Shangguan Jiannan

Shangguan Jiannan (simplified: 上官剑南, traditional: 上官劍南, pinyin: Shàngguān Jiànnán, jyutping: soeng6 gun1 gim3 naam4) was the thirteenth Chief of the Iron Palm Keep and the shifu of Qiu Qianren. A former general under Han Shizhong, he turned the Keep from a small society into a band of loyal xia that rivalled the Beggars’ Guild, and he hid Wumu’s Art of War on Iron Palm Mountain.

Biography

General and outlaw

Shangguan Jiannan had been a general under Han Shizhong. When Qin Hui took power, Yue Fei was put to death and Han Shizhong was stripped of his command, most of Han’s officers and men went home. Enraged that treacherous ministers held sway, Shangguan Jiannan led a band of brothers to become outlaws in Jinghu. Some of them went to defend Xiangyang, while he joined the Iron Palm Keep, and when the old Chief died soon after, he succeeded him.

Chief of the Iron Palm Keep

Over more than twenty years he put the Keep in order and did many chivalrous deeds, so that heroes and loyal men of the two Hu flocked to it, and within a few years it could stand as an equal of the Beggars’ Guild in the north. He never forgot the cause of defending the country and recovering the lost lands, and often sent his men to gather news in Lin’an and Bianliang.

Years later, one of his men learned from a jailer who had once guarded Yue Fei that Yue Fei’s book on the art of war had been taken into the imperial palace. Shangguan Jiannan led the Keep’s masters east, stole the book, the Essentials for Defeating the Jin, from the palace by night, and took it to Han Shizhong, then living in retirement by West Lake. Han Shizhong gave him the book and his own copied scroll of Yue Fei’s poems, letters and memorials, and urged him to carry on Yue Fei’s cause. Thinking that Yue Fei’s intended heir might yet come to the palace for the book, the two devised a clue: Shangguan Jiannan painted a picture of Iron Palm Mountain with a slip hidden in it reading “Wumu’s Art of War, on Iron Palm Mountain, Middle Finger Peak, second knuckle”, Han Shizhong inscribed one of Yue Fei’s poems on it, and Shangguan Jiannan returned to the palace and left the painting there.

Last years

He studied the book and learned much about training troops and defeating enemies, but after the Jin invaded again the Keep could only defend itself, and he never raised the army he hoped for. He died disappointed decades later.

When Qiu Qianren was thirteen, he saved Shangguan Jiannan’s life by chance, and the grateful Chief taught him all his martial arts. When Qiu Qianren was twenty-five, Shangguan Jiannan died and left him the chieftaincy. Knowing that Qiu Qianren cared for martial arts rather than for the fate of the country, and that the book would be useless to him, he took it with him into the burial cave of the Keep’s chiefs on Middle Finger Peak when he died, rather than let it fall into unworthy hands. He also left a booklet recording the Keep’s history year by year.

Legacy

In the burial cave on Middle Finger Peak, Guo Jing found the skeletons of more than ten former chiefs and took a box marked Essentials for Defeating the Jin from one of them. Later Mu Nianci gave Guo Jing Shangguan Jiannan’s booklet, which she had taken from Qiu Qianzhang, and from it Guo Jing and Huang Rong learned the Keep’s true history. Guo Jing, who had taken the old Chief for a traitor like the Qiu brothers, regretted not having bowed before his bones. On Mount Hua, Hong Qigong reproached Qiu Qianren for collaborating with the Jin, calling Shangguan Jiannan a hero who had served his country loyally all his life.

Personality & traits

Shangguan Jiannan was loyal and patriotic, and though he lived as an outlaw, he never gave up his hope of driving out the Jin. He was careful with Yue Fei’s legacy, keeping it from a successor he judged unsuited to it.

Martial arts abilities

Iron Palm Technique

He mastered the Iron Palm Technique, the palm art on which the Iron Palm Keep had built its name for centuries. In his hands and Qiu Qianren’s it gained many subtle new moves, less powerful than the Eighteen Palms of Dragon Subduing but even more intricate.

Relationships

Han Shizhong

Han Shizhong was his former commander, to whom he brought Yue Fei’s book.

Qiu Qianren

Qiu Qianren was his disciple and successor, who later betrayed his shifu’s cause by collaborating with the Jin.

Behind the scenes

Han Shizhong, Yue Fei and Qin Hui were real figures of the Southern Song. Shangguan Jiannan is fictional.