Lu Zhishen is a fictional character in Water Margin, one of the four great classical novels in Chinese literature. He is the main character in the first segment of the novel, which spans about six chapters. Nicknamed "Flowery Monk", he ranks 13th among the 36 Heavenly Spirits, the first third of the 108 Heroes.
One folktale derived from the novel says he is a sworn brother of the martial artist Zhou Tong, who purportedly trained the Song dynasty general Yue Fei in archery.
Background
thumb|left|150px|Mural of Lu Zhishen at the [[Long Corridor in the Summer Palace, Beijing]]
Originally named Lu Da (), Lu Zhishen is described as a hulking man with a round face, large ears, a straight nose, a squarish mouth, and a beard which nearly obscures his face. He is first introduced in the novel as a tixia (; a type of military officer) serving in Weizhou (; around present-day Pingliang, Gansu).
One day, while off duty, Lu Da meets Shi Jin and Li Zhong in a tavern and befriends them over drinks. When he overhears the singer Jin Cuilian crying over her misfortunes, he summons her and learns that she and her father have been bullied by a wealthy local butcher called Butcher Zheng. Zheng had offered to pay the funeral expenses for Jin Cuilian's mother on the condition that Jin be his concubine, and she had accepted. However, after Jin moved into the Zheng residence, Zheng's wife had been so jealous of her that she had forced Jin to leave. Deeply embarrassed, Zheng had turned on Jin and her father, demanding that they compensate him and refusing to allow them to leave until they had fully paid their debt. Left with no choice, Jin and her father had to perform on the streets to earn as much as they could.
After hearing about the Jins' plight, Lu Da gives them money and ensures that they leave Weizhou safely before going to confront Zheng, intending to teach the butcher a lesson. He provokes Zheng by making the following orders and insisting that the butcher personally prepares them: 10 jin of fatty pork, 10 jin of lean pork, and 10 jin of pork cartilage, all finely minced. After Zheng painstakingly fulfils the first two, he complains that it is impossible to mince the cartilage. Lu Da then throws the minced pork in his face, angering him and causing him to attack with a cleaver. Lu Da dodges and knocks down the butcher, unintentionally killing him with three powerful punches to the face. Realising Zheng is dead, Lu Da flees Weizhou and becomes a fugitive.
Becoming a monk
thumb|200px|Lu Zhishen in an 1887 [[woodblock print by Yoshitoshi.]]
While on the run, Lu Da meets the Jins again and learns that Jin Cuilian has married the kind Squire Zhao, who temporarily provides Lu Da with shelter. Zhao then suggests that Lu Da become a Buddhist monk at Manjusri Monastery on the nearby Mount Wutai, using his close relationship with the abbot to facilitate the process. The abbot takes in Lu Da and gives him the Dharma name "Zhishen", which means "sagacious"; Lu Da is henceforth known as "Lu Zhishen". He is also nicknamed "Flowery Monk" because of the flowery tattoos all over his body.
After spending months in the monastery, Lu Zhishen is so bored that he ventures out and encounters a passing merchant selling alcoholic drinks. He stops the merchant and consumes all the drinks without paying, and then heads back to the monastery while still drunk. The monks attempt to stop him but he fights them and forces his way in, only becoming sober when the abbot appears and reprimands him for his misconduct. Although the other monks demand Lu Zhishen's expulsion, the abbot decides to give him a second chance.
Months later, a bored Lu Zhishen sneaks out and heads to the nearby town, where he gets a blacksmith to make him a monk's staff weighing 62 jin, and a dagger. He then visits a tavern and eats and drinks without restraint, returning to the monastery in a drunken state again. The monks shut the gate to prevent him from entering, but he smashes the jingang statues flanking the gate, uses one as a battering ram to break in, and fights with the monks when they attempt to stop him. After he becomes sober, the abbot expels him and sends him to the Daxiangguo Temple in the capital, Dongjing (; present-day Kaifeng, Henan).
Encounters on the journey to Dongjing
Along the way to Dongjing, Lu Zhishen spends one night at a village owned by a hospitable Squire Liu, and learns that their family is in trouble. Zhou Tong, the deputy chief of an outlaw band at the nearby Mount Plum Blossom (), is forcing Liu's daughter to marry him and will be coming to claim his bride that very night. Lu Zhishen lies to Squire Liu that he will help to dissuade Zhou Tong from marrying Liu's daughter, and then hides in the bride's room. When Zhou Tong shows up dressed as a groom and enters the room, he is ambushed by Lu Zhishen, who gives him a good beating. Zhou Tong escapes and vows vengeance.
While Lu Zhishen stands guard at the village entrance, Zhou Tong returns with the outlaw chief and more men to confront the monk who beat him up. To everyone's surprise, the outlaw chief turns out to be Li Zhong, whom Lu Zhishen met and befriended earlier in Weizhou. Li Zhong had accepted the invitation to be the chief of the outlaws at Mount Peach Blossom after defeating Zhou Tong, who had attempted to rob him. Upon learning of Lu Zhishen's true identity, Zhou Tong is so shocked that he promises not to disturb the Lius again. Lu Zhishen heads to Mount Peach Blossom and enjoys the outlaws' hospitality before leaving to continue his journey to Dongjing.
En route to Dongjing, Lu Zhishen also meets Shi Jin again and teams up with him to defeat and kill two villains in disguise as religious men, and save the victims.
Becoming sworn brothers with Lin Chong
When Lu Zhishen finally arrives at the Daxiangguo Temple and meets the abbot, he is assigned to be the caretaker of a vegetable plot. There, he subdues a group of hooligans who often sneak in to steal the vegetables, and earns their respect and admiration with his fighting prowess. On one occasion, he shocks everyone by bare-handedly uprooting a large willow tree with brute force and strength.
One day, Lu Zhishen meets and becomes sworn brothers with Lin Chong, the martial arts instructor of the imperial guards, when the latter chances upon him practising drills with his monk's staff.
Later, when Lin Chong is framed for attempting to assassinate Grand Marshal Gao Qiu and sentenced to exile in Cangzhou, the guards escorting him to Cangzhou have been bribed to mistreat him along the way and eventually kill him. Lu Zhishen secretly follows Lin Chong and knocks down the guards when they are about to murder him in Wild Boar Forest. Lin Chong stops Lu Zhishen from killing the guards, saying that they are just following orders, and insists on heading to Cangzhou. Lu Zhishen then spares the guards' lives and ensures that Lin Chong safely arrives at Cangzhou before returning to Dongjing.
Becoming an outlaw
Lu Zhishen leaves Dongjing to avoid bringing trouble to Daxiangguo Temple after he is identified as the monk who ruined Gao Qiu's plan to have Lin Chong killed. He passes by an inn at Cross Slope, where he is drugged and nearly murdered by the owner Sun Erniang until her husband Zhang Qing stops her. Zhang Qing and Sun Erniang then recommend Lu Zhishen to join the outlaw band led by Deng Long on Mount Twin Dragons () in Qingzhou.
Deng Long, however, sees Lu Zhishen as a threat and denies him entry, barricading the only way into the stronghold. Lu Zhishen then encounters Yang Zhi, who has also come to join the outlaws. They collaborate with Cao Zheng, a butcher who has learnt martial arts from Lin Chong before, to come up with a plan to trick Deng Long into letting them in. Lu Zhishen pretends to be drugged and taken captive, while Yang Zhi and Cao Zheng pretend that they have captured Lu and are presenting him to Deng Long for a reward. Deng Long falls for the ruse, lets them in, and gets caught off guard and killed by Lu Zhishen. The three men then take over the outlaw stronghold.
Lu Zhishen and the outlaws at Mount Twin Dragons ultimately join the larger outlaw band at Liangshan Marsh after the battle in Qingzhou between government forces and the Liangshan outlaws.
Life at Liangshan
After joining Liangshan, Lu Zhishen heads to Mount Shaohua (; in present-day Weinan, Shaanxi) to invite Shi Jin and the Mount Shaohua outlaws to join Liangshan as well. At Mount Shaohua, he learns that Shi Jin has been captured by Prefect He, the corrupt governor of Huazhou, while attempting to save a woman abducted by the governor who wants her to be his concubine. Lu Zhishen ventures into Huazhou alone in an attempt to rescue Shi Jin, but fails and gets captured as well after falling into a trap. The Mount Shaohua outlaws seek help from their Liangshan counterparts, who show up at Huazhou, lure Prefect He out of the city, kill him and take control of the city. Lu Zhishen and Shi Jin are then freed from prison, after which Shi Jin and the Mount Shaohua outlaws join Liangshan.
Death
thumb|right|A stone statue of Lu Zhishen at [[Hengdian World Studios]]
Lu Zhishen is appointed as a commander of the Liangshan infantry after the 108 Heroes are fully assembled. He is one of the outlaws who object to Liangshan's chief Song Jiang's grand plan of securing amnesty from the emperor for all the outlaws and receiving an opportunity to serve the Song government. In his view, the government is so corrupt that the outlaws might as well fight injustice in their own way as opposed to aligning themselves with the government. Nevertheless, he grudgingly accepts the reality when Song Jiang's dream finally comes true: Emperor Huizong grants amnesty to the Liangshan outlaws, and sends them on campaigns against the Liao invaders and rebel forces within Song territory. Lu Zhishen fights in the campaigns and makes great contributions in battle, including capturing the rebel leader Fang La in the final campaign.
When the final campaign is over, Lu Zhishen insists on remaining in the Liuhe Pagoda in Hangzhou instead of returning to the capital with the surviving Liangshan heroes. On the night before the survivors depart, Lu Zhishen is awakened from his slumber by the thunderous sounds of the tidal bore in the nearby Qiantang River. In that instant, he finally understands the prophetic message he has received years ago from the abbot of Manjusri Monastery which goes:
The first two lines foretell Lu Zhishen's capture of Fang La and Fang La's subordinate Xiahou Cheng, while the following two refer to the Qiantang River's tidal bore, which "faithfully arrives" every year on the 18th day of the eighth lunar month. The monks at Liuhe Pagoda tell Lu Zhishen that yuanji – made up of the characters and – means "to die" in Buddhist terminology. Realising that it is time for him to die, Lu Zhishen bathes and lights fragrant incense. He then composes an ode and asks to see Song Jiang. By the time Song Jiang arrives, Lu Zhishen has already passed away peacefully in a seated position on a putuan. The ode reads:
Confessing in the ode that he has never followed the Noble Eightfold Path and has instead indulged in violence, Lu Zhishen shows he has attained enlightenment in his final moments with the understanding that everything has a karmic reason. He is then buried with the funeral rites befitting a high-ranking Buddhist monk.
Cultural references
In the 2022 cyber thriller novel Rise of the Water Margin by Christopher Bates which reimagines Water Margin in a 21st-century setting, Lu Zhishen is a retired commander of Unit 61398 who now works as a cyber detective and a mentor to the current commander, Lin Chong. His first big case, investigating the skullduggery of Chairman Zheng of a large meat processing corporation, Willow Holdings, is published as an exposé in a business journal as "Uprooting the Willow".
See also
- Lu Zhishen's story for a list of supporting minor characters from Lu Zhishen's story.