Before his death, Chao Gai left a last word, making it clear that as long as anyone captured Shi Wengong, who could succeed him as the lord of Liangshan. However, after Lu Junyi captured Shi Wengong alive, he only became a nominal liangshan second-in-command, but Song Jiang, who had not made any effort, easily sat on the throne of the leader of Liangshan.
As the saying goes, where there are people, there are rivers and lakes, and Liangshan is naturally no exception. Although Song Jiang's martial arts were inferior to those of Chao Gai and Lu Junyi, he played these two people around, not only emptying Chao Gai, but even Lu Junyi, who was the highest in martial arts, was suppressed by him. Why was Song Jiang able to monopolize Liangshan? Looking at the number of his subordinates, it was clear that whether it was Chao Gai or Lu Junyi, they could not be Song Jiang's opponents at all.
At the peak of Liangshan, there were also 70,000 or 80,000 troops, and if other miscellaneous services were counted, the scale of personnel was probably as many as 100,000. The leader of Liangshan only had 108 people, and this 108 people were divided into 6 major factions, 45 in the Songjiang faction and only 7 in Lu Junyi's faction. Although Song Jiang's martial arts were not very good, the strength of his men was enough to crush Lu Junyi.
The members of the Song Jiang faction were more complicated, including court generals such as Qin Ming, good men in the green forest such as Yan Shun and Zheng Tianshou, and people who admired Song Jiang's reputation and took the initiative to come to Duan Jingzhu and Wang Dingliu. Except for Qin Ming, the others could only be regarded as peripheral members of the Song Jiang faction, and their role was only to wave the flag to Song Jiang. Although their status on the mountain is not very high, because of their large number, they are still a force to be reckoned with.
There were 32 peripheral members of the Song Jiang faction, mainly including 10 people, including Li Jun, Tong Brothers, Mu Brothers, and Zhang Brothers of Jieyangling, as well as 4 leaders of Qingfeng Mountain, including Zheng Tianshou, Wang Ying, and Yan Shun, as well as Hu Sanniang, and 4 leaders of Huangmen Mountain, including Ou Peng, Jiang Jing, Ma Lin, and Tao Zongwang, in addition to some scattered good men who did not form small groups, such as Yu Baosi, Deng Fei, Huang Xin, Zhu Fu, Li Yun, and Duan Jingzhu.
These 32 people were only peripheral members of the Song Jiang faction, and the core members of the Song Jiang faction were mainly composed of Wu Yong, Li Kui, Hua Rong, Dai Zong, Qin Ming, Kong Brothers and others, plus Song Jiang, a total of 12 people. These people are all in high positions in Liangshan, they are the backbone of Song Jiang's side, through these core members, Song Jiang can easily gain control of Liangshan.
For example, Liangshan recruited the imperial court, and according to the opinions of several other factions, it was obviously not an easy task to reach a consensus. However, Song Jiang's men were numerous, and as long as they were mobilized to win the support of others, no matter how much Erlongshan insisted on opposing Zhao'an, it would not change Song Jiang's decision.
The main figures of the Erlongshan faction were Lu Zhishen and Wu Song, including Yang Zhi, Zhang Qing, Sun Erniang, Shi En, Cao Zheng and others, while Zhou Tong, Li Zhong of Taohuashan, and Zhu Wu, Shi Jin, Yang Chun, and Chen Da of Shaohuashan were also attached to Erlongshan. Therefore, the Erlongshan faction represented by Lu Zhishen and Wu Song was actually a Sanshan faction, and their organization was relatively loose, not as well as the Songjiang faction's organizational structure, so it was impossible to compete with the Songjiang faction.
On Liangshan, in addition to the Song Jiang faction and the Erlongshan faction, there was also a relatively large faction of the imperial court, which mainly included Guan Sheng, Dong Ping, Suo Chao, Zhang Qing, Hu Yanzhuo and others, a total of 16 people. In fact, these imperial court generals were the backbone of Liangshan, they were all from the army and were proficient in platoon deployment. If you really want to talk about battlefield combat effectiveness, they are definitely much stronger than those good men who come from green forests and grasses. And more importantly, rather than falling into the grass at Liangshan, these imperial court generals were more inclined to return to their old masters to continue to serve the imperial court.
The Song Jiang faction led by Song Jiang, as well as the Erlongshan faction headed by Lu Zhishen, and the imperial court generals who hugged each other to keep warm, these three forces formed the basic pattern of Liangshan. Some of the remaining factions, either too small in number or leaderless, can only gradually become marginal figures on Liangshan, wandering between these three groups.
For example, Lu Junyi, although he was the second in command of Liangshan, his forces were very weak, and in addition to his close companion Yanqing, only Yang Xiong, Shi Xiu, Shi Qian, and the Cai brothers were willing to follow him. Counting Lu Junyi himself, his faction was only 7 people, so how could he compete with Song Jiang? After Chao Gai's death, the three Ruan brothers, Lin Chong, Liu Tang and others were even less opponents of Song Jiang. As for the Dengzhou faction, which consisted of the Sun brothers, the Zou family's uncles and nephews, and the Xie brothers, they all held the attitude of going with the flow and had no intention of competing for the right to rule Liangshan.
As the saying goes, people have their own ambitions, and not all the good men on Liangshan have formed factions, in addition to the 6 major factions mentioned above, there are many people in Liangshan who remain neutral, such as Jin Dajian, Xiao Rang, An Daoquan, Li Ying, Chai Jin and others. Their duties on the mountain basically belonged to the logistics personnel and were not good at fighting, so even Song Jiang did not bother to win them over and let them go freely. The ending of this part of the good guys is also the best, not implicated in the attack on Fang La, and basically ended well.