In "Eight Parts of the Heavenly Dragon", Jin Yong created Qiao Feng, a tragic hero who was concerned about the heavens, compassion for the heavens, and the ideological realm transcended national boundaries and nations. Qiao Feng in "Tianlong Babu" and Yang Kang in "The Legend of the Archery Hero" have a good comparison: Qiao Feng is a Khitan who grew up in the Song Dynasty, and Yang Kang is a Han Chinese who grew up in the Jin Kingdom. Their special lineage led them to be trapped in a complex background of family and country enmity, but the two of them made completely different choices: Yang Kang, who did not achieve his goal and did not use any means, eventually fell to the end of poisoning; Qiao Feng, who advocated the peace of Song and Liao, finally committed suicide outside the Yanmen Pass with a broken arrow.
To be fair, qiao feng as a Khitan who grew up in the Circle of Han Chinese has a reason to help the Han people, and it is also reasonable to help the Khitan people: Qiao Feng's biological parents are Khitans, so the Khitan people have a personal favor for him. Of course, Qiao Sanhuai and his wife, who are Han Chinese, have a nurturing grace for Qiao Feng, but isn't the tragedy of Qiao Feng's family also caused by the Han people? When Qiao Feng's identity as a Khitan was exposed, he was ostracized by the Han everywhere. Of course, there are factors such as the design of the small gangsters and the enmity of the family and the country, but if it is replaced by another person who is not as strong as Qiao Feng, it may not plant the seeds of hatred in his heart.
Yang Kang, who is also facing this identity dilemma, actually makes sense regardless of which side he is on the side of the Song Dynasty or the Jin Dynasty. The reason why Yang Kang has become a negative character is not that he is on the side of Jin Guo, but that he has not achieved his goal and unscrupulous style. Yang Kang's loyalty to the Jin Kingdom as a young prince raised by Yan Honglie of the Jin dynasty was no problem, but this did not mean that he could do whatever it took to his biological father and righteous brother. At this point, Qiao Feng, who also faces the identity dilemma, is in stark contrast to it: Qiao Feng did not lean towards one side in the dispute between Song and Liao, but always took the world as his responsibility. In the end, Qiao Feng created decades of peace between Song and Liao in a decisive way of committing suicide.
Qiao Feng's ideological realm has transcended national boundaries and nations—he is a tragic hero who sacrifices himself to save the world. Qiao Feng's righteous spirit of guarding the world is in contrast to Yang Kang's utilitarianism of unscrupulous means that has not reached the goal. If Qiao Feng is a utilitarian person, then he only needs to follow yelü Hongji's pace. As Emperor of the Liao Dynasty, Yelü Hongji and Qiao Feng were married as brothers with different surnames when they first met. Just when the two met for the second time, the news of the Rebellion in Shangjing came: yelü Nerugu, the king of Chu at the time, and the father and son of the emperor's uncle Yelü Chongyuan took advantage of Yelü Hongji's hunting trip to take advantage of the opportunity to control Shangjing.
Yelü Chongyuan, who had established himself as emperor, led 500,000 soldiers and horses to besiege Yelü Hongji. When Qiao Feng saw that the eldest brother was in difficulty, he offered a plan to let Yelü Hongji drag Yelü Chongyuan's father and son head-on, and he alone broke into the enemy army and killed the Chu king Yelü Nelugu and captured Yelü Chongyuan. Qiao Feng can be said to have made great contributions in this judging process - it is not an exaggeration to say that he is the savior of Yelü Hongji. In recognition of Qiao Feng's great achievements in counter-rebellion, Yelü Hongji made Qiao Feng the King of Chu and the Great King of the Guanbai Nanyuan. Speaking of this, many people may be wondering what kind of official position Qiao Feng, the king of the Southern Courtyard, is? The first thing that needs to be explained here is that the Nanyuan King in the original work of the "Eight Parts of the Heavenly Dragon" and the real Nanyuan King of the Liao Kingdom in history are actually not the same thing.
Jin Yong's works, in addition to "Smiling Proud of the Rivers and Lakes", almost invariably have a specific historical background: "Tianlong Babu" is set in the era of Song Zhezong; "The Legend of the Archery Hero" is set in the last year of the Southern Song Dynasty; "The Book of the Dragon Slaughtering in The Heavens" is set in the late Yuan and early Ming Dynasties; "The Green Blood Sword" is set in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties; "Deer Ding" is set in the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty; and "The Book of Swords and Enmity" is set in the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty... Although Mr. Jin Yong cites so much historical background in his works, in essence he still writes martial arts novels. Although the novel is framed by a historical background, it is not a true restoration of history after all.
This is just as the Romance of the Three Kingdoms as a historical novel and the Romance of the Three Kingdoms as a history are different, not to mention that the works written by Mr. Jin Yong are not even historical novels. What Jin Yong wrote was actually a martial arts novel with a historical background, so the literary fiction of this kind of work was actually greater than that of a historical novel like "Romance of the Three Kingdoms". Since there are so many fictional elements in even the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, there will only be more fictional components in Jin Yong's works. The King of the South Courtyard in the novel and the King of the South Courtyard in history are actually two concepts. There is probably a different answer as to how likely it is for the official of the Southern Courtyard, because different people may understand the question from different perspectives.
First of all, let's look at what kind of official the King of the Southern Courtyard is from Jin Yong's original work. At this time, we should not care about any historical truth, because the novel can have a certain literary fiction? Wu Cheng'en would have nothing to say if he defined Bow Ma Wen as a high official in "Journey to the West"—after all, this is the creative freedom of others. In fact, in the "Eight Parts of the Heavenly Dragon", Qiao Feng's King of the Southern Courtyard was definitely a high position above ten thousand people under one person second only to the Emperor of the Liao Kingdom. Yelü Hongji appointed Qiao Feng as the King of the Southern Courtyard in recognition of his counterinsurgency efforts. It is impossible to say that Qiao Feng's efforts in counterinsurgency and rescue are not appointed to a high-ranking official position.
Qiao Feng, who had always looked down on fame and fortune, initially refused to accept an official position. At this time, Yelü Hongji said: The Great King of the Southern Courtyard is the highest lord of the Great Liao Kingdom. If Qiao Feng insisted on not accepting it again, then he could only give up the throne to Xiao Feng. Yelü Hongji's words directly showed that the position of The Great King of the Southern Courtyard was indeed the highest official after the emperor in the Liao Kingdom. The political structure of the Liao state in the novel is divided between the northern and southern courts: the northern Shangjing area is administered by the Northern Yuan King; the southern Yanyun Sixteen Prefectures, the area around Datongfu in Xijing Province, and the Area around Dadingfu in Zhongjing Province are in charge of the Southern Yuan King sitting in Nanjing (present-day Beijing), and the Southern Yuan King is also responsible for waiting for the opportunity to attack the Song Dynasty from the south.
It can be seen that the position of The Great King of the Southern Courtyard is set in the novel as the highest official in the southern region of the Liao Kingdom. The position of King of the Southern Courtyard is set in the novel to be in charge of both the military and the administration. If we compare our actual positions, it is equivalent to the unity of the commander of the theater and the head of the local government, and when the emperor is not in the capital, the king of the Southern Courtyard can temporarily replace the emperor to take charge of state affairs. Qiao Feng's predecessor, Yelü Nerugu, also relied on such political resources to dare to rebel. In summary, it can be seen that the position of the Great King of the Southern Courtyard in the novel is set up as the highest official of the Liao State after the emperor on an equal footing with the Great King of the Northern Courtyard. Qiao Feng can be said to be an extremely popular person to sit in this position.
If Qiao Feng is a person who pursues fame and fortune, then he must cherish a high position like the King of the Southern Courtyard, so he will definitely keep up with Yelü Hongji's pace in everything: Yelü Hongji wants to go south to conquer the Great Song, then Qiao Feng should ask Miao to charge. But in fact, Qiao Feng did not do this--in order to uphold the morality in his heart, he not only gave up the high-ranking official Houlu, but finally even gave up his own life. This is the spirit of sacrificing one's life for righteousness, and it is also the chivalrous spirit that Mr. Jin Yong wants to show. However, the real King of the Southern Courtyard in history is actually not a high-ranking official who is above ten thousand people under one person as set in the "Eight Parts of the Heavenly Dragon".
The Khitan is actually a people that we are both familiar with and unfamiliar with: we say familiar because this nation has appeared in "Yang Jiajian", "Water Margin" and Mr. Jin Yong's "Eight Parts of the Heavenly Dragon", and it is said that it is strange because our understanding of this nation outside of drama novels is relatively limited. The Khitans do not exist among the 56 ethnic groups in China today, and the Khitans have become a mysterious ethnic group that has disappeared in the long river of history. In fact, the Khitan nation and the Xianbei ethnic group from which Murong Bo and Murong Fu came from had a certain origin: during the Wei and Jin Dynasties, the Xianbei people successively established the former Yan, Later Yan, Southern Yan, Western Qin, Southern Liang, Northern Wei and other regimes.
After Emperor Xiaowen of northern Wei implemented the Sinicization reform, the Xianbei people living in the Central Plains Han Became Increasingly Sinicized. After the Sui and Tang dynasties, the Xianbei people in the Central Plains eventually completely integrated into the Han people, and the Xianbei descendants who remained in their hometowns in the northeast gradually multiplied the Khitan, Murong Wei, Kumoxi and other ethnic groups. The Khitans bred eight tribes over the course of their long history. In 916, Yelü Abaoji of the Dielabu officially became emperor after unifying the eight Khitan tribes. The Khitans were not just an alliance of steppe tribes, as the Xiongnu, Xianbei, and Turks had previously emerged on the steppe—Yelü Abaoji's claim to the throne actually marked the Khitan transition from a steppe nomad to a more mature form of state power.
During this period, the Khitans began to follow the example of the Han people in building the city and settled in Guo, and at the same time there were also a large number of Han Chinese living in the Khitan Empire. Yelü Abaoji ordered people to create the Khitan script using more than 300 Chinese characters as pinyin letters. During this period, the Khitan state initially established a system of officials in the north and south of the Khitan and other nomadic peoples divided and ruled by the Han people and the Bohai people with a deep degree of Sinicization: the official office of the Han people was located in the south of the emperor's palace, called the southern official, which was set up according to the Tang system to set up a three-province and six-ministry system, and the officials also used Han Chinese. The gradual possession of its own city, script, currency, and official system marked that the Khitan had actually completed the transition from steppe nomads to a form of state power.
The official positions such as the Great King of the Southern Courtyard and the Great King of the Northern Courtyard in the Eight Parts of the Heavenly Dragon are based on the northern and southern official systems of the Liao State. At that time, the northern and southern official system of the Liao State did include such an official position as the King of the Southern Courtyard, but this official position was not the great king who managed the Han people described in the novel "Eight Parts of the Heavenly Dragon". Some people may think that it is a southern official system when they see that "Nanyuan Great King" has a southern character, but in fact, the Southern Yuan King of the Liao Dynasty actually belongs to the northern official system. The southern official system of the Liao Dynasty directly borrowed from the Tang Dynasty official system to set up institutions such as the Three Dukes and The Three Provinces and Six Ministries; the northern official system set up official positions such as Yuyue, Yiliyi, and Linya according to Khitan customs. The Central Plains Dynasty could not have an official position like a great king, let alone an official office like the Southern Courtyard.
The official office of the King of the Southern Courtyard is the Southern King's Court - this is actually a typical northern official system. There is also a distinction between the north and the south within the northern bureaucracy itself: the Southern King's Court (referred to as the South Courtyard) and the Northern King's Courtyard (referred to as the North Courtyard) are divided into the north-south direction of the emperor's tooth tent, and the Khitan Emperor is called north and south for symmetry and separation of powers. The highest official of the Nan da wang yuan official office is called the nan yuan king, and there are official positions such as the governor of the southern king's court, the taishi of the southern courtyard, the taibao of the southern courtyard, the situ of the southern courtyard, and the sikong of the southern courtyard. The official name "Great King" sounds domineering, but it is not really a Great King—it was actually caused by the Translation into Chinese in Khitan: the original official name of the Great King was Yi Li Yan.
Many people may think that the word "Yi Li Yan" should be transliterated from the Khitan language, but in fact the word "Yi Li Yan" was first derived from the Turkic language. The original meaning of the word in Turkic is wisdom, wise man. When the Turks ruled the northern steppes, the Khitans were forced to submit to the Turks. During this period, the Khitans began to use the word "Yi Li Yan", which is derived from the Turkic language, to refer to tribal leaders (wise men). Before Yelü Abaoji unified the eight Khitan tribes, the highest chief of the tribes was called khan, and the second leader after khan was called Yi Liyan. Later, the military power of the Khitan tribe gradually fell into the hands of Yi Liyi, and from then on, the titular number two person, Yi Liyi, actually had more power than the Khan.
Yelü Abaoji was the Yi libi of the Khitan Dila before the unification of the Eight Khitan Tribes. After the unification of the Khitan by Yelü Abaoji, there were five branches and six branches: each of the two houses was divided into a valley. Since then, yili has changed from the original tribal leader to an official position appointed by the Khitan Emperor. In the first year (938) of the Liao Dynasty, Emperor Taizong of Liao changed the two chambers into two royal courts: they were called the Northern King's Courtyard and the Southern Great King's Courtyard respectively. The highest official position in the Liao state after the emperor was Yu Yue: Yu Yue nominally held a position of prime minister of the Central Plains Dynasty, but in fact had greater power than the prime minister of the Central Plains Dynasty. During the 210-year reign of the nine emperors of the Liao Dynasty, only 10 were worshipped as "Yu Yue".
The kings of the Northern and Southern Chambers under Yue yue belonged to the civil bureaucracy: they did not command the army, did not fight wars, and were mainly responsible for handling internal affairs and people's livelihood matters—similar in specific functions to the household departments of the Central Plains Dynasty. The Khitans respected the north: the great king of the Northern King's Court was equivalent to Hubu Shangshu (similar to today's Minister of Finance), while the Great King of the Southern King's Court was equivalent to hubu shilang (similar to today's vice minister of finance). In other words, the real King of the Southern Yuan in history is equivalent to a leading cadre at the deputy ministerial level today. Of course, a central deputy ministerial-level leading cadre is also a high-ranking official, but after all, there are higher leadership positions above it, so the real king of the Southern Courtyard in history is not above ten thousand people under one person.