Yang Jian, like Sun Wukong, can also change seventy-two. Chapter 2 of "Journey to the West" narrates that Sun Wukong was willing to "learn a transformation of the earth demon", so "one skill can be understood and all the skills can be understood. At that time, he learned the formula, practiced on his own, and learned all seventy-two transformations." Chapter 40 of "The Romance of the Gods" introduces Yang Jianshi and says that he "has practiced Nine Transformations, seventy-two transformations, infinite wonderful way", teasing Zhang Kui (Chapter 86) is the best of his "infinite wonderful way" Note that the novel also specifically mentions that he has transformed into a fox-sable (Chapter 40), a stone (Chapter 54), a five-color rooster and a centipede (Chapter 91), and a white-fronted tiger (Chapter 92). How many transformations Yang Jian had, the various legends of Erlang God actually do not clearly specify a number. Generally speaking, they only generally say that he has great magical powers, and he once transformed an ox into a dragon to fight a dragon and conquered the Bull Demon King. Upon further investigation, "The Romance of the Gods" states with great confidence that Yang Jian will undergo "seventy-two changes", probably due to the hints of stories such as "Erlang Shen locks the Great Sage Qitian" and "The Little Sage exerts his power to subjugate the Great Sage", thinking that Erlang Shen will Since Sun Wukong can be subdued, at least his transformation index cannot be less than Sun Wukong. Wukong vs. Erlang Shen (2) is related to the above details. Yang Jian can often get into the belly of his opponent and force him to submit. This is surprisingly consistent with Sun Wukong often "turning somersaults and standing up as a dragonfly" in the monster's belly. At this point, Sun Wukong at least caused the black bear spirit, the iron fan princess, the yellow eyebrow king and the green lion spirit to suffer greatly (see chapters 17, 59, 66, and 75 respectively). There are three such descriptions in "The Romance of the Gods": The first time is when Yang Jian got into the belly of the fox and marten as soon as he appeared on the stage, "Pinched the heart of the fox and marten, and the thing screamed and fell down, Yang Jian "Appeared and pushed the fox and marten into two parts", greatly defeating the enemy's energy (Chapter 40); the second time was after being eaten by Ma Yuan, "Yang Jian used eighty-nine yuan skills to change and move wonderfully. A strange pill caused Ma Yuan to have diarrhea for three days, and Ma Yuan lost half of his weight" (Chapter 60); the last time was when Yang Jian "took his hand on his heart and liver" in Zhu Zizhen's abdomen, forcing Zhu Zizhen to Revealing his true form, he knelt down at the Zhou camp (Chapter 92). Defeating the enemy by making trouble in the enemy's belly is not Sun Wukong's patented ability (Hua Guang in "Journey to the South" also has this ability), but it is something that many Erlang Gods except Yang Jian do not have, so It is not unreasonable to think that Yang Jian's specialty was inherited from Sun Wukong. Statue of Erlang God (3) In "Journey to the West", when Sun Wukong is defeated by a monster, he will always find ways to find out the monster's identity, and then go to rescue soldiers. This is almost a narrative routine in "Journey to the West". Similarly, Yang Jian in "The Romance of the Gods" also played such a role. When encountering an extremely difficult enemy, Yang Jian had the responsibility to find out the identity of the enemy and then invite immortals or borrow treasures to defeat the enemy. For example, Yang Jian once went to Jialong Mountain to investigate the origin of Tu Xingsun and the whereabouts of the rope that bound the immortal. He asked Tu Xingsun's master to keep Sun down from the mountain (Chapter 55); he borrowed a lamp to reveal Ma Shan's true form, and then moved it to the Jialong Mountain. Ran Deng subdued him (Chapter 63-64); learned from Master Yuding how to detoxify the blood knife, and then easily killed Yu Hua (Chapter 75); and learned from Master Yuding about Gao Ming, Gao Jue's background is revealed, so he can destroy his lair and break his magic (Chapter 90). Chapters 58 and 81 recount that Yang Jian asked Fuxi and Shennong for herbs that could cure plague and poisonous pox, which can also be included in this category. (4) Yang Jian changed his true form several times to steal treasures. For example, after Yang Jian killed Mo Lishou's flower fox mink, he turned into a flower fox mink and wanted to steal four treasures from the four generals of the Mo family. He only managed to steal one because he alerted the other party. (Chapter 40), another example is that in order to defeat the Blood Sword, Yang Jian transformed into Yu Hua and went to Penglai Mountain to defraud the immortal Yu Yuan of the elixir (Chapter 75). This is easily reminiscent of the famous plots of Sun Wukong "Teng Na cheating on the treasure" and "Two-tone banana fan" (chapters 34 and 60). (5) Sun Wukong used samadhi fire to forge the peaches, royal wine and elixir he had eaten into a piece, and developed the body of King Kong. "Cut with knives and axes, stab with spears and chop with swords. Don't think of hurting your body" (Chapter 7) ), this is something Sun Wukong himself is quite proud of. It is clearly described that the plot of Sun Wukong's hard-headedness is that six thieves "striked with guns and swords" and "cut seventy or eighty times" on Sun Wukong's head, and Sun Wukong "just pretended not to know" (Chapter 2). 14 times). Little did they know that Yang Jian also had such magical powers. Chapter 42 of "The Romance of the Gods" recounted that Wen Zhong used the double whip of yin and yang to beat Jiang Ziya, Nezha, Jin Zha, Mu Zha and Han Dulong in the first battle of Xiqi, but when Yang Jian faced him, At that time, Wen Zhong "raised his two whips and hit Yang Jian on the top of the door, only to make sparks burst out. He ignored him completely, just like normal", which made Wen Zhong have to admire Yang Jian as a "moral man". (6) "The Romance of the Gods" tells that Tu Xingsun sneaked into the Zhou camp to assassinate King Wu. When he saw a concubine sleeping on the bed, he was moved by lust, so he undressed and went to bed. Unexpectedly, the concubine was actually Yang Jian's, so Yang Jian " He hugged Tu Xingsun with both hands." "Tuxingsun Tu Xingsun was naked and could not show his strength" (Chapter 54). The plot of Yang Jianzhi capturing Tu Xingsun is somewhat similar to Sun Wukong teasing Zhu Bajie in Gaojiazhuang. The above are the similarities between Yang Jian and Sun Wukong. Since "Journey to the West" and "The Romance of the Gods" were written first and which is still controversial, the author does not want to simply conclude that Yang Jian's image copied some factors of Sun Wukong's image. Although This scenario is more likely than its opposite.
However, it is necessary to emphasize that these similarities between the two sides are not reflected in Erlang Shen except Yang Jian. This at least shows that the shaping of Yang Jian's image not only comes from Erlang Shen, but also has a certain connection with Sun Wukong. Of course, the reason why Sun Wukong is one of the origins of Yang Jian's image is mostly due to Yang Jian's identity as Erlang God, because the evolution histories of Erlang God and Sun Wukong's respective images have always been overlapping and entangled.