Whether you have read "Water Margin" or not, most of you have heard the sentence "Lin Chong immediately, Wu Song under the horse", and it is not difficult to see from this slip of the tongue that Lin Chong and Wu Song are indeed the top powerhouses in the book.
However, relatively speaking, Wu Song's strength is more deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, after all, no one can reproduce the deeds of "Jingyanggang Fighting Tigers", he is worthy of the evaluation of "like the demon lord in the sky, it is really the Tai Sui God of the world", about Wu Song's bridge, almost all of them can be summed up in the four words "happiness and enmity".
(Lin Chong stills)
And Lin Chong is different, this role always gives people a sense of grievance, take Lin Niangzi's humiliation as an example, why would he rather divorce his wife than dare to fight with Gao Yu? might as well combine the details of the original work to analyze what Lin Chong thinks.
First, Lin Niangzi was humiliated
It is said that Gao Yanei has bullied Lin Niangzi more than once.
The first time was on the street, in broad daylight, when he saw that the Lin lady was born beautiful, he had bad intentions.
The book only said: "A young descendant on Hu Ti, standing alone on his back, stopped Lin Chong's lady and said: 'You go upstairs and talk to you.'" Lin Chong's lady blushed and said: "Qingping the world, what is the reason, flirting with your lover!" Lin Chong rushed to the front, pulled the shoulder blade of the young man, and shouted: "What a crime to flirt with the wife of a beloved!" Just when he was about to be punched, he recognized Gao Yanei, the son of the Gao Taiwei in charge. ”
Not to mention that Gao Yanei didn't succeed, in fact, just having an idea is enough for Lin to teach him a lesson, after all, there is a saying called "Chong Guan is angry and red", if he can't even protect his lover, what kind of man is it?
(Gao Yanei, Lin Niangzi stills)
Then the second time was even more excessive, Gao Yanei directly put Lin Niangzi under house arrest, and what did Lin Chong do at this time?
Look at the description of the original book: "Lin Chong was taken aback when he saw it, and he didn't care about the female envoy Jin'er, he took three steps and ran to Lu Yuhou's house." grabbed the ladder, but closed the door. I only heard the lady shouting: 'Qingping world, how to lock up my beloved wife here!' Then he heard Gao Yanei say: 'Lady, pity me and save me! It's the iron-stone man, and he also sues for the turnaround! Lin Chong stood on the ladder and shouted, "Sister-in-law open the door!" The woman listened to her husband's voice and came to open the door. Gao Yanei was taken aback, opened the window, jumped off the wall and left. ”
When a normal person comes to save his mother, how can he knock on the door? Naturally, he should have broken in, but Lin Chong seemed to be afraid of a head-on conflict with this Gao Yanei, and just wanted the two of them to go down the stairs.
And the more bizarre thing is still to come, Lin Chong didn't want to worry about this matter anymore, he couldn't solve Gao Yanei and Gao Yu, so he thought about taking his wife under the knife, so he divorced his wife directly.
(Gao Yu stills)
In fact, anyone with a discerning eye knows that Lin Niangzi was taken in by Gao Yanei, and was abandoned by Lin Chong at this time, where can she find a good family? Her end was destined to be taken away by Gao Yanei.
So it can also be said that Lin Chong pushed Lin Niangzi to Gao Yanei, but later Lin Niangzi's self-hanging may have exceeded his expectations.
Second, Lin Chong's strength
So why didn't Lin Chong dare to take revenge on Gao Yu and Gao Yanei?
Is it a lack of strength?
To answer the first question first, in the eyes of most people, Lin Chong thought about killing Gao Yu, and even died in the end because Song Jiang let Gao Yu go.
The ideal is very plump, but the reality is very skinny, the so-called "Lin Chong was angry to death" is purely the magic change of the TV series, Lin Chong in the original book never thought of killing Gao Yu at all, when Song Jiang let Gao Yu go, Shi Nai'an did not give Lin Chong any description of emotional changes, his hatred of Gao Yu is only like other Liangshan heroes, it is a contradiction between bandits and officers and soldiers, and there seems to be no other superfluous grudges.
Is Lin Chong's strength weak?
(Lin Chong was angry to death stills)
Obviously not, Lin Chong was listed by Song Jiang as one of the Five Tigers of Liangshan, he is a strong man on the same level as Guan Sheng, Qin Ming, Hu Yanzhuo, and Dong Ping, and can even be said to be the most eye-catching one among the Five Tigers.
He didn't choose to do it, which only shows that he never wanted to take revenge.
But how can this be explained? Could it be that he didn't feel anything in the face of his wife being forced to die?
Maybe it's not that he doesn't feel it, but it's not worth his feelings too much, because in his opinion, what is more worth keeping is his official position.
3. The head of the forbidden army
Lin Chong is the head of the 800,000 forbidden army, but what kind of official position is this 800,000 forbidden army leader, and it is worthy of Lin Chong's nostalgia?
In fact, the so-called "800,000 forbidden army" may not have 800,000 at all, don't be bluffed by this head.
For example, there is a record in the "History of the Song Dynasty · Bingzhi": "Those who prohibit the army, the guards of the Son of Heaven, and the two guards in front of the palace are in short." Its closest followers, the number of all shifts on duty, always in front of the Imperial Loyal Zuo Army Leader, the Imperial City Qiji Academy, all to guard the Beijing Division, ready for the expedition. ”
It is equivalent to saying that this is a bunch of reserve soldiers, and their number is floating.
And in the "History of the Song Dynasty, Chronicles", it was written: "In December, the edict: the generals of Kaifeng Prefecture and Jingxi Beijing, ten people learned to shoot horses with one person, and were taught by the head of the Zhongdu Academy. ”
From this point of view, the words "800,000" and "forbidden army" should be separated and understood, to put it bluntly, 800,000 is the total number of forbidden troops, not that Lin Chong, the head of the sect, can lead the 800,000 forbidden army, and a head of the sect is actually only responsible for teaching so many soldiers.
Therefore, the so-called head of the forbidden army is not a big official at all.
(Lin Jiaotou stills)
And this is the problem, as mentioned above, how strong is Lin Chong? He can rank five tigers in Liangshan, and in terms of hard power, ruthless people like Guan Sheng and Lu Junyi can wrestle with him, but such people can only get a small "head of the church" position in the imperial court.
What does this mean? It shows that in that era, it didn't matter at all, and it was simply difficult for ordinary people to get mixed with an official position, so Lin Chong must have put in more effort than those related households to climb to this position.
With such a hard-won everything, how could he give up so easily?
In fact, there is nothing to criticize, in the world of "Water Margin", there are already wicked people everywhere, not everyone is Wu Song's kind of person who dares to fight, some people will choose to live a forbearance like Lin Chong, which is also in line with human nature.