Where do people get their Wulin knowledge from?

[tape]

I always wondered how some people are so knowledgeable about jianghu affairs when there is no reliable way to transfer that information. Someone like Zhang Sanfeng doesn't seem nosy enough to send spies and students out just to scout for information, and he barely leaves his meditation chamber nevermind Wudang mountain, yet he has vast knowledge of wulin.

Zhang Cuisan had no idea Yin Tianzheng was the leader of Heavenly Eagle Sect, yet Zhang Sanfeng is able to comment on YTZ's character. Zhang Cuisan is supposed to be the one wondering jianghu and learning the latest news, how does ZSF know, especially when the Heavenly Eagle Sect is a new sect.

Feel free to answer my question or join in on noting things that don't make much sense!

[PJ]

Maybe Zhang Sanfeng setup a Facebook-like newsfeed where he saw updates from friends/admirers.

Of course, he would have used a less-than-modern mechanism. But the concept is the same.

[smurf120]

I'm probably mixing the fantasy and wuxia genres, but didn't Taoists have mirrors and spells where they can see moving images of the outside world in buckets of water. Never mentioned in the book doesn't mean it wasn't practiced!

[ChanceEncounter]

I'm probably mixing the fantasy and wuxia genres, but didn't Taoists have mirrors and spells where they can see moving images of the outside world in buckets of water. Never mentioned in the book doesn't mean it wasn't practiced!

So everyone who was well connected in Wulin kept a Taoist locked up in their basement?

No wonder there were so many of them...

[patricia n]

from jin yong and go long

[PJ]

Were there newspapers-like things back in the day?

[tape]

Even if there were, it doesn't make sense for sect leaders like Miejue and Zhang Sanfeng to always be so wise and knowing about current affairs when they (by their own accounts) haven't left the top of their mountain in decades while their students frequently travel.

It'd be funny seeing Miejue getting lost while going to Brightness Peak.

[PJ]

Maybe when Z3F was in meditation, someone under him would still insert newspaper-like things into a place where he can find it. When he had time, he would go read it.

[smurf120]

Even if newspapers and telegraph notes were possible, how did people like Z3F figure out faces of people he has never met? Unless the newspapers were like Hogwartz newsletters with the moving pictures and faces in color.

[PJ]

Even if newspapers and telegraph notes were possible, how did people like Z3F figure out faces of people he has never met? Unless the newspapers were like Hogwartz newsletters with the moving pictures and faces in color.

Well, words can describe how someone looks. Similar to how we read JY's words and get a general idea how a character looks like.

[ChanceEncounter]

Well, words can describe how someone looks. Similar to how we read JY's words and get a general idea how a character looks like.

I prefer Hogwarts.

[ByTmE]

Maybe word of mouth? Perhaps, Zhang San Feng kept personal homing pigeons with a network of wulin gossips that kept him informed of the latest comings and goings?

[athlee]

Astral projection is the answer! All those meditation and hiding in caves and such is actually when they practice the age old custom of voyeurism through the powers of astral projection. Can only be done by people with above decent internal, which explains why all those useless scrubs don't know anything of what is happening in the world

[tape]

Astral projection is the answer! All those meditation and hiding in caves and such is actually when they practice the age old custom of voyeurism through the powers of astral projection. Can only be done by people with above decent internal, which explains why all those useless scrubs don't know anything of what is happening in the world :)

It is pretty mind boggling that the most powerful people (minus young protagonists) are also the wisest and most knowledgeable about wulin, whereas in real life the people who know the most stats and trivia are probably those that sit on their butt all day and theorize about everything.

Somehow The Powerful People have time to practice as well as be the gossip girl in town.

[missouri.slim]

Wasn't there someone in Legendary Siblings that gathered wulin news and published or posted it regularly?