朱仝天满星 · 12
Leaf 12 of the marsh · 美髯公 Beautiful-Bearded Lord
Zhu Tong 朱仝
In Water Margin 水滸傳 (c. 1400) · rank 12 of the 108 Stars · nicknamed 美髯公 “Beautiful-Bearded Lord”
The constable who released three fugitives and was paid in the death of a child.
The great deeds 大事記
- ch. 18
Releasing Chao Gai in Secret
私放晁蓋The bearded constable lets the convoy thieves walk out of his district, and loses his first post for it.
- ch. 22
Letting Song Jiang Go Again
再放宋公明He does it again for Song Jiang, and is exiled to a magistrate who likes his beard.
- ch. 51
The Young Master He Lost
失小衙內The mountain repays his mercy by killing the child in his charge, so that he has nowhere left to go.
結局 The ending
The amnesty turned the constable who twice let a fugitive walk out of his custody into a general, and he served on into high provincial command. Nobody in the book ever mentions the irony, and he never once explained himself.
The book itself: how it ends, and who was left — The ending