The Four Great Swordsmen of the Iceberg
Perhaps many friends have not noticed that the so-called "Iceberg Four Swords" has never appeared in the book "White Eyebrows", just like we often say "Jianghu Tianbang", which is a conventional title.
The reason why there is the "Four Great Swordsmen of the Iceberg" is mainly because their uncles and brothers led it. It is said that there are four major disciples under the head of the eighty-one family of the Eight Treasures of Emei Yunxiao Temple in Sichuan, namely the "White Cloud Swordsman" Xiahou Ren, the "One-word Emei Girl" Ma Fenggu, the "Hanjiang Lonely Goose" Shang Yunfeng, and the "White-clothed Prodigy Little Sword Demon" Bai Lao Bai Yizi, these four are called the "Four Great Swordsmen of Emei" by the colleagues in the rivers and lakes. So as Pudu's junior disciple, the owner of the iceberg Arctic Island, the "Changfa Dao Changfeng Master", also happens to have four apprentices under the Xuezhu Lotus, so these four disciples are called the "Four Swords of the Iceberg" by the book friends in imitation of the "Emei Four Swords", which are "Thunderbolt Wind Water Floating Boat" Zhuge Yuanying, "Zhenbeihai Evil Face Kunlun Suo" Shangguan Feng, "Flying Flying Master" Zhuge Sui, "A Gong Rings Zhen Qiankun Witty Old Man Blind Swordsman" Zou Rui Zou Huachang.
However, there are many problems with this combination, putting aside Shangguan Feng and Zhuge Sui, who have less pen and ink, let's talk about Zhuge Yuanying first. In the chapter of Hades Village, Jiang Ping's nephew Jiang Xiaoyi was born and killed the water monster "cuttlefish", which won an important period for Kaifeng Mansion, so he was a little fluttering, especially for the third brother Xu Liang, who has been famous for a long time, and one of the biggest reasons is the teacher, according to Shan Lao's statement, Jiang Xiaoyi was thinking at that time, "Who is the third brother's teacher? What is the golden-eyed and aggressive Mei Liangzu and Wei Zhen in the clouds, how can I compare with my teacher? My teacher is the famous Zhuge Yuanying, which is a figure as famous as the long-haired Taoist Xue Zhulian." In other words, in the earliest setting, Zhuge Yuanying was not Xue Zhulian's apprentice, but a giant on an equal footing.
In the chapter of the Lotus View, Zou Rui was born in the image of a blind old man, and when he officially reported his home, he directly shocked the flying sword fairy Zhu Liang and the Golden Palm Buddha Zen, at that time, Shan Lao said clearly through Zou Huachang's self-description - the little old man lives on the iceberg Arctic Island, and there is a senior brother called Changfa Dao Changxue Zhulian! That is to say, in the setting at that time, Zou Rui and Xue Zhulian were apprentices of the same master. Later, when he confronted Guo Dada, he also mentioned that he was the same age as Feiyun Dao Chief, both one hundred and three years old, which confirmed his high rank and status.
But with the deepening of the plot, Xue Zhulian was raised to a new height and became one of Pudu's junior brothers and Yu He's senior brother "Three Sages of Martial Arts", and at the same time explained the information about Xue Zhulian's apprentices, Zhuge Yuanying and Zou Rui, the two original peers of Xue Zhulian, like Shangguan Feng and Zhuge Sui, have become Xue Zhulian's apprentices, and the saying of "Iceberg Four Swordsmen" has also appeared from this moment.
The definition of a swordsman in "White Eyebrows".
In the traditional sense, swordsman refers to a chivalrous man who uses a sword as a weapon, and if it is divided into a swordsman and a chivalrous man, the former refers to the people and martial arts masters who use the sword as a weapon, and the latter refers to the master of the rivers and lakes who acts chivalrous and righteous, and eliminates violence and peace. One of them has to do with the weapons they use, and the other has to do with their character. But in Shan Lao's commentaries (including but not limited to "White Eyebrows"), the definitions of these two terms that have been circulating for many years have been overturned and given a new definition.
According to the new definition of Shan Lao, swordsmen and chivalrous are exclusive nouns for the division of martial arts levels, that is to say, they have nothing to do with the use of weapons and personality, how to call them all in the strength of martial arts, swordsmen > chivalrous, and then there are righteous warriors and warriors. In the early stage, when there were fewer swordsmen, it was okay, but later there was almost no place for knights, and the swordsmen grabbed a lot of them, so Shan Lao divided the swordsmen into many kinds, and the characters called "sword demons" and "sword fairies" were even higher than the swordsmen.
However, this later explanation was somewhat intriguing, and it also led to self-contradictions, such as Bai Yizi was called "Sword Demon", and Tao Fuan was called "Sword Immortal", but their kung fu was not as good as "Golden Lantern Swordsman" Xia Suiliang. Although Bai Yizi and Xia Suiliang fought three times, each winning one and drawing one, it can be clearly seen from the state of the three churches after the fair duel against the three lilies that Xia Suiliang is at least theoretically stronger than Bai Yizi.
And Tao Fuan is far inferior to Xia Suiliang. Don't look at the fact that Shan Lao praised him when he appeared, but in fact, when Xia Suiliang had not used all his strength, the two of them fought forty times Tao Fu'an was powerless, and he lost the 10,000-year-old ancient Buddha and apprentice to arrive in time, otherwise Tao Fuan was afraid that he would be hated on the spot. It can be seen that the so-called sword demons and sword immortals are higher in strength than swordsmen.
Its practical noun to divide the grade can be completely changed, especially the chivalrous foolish thought that it was really inappropriate to use it here, as long as the martial arts arrived, whether it was a traitor or a person looking for flowers and willows, it could be called "chivalry", even if he knew that the meaning of the reference was different, it was still awkward and awkward.
But then again, since the book was compiled by Shan Lao himself, how to set it up is naturally up to others, and we can only analyze and interpret it according to the setting of the original book. In terms of the level of martial arts, Zhuge Yuanying, Shangguan Feng, Zhuge Sui, and Zou Huachang have naturally reached the level of the so-called swordsman, even though Zou Rui's strength has been criticized, but he signed up to shock Zhu Liang and Buddha Chan (Zhu Liang was once called "the first row of swordsmen" by Shan Lao, not to mention whether there is water or not, but the strength of the swordsman must be there), plus compared to Guo Dada, Zou Huachang is not much worse, so there should be no controversy that the "Iceberg Four Swords" is worthy of the level of swordsman.
Horizontal positioning of a first-class swordsman
First-class is necessarily good, and even to some extent, it is not an exaggeration to call it a "ceiling", and it must be a compliment to describe a person who is first-class in the world in a certain aspect. However, although the first-class in the martial arts evaluation is also a master, it is really difficult to determine whether it is not the top, because with the development of the times, in order to highlight that there is no best, only better, many new terms that are higher than the first-class follow, such as the most common "super first-class", which exceeds the first-class as soon as you hear it, these are all set by yourself casually, even if you mention anything god-level and immortal-level above the super-first-class, it is not surprising.
Therefore, if you want to judge whether the four swords of the iceberg are enough to be a first-class swordsman, you must first determine or clarify what the title of the upper limit of the level is, which must not be answered in the original book, because there are many swordsmen who appear to hang and bomb the five scum in the late stage of the battle, so we can divide the grades by ourselves. Personally, the characters in the book are divided into super-first-class, first-class, quasi-first-class, second-rate, quasi-second-rate, and third-rate...... And so on.
There is no doubt that the super first-class is Yu He, after all, Yu and Twenty He beat Xue Zhulian to vomit blood, and Pudu and Xue Zhu teamed up with the seven great swordsmen to defeat Yu He, so there is no doubt that Yu He's martial arts are one grade higher than the two senior brothers. If someone can barely match Yu He, then only Jin Chang, who appeared last, doesn't care if they rely on light skills, in short, Jin Taidou and Yu He fought for thirty times without winning or losing, and also stole the sword behind the martial saint. Of course, if we live or die and say that Jinchang's hard power is not good, it doesn't matter if we rely on light skills, after all, we are mainly judging the level of the "four swords of the iceberg" today, and it is good for others to make a rough plan.
Under the super one is a first-class swordsman, there are two - Pudu and Xue Zhulian, Shan Lao clearly mentioned that the two brothers' abilities are only a hair difference, and the level of martial arts is naturally between the two brothers. Because Xue Zhulian behaved badly, many people said that it was not as good as Xia Suiliang, who was quite brilliant, but the psychological description of Yu He in the book said that if Xue Zhulian did something to Xia Suiliang, Xia Suiliang would definitely die, indicating that although Pudu and Xue Zhulian's level was obviously inferior to Yu He, it was not Xia Suiliang, a junior, who could be compared.
The quasi-first-class is the third from the fourth to the sixth on the heavenly list, Xia Suiliang, the Wannian Ancient Buddha, and Bai Yizi. In the sea battle, Xia Suiliang and Murmuring Arhat fought against Lily without winning or losing, and Shan Lao once again gave the theory of "hair silk". And Bai Yizi and Xia Suiliang We just mentioned, the two have fought three times, the first time Bai Yizi took advantage of Xia Suiliang's strength to win easily; the second time the two first compared fists and feet, and then compared weapons, and the battle of the three lilies was not scored; the third time was in the small Penglai Bixia Palace, Xia Suiliang led the Kunlun monk and the Guyue monk to beat the little sword demon and captured him with serious injuries. Therefore, the three wars are generally a flat situation, and the slight difference is that Xia Suiliang recovered quickly after the war, and Bai Yizi had no strength to fight again although he rested.
Further down are the second-rate level Long Yunfeng, Wang Ape, Tao Fuan, etc., because there are some unconvincing controversies in the ranking of the masters of the Heavenly List itself, and the focus of our discussion today is not here, so I will not continue to elaborate and analyze.
Back to the topic – the four swords of the iceberg. has been ranked second-rate and still nowhere to be seen, obviously according to such a grade division, it is impossible to reach the first-class level. The fourteen swordsmen on the Heavenly List are enough to fill the quasi-second-rate. There are also Ma Fenggu, Shang Yunfeng and others outside the heavenly list, so Zhuge Yuanying, Shangguan Feng, and Zhuge Sui in the four swords of the iceberg can be roughly counted as the second or third echelon outside the heavenly list, which is similar to Kunlun monks, Ji Chengda and others. And Zou Huachang, who was once set as the junior disciple of Xue Zhulian, was at least one rank lower than the three of them, and even Xu Liang at the end of the book was not necessarily worse than him.
To sum up, if the echelons of the swordsmen in the book are graded according to from one to ten, Zhuge Yuanying, Shangguan Feng, and Zhuge Sui in the "Four Swords of the Iceberg" are roughly in the seventh echelon, and Zou Huachang is in the eighth or ninth echelon. That means that unless at least seven levels are set above the first-class, the four major swordsmen can be called first-class swordsmen, but what is the point of such swordsmen except for being smiling and generous?