At the time of the Northern Song Dynasty, there were 108 heroes and good men gathered in Liangshan, who were either extraordinary in force, or both wise and courageous, or skilled craftsmen. "Water Margin" is the heroic legend of this hundred and eight good men, which is still praised by the people of the times.
Among them, there is a character, although he is not ranked high, and there is little record of him appearing alone, but it can be said that he is the real "first master" of Liangshan.
In "Water Margin", he is described as follows: when the artillery falls, the city is shattered, and the smoke and clouds are scattered everywhere. Thunder and thunder, Ling Zhen is famous for four hundred states.
This person is Ling Zhen. Nicknamed "Booming Thunder", he is good at making artillery and is known as "the first gunner in the world of the Song Dynasty". And he is also deeply skilled in martial arts, good at riding and shooting.
He originally served in the officers and men and was a gunner as the deputy envoy of the Tokyo Armor Depot. Because when the Song army attacked Liangshan, the military horses could not cross the water, so they invited him to assist.
When Ling Zhen shelled Liangshan, wu used a trick to lure the enemy into the water, and after being captured alive by Ruan Xiao'er in the water, he submitted to Liangshan under the persuasion of Song Jiang and the Song Dynasty general Peng Xuan, who had already returned to Liangshan.
It can be seen that in fact, Ling Zhen did not take the initiative to join Liangshan, after all, he was the person responsible for making artillery in the imperial court, and the treatment and the like were always passable, unlike some good men who joined Liangshan because of their difficult lives. He agreed to submit at that time, probably more for the sake of saving his life.
This is also one of the reasons why he is good at making artillery and has a very high value of force, but he is not widely known, and his enthusiasm for the crusade against the imperial court is not high.
After he surrendered to Liangshan, his main duty was to build cannons for Liangshan, and to aim the cannon at Hu Yanzhuo, help Liangshan capture Han Tao alive, and persuade Han Tao to submit.
When one hundred and eight good men were gathered and they wanted to rank up, Ling Zhen's corresponding asterisk was the Earth Axis Star, ranking fifty-second among the liangshan people, and the position was "in charge of creating a special cannon of all sizes".
It can be seen that his ranking is medium, is Ling Zhen's role in Liangshan so small? Next, we will look at his performance in the process of the conquest after being recruited.
After being recruited at Liangshan, he accompanied the army to fight everywhere and continued to play his specialty. During the conquest of the Liao State, he shocked the enemy by casting cannons, and then he used artillery to help besiege the city in Jizhou and killed Shi Jing.
During the conquest of Wang Qing, Ling Zhen was mainly responsible for the duty of firing trumpet cannons, but he also personally went to the battlefield as an infantry leader to fight and kill, and achieved a lot of success.
During the conquest of Fangla, he repeatedly fired cannons in siege battles, collapsing the city tower and shocking his opponents. When attacking Muzhou, he even killed Bao Daoyi, the Lingying Heavenly Master who had cut off Wu Song's arm, and avenged the broken arm for Wu Song, which showed the weight of his righteous spirit.
He was the one who was responsible for the manufacture of artillery among these hundred people, which provided great help to his resistance to the enemy. From the above deeds, it can also be seen that his strength value is not low, so why did he rank in the middle?
This brings us to mention a person, this person is the very famous Song Jiang, the first person of one hundred and eight good men, the Tiankui Star, the head of the Thirty-six Heavenly Stars, the central figure on Liangshan, and the ranking is from his hand.
He was originally the abbot of Yuncheng County, Shandong Province, and was discovered by the concubine Yan Poxi because of the private release of Chao Gai and others, and later he killed Yan Poxi and fled overnight, during which he befriended many heroes and good men, and went to Liangshan.
After Chao Gai's death, he succeeded him as the third lord of Liangshan, and the Jianghu people also called him "Timely Rain" and "Hu Baoyi". Because of his dark skin and short stature, he was nicknamed Black Song Jiang, and he was filial to his parents and served people righteously, and everyone called him "Filial Piety Kurosaburo".
The reason why Ling Zhen had a high value of force and helped Liangshan win the victory with his artillery many times, but he was not able to be reused and famous, was largely because of Song Jiangqi.
As mentioned earlier, Song Jiang is the leader of Liangshan and the first chair to sit firmly, so naturally he said that whoever is strong will be able to rank first. People such as Li Kui and Wu Yong were close to Song Jiang, so they were relatively high in the later rankings.
And Ling Zhen, because he had been at odds with Song Jiang for a long time, at least not a close relationship, could not be reused on Liangshan. However, it was precisely because of his bad relationship with Song Jiang that he was finally able to die well.
After the conquest of Fang La, because Ling Zhen was one of the survivors of the liangshan good han, he was given the title of "Wuyi Lang" by the imperial court, became a member of the commanders of the Zhulu Capital, and then appointed at the Gunpowder Bureau, which was a very good ending.
And Song Jiang did not have such a good ending. Cai Jing, Tong Guan, and Gao Li were afraid that Song Jiang and other officials would threaten their interests after they were appointed, so they first designed to kill Lu Junyi with mercury, and then poisoned Song Jiang with poison mixed with wine.
Ling Zhen was originally the "first master" of Liangshan, but he had been suppressed by Song Jiang and had helped Wu Song avenge him.