The story of Wu Song

Wǔ Sōng (武松) was a hero in the Water Margin, one of the four most famous classical works of Chinese literature. He also appeared in Jin Ping Mei, a spinoff of Water Margin. He was famous for his slaying of the tiger with bare hands, and his avenging the murder of his older brother. According to legend, he was a student of Zhou Tong, the archery teacher of General Yue Fei.

Wu Song was from Qinghe Prefecture. He was good-looking, with eyes which shone like stars, thick eyebrows, a wide chest and a muscular body. He stood at 8 feet and gave people an impressive bearing. Once, he knocked out a person cold in a drunken fit. Misunderstanding that he had killed that person, he fled to Chai Jin's home for security and met Song Jiang there. The two later became sworn brothers.

On his way home, Wu Song passed by Jingyang Ridge and killed the fierce tiger there with his bare hands. Thus he became famous and was offered the post of a chief constable in Yanggu Prefecture. By chance, he met his elder brother Wu Dalang, nicknamed the 'Three-inch nail' for his short stature, who moved here a bit earlier.

According to The Oral Traditions of Yangzhou Storytelling, several popular folktales about Wu Song, from the "Wang School" of Yangzhou storytelling (Chinese: 扬州评话), state he killed the tiger “in the middle of the tenth month” of the “Xuanhe year [1119]" (the emphasis belongs to the original author).^[1] So he killed the tiger in the middle of the tenth lunar month of 1119. This is, however, a fictional date.

Wu Dalang brought his brother home and introduced his wife Pan Jinlian to Wu Song. Pan was pretty and her marriage to the ugly Wu Dalang was commonly described as 'a rose placed on a pile of cow dung'. Pan tried to seduce the handsome and heroic Wu Song but Wu did not fall for her. Later Wu Song accepted an assignment to transport gold to Kaifeng from the Yanggu District Magistrate so he could escape Pan’s adulterous advances. He returned home after exactly two months and found his brother dead. Wu found out that Pan Jinlian had committed adultery with Ximen Qing and the pair of adulterers murdered his brother with poison. Wu Song went to the county office to present his case, with a bone from his brother's cremated body as evidence that his brother was poisoned, as well as a neighbour as a witness. The judge had been bribed by Ximen Qing so he just dismissed the case. Wu Song was furious and decided to take matters into his own hands. He confronted his sister-in-law and her lover and killed the pair of adulterers. Then, he went to the county office to surrender himself.

Wu Song was exiled to Mengzhou and passed by Shizipo on the way. He got to know Zhang Qing and his wife Sun Erniang. Later, Wu Song became fast friends with the Mengzhou prison governor's son, Shi En. Shi treated Wu Song well and Wu Song decided to repay Shi's kindness. Wu Song confronted Jiang Zhong, a hooligan who took over Shi En's restaurant after beating him up. Wu Song defeated Jiang in a fierce fight and got back the restaurant for Shi En. Jiang was furious after being beaten up and he ganged up with Governor Zhang to frame Wu Song. Wu Song was charged with theft and exiled to Enzhou. The guards escorting him there were bribed to finish him at Flying Cloud Pool. However, Wu Song had sensed the plot earlier and managed to kill the guards. He went back to Mengzhou and killed Governor Zhang and his family, as well as Jiang-the-Doorgod. He fled from Mengzhou and passed by Shizipo once again. Zhang Qing and Sun Erniang disguised Wu Song as a priest to avoid arrest from government troops. Thus, Wu Song earned the nickname "The Priest (行者).

Wu Song went to Erlong Mountain to join Lu Zhishen, and later joined the Liangshan heroes after the battle of Qingzhou. He became one of the leaders of the Liangshan infantry and 36 Heavenly Chieftains. Wu Song followed the Liangshan heroes on their campaigns against the Imperial Army, Liao Tartars and southern rebels, making great contributions. However, when the Liangshan heroes were at war with Fang La at Muzhou, Wu Song's left arm was sliced off by Bao Daoyi. Luckily, he was saved by Lu Zhishen in time. After Fang La had been defeated, Wu Song refused an official post despite his great contributions. He went to Liuhe Pagoda to practice Buddhism and died peacefully at the age of 80.

The beginning is roughly the same as Water Margin. After his sister-in-law had killed his brother, he wanted to take revenge. At first, he tried to kill Ximen Qing, the lover of his sister-in-law, but he killed the wrong person instead. He was exiled to Mengzhou. He came back later, but Ximen Qing had already died of sickness. He then killed his sister-in-law, and fled to Erlong Mountain.

While Jin Ping Mei is famous in its sexually explicit content, there is nothing sexual about Wu Song in the novel.

The following tale alternatively known as “Meeting Zhou Tong By Chance” and "Swordplay under the Moon" belongs to the “Wang School Shui Hu” of Yangzhou storytelling. It acts as a Shu wai shu (Chinese: 书外书 - “Story outside of the story”), meaning it takes place during the Water Margin, but is outside of the main storyline. The tale takes place after Wu Song kills the man-eating tiger, resists the charms of his sister-in-law and accepts a mission from the Magistrate to transport money to Kaifeng, but before he becomes a bandit. It explains how he came to learn swordplay from Zhou Tong:

Wu was given orders to travel on assignment to the eastern Song capital of Kaifeng after becoming a constable for the Yanggu District police force in Shandong province. When he arrived in Kaifeng, Wu took his introduction letter to the office of the local administration building and retired to an inn to await his summons. The following day, he left his inn to explore the bustling city.

The city of Kaifeng was one of the largest in the world at this time and it was full of various kinds of shops and heavy traffic from people coming in and leaving the city. As Wu walked along enjoying the organized chaos, the sky changed color and it became a torrential down pour with rain the size of casks (a play on “raining buckets of water”). It rained so much that waves flowed across the ground and mist rose around the houses. The rain hurt the top of Wu’s head so he huddled under the roof of a small shop along with several other people vying for safety. But as soon as it started, the rain suddenly stopped.

Wu continued on his way when he came to a large Chinese style bridge. It was called the Tianhan Bridge. It was arched, so people had to use steps to ascend to the top. When he stepped onto the bridge, Wu lifted up his clothing and looked down at his feet so he could avoid the huge puddles of water left from the freak rain shower. Unbeknownst to him, he was walking directly towards an elderly man who was descending the stares right above him. Wu continued to walk up the bridge without looking in front of him. This old man was Zhou Tong and he was in a hurry. When Zhou saw Wu approaching him on the bridge without watching in front of him, the old master took the large young man to be another martial arts master who wished to tarnish Zhou’s reputation by throwing him off of the bridge with a shoulder strike. So Zhou prepared for a counter-attack and began to swallow air with a subtle “Hm!” and directed his energy to his right shoulder, which turned red then purple and became as hard as rock underneath his clothing. When the two men brushed shoulders, despite being a master of Iron Shirt and Drunken Eight Immortals boxing, Wu was nearly knocked off of the bridge and the pain caused saliva to pour from his mouth. The attack left him weak in the knees and one side of his body was completely numb. He thought after all of his years of martial arts practice his body was nearly invincible, but he had met his superior in Zhou. Instead of cursing and reprimanding the old man, Wu held his tongue, which greatly impressed Zhou. In lieu of a kind word, Zhou simply bowed in apology and went on his way since he was in a terrible rush.

After Zhou disappeared into the bustling crowd, Wu rubbed his shoulder and returned to his inn. He ate his lunch and supper in turn, but felt it was too early to go to bed. So he went outside into a quiet courtyard behind the inn to do a little Shadowboxing underneath the starry nighttime sky. He untied his belt and wrenched it to the left and right until it was very tight and tied it into a knot. He then focused his energy and began to practice his Drunken Eight Immortals boxing. But before he was even half way done with his routine, the loud screams of another person’s martial arts practice interrupted his concentration. So he grabbed a bench to steady himself on and looked over the top of a brick wall that opened into the hall of a large mansion to the east of the inn.

In the middle of the hall sat three tables laden with all the myriad kinds of food. But the stately-looking people attending this sumptuous feast were underneath the eaves of the hall watching a person practice his swordplay in the manor’s courtyard. This person was none-other-than Zhou and he had his beard tied into a knot so he would not accidentally cut it off with his double swords. Zhou wielded his swords to and fro and did it so fast that the flashes of light cast from the blades made it look like his entire body was wrapped in snow. Even if a person threw a bowlful of writing ink at him, not a single drop of it would tarnish his clothing. Wu became mesmerized by Zhou’s display of superior swordsmanship. When he twirled around and ended up facing in his direction, Wu recognized Zhou as the old man he had bumped into on the bridge earlier in the day. He realized that Zhou must be a great master adapt in the art of the “deep breath” technique.

During his practice, Zhou let out a mountain-crumbling scream and fell onto his back while kicking one leg into the air. Wu felt sorry for Zhou because he thought maybe the man was too old to practice the martial arts and had lost his balance. However, Zhou screamed once more and this time he shot high into the sky with his swords pointed upward towards the moon. After watching him land and perform a few punches and kicks, it finally dawned on Wu that Zhou was indeed practicing the boxing routines of the immortals Iron-Crutch Li and Han Xiang from the Drunken Eight Immortals style. Zhou was so good at this style that his performance once caused a fellow warrior to become intoxicated. Puzzled, Wu remembered back to his own martial arts master who had told him there were only two people in the world (including Wu and his master) who could perform such boxing. But Zhou also knew the style too. Because Zhou’s performance was so great, Wu went against the rules of etiquette and shouted praise from the top of the wall.

This shouting interrupted Zhou before he could finish the forms for the rest of the Eight immortals. He spun around and asked his aristocratic audience who it was that was shouting prays of his performance. But they were unable to answer because their snobbery prevented them from noticing anything outside of their own amusement. However, one of their level-headed servants heard the noise and pointed towards the brick wall. Zhou used his magical X-ray eyes to peer through the brick wall and into Wu’s bone structure to see he was a special person indeed. When Wu praised Zhou’s performance, he formed an instant friendship with the old man. Zhou invited Wu over the wall to partake in the festivities.

When Zhou asked for his name, he was delighted to learn Wu Song was the same fellow who became famous for killing a man-eating tiger with his bare hands on Jingyang Mountain in Shandong province the previous year. When Wu learned who Zhou Tong was, he immediately dropped to his knees, knocked his head on the floor and pleaded to become his student. Wu was thrilled to meet this “master of the older generation” who was famous throughout the rivers and lakes for his skill in military and civilian martial arts. Zhou helped Wu up and began to teach him swordplay under the moon.