GJ and HR coulda easily held seung yang city if...

[LuNaR]

they got HR's dad to play the flute, coulda easily killed millions of soldiers in seconds!!!

[Ken Cheng]

they got HR's dad to play the flute, coulda easily killed millions of soldiers in seconds!!!

Say what?!

[Yang Guo]

think back to Guo Jing and Ou Yang Ke competing for Huang Rong's hand in marriage

[Thai guy]

Unfortunately, HYS died by the time Xiang Yang fortress fell.

[Ken Cheng]

think back to Guo Jing and Ou Yang Ke competing for Huang Rong's hand in marriage

East Heretic Wong Yerk See's inner power was great, but kill hundreds of thousands of troops and horses it couldn't. Even the Janitor Monk from DGSD couldn't pull that off.

Powerful though they are, these wuxia martial artists are still just martial artists; they aren't cosmic superbeings. None of them had the power to singlehandedly slaughter an army.

[wkeej]

can the "music" from huang yaoshi's flute differentiate between the good and bad? if huang rong immune to its effect?

[Ken Cheng]

can the "music" from huang yaoshi's flute differentiate between the good and bad? if huang rong immune to its effect?

Those with good inner power can resist it.

In any case, Wong Yerk See's musical martial arts weren't even his best. The Mighty Snap was his best martial art and that definitely couldn't take down an army (putting the actual abilities of his musical martial arts into proper perspective). No matter what you see in the TV adaptations, Wong Yerk See's flute doesn't cause snakes to obey his commands (or explode) or create tidal waves and earthquakes. The most it can do is screw up the nervous systems and circulation systems of individuals with weak inner power in his immediate vicinity.

[Tazzy1972]

not if u hook the flute up with a mega-amp suitable for a rock concert!!

[Ken Cheng]

not if u hook the flute up with a mega-amp suitable for a rock concert!!

Yeah, then the two sides will just give up the war and start partying.

[Yang Guo]

Those with good inner power can resist it.

In any case, Wong Yerk See's musical martial arts weren't even his best. The Mighty Snap was his best martial art and that definitely couldn't take down an army (putting the actual abilities of his musical martial arts into proper perspective). No matter what you see in the TV adaptations, Wong Yerk See's flute doesn't cause snakes to obey his commands (or explode), tidal waves, and earthquakes. The most it can do is screw up the nervous systems and circulation systems of individuals with weak inner power in his immediate vicinity.

well, in most cases, yes, the snap is divine

but in the situation at that point is/was: you got a shitload of inner powerless mongolians charging at you... all probably within range of his music

[Ken Cheng]

well, in most cases, yes, the snap is divine

but in the situation at that point is/was: you got a shitload of inner powerless mongolians charging at you... all probably within range of his music

The sheer numbers of the enemy are too overwhelming even for the martial arts of a Great. It's pretty much established in the Jin Yong universe that even the best of the elite fighters, though nearly impossible to defeat in one-on-one combat and capable of dispatching multiple weaker enemies, are *not* capable of singlehandedly defeating an army. If they could, Yeung Gor and the others would have just blasted through Mongke Khan's army with their collective might (they had five Greats and numerous good martial artists there) instead of strategically killing just the Khan. Individual martial artists simply do not win wars in most of Jin Yong's wuxia stories (we'll leave the legendary "Ah Ching", who was an anomaly, out of this discussion).

[Ren Wo Xing]

Well, Ken, not quite.

Thing Xiao Feng, Xu Zhu, Duan Yu. They brute-forced their way through an entire army.

[Ken Cheng]

Well, Ken, not quite.

Thing Xiao Feng, Xu Zhu, Duan Yu. They brute-forced their way through an entire army.

Getting around, away from, or through an army is possible for the elite fighters, but utterly destroying or repelling an army through force alone? I'm not convinced that's possible. If it were, why did Gwok Jing and Wong Yung bother to assemble an army to defend Seung Yeung against the Mongols for the decades? Couldn't they just have assembled the Greats and destroyed the Mongolian army down to every last man and horse? I think the very fact that they didn't proves that it wasn't possible.

[IcyFox]

Getting around, away from, or through an army is possible for the elite fighters, but utterly destroying or repelling an army through force alone? I'm not convinced that's possible. If it were, why did Gwok Jing and Wong Yung bother to assemble an army to defend Seung Yeung against the Mongols for the decades? Couldn't they just have assembled the Greats and destroyed the Mongolian army down to every last man and horse? I think the very fact that they didn't proves that it wasn't possible.

Du Gu Qiu Bai should've been able to do it.

If he can't then at least he'll get his wish.

[Ken Cheng]

Du Gu Qiu Bai should've been able to do it.

If he can't then at least he'll get his wish.

I think he'll get his wish.

There's another problem with the idea that an elite martial artist can defeat an entire army singlehandedly, and that's the layout and tactics of military combat itself. Soldiers don't line up to get beaten up by a martial artists one by one. They attack in swarms or, more commonly, disperse across a wide area to attack multiple targets. Just trying to chase down tens of thousands of enemy troops (some on horseback) spread out over an area that could span hundreds of square miles would exhaust any martial artist. There's also the attrition problem: the martial artist might be powerful, but there's still only one of him (or maybe a few), but there are thousands of replacement troops. The elite fighter might singlehandedly slaughter a few thousand men, but after he's exhausted, more will come.

[K2Grey]

Well, Xu Zhu and Duan Yu did walk through the entire army and seize the emperor, who happened to have prearranged an incredible defense for the sole purpose of warding off attempts by amazing martial artists on his life. It is not necessary for them to kill every single soldier if the commanders are all dead. Besides, even though warfare is inherently risky, the average soldier is not really going to want to attack someone if that person just killed 300 people.

[Ken Cheng]

Well, Xu Zhu and Duan Yu did walk through the entire army and seize the emperor, who happened to have prearranged an incredible defense for the sole purpose of warding off attempts by amazing martial artists on his life. It is not necessary for them to kill every single soldier if the commanders are all dead.

As I mentioned before, I don't disagree with the idea that an elite martial artist can get around or cut a path through an army to take out the head of the army. That's what the trio of brothers in DGSD and Yeung Gor in ROCH did, after all. This is only a temporarly solution, however, and a strategy that cannot be counted on to work too many times. At the end of LOCH, Genghis Khan died of illness. Was it the end of the Mongol invasion of China? For a few years, yes, but then the invasion resumed. At the end of ROCH, Yeung Gor killed Mongke Khan. Was that the end of the Mongol invasion of China? Again, only for a few years. In the end, to stop an enemy invasion, you need to destroy their capacity to make war, and that involves more than killing even some of their most important leaders.

[Yang Guo]

I don't disagree with you on the points made above ken, but killing off a few Khans/generals definitely can't hurt

[Ken Cheng]

I don't disagree with you on the points made above ken, but killing off a few Khans/generals definitely can't hurt

It certainly doesn't, and it *is* the one legitimate way that a great martial artist can singlehandedly change the course of history (by taking out the leaders). Nevertheless, my original point that no great martial artist can destroy an army singlehandedly still stands.

In other words, Wong Yerk See's flute couldn't stop a Mongol invasion unless its sound gave the Mongol khan a fatal aneurysm or something (makes you wonder why they didn't try something like that).

[Ren Wo Xing]

The reason Guo Jing and co never did that, was because it would be against history.

In actuality, if you think about it. You take Xiao Feng, Xu Zhu, Duan Yu; they can go into a formation designed specifically to trap and repel them, with ease.

Let's say they 'only' kill a few thousand people.

Then they leave; who can stop them?

They eat some food. Take a nap. Then in a day or two, do it again.

It's quite plausible to win through sheer attrition, simply because it takes much less for a martial artist to recharge, than for new soldiers to be trained/brought up.