao Renfeng and Ma Xingkong all to blame (SIDE ch. 1, 3). She never told the Wang brothers who had killed him, saying only that he had died of illness (SIDE ch. 3). When she learnt that Hu Yidao was dead, she turned on his son Hu Fei, and she used her husband’s iron hall to try to burn Hu Fei and her guests alive. She died in the fire holding the purple-gold dao (SIDE ch. 3, 4).
Personality
Shang Jianming was proud: he went to challenge Miao Renfeng over an epithet, and he killed a woman who could not fight. He was also self-assured to the point of scorning Hu Yidao (SIDE ch. 4; ch. 4). His widow revered him to the end (SIDE ch. 3, 4).
Relationships
- Wang Weiyang (Shifu): Relations between them were ordinary, and Shang rarely kept in touch after leaving (SIDE ch. 3).
- Old Madam Shang (Wife): She lived for revenge after his death and died holding his dao (SIDE ch. 3, 4).
- Shang Baozhen (Son): Too young at his father’s death to learn much of the Eight Trigrams arts from him (SIDE ch. 3).
- Wang Jianying and Wang Jianjie (Shidi): Wang Weiyang’s sons, who had drifted apart from him (SIDE ch. 3, 4).
- Ma Xingkong: The escort chief he beat on the Ganliang road (SIDE ch. 1, 3).
- Miao Renfeng: Shang killed four of his family (ch. 4).
- Hu Yidao: Killed him with Miao Family Swordplay (ch. 4).
Martial arts
Shang Jianming was known for the Eight Trigrams Palm and Eight Trigrams bladework (ch. 4) and threw golden darts in strings of seven (ch. 4). His weapon was a purple-gold Eight Trigrams dao with a thick back and a thin edge (SIDE ch. 3).
Behind the scenes
In his afterword Jin Yong writes that Old Madam Shang was meant to show that when a villain is killed, his family do not think he deserved it: they go on revering and loving him and hating his killer to the end. In the same afterword he urges anyone adapting the novel not to add scenes depicting Shang Jianming (SIDE afterword).