Zhao Yun pear flower gun and others
Text | Wang Yongsheng
One summer in middle school, I was lying bare on the floor of the water mill in the corridor reading "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", just like drinking ice in summer, so the reading experience is really unforgettable. Favorite, of course, is Zhao Yun.
The seventy-first time in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms has a beautiful description of Zhao Yun's marksmanship: "The gun is like a dancing pear blossom on the body, and the whole body is like fluttering snow." Reading this sentence, I can't help but dance. However, after the dancing of the hands, I couldn't figure out: why is it Pear Blossom?
Many years later, I had the opportunity to get to know Mr. Qu Wei. On the way to the café, we talked about marksmanship. I immediately recited the beautiful words in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms: "The gun is like a dancing pear blossom, and the whole body is like drifting snow." "Why Pear Blossom?" I asked myself, "Do you mean that Zhao Yun's gun is made of pear blossom wood?" Mr. Qu Wei smiled and said, "That refers to the Pear Blossom Gun, which is a famous marksmanship in history." With that, he pushed open the door of the BOBO café. In the memory of Zhao Yun, this pear blossom finally opened the answer.
Image source: "Three Kingdoms"
During the Three Kingdoms era—I mean history, not evolution—the long weapons most commonly used by warriors were spears, mallets, or spears. The blade is wide, "held immediately" (see Liu Xi's "Interpretation"), fierce and penetrating. The hammer is also a simple production process, and the long halberd is gradually being phased out.
The popularity of the mallet in the Central Plains is undoubtedly influenced by foreign nomadic peoples. In fact, the spear and the hammer are originally born from the same root, and there is not much difference.
Later Han Xu Shen said in the "Explanation of Words and Characters", the hammer, the spear also, from the mu Shuo sound. 槊, also known as the horse spear, there is also a variant word "矟", which shows that the mallet is undoubtedly a spear.
Gongsun Zhan of the Three Kingdoms, a prince of one side, zhenshou Liaoxi, baima yicong, and skilled bow horses, fought against the Hu people. The Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms and the Biography of Gongsun Zhan records that Gongsun Zhan "held a spear and applied a blade at both ends". Gongsun Zhan holds a special two-headed bladed mallet. Zhao Yun originally belonged to Gongsun Zhan, so Zhao Yun should also be holding a hammer.
After the Tang and Song dynasties, guns began to become popular, and gun flowers began to flash intensively in history books. Tang Qinqiong and Song Yuefei both made the gun famous. The Old Book of Tang says that Qin Qiong "prancing horse bears the gun", and the New Book of Tang says that Qin Qiong "prancing horse holds the gun". You must say, qin qiong is not holding a double hammer? In fact, the hammer is a close weapon. The standard equipment for a warrior is a long weapon and a melee sword or sabre. Long and short combination, easy to kill.
In the Northern Song Dynasty official Xiu's "General Outline of the Martial Classics", the styles of short-bladed guns, short cone guns, grasping guns, tribulus guns, and abducted guns were drawn, but the spears and mallets were no longer seen. I think that after a long period of fighting, the nuances between spears, mallets, and guns have become increasingly blurred, and spears and mallets have finally been merged into gun weapons, collectively known as guns.
The wood used to make the gun shaft is very exquisite.
Qi Jiguang said in the "New Book of Ji Xiao" that the barrel of the gun "is the first in the wood, the wood is light and slightly soft, and the second is." To split the person is good, saw open the pattern oblique easy to fold, save bamboo waist soft, not available. ”
It is a kind of tree that does not wither in the face of cold, and the wood is heavy and strong, and it is durable. It can be imagined that after "raising" with sweat for a long time, it is as black as iron, and it is really good wood.
People who practice martial arts have the saying of raising sticks, after the dance stick, wipe sweat on the stick, first, let the sweat moisturize the stick body, can prevent the stick body from cracking, second, let the stick have the breath of the master, the human stick is one, is to raise the stick. Guns and sticks, out of the same door.
Hemu is a solid wood, light and slightly soft, Qi Jiguang believes, inferior to basswood.
"To split the person is good, saw opener grain oblique easy to fold" means that when taking the gun shaft material, to split the whole strip, take from the middle of the tree, the best; such as sawing the material, the wood has a grain oblique, easy to break.
Saving bamboo, is cut bamboo glue, waist soft, not available.
The female general of the Ming Dynasty, Qin Liangyu, was called "White Pole Soldier", which can be seen to be made of ash wood as a gun.
Ash wood is common, good local materials, wood is firm but not hard, soft and not folded, with good elasticity. Most of the martial arts firearms performed now use ash rods.
Qin Liangyu's "white pole soldiers", holding long guns that are not heavy, are suitable for surprise attacks and night attacks. The "History of Ming" records that Qin Liangyu was good at raiding.
In contrast, the Qi family army holding a heavy and strong bass gun is a regular army configuration. And Qin Liangyu's "white pole soldiers" are, at best, only civilian armed allocations, which is more tragic and helpless.
Is Qin Liangyu's marksmanship a pear blossom gun? The History of the Ming Dynasty does not elaborate. She was born more than fifty years later than Qi Jiguang, so she could not leave her name in the "New Book of Ji Xiao".
In Chinese history, powerful people would take long guns made of all-iron, which belonged to the scope of heavy weapons. In the words of Sun Wukong in "Journey to the West", the wooden gun is "light, light, light, not to take advantage of the hand, not to take advantage of the hand!" ”
The "New History of the Five Dynasties" records that the famous Later Liang general Wang Yanzhang was "brave and powerful, and was able to walk a hundred steps on his feet." Holding an iron spear, riding and galloping, fighting like a fly, and Tuo Ren Mo can not lift it, the army trumpet Wang Iron Gun. ”
Tuoren, this strange phrase is someone else's meaning. Wang Yanzhang's iron gun, no one else can lift, but he can hold the iron gun and fly like a fly.
Li Quan of the late Song Dynasty, a farmer in Beihai, Maozhou. The Biography of Li Quan of the Song Dynasty says that Li Quan "has the head of the bee, the power of the good people, with a bow and horse, able to transport iron guns, then called 'Li Iron Gun'".
Hundreds of years ago, Wang Yanzhang was there, and Li Quan's iron gun could only be relegated to the second oldest.
Li Quanxiong was in Shandong, traveling back and forth between song, Yuan, and Jin, playing tricks, and trying to eat three families. There was no shortage of things to pay tribute to yuan every year, and on the surface it was obedient to the Song Dynasty in order to get the song dynasty's money and grain, and the Song dynasty kept paying Li Quan military salaries in order to reduce the worries of the north. Trickery is repeated, only for grain and grass.
Li Quan first resisted Jin, then resisted Yuan, and finally lowered Yuan, fighting against Song. In the end, Li Quan's mount fell into the mud pond and could not come out, and was stabbed to death by more than thirty long guns of the Song soldiers. Li Tiegun's last words were: "Don't kill me, I am the leader!" ”
Li Quan's wife, the fourth lady of Yang An'er's sister, is also a master of making guns, "cunning and good at riding and shooting". After Yang An'er was beheaded, Yang An'er's old department was annexed by Li Quan, and the fourth lady and Li Quan were well-connected, and finally married him. The "History of Song" disdained to record the name of this grass lady, and only called the fourth lady and the Yang clan. Her name is Yang Miaozhen, a name as good as Miaoyu.
Yang Miaozhen is also just a role of marrying a chicken and marrying a dog with a dog, and she and her husband Li Quan repeated it over and over again. Li Quan's army was defeated, the general trend was gone, Yang Miaozhen looked around and said: "Twenty years of pear blossom guns, the world is invincible, now the situation has gone, it is not possible to support." Ru and other unborn, I am in my hometown. Kill me and fall, and you will not bear it. If you don't want me, who will surrender? Now that I want to return to Lao Lianshui, Ru and others should tell the imperial court that I wanted to come down, and I felt that I had driven him over. So please descend, huh? The crowd said, "No. Yang Miaozhen finally died in Shandong.
This is the legend of the Pear Blossom Gun. The name of the Pear Blossom Gun appeared for the first time in history.
By the Ming Dynasty, the name of the pear blossom gun shook the world.
Qi Jiguang is also highly regarded for the Pear Blossom Gun. Qi Jiguang said: "The method of the long gun of the husband began with the Yang clan, which is called 'pear blossom', and the world is salty and still. The beauty of it is that it is only cooked. Familiarity can forget the hand, the hand can forget the gun, and the circle god is not delayed. And it is not precious to be quiet, and quiet is not to move, but to be in abundance, unpredictable, infinitely deified, and there are few people in the hereafter who have their mysteries. ”
Xu Wei also has a poem "Chivalrous", which says:
Away to the junior court, the spirit is not high.
Swallowtail arrows, willow leaf pear blossom guns.
For the tomb of The Hanging Housheng, ride a donkey into the girder.
The pear blossom gun was written by Xu Wei in a poem. In the Northern Fist Technique, the thumb is buckled, the other four fingers are straight, and the palm resembles a willow leaf, called the willow leaf palm. The willow leaf palm is close, the pear blossom gun is far away, and it can take people's lives near and far, which is the heroism in Xu Wei's heart.
In this way, the pear blossom gun of "The World Is Salty and Shangzhi" was naturally written by Luo Guanzhong in the early Ming Dynasty in the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and pressed on Zhao Yun's body.
Whenever Qi Jiguang saw people using guns, the circle was five feet larger, and he watched Tang Shunzhi's dancing gun by the Qiantang River, and the circle was only one foot, and he was greatly horrified and rushed to ask for advice.
Tang Shunzhi said: "The side shape of the person is only seven or eight inches, but the gun circle is a foot away from him, that is, it is not as good as my body." The circle is big, the other gun is far away, and it is useless to me, and my strength is difficult to recover. ”
Tang Shunzhi described the scene when the two guns met in actual combat. In actual combat, to side against the enemy, the person's side is only seven or eight inches, when he gun comes, I only use to swing his gun away one foot, do not let his gun touch my body, if the swing is too far, such as five feet, it is not beneficial to me, the strength I consume is difficult to recover.
This is an extremely exquisite passage. The same is true of taking off the gun for the fist and fighting with bare hands.
Qi Jiguang deeply felt that "this is extremely precise", and asked: "How is the work of such a circle?" ”
Tang Shunzhi said, "Ten years of work." ”
When practicing marksmanship for the first time, the gun flower can be hit a little bigger, and then the smaller and smaller the shot, as Tang Shunzhi said, ten years of work, the gun circle is one foot. When practicing to the subtle, the white blade flowed, and the gun circle was as small as a pear blossom piece, so that the pear blossom gun appeared, as Luo Guanzhong described: "The gun is like a dancing pear blossom, and the whole body is like drifting snow." ”
Practicing the gun flower to a little is exactly the trajectory of the bullet' movement, so that entering the human body is just like idly strolling.
The author of the Qing Dynasty's "Arm Record" said, "The gun used to have the names of the Yang family, the Ma family, and the Sha family, but the writer Mo or paid attention to small skills, and those who were good at guns were almost unwritten, so they could not examine who Yang, Ma, and Sha were." ”
When he said "small skills", he should refer to the technique of freehand combat. Yang family gun, that is, pear blossom gun. The author of the Qing Dynasty's "Arm Record" did not know Yang Miaozhen, or rather, he did not think that the Pear Blossom Gun he saw at that time was from Yang Miaozhen's hand.
The author of the gun score "The Great Pear Blossom Gun Diagram" published by the Republic of China believes that the pear blossom gun came from Zhao Yun, which is a direct "take-ism" to the yanyi.
Back to Luo Guanzhong's Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
Writing a long novel is a long journey, a long journey, and a process of deification. In the first half of the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", Zhao Yun's marksmanship is extremely simple and direct, all of which are descriptions such as "one shot stabbing down the horse" and "one shot stabbing to death", clean and neat, and by the seventy-first time, Luo Guanzhong couldn't help but praise Zhao Yun, and Zhao Yun finally became a god in the Pear Blossom Gun.
In fact, "one shot stabbed down the horse" and "one shot stabbed to death" are the closest to actual combat.
The avenue is jane, and so is the killing. To simplify the marksmanship, there are only three moves: blocking, taking, and stabbing. Blocking and taking are defensive actions. Holding the gun with both hands, the tip of the gun is drawn in an arc to the lower left to intercept the opponent's external attacking instrument, which is a block; the tip of the gun is drawn to the lower right to intercept the opponent's inner attacking instrument, which is to take it; the piercing is the thorn.
The arc of the obstruction and the detour should not be too large.
Disciples who enter the room have a hard time hearing the trick from the master, and they are often disappointed. Once the trick is broken, it is so simple. Is it that simple? It's that simple.
Many tricks are the basic skills, the marksmanship, just stop, take, tie, a thousand times a day.
What the masters practice behind closed doors is the basic skill.
Huang Feihong's openly taught boxing is a tiger crane double shape, the fist is beautiful and good-looking, good to charge tuition, he practiced iron fist behind closed doors, his hands were trained into two iron rods, how could others fight with him?
Yang Luchan's generation of masters, openly taught Yang's Tai Chi, he practiced shaking the pole behind closed doors, practicing immeasurable internal strength, how can others fight with him?
Yang Lu Zen shakes the big pole, which is actually a marksmanship.
I learned two jitter methods from Mr. Qu Wei. One is to stand, hold up a four-meter-long ash rod with both hands, straighten the back hand, shake the rod with the front hand, and experience the shaking of the rod head - in fact, the gun head - and experience the operation of the force. The other is the horse step, the thorn. Shake dozens of times a day, sweat like rain, panting like cattle.
Chen Duxiu ridiculed people who can't write well, holding a pen like a long dance mallet, bulky and laborious. The basic skill of the dance long hammer is shaking the pole, which is really difficult.
Every morning, I learn to write, in Chen Duxiu's words, is to dance for a while, and then dance for a while.
After dancing the long mallet, the hammer looked around, and there was a murderous heart.
This article was originally published in Bookhouse, No. 3, 2017
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