Zheng Sanniang (simplified: 郑三娘, traditional: 鄭三娘, pinyin: Zhèng Sānniáng, jyutping: zeng6 saam1 noeng4), known as Zheng Sanniang of the Twin Dao (双刀郑三娘), is a woman of thirty-two or thirty-three in Jin Yong’s Flying Fox of the Snowy Mountain. Her husband was an escort captain of the Pingtong Armed Escort who died of a dao wound when the Yinma Creek Stockade robbed his consignment, and she is bent on avenging him (ch. 1). She always follows the orders of Xiong Yuanxian, the escort’s chief (ch. 1).
Biography
Ambush in the snow
With Xiong, his shixiong Liu Yuanhe and the monk Jingzhi, she waits for days in a covered pit dug under the snow, until Tao Baisui and Tao Zian come to dig up the iron box. The ambushers burst out, and she is the first to attack, loosing three flying daos at Stockade Chief Ma and closing with Whirlwind Force (旋风势). Seeing that the Taos will fall if she only holds out, she keeps to defence, then feigns an opening and draws Ma, pressing her, onto the half-buried pit; she cuts off his left shoulder and finishes him. Then she ties a white kerchief over her hair and joins Liu against Tao Baisui. He kicks her head over heels, but her dao opens his left flank (ch. 1). When Tao Zian offers to buy their lives, she answers that she wants both the treasure and their lives (ch. 1).
She fights Tian Qingwen, and later bars Cao Yunqi’s way with Iron Gate Bolt (铁门闩), a purely defensive bladework that no one, however skilled, can easily break within its thirty-six moves. Tao Zian then asks her to join him against Cao, only to turn a feint into a cut at her leg, and he would have finished her had Cao not blocked the stroke. Regretting that she ever trusted him, she leaps up and cuts at his head, but Tian Qingwen’s Poison Dragon Awl strikes her right shoulder first and her stroke lands low, on his buttock. Tao Zian hurls his dao at her chest, and Baoshu’s prayer bead knocks it aside (ch. 1).
Baoshu draws the awl, gives her a red pill for the pain and has Ruan Shizhong give her the Tianlong School antidote, and Tian Qingwen dresses the wound. Her leg badly hurt, she is carried on Xiong’s back on the march to the peak (ch. 1).
On Jade Brush Peak
Tian Qingwen helps her into the basket that lifts them to Jade Brush Peak (ch. 2). She is among those who cry out when Ping Asi says he means them all to starve on the peak (ch. 5). When the company flees from Hu Fei, Miao Ruolan offers to take her and Tian Qingwen to the cellar with the lady of the house, but Steward Yu refuses: the two, he says, are not good women (ch. 6).
The treasure cave
Her wounded leg leaves her far behind on the way to the round peak, and she falls into one of the hollows in the snow there (ch. 8). While the company sits at a loss, she notices that the ruby set in the sheath of Li Zicheng’s Treasured Dao catches the light oddly. Years of travelling with her husband’s escorts have taught her to judge gems, and she sees that the stone is set back to front. When Baoshu prises it out, the hollow beneath shows an arrow pointing the way into the cave (ch. 8). Inside, she and Tian Qingwen scream at the sight of the two frozen corpses (ch. 8). She is among those Hu Fei seals inside the cave, and the novel leaves their fate open (ch. 10).
Relationships
- Xiong Yuanxian: Chief of the escort her husband served, whose lead she follows.
- Tao Baisui and Tao Zian (Enemies): The stockade killed her husband; Tao Zian betrays her in the fight and she wounds him.
- Tian Qingwen (Enemy): Wounds her with an awl, then dresses the wound.
- Baoshu: Saves her life in the snow.
Martial arts
Zheng Sanniang fights with a pair of daos and throws flying daos. Her skill is not of the first rank, but she has mastered Iron Gate Bolt (铁门闩), a defensive bladework of thirty-six moves. Her other named move is Whirlwind Force (旋风势), a rushing close-in attack with both daos. Her eye for jewels, learnt on the escort road, finds the key to the treasure (ch. 1, 8).