Song Jiang was a man from a relatively wealthy family. He was honorable, filial to his father, and very well respected by his peers. Although he was short, dark-skinned, fairly plump, and did not have any martial art prowess, this man would eventually become the LEADER of Mount Liang and it’s entire roster of 108 powerful martial arts heroes.
This is his origin story…
Song Jiang worked as an accountant (押司) under the town magistrate. Though his role was small, his influence and celebrityhood was high. Nearly everyone in the town knew him and he was the type of person who could make friends with everyone. He was often the first person to help if anyone had any troubles, and because of that, he earned the nickname “Timely Rain.” His name was spread across the land and because of his good deeds, and heroes from all over the country respected him. OK back to the story.
- Song Jiang, the “Timely Rain”
Song Jiang was casually walking down the street when he was stopped by and old lady named Yan. Because Song Jiang was such a great man, she wanted Song to marry her daughter: Yan Poxi. Song Jiang initially said no, but after months of old lady Yan’s begging, Song Jiang finally had to agree, and he married her daughter.
Remember when I said Song Jiang had a lot of friends across the country? Well, one of these friends was Chao Gai, the leader of the bandits from last week. The entire country’s police force had been deployed to capture Chao Gai and his group, so they were forced to run to the Mount Liang fortress and become bandits. Living up to his name, Song Jiang had actually been the person that traveled all the way to Chao Gai’s house to warn him that the police were on their way. Months later, to show his gratitude for more or less saving his life, Chao Gai sent Song Jiang a letter and 10 bars of gold.
Song Jiang wasn’t a monetary-minded man so he simply took the letter, 1 bar of gold, and sent the rest back to Mount Liang. That night, he came home to Yan Poxi (his wife), but neither of them wanted to see the other. Song Jiang had heard allegations that his Wife had been cheating on him, so he came to address the matter. After a furious argument, Song Jiang exited the house, but he accidentally left his work bag in her room. Yan Poxi of course opened the bag and was surprised to find a bar of gold and a letter from the most wanted criminal in the country! Yan Poxi knew she could use the letter to force Song Jiang to divorce her or better yet, send Song Jiang to jail, so she hid the letter under her pillow.
Song Jiang realized that he had left the bag in the room, and in dread, he began sprinting back as fast as possible. Just as he had predicted, Yan Poxi had looked through the bag and his letter and gold were gone. Song Jiang tried to reason with Yan, but when that didn’t work, he started wrestling with her. In the chaos, Song Jiang pulled out his knife and killed Yan Poxi in fury. He quickly grabbed his stuff, and rode on a fast horse back to his hometown to escape arrest.
Next week, we’ll discuss how Song Jiang joined Mount Liang, and finally we’ll start delving into how I am adapting the story.
As always, the blog post is well written and well structured, but I have to say that this week it has been a little bit too dense for me to keep up with. You’ve deviated from your usual structure where characters and plot are presented on occasions with bullets and in a more entertaining matter.
Hmmmm. ok thank you for the comment. I might try to consider a different approach for next week. we’ll see. I might start over with the story. I don’t think starting in the middle was a wise decision, and its really confusing and difficult to keep up with.
I was able to follow the story and thought it was interesting as usual but I did have to refer to your previous posts for context and remembering some of the characters, probably a by-product of the format of a weekly update but over all I thought it was good.
I loved the background on Song Jiang!! And the pictures definitely help flow the blog post well.