Let's do the numbers: Sanzo's kill count. Also ramblings about sadism and the ikkou and yeah.
Here's the part I never thought about earlier though: There's probably a curve on this. Because here's the thing: it doesn't look like he started off killing people. He tries to run, or fight, at first, and only pulls out the gun when it looks hopeless. So he probably went for a little while without killing anyone-- maybe fighting hand-to-hand to disable them, maybe running, maybe just getting lucky. How long was it? A month, maybe two, if that? But Sanzo would've looked like a very easy target-- young, slight, with soft blond hair and a relatively feminine face. So he's probably getting more attacks at thirteen than when he's the battle-hardened seventeen we seem him as in Burial. But somewhere in between there, his reluctance goes away. He kills enough people that he loses count, and the rumors (though you can't trust them) seem to indicate he's done a certain amount of deliberate killing, probably while searching for that sutra. So I'm guessing he kills more people at 14 than he did at thirteen, and fewer people at sixteen, because he looks so much less vulnerable then the attacks are no longer a problem, or at least are less of a problem.
So. There's no Minus Wave, but even then Sanzo's world doesn't seem like a very happy place.
I'd guess the people randomly attacking him would generally number no more than eight or so, probably four to eight, so let's average it out at six. For the first year, probably one attack every two weeks, assume that he spent, let's say half a year on the road, that's 78.
Second year, he's a little more comfortable with killing, maybe a little more aggressive, still very young and a target as a result. Let's throw in some larger groups now that he's more confident; four groups a year of about twenty apiece, maybe? 236 that year.
Fifteen the next year, so let's repeat the same pattern and add another 236.
At sixteen he's older, so there are probably fewer attacks. Let's drop it down to one a month and keep the four groups of twenty; 152.
Seventeen it's getting to him, another 152.
So from his traveling years, that's 354. From the bandit attack at the temple, make it 366.
His temple years are another source of speculation. He clearly didn't kill anyone at the temple, but he also does the occasional errand for the Three Aspects before he makes Hakkai and Gojyo his bitches, and the Three Aspects make enough of a deal about taking Cho Gonou in alive, kthks, that I think he probably killed some people in the interim. Let's say thirty, just for the sake of argument.
harukami guesses it's about a thousand in the first year of the trip, and that works for me too, so let's just save ourselves the work and say a thousand at the "Anniversary" chapter of Reload.
So: 1366, possibly more, at the one-year mark. Yeah. A lot.
Now I will go off on a completely different tangent and talk-- a little-- about sadism. Because it's interesting-- when Sanzo goes off on the scorpion youkai, he's clearly crossing a line, and the other guys call him on it, and-- of course-- it's Goku who finally gets through to him. (It's also interesting that none of them interpret his regular beatings as sadism, isn't it?)
But here's the thing; Sanzo clearly is at least a little bit of a sadist, especially when it comes to Sanzo priests and those damn sutras. Practically the only time he smiles is when he's about to shoot someone in the head, for fuck's sake.
So what's the deal? I think there's one significant difference between the Sanzo who tortures the scorpion youkai and the one the ikkou normally see, and that difference is Son Goku. None of the other three have really known Sanzo without Goku, aside from fairly brief moments of separation. There's a great, if terribly cheesy, line in As Good as It Gets when Jack Nicholson tells Helen Hunt, "You make me want to be a better person." And I think on some level that's what Goku does for Sanzo. That great moment when Goku throws the pillow in Sanzo's face-- anyone else would've gotten shot. Maybe worse.
Interestingly, they all, to a certain extent, do this for each other, though it's more obvious with Hakkai/Gojyo and Sanzo/Goku. Goku's arc in "Against the Stream" shows this so clearly-- he finally wakes up and really takes on Kougaji, not out of concern for his own skin, but because he thinks of the others and the promises he's made to them. He has to get stronger; for himself, but also to avoid disappointing his friends. (I adore the moment where he waves hi, walks by them, and promptly collapses.)
I love so much the dance between codependency and inner strength in Saiyuki. So much.
Am behind on comments and pwned by my remix. OH WELL.