The author, Lan Tai, is a signed author of toutiao number
Recently, because I wrote several articles on the history of martial arts in the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, many netizens gave me advice and criticized me for not understanding the true strength of the real martial arts masters of the late Qing Dynasty.
Some netizens told me that in 1929, when Mr. Du Xinwu performed his own boxing ghost head in public at the Hangzhou Guoshu Amusement Club, a set of punches came down, and a series of Mr. Du's footprints were left on the cement floor.
At that time, I was shocked, Mr. Du was so "miraculous", I actually did not know, for a person who claims to know the historical evidence is really dereliction of duty, so I hurried around to find the declaration and other media reports, after all, it is impossible to leave footprints on the cement floor without being reported.
However, unfortunately, I searched through the information I could find, and even found the media reports on the daily competition at that time, but unfortunately I could not find a report on Mr. Du Xinwu's footprints, and if anyone knew the source of the deeds, I would like to tell them.
Some netizens also told me that Mr. Sun Lutang has real kung fu, and how to "fight one against five" in the ring at the age of seventy.
Needless to say, the deeds of Mr. Sun Lutang mentioned by this netizen I really found in the national regular periodicals and magazines, and the deeds of Mr. Sun Lutang and the Japanese samurai competition were published in the 5th issue of Wudang magazine in 2009 and the 30th issue of Lantai World, 2014, sponsored by the Liaoning Provincial Archives.
However, although Mr. Sun Lutang's story of the contest with the Japanese samurai was indeed published in the official domestic publications, I found that there were also doubts.
The first is what is the name of the Japanese samurai that Mr. Sun Lutang defeated in 1921?
The Japanese samurai defeated by Mr. Sun Lutang in Wudang magazine is called "Kazuo Sakagaki", and the Japanese samurai in "Lantai World" in 2014 is called "Kazuo Sakata".
This is not the most bizarre, the most bizarre is that the earliest domestic magazine to introduce Mr. Sun Lutang and the Japanese samurai competition was the "Sports History" magazine in the 4th issue of 1983, but in the article titled "Living Monkey Sun Lu Tang" in the "History of Sports Literature" article, the name of the Japanese samurai became "Itagaki Kazuo".
"Damn, what the hell is the name of this Japanese samurai?"
I couldn't help but growl inwardly as I ran to the Japanese website to search for "Kazuo Samagaki", "Kazuo Sakata", and "Kazuo Itagaki" as keywords, and although I found a lot of people, none of the Japanese people with this name could be called "martial artists".
Why not search under a pseudonym instead?
So I searched for it with "ハン デンユウ", because I didn't particularly understand katakana, so I used a machine to turn it over, and the search results were even more off-topic.
In the end, I gave up trying to figure out that the person who was called "famous in Japan" in the Chinese journal but "obscure" in the Japanese search engine was called Kazuo Sakata (Kazuo Sakata?). Kazuo Itagaki? Who the martial artist really was.
This seems to me to be a completely impossible task.
However, the three articles about Sun Lutang's defeat of five Japanese samurai at the age of seventy in 1930 are very consistent, and it should be true.
But this raised a new question for me, that is, if the seventy-year-old Mr. Sun Lutang really defeated five Japanese martial artists, then why did the sixty-eight-year-old Mr. Sun Lutang refuse to compete with another famous martial artist, Prince Ping, and finally simply sent his son Mr. Sun Mura Zhou to invite his nephew Gao Zhendong from Shanghai to compete with Prince Ping instead of himself?
Could it be that Mr. Sun Lutang, like Master Lei Lei, also follows the principle of "high technique and no use"?
Here I briefly introduce the causes and consequences of the 1929 Prince Ping and Gao Zhendong competition.
The main sources of historical materials are Mr. Gao Zhendong's oral memoirs, "Anecdotes of Wulin That Have Been Sealed for Eighty Years: Remembering Gao Zhendong, the Head of wudang", and an article entitled "Why Zhang Zhijiang Advocates Martial Arts" published in the 6th issue of Jingwu magazine in 2007.
Mr. Xiang Kairan, a famous martial arts novelist of the Republic of China, that is, the famous Pingjiang Buxiaosheng once said that the reason why Mr. Sun Lutang was famous in the Republic of China period had a lot to do with Mr. Sun Lutang's "works and other bodies":
He (Sun Lutang) has recently written three books on Bagua Quan, Shape-Meaning Quan, and Taijiquan, and no one who studies these three martial arts has not used these three books as reference materials. —— Xiang Kairan, "Sun Lutang"
In his own writings, Sun Lutang mainly talks about the relationship between "NeijiaQuan" and "Neigong", and I excerpt a few paragraphs for everyone to feel:
The trick of the "hard to hard" trick in the inner kung fu is that you must use the root strength, and when the bone is collided, it looks like two people touch the bone, in fact, I hit him a little. As soon as the bone turns, the lateral force becomes a longitudinal force, which is transmitted through the skeleton, and the longitudinal bearing force will not break no matter how big the bone. ”
"The root of the leg is in the crotch, the inner master is strong, the shape is not moving, the posture is sinking and the foot goes up, there is no need to swing the leg to accelerate, the strength is still very large."
"The inner family's bright strength, dark strength, and chemical strength go up with the full pawn level of the qi machine, from the meter strength, and then to the ruler strength, and then to the inch strength and the strength of the points, all around the body." After the internal strength training, the walking frame has not emphasized the rules of the shape, but the induction of the internal qi machine drumming. ”
Because Mr. Sun Lutang mentioned that Neijiaquan had the advantages of bright and dark strength over Waijiaquan, he did not think much of Sun Lutang's claim to some martial artists in the martial arts circle at that time who practiced gang and fierce boxing, that is, the so-called waijiaquan.
At that time, martial artists did not speak of intellectuals, and even few people who could read words, so they accepted the concept of Shaolin-Waijiaquan and Wudang-Neijiaquan invented by wuxia novelists.
Therefore, these foreign boxers believe that Sun Lutang deliberately touted the inner family fist and denigrated the outer family boxing.
Therefore, when Sun Lutang went to the Nanjing Guoshu Hall to attend the opening ceremony, some foreign boxing martial artists proposed to compete with Sun Lutang and questioned Mr. Sun Lutang's "just talking and not practicing", only "blowing", not fighting.
One of the most famous martial artists who challenged Sun Lutang was Wang Ziping, the head of the "Shaolin Gate" at that time.
Wang Ziping was 47 years old in 1928.
Sun Lutang was 21 years older than Wang Ziping, and was already 68 years old at the time.
In the face of Wang Ziping's challenge, Sun Lutang seemed to have lost the calmness of facing six Japanese samurai two years later, and actually sent his son Sun Cunzhou to Shanghai to ask his nephew Gao Zhendong to Nanjing to compete instead of himself.
According to Gao Zhendong's recollection, after he rushed to Nanjing, Sun Lutang talked to him alone, during which the 68-year-old Sun Lutang had admitted that he was "old" and "could not afford to lose":
Master Sun saw my thoughts and said, "Inspector (Li Jinglin) You drink water first." Zhendong, here you come. The gentleman called me aside and said: Zhendong, if you think about it, the current competition with Ziping is not only the two of us comparing high and low, but everyone wants to see who is high and who is low in Wudang Gate and Shaolin Gate, this matter is very important. Now and Ziping compete, considering their age, are you better than that? If you don't dare to compare, you will lose. Then the family will say that our shape and intention fist and bagua palm are fake. If we had to roll up the rolls, the South would not need us. Can we do that? But if you think of form, gossip, and posterity, I think you can beat him!
In fact, Gao Zhendong was 2 years older than Wang Ziping, who was already 49 years old at the time.
As for the competition between Gao Zhendong and Mr. Wang Ziping, in fact, the two did not distinguish between victory and defeat.
According to Gao Zhendong's memoirs, Wang Ziping was "powerless":
The king swung a split fist to me, I used my palm to hook the seal, the king had no ability to fight, I hit a punch and retreated to the wall, so the king hurriedly waved his hand to stop, I was about to give up, when I turned around, the king suddenly came to chase and beat, I turned back and slapped, opened a large opening in the king's clothes, Li Supervisor (Li Jinglin) saw that things were not good, came up to persuade. Zi Ping knew that art could not be defeated, and he conceded defeat with his hands.
However, in the article titled "Why Zhang Zhijiang Advocates Martial Arts" published in the 6th issue of Jingwu magazine in 2007, it was said that Wang Ziping had the upper hand in the competition:
Gao Zhendong made the first move, and threw several oncoming punches at Wang Ziping in succession. Wang Ziping defended first and then counterattacked, and Gao Zhendong was hit by the move. The more the two sides are more and more courageous, competing for more than a dozen rounds, it is difficult to solve the difficult points, and there is a great tendency not to give up until the total victory is won. At this time, the referee honked his horn and announced a suspension, and several samurai stepped forward to pull the two apart and stop the game. The referee announced that the result of the match was a draw. But the two sides did not shake hands and made peace, and both wanted to play again.
With the current information, I can't judge who loses and who wins, but what can be affirmed is that Gao Zhendong's statement that "Ziping knows that art cannot be defeated, and conceding defeat with one hand" should be wrong, and "the two sides did not shake hands and make peace, and both want to play again" is more likely.
The competition was followed by the abolition of the Shaolin Gate and the Wudang Gate by the Nanjing Guoshuguan and the unification of the first section and the second section of the Academic Affairs Office, with Gao Zhendong as the section chief of the second section; Li Jinglin and Sun Lutang fled, and Sun Lutang went to jiangsu Guoshuguan as provost; Wang Ziping also left Shanghai to open the Prince Ping Wound Hospital in Shanghai, practicing medicine while teaching boxing; and Tang Hao, who was then the director of the editorial and examination department of the Nanjing GuoshuGuan, personally inspected the Shaolin Temple, Chen Jiagou and Wudang Mountain, and wrote the book "Shaolin Wudang Examination" in April 1930, indicating the so-called "Shaolin Wudang Examination" The shaolin outer family and "Wudang inner family" are absurd fallacies, which are probably the most beneficial follow-up events in this competition.
However, because Tang Hao punctured such a big bubble as a martial artist, he was beaten by some people in the martial arts community, and they privately beat Tang Hao; after that, Tang Hao no longer worked in the Nanjing Guoshu Museum and returned to Shanghai to be his lawyer.
In 1928, the biggest trouble that caused me by the gao zhendong and wang ziping competition was the problem of Mr. Sun Lutang's "old age".
From Mr. Gao Zhendong's memoirs, in 1928, the 68-year-old Mr. Sun Lutang personally admitted that he was "old" and felt that he might not be able to beat the 47-year-old Wang Ziping, so he let Gao Zhendong compete in his place.
But how did Mr. Sun defeat five Japanese samurai in the ring two years later?
Mr. Sun was so cautious about beating a 47-year-old prince Pingdu, why was it so heroic to fight five Japanese martial artists who were in their prime?
It should be known that according to the article "Why Zhang Zhijiang Advocates Martial Arts", the competition between Wang Ziping and Gao Zhendong, who are almost 50 years old, is far less intense than the competition between Ma Yufu and Liu Yinhu of Wudang Gate in the second Shaolin Gate:
This contest between the section chief (Ma Yufu) and the section chief (Liu Yinhu) was (just now) the door chief and the door chief, because of the two section chiefs.
There is also a question: if the 70-year-old Mr. Sun Lutang easily defeated five Japanese samurai because of practicing "Uchiha Fist", then why did Mr. Sun Lutang appear so cautious in the face of the challenge of Wang Ziping, who was only 21 years younger than him, 2 years ago, and specially called Gao Zhendong from Shanghai to Nanjing to compete instead of himself?
Is it true that Mr. Sun Lutang's "bright strength, dark strength, and chemical strength" are the same as the six-veined Excalibur of The Prince of Dali Duan Yu written by the novelist Mr. Jin Yong, and the spirit is not the same?
Seventy-year-old Mr. Sun Lutang defeated five Japanese samurai in the ring, but the sixty-eight-year-old Sun Lutang said that he was "old" and would probably lose to the forty-seven-year-old Wang Ziping — another incredible "mystery case" since I studied the history of martial arts in the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China.
I call it "Mr. Sun Lutang of Schrödinger", if there are netizens who know the inside story, I hope to tell the reason, Lantai here is the first.
Resources:
"A Short Biography of Sun Lutang", "Living Monkey" Sun Lutang", "Sai Live Monkey" Sun Lutang's Martial Arts Experience and Fame in Martial Arts", "Why Zhang Zhijiang Advocates Martial Arts", Gao Zhendong's Oral Memoirs "Anecdotes of Wulin Sealed for Eighty Years: Remembering Wudang Gate Chief Gao Zhendong", "Sun Lutang Talks about the Inner Family Heart Method - Dragon and Tiger Two Qi", "Remembering Tang Hao"