Revealing the secret of where Song Jiang’s hometown is in Water Margin

Song Jiang’s Hometown

In the novel, Song Jiang has lived in Songjia Village, Yuncheng County, Shandong Province for generations, so Yuncheng County, Heze City, southwest Shandong Province is now Song Jiang’s hometown, located northwest of Liangshan Mountain. Far away, adjacent to the county in which it is located. Song Jiang's family was a small local landowner. His father, Song Taigong, and his younger brother had been working at home, and he became an escort in the local county government.

Photos of Song Jiang's hometown

Yuncheng County can be said to be the birthplace of the "Water Margin" story, because several heroes in Liangshan came from here, not only Song Jiang's hometown. It is said that there are a total of seventy-two, so there has always been a local saying that "Liangshan has one hundred and eight generals, and seventy-two are in Yuncheng". However, looking at the information, we can see that this statement is an exaggeration. In fact, there are only 6 Liangshan heroes in Yuncheng County: Song Jiang, Song Qing brothers, Wu Yong, Zhu Dian, Lei Heng and Bai Sheng. But of course, in addition to these six, there is another hero who belongs to Liangshan but is not included in the one hundred and eight generals. He is the King of Heaven Chao Gai.

Chao Gai and Song Jiang, the two village masters and leaders in Liangshan, needless to say their status in Liangshan. Wu Yong, a wise man, ranked third in Liangshan, Zhu Dian ranked twelfth, Lei Heng ranked 25th, Song Qing ranked 76th, and Bai Sheng ranked 106th. Among these five people, except for Song Qing, who rose to power through his brother's relationship, and Bai Sheng, a useless idler, the top three were all ranked in the Thirty-Six Tiangang Stars and had very high status. From the status of these seven people born in Yuncheng in Liangshan, we can see the importance of Yuncheng, the hometown of Song Jiang, to "Water Margin".

In addition, a very important plot in the early stage of the novel also takes place in Yuncheng County, which is to outwit the birthday card. To this day, a stone tablet has been erected at the Huangnigang site there, which records what happened in detail. Where is Song Jiang from?

According to the description in "Water Margin", Song Jiang was from Songjia Village, Yuncheng County, Shandong Province, which means that Yuncheng County, Heze City, Shandong Province is now Song Jiang's hometown. In addition, many Liangshan heroes, such as Chao Gai and Wu Yong, also came from there. It is also the place where the birth chart was outwitted, so Yuncheng County is considered the birthplace of the Liangshan story.

Photos of Songjiang Martial Arts School

Yuncheng County has a very long history. It was built as early as the Spring and Autumn Period, and its name was Yuncheng. However, the place is really famous because of the Liangshan heroes from the Water Margin. There has always been a saying that "Liangshan has one hundred and eight generals, and seventy-two are in Yuncheng". It is also known as the "Hometown of Chinese Heroes". Now the local area has been developing Water Margin culture as its own tourism brand.

Yuncheng County not only retains the ruins of the hometowns of famous people such as Songjia Village, the hometown of Song Jiang, Dongxi Village, the hometown of Chao Gai, and the Car Market, the hometown of Wu Yong, but also the ruins of some important plots in the Water Margin, such as the birthplace of Outsmarting the Birthday. Huangnigang in Gangzhong and Zengtou City where Chao Gai died, as well as some tourist attractions related to the Water Margin such as Xuannv Temple and Lingguan Hall. In addition, the local area has also built a Water Margin Cultural City to publicize and promote itself and develop tourism.

It is said that Yuncheng County has always been martial arts, so it can produce so many heroes. Now, the Songjiang Martial Arts School was built locally in 1985, and it is now a famous martial arts school throughout the country. The school includes 50 liberal arts classes in elementary, middle and high schools, as well as 60 martial arts classes such as Sanda, boxing, martial arts routines, taekwondo, and karate. The school not only recruits students from all provinces across the country, but also has many foreign students. So far, Songjiang Martial Arts School has won thousands of medals in major international, national and provincial competitions. Song Jiang in History

Song Jiang is not only a character in novels, but also a person in history. However, there are not many introductions to him. Historically, records of Song Jiang only exist in the peasant uprisings of the Song Dynasty. Historically, Song Jiang was also a leader of peasant uprisings, but the number of people was not as large as written in the novel.

Ancient portraits of Song Jiang

In the late Northern Song Dynasty, the central government was highly centralized, the ruling class increasingly oppressed the people, industry and commerce were developed, and social conflicts were acute, which led to continuous peasant uprisings. There are countless small-scale uprising groups with hundreds of people. In 1119 AD, the first year of Xuanhe by Emperor Huizong of the Song Dynasty, Song Jiang gathered 36 people and raised the banner of uprising. At first, this uprising army only operated in the area north of the Yellow River, specializing in robbing the rich and giving to the poor. It makes those powerful people panic.

Huizong ordered the extermination of these thirty-six people. However, due to the Song Dynasty's policy of emphasizing culture and suppressing military force, coupled with official corruption, the army's combat effectiveness was very weak. As a result, instead of wiping out Song Jiang's thirty-six men, the bandit-suppressing army actually made Song Jiang's team famous.

After gaining fame, Song Jiang led his gradually growing team and began to fight in various places. He did not occupy the Liangshan Mountains in the water and turn into bandits. Song Jiang was a man of both wisdom and bravery. He knew that with his current military strength, it was impossible to confront the imperial army head-on, so he took advantage of his small number to fight in various places and was extremely flexible, making it difficult for the imperial army to catch them. In addition, Song Jiang's men are all highly skilled in martial arts and can quickly break out of a small encirclement.

Later, Fangla in Zhejiang also gathered people to revolt. After weighing the pros and cons, the court decided to recruit Song Jiang to lead his men to conquer Fangla, and sent Zhang Shuye to recruit him. At this time, Song Jiang was in Haizhou, preparing to attack the city. At that time, Song Jiang's side had a great advantage and plundered many ships of the imperial court.

After Zhang Shuye arrived in Haizhou and saw the battle situation, he ordered people to secretly burn Song Jiang's ships and then ambush the soldiers. Song Jiang was ambushed and cut off, so he had to surrender. Regarding his ending, there are different opinions in history. Some say that he was beheaded by the imperial court, while others say that he was killed by treacherous ministers when he returned from conquering Fangla. Song Jiang's height

In the novel "Water Margin", Song Jiang, as the protagonist, can be called an upright hero, but this is only a praise of his character, not a description of Song Jiang's height. Height should also be an inner pain for Song Jiang.

Portrait of Song Jiang

When Song Jiang appeared for the first time, other people described him as a dark-faced and short man. In another description of his appearance, Song Jiang's height is clearly stated: "Six feet tall." Throughout the novel, there are not many people whose height is stated, and among them there are some who are tall and some who are short. The tallest person in Liangshan should be Yu Baosi, who was in charge of the Kangshuai Banner. The record is one foot, and the jade unicorn Lu Junyi is also nine feet. Among the people famous for their short stature in the novel are Wu Dalang, who is less than five feet tall, and Wang Ying, whose nickname is Short-footed Tiger. It is roughly speculated that with a height of six feet, Song Jiang would probably be in the bottom ten in Liangshan. This shows how short Song Jiang is. Therefore, in the novel, Song Jiang was very fond of the jade lion that illuminates the night, recording that it was eight feet tall. As the number one person in Liangshan, Song Jiang cannot be too short compared to others, so he can only rely on horses to cushion him.

So, what is Song Jiang’s height of six feet? Because the measurement standards of different dynasties in China are different, for example, in the Shang Dynasty, a foot is about 17 centimeters, so a man who is almost 1 foot long is called a "husband". A foot in the Song Dynasty was about 31.6 centimeters today. If we follow this standard, Song Jiang is also 180 centimeters, which is already very high, while the one-foot-long Ikubo is over three meters, which is no longer human. It can be seen that "Water Margin" does not describe height according to this measurement standard. According to the Ming Dynasty where the author of the novel Shi Naian lived, it was not scientific, because at that time a foot was 31 centimeters.

Therefore, the commonly used Han Dynasty standard should still be used in the novel, which is about 23 centimeters per foot, so Song Jiang's height is about 1.3 to 1.4 meters. Descendants of Song Jiang

Throughout the entire "Water Margin", Song Jiang, as the protagonist, never married a wife or had any children until his death. The only person who could have given birth to a child for Song Jiang was his concubine Yan Poxi, but Song Jiang didn't like it and later killed her in anger. There is no record in the book that Yan Poxi was pregnant, which shows that Song Jiang should have no children and no descendants.

Portraits of the Song and Qing Dynasties

Descendants of Song Jiang should not exist, but this does not mean that their family has no descendants. Song Jiang is known as "Xiaoyi Black Saburo". The so-called "Sanlang" means that he is the third son in the family. It can be seen that Song Jiang also has two older brothers and two younger brothers. Among them, only one of Song Jiang's younger brothers, Song Qing, appeared in "Water Margin". He later followed Song Jiang to Liangshan and was nicknamed Iron Fan. He was responsible for arranging banquets in the village and was ranked 76.

In the novel, Song Jiang was eventually poisoned by wine and died, but Song Qing did not die. After he was granted an official title, he still chose to go home to farm and manage Songjiazhuang. When Song Jiang died, Song Qing refused to inherit the title and stayed at home. Moreover, the book records that he had a son named Song Anping, who later took part in the imperial examination and became a secretary and bachelor.

In "Water Margin" written by the Qing Dynasty, Song Anping also married the daughter of the master scholar Xiao Rang, which shows that the bloodline of the Song Jiang family has at least continued.

To this day, in Yuncheng County or Liangshan area of ??Shandong Province, there are still news from time to time that the descendants of Song Jiang have been discovered. Some people even took out the so-called family tree, with Song Jiang's name clearly written on it. But I don’t know whether these news are true or not. At least they cannot be the descendants of Song Jiang, they can only be the descendants of his brother. It is said that these descendants said that Song Jiang's other three brothers were named Song Huai, Song Han and Song He. Song Jiang's age

Whether it is the real Song Jiang in history or the Song Jiang in the novel "Water Margin", there is no specific record of his birth time. The novel does say when he died, probably in 1124 AD, but it is impossible to accurately estimate Song Jiang's age from this.

Song Jiang stills

After outsmarting the birth date, when Song Jiang appeared for the first time, the description of him said that he was "in his thirties", which shows that he was in his thirties at the time. age. Later, when he wrote an anti-poetry on the Xunyang Tower in Jiangzhou, there was a rumor in the local market. One of the sentences was "Zongheng Thirty-Six", which was thought to be talking about Song Jiang. This shows that he was probably thirty-six years old at this time. age, which was around 1117. If calculated according to this, Song Jiang was only about forty-four years old when he died.

Song Jiang was called "Brother Gongming" most often by everyone in Liangshan, and even people who were close to him in the world also called him this way. But the word "brother" does not mean that Song Jiang is older than others, but it is a respect for him. After all, the "timely rain" who is generous and generous with money has a high status in the world. For example, in the description of Lin Chong's appearance, he is thirty-four or five years old, and Lu Zhishen is his sworn brother, so he must be older than him. In addition, there are many very old people on Liangshan Mountain, and they must be older than Song Jiang. Chao Gai clearly wrote in the novel that he was ten years older than Song Jiang, so Song Jiang was just a younger brother in front of the king.

However, Song Jiang is definitely older among the 108 generals in Liangshan. If he is too young, as a leader, he will give people the feeling that he is weak in his words and ineffective in doing things, and others will not be able to do things well. Will obey him. It can be seen that the general age of Liangshan heroes should be in their thirties, with the younger ones in their twenties and the older ones in their forties.