Dali Kingdom

The Dali Kingdom is the realm governed by the Duan clan, a royal house whose influence reaches beyond its southwestern territory through political alliances, travel, and personal ties. In the novel, Dali is not merely a distant court: its security is linked to the survival of Great Song, its prince Duan Zhengchun is drawn into the Central Plains’ martial world, and its royal family becomes part of Xiao Feng’s search for the truth. The kingdom’s place in the story brings dynastic power into contact with Jianghu loyalties and with the divided identities of people living amid recurrent frontier conflict.

Realm and Royal House

The Duan clan holds sovereign authority in Dali, but its members do not all remain within the kingdom. Madam Ma’s account of the Beggar Society’s concealed history explains that members other than the emperor have often travelled to the Central Plains. She identifies Duan Zhengchun, the emperor’s younger full brother and the South-Stabilizing Prince, as the man secretly called the leading big brother. His standing—beneath the emperor but above other subjects—helps explain why people involved in the old affair guarded his name: disclosure could expose a powerful ally to Xiao Feng’s future revenge.

Dali’s royal position depends on relationships with communities within its territory as well as on inherited authority. Duan Zhengchun’s first wife, Dao Baifeng, is the daughter of a prominent Baiyi headman. The marriage was intended to secure Baiyi support and strengthen the throne, since the account says the Duan clan’s rule would not be stable without it. The Baiyi custom of monogamy also forms a pointed contrast with Duan Zhengchun’s multiple romantic attachments. Dao Baifeng, raised in high regard and unwilling to accept a second wife, eventually entered religious life as a Taoist priestess.

The narrative presents the Duan house as retaining its Central Plains ancestry in its everyday practices despite becoming Dali’s ruling power. Its members are described as following ancestral teachings and avoiding excessive luxury. That inherited identity coexists with the kingdom’s need to consolidate local political support: the royal marriage to Dao Baifeng is at once a family bond and an instrument of state security.

Dali and the Central Plains

Dali’s interests reach north because its rulers regard the fate of Great Song as consequential to their own. In the account repeated by Madam Ma, Elder Xu explains that Great Song forms Dali’s northern barrier: if the Khitan destroy Song, Dali could be the next target. The two realms are therefore described as mutually dependent, like lips and teeth. This reasoning casts Duan Zhengchun’s participation in the Yanmen Pass expedition not simply as a gesture of Jianghu honor, but as action undertaken for Dali’s protection as well as for Song.

Duan Zhengchun was a young and capable martial artist when, while visiting the Beggar Society headquarters, he and Chief Wang heard that Khitan warriors were moving against Shaolin to seize Buddhist texts. He led martial artists toward the region beyond Yanmen Pass to intercept them. The story’s account emphasizes the tension between his exalted status and his willingness to take responsibility in a dangerous undertaking: others might not have been able to command him, yet he chose to lead. His service also helps explain the alliance between the Duan house and the Beggar Society, an association whose history later becomes a guarded secret.

Later, acting on his emperor brother’s order, Duan Zhengchun investigates the killing of Venerable Xuan Bei at Shenjie Temple. He finds several suspicious details and doubts that the Murong clan is responsible. When senior Shaolin figures do not arrive after more than half a month, he travels north with the three Dukes Fan Hua, Hua Hegen, and Ba Tianshi, as well as four bodyguards, to pursue the truth. The official inquiry also gives him an opportunity to visit Ruan Xingzhu, who lives in seclusion beside Little Mirror Lake; the two spend these days together. Dali’s court business and Duan Zhengchun’s private attachments thus share the same route into the Central Plains plot.

Kinship, Secrecy, and Personal Ties

Duan Zhengchun’s relationships make the royal family part of several intersecting family histories. The narrative names his past relationships with Qin Hongmian, mother of Mu Wanqing; Gan Baobao, wife of Zhong Wanchou; and Ruan Xingzhu, mother of A’Zi. His marriages and attachments are not presented as separate from political life: his first marriage served the kingdom’s alliance with the Baiyi, while his other relationships leave daughters and former partners whose lives meet the wider story.

The connection between Dali and the Beggar Society is also personal and political. Madam Ma says the South-Stabilizing Prince had a deep friendship with the Society and warns that revealing his identity as the concealed leading big brother could bring disaster. Her warning rests on the imbalance of power between a vulnerable individual and a formidable ruling house, as well as on Xiao Feng’s capacity to wait years for revenge. A’Zhu, disguised as Bai Shijing, hears the secret but words her oath so that its threatened consequences apply to Bai Shijing rather than to herself. The episode reveals how Dali’s royal status shapes the Society’s silence—and how a secret about the kingdom becomes entangled with disguise and deception.

Dali’s family ties later surface in Xiao Feng’s grief. When Madam Ma mocks his love for a princess of Dali and suggests that he could seize her through force, Xiao Feng replies that he only wishes he could see her once more. Madam Ma then asks whether the woman he loved was Duan Zhengchun’s daughter and whether she was beautiful; Xiao Feng does not answer. The exchange links the kingdom to a loss that cannot be repaired by status or martial strength. A’Zi, another daughter of Duan Zhengchun, refuses to return to her parents, explaining that her father’s subordinates resent her and that he would not agree to her demand that they all be killed. Xiao Feng judges her demand childish, and she follows him when he turns north. Royal kinship offers neither uncomplicated welcome nor an end to conflict.

Dynastic Power and Frontier Conflict

The wider account of Liao history provides a contrast to Dali’s position and clarifies the political pressures surrounding Xiao Feng. Under the Holy Emperor, the succession was meant to pass to the elder son, ZongZhen, rather than the militarily gifted younger son, ZhongYuan. The empress favoured ZhongYuan, but ZongZhen told his brother of her scheme, and ZhongYuan gave up the chance to take the throne. ZongZhen later made him royal emperor brother and heir apparent. After ZongZhen died, however, the throne passed to his son HongJi instead. HongJi compensated ZhongYuan with the title of royal emperor uncle, made him supreme commander of the army, and granted extensive privileges; ZhongYuan’s son NieLuGu became Prince of Chu and controlled the Southern Chancellery.

That settlement makes the Liao rebellion a crisis of inherited legitimacy, not only a military challenge. When NieLuGu proclaims his father emperor and issues an edict declaring HongJi a false ruler, the claim draws force from the earlier succession history and ZhongYuan’s position as next in line. HongJi fears that the edict will weaken the army’s loyalty, especially because his uncle can command an immense military force. Xiao Feng, bound to HongJi by sworn brotherhood, stays to help despite wanting to leave with A’Zi. His actions bring the concerns of the Liao court into the same story as Dali’s dependence on Song and the Beggar Society’s older alliance with Duan Zhengchun.

The borderlands make the cost of these political ties visible. The account explains that Liao does not provide its soldiers with rations or salaries, leaving them to obtain supplies through raids on neighbouring peoples. The practice, called Beating the Grass Valley, is answered by Song raids known as Beating the Standing Valley. Civilians near the frontier bear the repeated consequences: abduction, loss of property, and the threat of not surviving the next raid. Xiao Feng recognizes the same pattern from both sides. Having seen Song soldiers seize Khitan civilians at Yanmen Pass, he now sees Liao troops bring back hundreds of Song captives, most of them young women, and feels the contradiction sharpen.

When Xiao Feng releases the captives, he reflects on how little separates people assigned to opposing sides: they speak related languages, share ordinary human needs, and suffer alike when armies raid across the border. His intervention does not erase the conflict, and he warns the freed people that he may not be able to save them again. But the moment makes the frontier’s human cost impossible to reduce to state rivalry. In the novel’s larger pattern, Dali’s security concerns, the Liao-Song struggle, and Xiao Feng’s divided affiliations meet in a single question: how can loyalty to a kingdom coexist with recognition of those whom that kingdom calls its enemies?