Wong Yung's plan to trap Au Yeung Fung shouldn't have worked

[Ken Cheng]

In LEGEND OF THE CONDOR HEROES, West Poison Au Yeung Fung made a bet with Gwok Jing that the Mongol troops under Gwok Jing's command would not be able to capture him alive three times. Thanks to Wong Yung's plotting, the Mongol troops did succeed in entrapping Au Yeung Fung twice.

The first trap, however, shouldn't have worked.

The first trap consisted of having Au Yeung Fung fall into a deep pit dug outside the entrance of Gwok Jing's tent. As soon as Au Yeung Fung fell in, Mongol troops dumped dozens of heavy sandbags into the pit, neutralizing any attempt by Au Yeung Fung to escape the pit with his hing gung.

All that is good and well, but *how* did the Mongol troops manage to get Au Yeung Fung into chains to present him to Gwok Jing?

Au Yeung Fung was one of the Greats. The sandbags might have momentarily stunned him and made it impossible for him to escape the pit, but the Mongol troops nevertheless had to get the sandbags off of him to chain him and bring him to Gwok Jing. The thing is, the moment those sandbags came off, there was nothing to prevent Au Yeung Fung from lashing out, killing the Mongol troops attempting to chain him, and escaping. There was just no way that a few soldiers could have chained Au Yeung Fung.

[endo]

well...i think if they threw enough sandbags at him and bury him up to his neck, then all they have to do is point a spear at his head/neck and if OYF valued his life, then he wouldn't make any rash movements and thus...got himself captured

my theory

[superboy]

well...i think if they threw enough sandbags at him and bury him up to his neck, then all they have to do is point a spear at his head/neck and if OYF valued his life, then he wouldn't make any rash movements and thus...got himself captured

my theory

That's true. He need to be faster if he want to grab a dozen spears or sabre pointed to his next at once.

[Candide]

Well, how would you feel like being under the sand with not enough air to breathe for like an hour ?

[Ken Cheng]

Well, how would you feel like being under the sand with not enough air to breathe for like an hour ?

Did they leave him down there that long? It certainly makes sense since they would want to weaken him as much as possible.

It also makes you wonder why this trick, as effective as it was, was never tried again against Greats-level fighters. In ROCH, if Kublai Khan had used such a trick on Gwok Jing when the latter came to secure the release of his students (the Mo Brothers), he wouldn't have had to risk Gwok Jing getting away when the Golden Wheel Monk, Yeung Gor, and the Mongol mercenaries were fighting among themselves over whether Gwok Jing would live or die, or who would have the honor of killing him.

Conversely, the same could have been done to the Golden Wheel Monk during his various invasions of Seung Yeung Fortress.

[endo]

i think OYF was over confident with this challenge and therefore not as wary about his surrounding and fell for HR's traps. HR played OYF's cockiness and used it against him....chalk another one up for the the cunning one

[Tazzy1972]

more often than not traps are set for the prey fall for it through the prey's weakness

[rabadi]

Perhaps the words about how OYF was trapped spreaded around, and so the trap was considered obsolete by ROCH era. However, come to think of it, if everybody considered it to be obsolete that no one would fall into this kind of trap again, it would be interesting to be used again as a surprise

I actually wonder more on how could OYF not realize he was surrounded by lots of Mongolians waiting secretly around, with sandbags in their hands. With his gongfu, he should have detected their presence.

[Tazzy1972]

maybe he wasn't prepared for sneak attackes thus his senses were a bit dull

[charbydis]

I think he may have thought Guo Jing was too honest and too honourable to get other people to ambush him, so he was alert enough. If it ws Huang Rong who he made the pact with, he may would have.

[Tazzy1972]

strange thing is that he should know GJ and HR are together and not to take precautions would smack of real carelessness

[rabadi]

I can understand OYF's *lack of alertness* when he fell for the trap the 1st time. In the 2nd time, however, even if he never expected the trap to be the same, he should have detected the presence of the people around him.

[Doughboy]

The Mongolian soldiers never did put OYF in chains.

I am currently reading the 3rd edition, and I am at Chapter 37, which is where this scene occurs. Not long after OYF fell into the pit and the soldiers filled it up with sand, soldiers outside of the tent noticed a mound of earth moving around. That was OYF attempting to escape by tunneling through the earth like a mole. To prevent OYF from coming out, soldiers got onto their horses, ran in the vicinity of the moving mound, and tried to stump over it continuously. After a while, the mound finally stopped moving because OYF was getting exhausted and knew that it would be impossible for him to get out of the ground with all those horses running around. So he stopped moving, held his breath, and pretended to be unconscious. When the soldiers dug him out and laid him on the ground, he played dead. But GJ and the beggar clan elders were cautious and ordered to chain him up. However, before the soldiers were able to do so, OYF jumped up and tried to escape. But GJ quickly immobilized him by controlling two major pressure points on his back, as OYF was already too exhausted and weak to offer any counter or resistance to overcome GJ's subduing.

[Tazzy1972]

oh ic 3rd edition u say.... any difference between this and the 2nd one??

[FoieGras]

The Mongolian soldiers never did put OYF in chains.

I am currently reading the 3rd edition, and I am at Chapter 37, which is where this scene occurs. Not long after OYF fell into the pit and the soldiers filled it up with sand, soldiers outside of the tent noticed a mound of earth moving around. That was OYF attempting to escape by tunneling through the earth like a mole. To prevent OYF from coming out, soldiers got onto their horses, ran in the vicinity of the moving mound, and tried to stump over it continuously. After a while, the mound finally stopped moving because OYF was getting exhausted and knew that it would be impossible for him to get out of the ground with all those horses running around. So he stopped moving, held his breath, and pretended to be unconscious. When the soldiers dug him out and laid him on the ground, he played dead. But GJ and the beggar clan elders were cautious and ordered to chain him up. However, before the soldiers were able to do so, OYF jumped up and tried to escape. But GJ quickly immobilized him by controlling two major pressure points on his back, as OYF was already too exhausted and weak to offer any counter or resistance to overcome GJ's subduing.

That's the scene from LOCH 2003

[Tazzy1972]

so it is not in the novel??

[Doughboy]

It is also in the 3rd edition novel.

[Ken Cheng]

I still find it a bit of a stretch that Au Yeung Fung fell so easily not once, but twice for such a rudimentary trap. Wong Yung's trap wasn't particularly brilliant: it's the way that hunters trap animals. Anyone who has attained Greats-level mastery of martial arts and circulated within wulin for as long as Au Yeung Fung had would not likely fall prey so easily to such a simple trap.

[ChronoReverse]

Psychology. The trap worked not because there was a hole there but because OYF was being cocky.

OYF waltz in without being detected and sat on the the general's chair. Probably wanted to be all shocking when GJ and co came in to see him already sitting there. He also didn't know WY was helping GJ and therefore didn't expect there to be a trap at all. He'd already had complete free run of the camp for a while after all.


The second time it worked again because it was the exact same trap and surely nobody is stupid enough to use the exact same thing twice.



If anything, this is one of the times a "clever plot" in a story really is a clever one because although on the surface it was a simple trick, it was actually dependent on reading the target for it to have success.

[tape]

Would probably have been most embarrassing death of all time for a Great if he just fell in a hole and died to soldiers dumping dirt on him.