Ding Desun, the Arrow-Struck Tiger, is one of Zhang Qing’s two deputies when Dongchang resists Liangshan in Water Margin. He fights with a flying fork and rides out beside Gong Wang while Zhang Qing’s stones batter the attacking heroes. Ding engages Lü Fang and Guo Sheng, but Yan Qing aims a crossbow bolt at his horse’s hoof. The animal falls, and Liangshan soldiers seize him before he can regain his feet.
Zhang Qing is eventually captured as well, and Ding Desun joins Liangshan with his former commander. At the grand assembly he is identified as the Earthly Speed Star and ranks seventy-ninth. He serves among the infantry officers in the later wars, carrying into the brotherhood the hard fighting already shown at Dongchang. His surrender does not erase that earlier resistance; it transforms a defeated defender into a dependable campaign soldier.
His death in the Fang La campaign comes without a heroic duel. After a night attack near Shezhou, the Liangshan troops pursue the retreating enemy through broken mountain ground. Ding steps into thick grass, where a venomous snake bites his foot. The poison reaches his body before help can save him, and he dies on the march. The accident makes his end one of the campaign’s harshest reminders that danger lies not only in famous opponents, but also in the unfamiliar land through which the exhausted army advances.
