Dai Zong, nicknamed the “Magic Traveler,” is a Liangshan hero in Water Margin famous for a supernatural traveling technique said to allow him to cover eight hundred li in a single day. Before joining Liangshan, he serves as a prison official in Jiangzhou and maintains connections throughout the local underworld.
He meets Song Jiang after Song Jiang is exiled to Jiangzhou. When Song Jiang is later condemned for writing a rebellious poem, Dai Zong becomes entangled in the attempt to save him. After the Liangshan heroes storm the execution ground and rescue both men, Dai Zong enters the Liangshan brotherhood.
His defining ability is the magical traveling method associated with paper horse charms fastened to his legs. Using this technique, Dai Zong becomes an ideal courier and scout, carrying urgent military information, searching for missing allies, and traveling enormous distances on Liangshan business.
After the gathering of the 108 heroes, he continues to serve as one of Liangshan’s principal messengers and intelligence runners. Following the imperial campaigns, Dai Zong eventually withdraws from official life and enters religious retirement. Within Liangshan’s sprawling network, he functions as an almost supernatural communications system embodied in a single man.