In Ode to Gallantry, Lord Long and Lord Mu of Gallant Island sat near the Shaolin gate for 7 days, 7 nights, blocking all traffic during those times. The heroes in the novel were all convinced that the 7 days consisted of vigorous, intensive battles, but at the same time the Lords had to maintain politeness since they were trying to get Shaolin's favor after all. Let's analyze briefly the accomplishment:
In that era, Shaolin's abbot and Wudang's headmaster were described as cream of the crop, which indicates that relatively speaking, Shaolin and Wudang were very well off during this time. During other times when Shaolin prospered, the temple had many worthy martial artists. For example in DGSD, there were tens of Xuan generation monks that were around Murong Fu's level. In HSDS, there were quite a few monks at the Ming Cult Guardian's level. Similar trend seems to apply to SPW, Duke of Mount Deer and after (to the best of my knowledge). So it should be fair to assume in Ode to Gallantry, Shaolin still maintained a group of elite martial artists, on par with or one level below the Abbot at the time.
So, what the 2 Lords have achieved is to hold off hundreds, if not thousands, of martial artists from the most accomplished martial arts school for 7 days, most likely handling formations and advanced techniques, all the while not pissing anybody off. How much better do they have to be than the Shaolin abbot to achieve this? I believe one level of difference is not enough, like between Zhang Wuji and the 3 Shaolin monks in HSDS, or Jiumozhi and Xuanci in DGSD. If Zhang Wuji and Zhang Sanfeng decided to raid Shaolin temple without hurting anyone, one would have to deal with the formation of the 3 monks, while the other deals with hundreds of men. I am not convinced they would be victorious. How about Jiumozhi and Murong Bo, can they take on tens of men on par with Abbot Xuanci and thousands more, while trying to be nice to all of them? I don't think so.
Who do you estimate would be able to block the Shaolin gate in each novel, without pissing Shaolin off? In other words, they can't go berserk like Xiao Feng in Juxian Manor, chopping people's head off and all. Cast your opinion in this poll. Vote for all that apply in your opinion.