The Tong of the Black Scorpion was a Chinese cult devoted to the ancient god Weng-Chiang. The Fourth Doctor called it one of the most dangerous criminal political organisations on Earth.
History[[edit] | [edit source]]
Origins[[edit] | [edit source]]
In ancient Chinese history, in the days before Qin Shi Huang united the land into the Chinese Empire in the 3rd century BC, the mountains of Sichuan were inhabited by dacoity who worshipped Weng-Chiang, who was an ethnic corruption of Sung-Chiang, the god of thieves and criminals. These groups committed acts of banditry in the name of their god, and were some of the ancient forbearers of the Chinese tongs and triads, including the Tong of the Black Scorpion. (PROSE: The Shadow of Weng-Chiang)
The Tong's agents had a black scorpion tattooed on one of their hands. Followers believed Weng-Chiang would one day return and rule the world. (TV: The Talons of Weng-Chiang)
Leadership of Magnus Greel[[edit] | [edit source]]
In 1872, Magnus Greel, the war criminal from the 51st century who has escaped defeat in World War VI, (TV: The Talons of Weng-Chiang) landed in a time cabinet in the Jade Emperor Temple in Shangdong province in China, atop the mountain of T'ai Shan. (PROSE: The Shadow of Weng-Chiang) The time cabinet was captured by Chinese soldiers and in 1873, Emperor Tongzhi presented it as a parting gift to the mother of George Litefoot before the family returned to London. Deformed by the time travel and needing the cabinet back to aid in his recovery, Greel took control of the cult, who believed him to be Weng-Chiang returned.
By 1892, Greel and the Tong were active in London. The leader of the cult, subordinate to Greel, was Li H'sen Chang, who worked in the Palace Theatre as a conjurer. They were responsible for the abduction of the young girls that the dying Greel needed for his recovery, as he needed their life essence to sustain himself. When caught in public or deemed to have failed, members were expected to commit suicide by taking a pill containing highly concentrated scorpion venom.
Chang remained loyal to Greel and was granted advanced, superhuman abilities such as hypnosis in return, but he swiftly fell out of favour when he was forced to confront the Fourth Doctor. Outwitted numerous times, Chang was berated by Greel and eventually publicly lost face at the Theatre because of Greel's desperate actions. Chang suddenly grew an intense hatred of Greel and sought his downfall, but he died himself as a result of injuries sustained by the giant rats guarding Greel's hideout.
The remaining Tong members rallied around Greel at the House of the Dragon, but they were massacred when the Peking Homunculus, Mr Sin, malfunctioned and attacked them with the zygma beam. A dying Greel disintegrated when he fell into his catalytic extraction chamber and his remaining life essence was taken from him. (TV: The Talons of Weng-Chiang)
Leadership of Hsien-Ko[[edit] | [edit source]]
By August 1937, at the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Tong was led by Hsien-Ko, Li H'sen Chang's daughter. Under her leadership, they no longer revered Magnus Greel as Weng-Chiang. Seeking revenge for the death of her father, Hsien-Ko instead intended to extract Greel and the cabinet out of time before it arrived in 1872 and punish him for his actions.
Having partially infiltrating the ranks of the Kuomintang, the Tong had secretly constructed a nuclear reactor inside T'ai Shan to generate the power necessary to make the extraction. However, the Tong was infiltrated itself by Sung-Chi Li, an agent working for the Japanese. Spreading rumours about spies in their numbers, he manipulated the Tong members into fighting each other and, alongside the further malfunction of Mr Sin, they virtually wiped each other out.
Hsien-Ko continued with the extraction of the time cabinet. However, Sung-Chi Li nearly caused the reactor to go critical, and the ultimate failure came when the Doctor used the TARDIS to time ram Greel back on to his original course and preserve the timeline. Standing at the heart of this temporal disruption, Hsien-Ko was erased from existence. (PROSE: The Shadow of Weng-Chiang)