Ruan Xiaowu

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Ruan Xiaowu(阮小五), also known as Ruan the 5th is a character in the Water Margin. As part of the trio the Ruan brothers, Ruan sat on the council of the 36 Heavenly Spirits in the Liangshan contingent which peaked at 108 members.

Ruan Xiaowu had eyes like bells, arms like iron staffs. Although he wore a smile on his face, a murderous impression could be detected. He had a tattoo of a leopard on his chest, and was nicknamed the 'Short-lived second brother(短命二郎)'.

Ruan Xiaowu was the second brother among the three Ruan brothers; Ruan Xiaoer, himself and Ruan Xiaoqi. They lived at Shijie Village as fishermen. Once, Wu Yong recommended the Ruan brothers to Chao Gai and seven of them robbed the convoy of birthday gifts.

Later, the incident was exposed and the government immediately sent troops to arrest them. The brothers followed Wu Yong's strategy and defeated He Tao, a government officer. Then, they fled to Liangshan for refuge. Wang Lun the incompetent leader of the Liangshan band, did not want to accept the seven heroes, but was killed by Lin Chong. Chao Gai was then elected to be the new leader. Ruan Xiaowu took the 7th place among all the heroes.

Ruan Xiaowu followed the heroes as they defeated Huang An, rescued Song Jiang from execution and on many other campaigns against their enemies. He became one of the leaders of the Liangshan navy due to his excellent skills in naval warfare. During the Fang La campaign, Ruan Xiaowu and Li Jun went to Qingxi Prefecture to pretend to surrender to Fang La. They acted as spies from within and helped the Liangshan heroes conquer Qingxi. Unfortunately on the verge of victory, Ruan Xiaowu was killed by Premier Lou, Fang La's surbordinate.

Water Margin characters
Founding Father
Chao Gai
36 Heavenly Spirits
Song Jiang | Lu Junyi | Wu Yong | Gongsun Sheng | Guan Sheng | Lin Chong | Qin Ming | Huyuan Zhuo | Hua Rong | Chai Jin | Li Ying | Zhu Tong | Lu Zhishen | Wu Song | Dong Ping | Zhang Qing | Yang Zhi | Xu Ning | Suo Chao | Dai Zhong | Liu Tang | Li Kui | Shi Jin | Mu Hong | Lei Heng | Li Jun | Ruan Xiaoer | Zhang Heng | Ruan Xiaowu | Zhang Shun | Ruan Xiaoqi | Yang Xiong | Shi Xiu | Xie Zhen | Xie Bao | Yan Qing
72 Earthly Fiends

Zhu Wu | Huang Xin | Sun Li | Xuan Zan | Hao Si-wen | Han Tao | Peng Qi | Shan Ting-gui | Wei Ding-guo | Xiao Rang | Pei Xuan | Ou Peng | Deng Fei | Yan Shun | Yang Lin | Ling Zhen | Jiang Jing | Lu Fang | Guo Sheng | An Dao-quan | Huangfu Duan | Wang Ying | Hu San Niang | Bao Xu | Pan Rui | Kong Ming | Kong Liang | Xiang Chong | Li Gun | Jin Da-jian | Ma Lin | Tong Wei | Tong Meng | Meng Kang | Hou Jian | Chen Da | Yang Chun | Zheng Tian-shou | Tao Zong-wang | Song Qing | Yue He | Gong Wang | Ding De-sun | Mu Chun | Cao Zheng | Song Wan | Du Qian | Xue Yong | Shi En | Li Zhong | Zhou Tong | Tang Long | Du Xing | Zou Yuan | Zou Run | Zhu Gui | Zhu Fu | Cai Fu | Cai Qing | Li Li | Li Yun | Jiao Ting | Shi Yong | Sun Xin | Gu Dasao | Zhang Qing | Sun Er Niang | Wang Ding-liu | Yu Bao-si | Bai Sheng | Shi Qian | Duan Jing-zhu