Why were 1Deng, his 4 ministers/disciples and Scholar Zhu in Xiangyang rather than

[东邪黄药师]

Dali?

We know that Dali only fell during RotCH just below Lu You Jiao was assassinated by Huo Du.

Which meant that Dali was still fighting a war and 1Deng, his 4 disciples and Scholar Zhu chose to ignore that and instead helped on the Xiangyang front.

Isn't it a little ironic that they are showing so much "patriotism" but not towards Dali? A little weird none of them returned to aid Dali? Or did the other 3 disciples returned (Wu San Tong didn't for sure)?

[Ken Cheng]

Dali?

We know that Dali only fell during RotCH just below Lu You Jiao was assassinated by Huo Du.

Which meant that Dali was still fighting a war and 1Deng, his 4 disciples and Scholar Zhu chose to ignore that and instead helped on the Xiangyang front.

Isn't it a little ironic that they are showing so much "patriotism" but not towards Dali? A little weird none of them returned to aid Dali? Or did the other 3 disciples returned (Wu San Tong didn't for sure)?

When the Mongol Empire first began making war against the Sung Kingdom, the Dali Kingdom did not feel immediately threatened. After all, the thousands of miles that covered the expanse of the Southern Sung territories was quite a buffer between the invading Mongol forces in the north and the Dali Kingdom in the southwest. At the time, Dali felt quite secure because the Mongols (supposedly) would need to overrun the Sung territories before they could strike at Dali.

Of course, the Mongol forces overran Hsi Hsia and Tubo Kingdom, which brought them right to the doorstep of Dali without having to go through the Sung territories. In fact, the subjugation of Dali was the beginning of the endgame for the Sung Kingdom because after the Mongols took Dali, they could attack the Sung from two fronts (both southwest and north) instead of just from the north. The Sung could barely defend one front, let alone two.

How this influenced events in ROCH, however, I'm not sure. I think as of the end of ROCH, Dali still seemed secure because Mongke Khan was ruler of the eastern Mongol Empire up to the end of ROCH, and the conquest of Dali did not happen until after Kublai became the Great Khan.