Ma Liang hoped to practice martial arts to save the country and actively promote the "new Chinese martial arts", but why did he become a traitor

Ma Liang was a famous martial artist during the Republic of China period, and in the early years of the Republic of China, he vigorously promoted the "new Chinese martial arts" in order to "strengthen the country", which popularized martial arts in schools and the army, and made great contributions to the transformation of martial arts. However, no one expected that such a patriotic martial artist would eventually become a traitor.

In 1878, Ma Liang was born in Qingyuan, Hebei Province, to a family of scholars.

Hebei was originally a place that advocated culture and martial arts, where the practice of martial arts was strong since ancient times, and there were many martial arts. Therefore, it doesn't matter whether it is Xiucai or Bai Ding, if anyone does not know three moves and two styles, he is embarrassed to say that he is from Hebei. In that environment, although Ma Liang's parents thought that reading was the right way, they still studied in Ma Liang and asked him to learn wrestling and Shaolin boxing by taking Ping Jingyi from Baoding, Hebei Province, as a teacher.

Speaking of which, Ping Jingyi is a martial arts master who is famous in Zhenhebei, and he is good at boxing sticks, wrestling, and Shaolin Eighteen Arhats. Especially in wrestling, he is very skilled, often wrestling with people, winning with one move. He also made wrestling one of the most popular sports in Baoding. Of course, there is also an endless stream of people who come to learn from teachers.

When Ma Liang was learning art, he had great respect for Ping Jingyi, coupled with his intelligence and understanding, and his willingness to study hard, so he studied for more than ten years without hindrance, whether he was proficient in wrestling or boxing. Ping Jingyi was very important to him, believing that he had both culture and martial arts, and he would definitely do something in the future. Therefore, when Ping Jing went out to compete, he always liked to take him with him. In order to enrich his experience and increase his insights. At the same time, Ma Liang also often competed on behalf of the teacher, which undoubtedly allowed him to gain a lot of experience from practice, and greatly enhanced his skills and strength in martial arts.

In 1905, under the influence of advanced Western culture, science, and military, in order to achieve the role of a rich country and a strong army, the Qing government cancelled the imperial examination.

Since the imperial examination has been abolished, the way to rely on the imperial examination to become an official has also been broken. In this case, Ma Liang, who was highly skilled in martial arts, chose to throw pens from Rong, joined the Beiyang New Army, and was successfully admitted to the Beiyang Martial Arts Academy.

Beiyang Wubei Academy is a new-style army school founded by Li Hongzhang in Tianjin. There, Ma Liang not only had to learn modern military, but also practice martial arts. During his studies, Ma Liang was very successful, not only did he gain professional military knowledge, but his martial arts were also greatly improved.

Due to his excellent achievements, after the completion of his studies, Ma Liang was appointed as the pipe belt of the Beiyang Standing Army's Zuo Zhen Heavy Battalion, and later he was successively appointed as the staff officer of the sixth town, the twenty-first standard of the eleventh association of the sixth town infantry, and the sixth standard of the sixth town artillery, and his official position was similar to that of the current regimental commander. It can be seen that Ma Liang's promotion is very fast, and his future is unlimited.

In fact, Ma Liang was promoted very quickly, in addition to the fact that he did have a certain military talent, there was also a reason that wrestling was used as an important training in the army, and this was Ma Liang's strength. In the military, don't look at his size is not the biggest, the strength is not the strongest, but he really can't find an opponent.

In 1912, the Xuantong Emperor announced his abdication, and the Qing Dynasty, which lasted for more than 200 years, finally came to an end.

After Yuan Shikai ascended to the presidency, Ma Liang, an old Beiyang man, quickly climbed the tall branch of Jin Yunpeng.

Jin Yunpeng was one of the "Four Great Kongs" under Duan Qirui, and he served as the commander of the Fifth Division of the Central Army under Duan Qirui's recommendation. Because Ma Liang was deeply trusted by Jin Yunpeng, he served as the commander of the Ninth Brigade under Jin Yunpeng.

At that time, Sun Yat-sen had repeatedly put forward the initiative of "strengthening the country and strengthening the species, learning martial arts for the whole people, and resisting foreign enemies", which made the status of martial arts originating from the folk be unprecedentedly improved.

In addition, during this period, the new cultural movement was also in full swing, and Western sports were also spread in China. But in this process, traditional sports and Western sports will inevitably have some differences. For example, Western fighting and Chinese national techniques are completely different, which makes Ma Liang and other traditional conservative patriots very resistant, so "preserving the essence of the country" has become his responsibility. In his words, it is "to make the blue-eyed and yellow-haired flow, and dare not use the word 'sick man' as the private message of forty million compatriots."

In order to promote the development of guoshu, Ma Liang began to reform the traditional guoshu. In order to make the martial arts suitable for group training, he finally selected some simple and easy-to-learn movements from the traditional boxing routines. It was then created and compiled according to the martial arts routine into the "New Chinese Martial Arts". At the same time, Ma Liang also invited a group of martial arts masters to participate in the editing of martial arts textbooks and named them "Chinese New Martial Arts".

Ma Liang's "New Chinese Martial Arts" is very suitable for collective teaching, so it has been recognized and promoted by the military and educational circles. Even the Beiyang government has recognized the "new Chinese martial arts" and promoted it as a "national essence" in schools across the country. This also made Ma Liang's reputation greatly enhanced, and he became one of the most influential martial arts masters in the martial arts world.

However, there are also many martial artists who strongly oppose it. It is believed that the "New Chinese Martial Arts" combines the mode of military gymnastics exercises, but only selects some moves in traditional martial arts, and adds a lot of upright, slightly resting, and walking content in the process of training, which is technically rigid and rigid, and there is no fun in training. At the same time, it only has the shape of traditional martial arts, and does not reflect the essence of traditional martial arts at all, which has completely lost the original meaning of martial arts.

The political leaders of the Beiyang government, headed by Yuan Shikai, strongly admired Ma Liang's "new Chinese martial arts". They used this to express their opposition to the New Culture Movement. However, the most important point is that Yuan Shikai has the heart to restore the emperor, so he and his minions actually want to achieve feudal retrospection by "preserving it as pure", so as to achieve their conspiracy.

Ma Liang has always had great self-confidence in the national arts, and he has repeatedly publicly stated that "the use of sports in various countries in the world has not healed from my new Chinese martial artists." He even suggested that the "sword system" corresponding to the status of officials at all levels should be implemented throughout the country to highlight the "martial virtue" and "martial style" of Chinese martial arts.

Naturally, the pioneers of the new cultural movement must not allow it to create public opinion, so they vigorously oppose it. For example, Lu Xun pointed out to the point that the Beiyang government's efforts to promote the "new Chinese martial arts" as a "national essence" is itself the spirit of "ghost tao", and its essence is to hinder the smooth development and spread of modern Western sports in China.

In any case, the "New Chinese Martial Arts" has indeed played a positive role in the transformation of traditional martial arts. This can also be said that Ma Liang's contribution is indispensable. It's just that, as the martial artists who opposed him have said, although the "new Chinese martial art" has been promoted throughout the country, because the content is too monotonous and dull, soon no one is willing to practice it.

In 1919, Japan invaded and occupied jiaodong half of the islands, Jinan and other cities, and also seized all kinds of rights and interests that Germany forcibly occupied in Shandong, thus triggering the vigorous "May Fourth Movement", and the whole country responded one after another. Jinan, where Ma Liang is located, is no exception. In this anti-Japanese campaign, patriots not only boycotted Japanese goods, but also went on strike and demonstrated.

The Japanese gendarmes and the Japanese police arrested some students who demonstrated for no reason, and they also continued to search some villages, and some villagers were also innocently arrested and imprisoned.

In the face of the Japanese people's stubbornness, the local government did not dare to ask questions. The students became even more indignant and continued to sit in front of the government to petition. When the Beijing government learned of this, in order to ensure that there would be no more disturbances, it imposed martial law on Jinan and sent Ma Liang as the commander of martial law to suppress the students who did not heed the dissuasion.

On the pretext of "forming a party assembly to disturb public order," Ma Liang involuntarily destroyed the Islamic National Salvation Support Association, and also shot and killed its presidents Ma Yunting, Zhu Chuntao, and Zhu Chunxiang at the execution ground on the pretext of "forming a party assembly and disturbing public order."

Originally, he also wanted to shoot all the students detained, but although the overseer Zhang Shuyuan was a warlord, he also understood that shooting and killing students would cause very serious consequences, so he did not agree. Ma Liang had to give up.

But Ma Liang's Jinan massacre shocked the whole country, and for a while representatives from all over the world petitioned the Beijing government, strongly demanding that the executioner be severely punished. However, the Beijing government had a lot of cover-up for Ma Liang, and the matter was finally closed.

Then, why did Ma Liang, who was originally patriotic and active in promoting national skills, do he do something to kill his compatriots? It turned out that the Japanese not only borrowed a large loan to the Beijing government, but also helped China, as a belligerent country, to form a war army during World War I. Therefore, in Ma Liang's view, Japan is benevolent to China, so he should be "loyal" to Japan. This also made him more and more relentless in suppressing the anti-Japanese movement. When giving lectures to the soldiers, he often said that if there was no Japanese loan, their participating troops would not be formed, their uniforms were Japanese, and their guns were also Japanese, so they should drink water and think of the source, and they should never accept Japan's favor and return to Japan, which is the behavior of the mob.

In the anti-Japanese movement, Ma Liang was often flattering to Japan, brutally killing his compatriots, and was scolded by the people as a "Hui scum" and an "executioner", but the Japanese praised him.

In 1920, the warlords of the two clans of Zhifeng formed an anti-Duan alliance and launched the Zhiwan War. Duan Qirui, who was the leader of the Anhui warlords, claimed his army as the Dingguo Army, while he called himself commander, and Ma Liang was appointed commander of the Southern Road.

After the defeat of the war, Duan Qirui was forced to go to the wilderness, and Ma Liang was also dismissed from his post and lived idly in Jinan. During his spare time, he once again joined forces with Yang Hongxiu and other martial arts masters to reorganize and compile the "New Chinese Martial Arts".

In 1927, Zhang Zhijiang founded the Central Guoshu Museum in Nanjing. At the invitation of Zhang Zhijiang, Ma Liang, who was still influential in the military and political circles and at the same time a martial artist, served as the director of the Academic Affairs Office of the Guoshuguan and served as a martial arts teacher to teach wrestling.

However, although Ma Liang loves martial arts, he loves power even more.

The following year, after the Japanese entered Jinan, he defected to the Japanese and served as the president of the Jinan Public Security Maintenance Association, and from then on he became a traitorous lackey.

After the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the establishment of a provisional government in Beijing, Ma Liang joined as a member of the committee. Because of his obsession with the Japanese, he soon rose through the ranks and was appointed governor of Shandong Province and commander-in-chief of security.

In 1945, after Japan announced its unconditional surrender, Ma Liang, a veteran traitor, also came to the end of the road and was arrested and imprisoned by Li Yannian, a demoted official in Shandong. In a state of panic and trepidation, Ma Liang died in prison the following year at the age of 70.