In the Water Margin
Tang Long is the eighty-eighth hero of Liangshan, born under the star Digu (地孤星). His father was a fort commander in Yan'an who earned his post as a weapon-smith, and Tang Long learned the forge from him. After his father's death he gambled away what he had and drifted until he ended up hammering iron in the market town of Wugang. His body is covered in pockmarks like the spots of a leopard's coat, so he is called the Gold-Coin Leopard (金钱豹子).
Li Kui and Dai Zong find him there while they are searching for Gongsun Sheng, and Tang Long follows them to Liangshan. He would be a minor chief but for one thing he knows. When Huyan Zhuo's chained cavalry has the band beaten, Tang Long is the man who says it can be broken by the hook-spear, that he can forge the weapon from a drawing, and that only his cousin Xu Ning knows how to use it. He then plans how to get Xu Ning, and goes in person to bring him. At the grand assembly he is put in charge of making all of Liangshan's weapons and armour.
Key episodes
The smith at Wugang. Passing through Wugang, Li Kui stops to watch a blacksmith at work. The two strongmen take to each other at once, swear brotherhood over wine, and Tang Long throws down his hammer to go with him.
A drawing of the hook-spear. In the council hall Tang Long sketches the hook-spear for the chiefs, explains how it brings horses down at the legs, and offers to forge as many as they need. All they lack is someone to teach it.
Fetching his cousin. Once Shi Qian has stolen Xu Ning's heirloom armour, Tang Long calls on his cousin with a story of having seen the thief on the road, and leads him in pursuit from one inn to the next all the way to Liangshan.
