As a young peasant in his native China, Li H'sen Chang had witnessed the arrival of a scientist named Magnus Greel, who had travelled back in time from the 51st Century. Badly injured and disfigured by the process, Chang looked after him and shielded him from the troops of the Emperor. They seized his time cabinet and gave it to their master. The young man believed Greel to be the god of abundance - Weng-Chiang.
Greel was able to bestow on Chang special mental abilities, such as formidable hypnotic powers. After the Emperor had gifted the cabinet to a foreign diplomat who had taken it away with him, Greel had Chang use his powers to set himself up as a magician and illusionist. By embarking on a European tour, they could track down and retrieve the cabinet.
Chang headlined the Palace Theatre in London when the cabinet was traced to the home of pathologist Professor Litefoot. He was compelled to seek out young women from the neighbourhood, who had their life-force drained by Greel to keep him alive.
When he abducted a young woman who had featured in his act one night, it brought attention to the theatre, which angered Greel. Chang hypnotised the theatre manager - Henry Gordon Jago - but the Doctor discovered this.
Chang met the Doctor at the local police station where he had one of his men kill himself with scorpion poison, after the man had been arrested. Greel and Chang made use of the Tong of the Black Scorpion. He also used the Peking Homunculus - a lethal cyborg creature from Greel's time - as his ventriloquist dummy, Mr Sin.
Greel ordered Chang to kill the Doctor, but he failed. His god then abandoned him - disgracing him in front of an audience when he murdered a stagehand and left the corpse in Chang's trick cabinet.
Chang fled from the theatre via the sewer system, but this was guarded by rats grown to enormous size by Greel to guard his lair.
Chang was badly injured by them, losing a leg. He managed to get to a nearby opium den and gave the Doctor a clue as to Greel's new hideout before dying from his injuries.
Played by: John Bennett. Appearances: The Talons of Weng-Chiang (1976).
- Bennett had earlier featured as General Finch in Invasion of the Dinosaurs.
- He had earlier starred opposite Jon Pertwee in the film The House That Dripped Blood, as the detective who encounters Pertwee's vampire.
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