In the Water Margin
Li Jun is the twenty-sixth hero of Liangshan, born under the star Tianshou (天寿星). He comes from Luzhou and makes his living as a boatman on the Yangtze, with salt smuggling on the side, together with his two followers Tong Wei and Tong Meng. He swims and sails like a dragon churning up the river, and his nickname, River-Churning Dragon (混江龙), says as much.
He enters the story at Jieyang Ridge, on the road Song Jiang takes into exile at Jiangzhou, and he keeps pulling Song Jiang out of danger along that river: from a drugged inn, from a pirate's boat, and finally from the execution ground. Once at Liangshan he heads its water forces, ahead even of the Ruan brothers and Zhang Shun. His ending is the strangest in the novel. After the campaign against Fang La, Li Jun pretends to be stricken with palsy near Suzhou and stays behind. When the army has gone, he and the Tong brothers join their friends from Lake Tai, fit out ships and sail away, and the book reports that he became king of Siam.
Key episodes
The inn at Jieyang Ridge. Song Jiang and his guards drink drugged wine at Li Li's inn and are dragged to the back room to be butchered. Li Jun, who has been waiting on the road to meet the famous Song Jiang, walks in just in time, recognises him and stops the knife.
The pirate's ferry. Fleeing pursuers by night, Song Jiang climbs into a boat whose ferryman, Zhang Heng, offers him a choice of ways to die. Li Jun's boat shoots out of the dark, he calls Zhang Heng's name, and the robbery becomes an introduction.
The White Dragon Temple. When Liangshan storms the execution ground at Jiangzhou, Li Jun brings boats to the river by the White Dragon Temple, carrying the rescuers and Song Jiang across the water to safety.
