Jufu, the Stone-Throwing Ape of Mount Chongwu

What the Shan Hai Jing says

The Jufu lives on Mount Chongwu, the very first mountain in the third book of the Western Mountains. This is the book that later climbs to Mount Kunlun, so Jufu stands at the start of one of the most famous routes in the whole Shan Hai Jing. The text says Mount Chongwu lies south of the Yellow River and lists the lands it looks out over in each direction.

The beast itself gets one short line. It looks like a yu, a large monkey, with striped or patterned arms. It is like a leopard or tiger, which most readers take to mean fierce and strong, and it is good at throwing. There is no omen attached: the book simply records a dangerous ape that hurls things. The same book later records far stranger beings, so the Jufu reads almost like a field note.

Guo Pu's notes

Guo Pu, the 4th-century scholar whose notes are printed with the book, explains the word yu as a monkey-like animal, larger than an ordinary macaque, with red eyes and a long tail. On the name itself he records that some copies of the text write it as Kuafu, the same characters as the giant who chased the sun, which shows how freely names shifted as the book was copied by hand.

Its neighbours on Mount Chongwu

Mount Chongwu is crowded with marvels. Before the Jufu, the text describes a tree with round leaves, red flowers and fruit like a trifoliate orange, and says that eating the fruit helps a family have many children. After the Jufu comes the Manman, a duck-like bird with one wing and one eye that can only fly when it finds its partner; when it appears, there are great floods. Guo Pu identifies it with the Biyiniao, the paired-wing bird that the book also places beyond the southern seas. Further along the same book is Kunlun, kept by Lu Wu. Jufu is a small, wild figure at the gate of that sacred landscape.

The Jufu in our game

In Beasts of Shanhai we kept the one thing the book insists on: it throws. Our Jufu is a striped-armed ape that, every time it attacks, also hurls a rock at the far end of the enemy line, so foes hiding at the back are never fully safe. It is a metal beast costing 2 Gold. At three stars it throws at the two rightmost foes, so a backline full of healers or poisoners has to deal with it quickly.

Rock Baboon in Beasts of Shanhai

In our free browser game Beasts of Shanhai, Rock Baboon is a Metal beast that costs 2 Gold. Its skill is Hurl. On attack it also throws a rock at the rightmost foe for 40% of its attack. At three stars it hurls at the 2 rightmost foes.

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