A true story of "Li Kui and Li Ghost".
On the evening of March 23, 1918, a large magic show was being staged at the Imperial Theatre in Woodgreen, London. The theater was crowded and packed. The magic show is called the "Executed Boxers" and is performed by the Chinese magician Cheng Liansu.
Cheng Liansu, a Chinese magician who arrives at the Woodgreen Imperial Theatre
Also known as "Catching Bullets with Bare Hands", the magic show involves a magician on stage playing the role of an executed boxer and his assistant playing the role of several members of the execution team. The assistants first went to the audience and asked the audience to take a random number of bullets and mark each bullet. The bullets were then loaded into several guns, and after the bullets were reloaded, the assistants fired at the magician at close range. However, instead of being knocked down by the bullet, the magician grabbed the marked projectile with his hand and showed it to the audience. Sometimes the magician will also be shot and fall to the ground, but the projectile will spit out of the magician's mouth.
"The Executed Boxers" magic show poster
At that time, front-loading rifled guns were used, and the loading was very different from the current rear-loading rifled guns. The reloading of the bullet is done in three steps, in the order of gunpowder (the carton is poured into the chamber), the projectile (stuffed from the muzzle) and the primer (loaded in front of the hammer).
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Steps for the operation of the Springfield Type 1861 front-loading rifled gun
Schematic diagram of the magic operation of the "Boxers Executed".
From the perspective of the audience, it seems that the magician was shot at close range, but in fact, the magician is safe and sound.
When the gunshots rang out in the Wood Green Theatre and the smoke cleared, the projectiles were miraculously grabbed by the magician's hand or spit out of the magician's mouth, the audience erupted in a sea of applause. At the strong request of the audience, the magician, who was indulged in "the stars holding the moon" and had been fluttering, promised to reproduce this miracle of "invulnerability".
However, after a burst of gunshots, the scene that the audience saw through the smoke of gunpowder was very different from the previous one. The miracle of grasping and spitting projectiles from his mouth was not seen, but the magician was seen lying on the ground, blood pouring from his chest. What was even more unexpected was that the audience listened to the real "My God, there's an accident, pull down the curtain!" (Oh my God, something happened, pull the curtain down!) A fluent and urgent English came out of the mouth of the Chinese magician, and the curtain fell immediately, and his life came to an end. The next day, a gunshot shot pierced his lungs and the magician died in a London hospital.
In the case of death, the London police arrested members of the magician's team. After careful investigation and interrogation of the scene, the cause of death was soon "revealed", and the mystery of this magic trick was revealed. In fact, there are three mechanisms to achieve "grabbing bullets with bare hands":
First of all, the bullets marked by the audience were not loaded into the chamber, but were "packaged" into their own hands by the magician of "Kuaishou". In other words, it is not a marked bullet that is loaded into the chamber. The "tanuki for the prince" of the bullet is done by the magician by means of rapid change.
Secondly, the guns that shoot at the magician are modified "prop guns". There were two chambers in the gun. There is no gunpowder in the main chamber of the projectile at all, and the gunpowder loaded from the muzzle enters the other secondary chamber, that is, it is the gunpowder in the secondary chamber that is detonated when the trigger is pulled to hit the primer. In other words, it is impossible for a projectile loaded into the chamber of the main gun to be fired.
Thirdly, the moment the gunshot is heard, the magician delivers the marked bullets to his mouth and hands with a rapid change of technique.
After inspection, it was found that the accident was caused by the failure of the prop gun to be thoroughly cleaned after the performance. Upon investigation, it was found that gunpowder was mixed into the main chamber of the gun, so that the gunpowder left in the main chamber at the time of firing was ignited, thus shooting the loaded projectile and hitting the magician. Since the death was an accident and not a murder, the team members were acquitted, and no one was held responsible for the magician's death.
The police's case is closed, but the journalists' case has just begun. The suspicion began with the magician's native English. Because the reporters had never heard Chinese speak such authentic American English, and they looked at this Chinese called Cheng Liansu carefully, the more they looked at it, the more wrong it became......
Cheng Liansu
Although the Chinese-style coat and Manchu braids are quite authentic, the more you look at the rest, the more foreigners look. Unable to withstand the reporters' fierce pursuit, the true face of the magician was finally "picked up". It turned out that the man was a real American, his real name was William Ellsworth Robinson, and he was a magician. In his early career, he was initially known by the stage name "Robinson, the Man of Mystery."
威廉·埃尔斯沃思·罗宾逊（William Ellsworth Robinson）
The reason why the American "Robinson" became the Chinese "Cheng Liansu" comes from a Chinese magician named Zhu Liankui, whose stage name is Ching Ling Foo. At the end of the 19th century, the Chinese magician Jin Lingfu's performance in the United States shocked the world, so much so that the Chinese "trick" became a symbol of the world's top magic. For this reason, this Robinson often came to Jinlingfu's "field" to watch, and "plagiarized" a lot of Jinlingfu's "tricks".
Jin Lingfu performed the "Big Bowl Flying Water" magic stunt in the United States
Robinson felt that "after his wings were full, he scattered his wealth to buy Chinese "outfits", and dressed himself and his team members as Manchu-looking Chinese. In order to achieve the effect of "confusing the real with the fake", Robinson simply gave himself the Chinese name Chung Ling so according to the homonym of the name Ching Ling Foo. In order not to show his feet, Cheng Liansu specially equipped the team with Chinese translators, and stipulated that team members were not allowed to speak English to the outside world.
Cheng Liansu in a dragon robe
In 1890, Robinson began performing in Europe under the stage name Cheng Liansu. Because Chung Ling so and Ching Ling Foo were very close in English spelling and pronunciation, and Europeans had seen very few Chinese at that time, European audiences thought he was the world-famous Chinese magician. Because it has indeed reproduced many of Jin Lingfu's magic skills, and his performances have become more and more perfect, it has been popular among Europeans all over the world, and has become one of the most paid magicians in the world. In order to prevent the horse's feet from being exposed, he carefully maintained the illusion of this Chinese all the time. When performing on stage, he never speaks, and he is always accompanied by his own interpreter when he is interviewed. The secret of this "fake Chinese" is known only to a few.
Cheng Liansu and team members
The woman on the right in the front row is Cheng's mistress Su Xin (Olive Pass)
However, "it's not that enemies don't get together." In 1905, when Cheng Liansu performed at the Hippodrome Theatre in London, Zhu Liankui actually performed at the Imperial Theatre 100 yards away. The encounter in London between the two magicians, who share similar stage names and claim to be authentic Chinese magicians, has aroused great interest among the British public. The two sides began with a war of words in the newspapers, calling each other liars and impostors. After that, Zhu Liankui challenged Cheng Liansu on the condition that if Cheng could perform 10 of his 20 shows or he could not play any of Cheng Liansu's shows, he would lose 1,000 pounds to the other party. However, on the day of the game, Cheng Liansu arrived as scheduled, but Zhu Liankui never showed up. According to the rules of the British, the winner is naturally Cheng Liansu.
Zhu Liankui VS Cheng Liansu
As for the reason why Zhu Liankui did not appear, there are different opinions, and some people actually say that Cheng Liansu "changed" Zhu Liankui. Some people also say that Zhu Liankui himself decided not to expose Cheng Liansu's true face. A more reliable theory is that Zhu Liankui's manager thought that there was no clause in the battle book to prove the Chinese origin of the two sides, so he decided not to let Zhu Liankui play. But the truth is still unknown. However, in any case, Robinson was fortunate to defuse the crisis and became more sought after by the European people.
However, "you always have to pay it back when you come out to mix". Robinson finally paid with his life for what he had done, and with Cheng Liansu's death, a 20-year scam came to an end. This year, Robinson, no, Cheng Liansu was 57 years old.
Ghost Li is dead, but Li Kui is still alive. Zhu Liankui's Chinese "tricks" are still continuing, but when Cheng Liansu, the Li ghost, plays "copycat" under the banner of a Chinese magician, Zhu Liankui has already begun to make movies. Because when the film first came out, Western audiences saw it as the new vaudeville of the circus, so the film intersected with Zhu Liankui's business. Zhu Liankui is worthy of keeping pace with the trend of the times, he has learned a lot of film knowledge, and purchased film equipment to shoot magic performance techniques. On the eve of the Wuchang Uprising, Zhu Liankui and his photographer entered the battlefield with the rebel army to take real shots, and selected some high-rise buildings on the edge of the concession, such as the tower of the British Tobacco Factory on Dazhi Road in Hankou at that time, and the roof of the Daqing Bank on Xinsheng Road, etc., to grab footage of the battle between the rebel army and the Qing army. After the on-site shooting was completed, Zhu Liankui took the film to Shanghai, where it was developed, edited, and finally compiled into a newsreel called "Wuhan War", which became China's first news documentary. In 1923, Zhu Liankui died in Shanghai at the age of 69.
* The picture comes from the Internet, and if there is an infringement dispute, it will be deleted