Yin Zhiping

Yin Zhiping

Contents

Yin Zhiping (simplified: 尹志平, traditional: 尹志平, pinyin: Yǐn Zhìpíng, jyutping: wan5 zi3 ping4) was a young Daoist of the Quanzhen Order and a disciple of Qiu Chuji. Bold, proud and fond of a fight, he took after his shifu in his forthright, swaggering manner.

Biography

Mission to Mongolia

Yin Zhiping was a year older than his fellow disciple Yang Kang, but had joined Qiu Chuji two years later, so Yang Kang was his senior. Sixteen years after the wager at the Drunken Immortal Wineshop, Qiu Chuji sent him to the Onon River in Mongolia with a letter for the Seven Eccentrics of Jiangnan, reminding them of the contest in Jiaxing two years hence, and told him to find out what sort of person Guo Jing was and how good his martial arts were. Being young and meddlesome, Yin Zhiping did not call on the Eccentrics first, but sought out Guo Jing at night and fought him to test his skill. He had the better of the fight, throwing Guo Jing with a feint. The Eccentrics then surrounded him, and he introduced himself and delivered the letter. As he left, Ke Zhen’e, angered by the challenge, seized him and threw him heavily to the ground, and he limped away without a word.

From Yin Zhiping, Ma Yu learned that Guo Jing had no neigong foundation; not wanting his shidi to get the better of the Eccentrics, Ma Yu then secretly taught the boy Quanzhen neigong. Later, when Ma Yu and the Eccentrics posed as the Quanzhen Seven to face Mei Chaofeng, Guo Jing played the part of Yin Zhiping.

Niu Family Village

When Huang Yaoshi set out to kill the Six Eccentrics and their families, Qiu Chuji went ahead to warn them, and sent Yin Zhiping to Niu Family Village with an urgent message for Guo Jing. At Qu Lingfeng’s inn there, Yin Zhiping, Lu Guanying and Cheng Yaojia together overpowered and bound Hou Tonghai, and Yin Zhiping greeted Cheng Yaojia as a fellow member of the Quanzhen school. Lu Guanying, a disciple of the Peach Blossom Island line, could not ask openly for help against his own shizu, but by talking to the kitchen god he let it be known that he hoped the Quanzhen Seven would make peace between Huang Yaoshi and the Eccentrics. Yin Zhiping answered him the same way with boasts of Quanzhen’s strength; the two young men grew heated, and they fought until Cheng Yaojia stepped in.

Huang Yaoshi, arriving masked, ordered everyone out but Lu Guanying and Cheng Yaojia. When Yin Zhiping announced himself as a Quanzhen disciple, Huang Yaoshi flicked a chip of wood at him that drove his raised fly-whisk against his mouth and knocked out half his teeth. Yin Zhiping nonetheless stood his ground and denounced him for persecuting the Eccentrics. Huang Yaoshi, seeing in the bold young Daoist something of himself as a young man, let him go, and Yin Zhiping went to Lin’an to report to his shifu.

Qiu Chuji brought Ma Yu, Wang Chuyi and Sun Bu’er to Niu Family Village, and Yin Zhiping came with them. During the Seven Zis’ battle with Huang Yaoshi there, he grew dizzy from watching the fight and fainted. After Tan Chuduan was killed, he followed his elders out of the village with the body.

Misty Rain Pavilion

At the Misty Rain Pavilion in Jiaxing, the Quanzhen took on Huang Yaoshi with the Big Dipper Formation, and Yin Zhiping and Ke Zhen’e together filled the Tianxuan position left by Tan Chuduan, with Yin Zhiping, jian in hand, calling out the moves for the blind Ke Zhen’e. Their position was the weak point of the formation; Huang Yaoshi seized Yin Zhiping by the back and threw him onto the roof of the pavilion. He climbed down and later took the Tianxuan position alone against Ouyang Feng, who again found it the weak point. When Ouyang Feng’s snakes came, he tumbled down the stairs of the pavilion in the scramble to escape them.

Journey west

Yin Zhiping was among the eighteen disciples who travelled with Qiu Chuji to Temüjin’s court in the west.

Personality & traits

Yin Zhiping modelled himself on his shifu, aiming to be bold and rough-hewn. He was young, hot-tempered and quick to speak, liked to be asked for help, and was proud of the Quanzhen school to the point of arrogance. His courage was real: he went on cursing Huang Yaoshi after losing his teeth to him, and Huang Yaoshi admired his nerve.

Martial arts abilities

He was a direct disciple of Qiu Chuji and stronger than Lu Guanying, but his skill was well below that of the Quanzhen Seven; at the Misty Rain Pavilion he was one of the weaker links of the Big Dipper Formation. He fought with a fly-whisk at Niu Family Village and with a jian at the Misty Rain Pavilion.

Relationships

Qiu Chuji

Qiu Chuji was his shifu, who trusted him with messages to the Eccentrics and to Guo Jing.

Yang Kang

Yang Kang was his senior fellow disciple under Qiu Chuji.

Cheng Yaojia and Lu Guanying

He fought beside Cheng Yaojia and Lu Guanying against Hou Tonghai, then quarrelled and fought with Lu Guanying over the honour of the Quanzhen.

Behind the scenes

Historical basis

Yin Zhiping (1169—1251) was a real Quanzhen Daoist, with the Daoist name Qinghe (清和), a disciple of Qiu Chuji who later led the Quanzhen Order. Jin Yong’s appendix on the Quanzhen school lists him as the head after Qiu Chuji, following Chen Yuan’s research, and a note in The Return of the Condor Heroes records the historical sources as making Song Dao’an Qiu’s successor with Yin Zhiping as his deputy. He did travel with Qiu Chuji to Genghis Khan.

Edition differences

In the original edition of The Return of the Condor Heroes, the young Quanzhen Daoist who fell for Xiaolongnü was Yin Zhiping. Because Yin Zhiping was a real and respected figure, Jin Yong renamed that character Zhen Zhibing (甄志丙) in the 3rd edition, a similar-sounding but wholly fictional name. Yin Zhiping still appears in the 3rd edition of that novel as one of Qiu Chuji’s disciples, and Zhen Zhibing is also named among the Quanzhen third generation in the 3rd edition of The Legend of the Condor Heroes.

See also

Related articles