Beggar Society’s decline after Qiao Feng

Beggar Society’s decline after Qiao Feng is marked by the loss of discipline and public standing that he had established during his years as its leader. At Weihui, he sees the change firsthand: the Society remains widespread, but its disorder makes his former work seem to have been undone in a short time.

The Society at Weihui

When Qiao Feng and A’Zhu reach Weihui, Beggar Society disciples fill the streets and alleys. Some eat noisily in restaurants, others slaughter animals in the alleys, and some harass passersby. The disorder contrasts sharply with the strict rules and vigorous atmosphere Qiao Feng remembers from his time in charge. He fears that, if the decline continues, ordinary people will soon hold the Society in contempt.

His reaction is complicated by their separation and hostility. He and the Society are no longer allies, yet he still regrets seeing years of painstaking effort undone so quickly. The scene makes the decline more than a change in public manners: it is a visible measure of the distance between the institution he had led and the one that remains after his departure.

A memorial and a hidden observer

In Weihui, Qiao Feng learns that Elder Xu’s memorial tablet has been placed in an abandoned garden. He and A’Zhu buy incense, candles, joss paper, and sacrificial animal heads, then join the mourners to pay their respects. The tablet is marked with fresh blood, a Beggar Society custom signifying that the deceased was killed and that the Society must avenge him.

Those gathered denounce Qiao Feng, unaware that he is standing among them. Surrounded by leading members who might recognize him, he worries that his disguise or behavior will betray him and leaves promptly with A’Zhu. Elder Xu’s death also carries a political implication: in Qiao Feng’s private reckoning, another person who knew the identity of the hidden leader behind the old affair has died. The memorial thus brings together the Society’s grief, its call for vengeance, and Qiao Feng’s concealed presence.

Leadership lost, discipline unsettled

The account directly connects the Society’s weakened condition to the period after Qiao Feng’s leadership, but it does not identify a single successor or explain the full internal chain of responsibility. What it does show is a contrast between an organization once governed by strict rules and the loose conduct Qiao Feng observes in Weihui. His grief is sharpened by the speed of the change: the work of many years appears to have been nullified in a short time.

That contrast gives the Society’s decline a personal dimension without making Qiao Feng its current leader or ally. He cannot restore the order he remembers in the scene, and the people around Elder Xu regard him as an enemy rather than as the former chief whose efforts they have inherited. The institution’s condition therefore registers both an organizational loss and the rupture between Qiao Feng and the community he once commanded.

The wider political world

Elsewhere, the narrative sets this local institutional decline against broader struggles over authority. The Liao succession history explains how YeLu ZhongYuan became a powerful potential heir after supporting his brother YeLu ZongZhen, and how YeLu HongJi later entrusted him with military authority. When YeLu NieLuGu’s rebellion is announced in his father’s name, the emperor’s inherited arrangements and delegated command leave him facing a severe political crisis. These events concern the Liao court rather than the Beggar Society, but they extend the book’s interest in how institutions and loyalties persist—or fracture—after leadership changes.

The frontier episodes add a related contrast in Qiao Feng’s own position. Although the Jurchen and Khitan are at war, the Jurchen chief treats him as an honored guest because of his reputation and his ties to Wanyan Aguda. Later, seeing civilians taken in raids by Liao troops, Qiao Feng releases the Song captives and reflects on how both sides name and repay their violence. These scenes do not explain the Beggar Society’s decline, but they show the former leader moving through a world where communal loyalties and political institutions are under strain, while his own obligations no longer fit neatly within the identity or organization he once served.