116 Fist Fighting and Self-Cultivation
same fighting principles and employ an identical martial vocabulary. There
is also textual convergence—almost half the text, as well as some illustra-
tions, are identical. There is no doubt, then, that the two books do not merely
reflect the same oral tradition, but also derive from the same written text.^7
Judging by Cao Huandou’s dating of Zhang Kongzhao, this original manual
of the Shaolin style must have been authored in the seventeenth century.
The Republican period witnessed the publication of numerous treatises
that, just like Hand Combat Classic and Xuanji’s Acupuncture Points, claim to re-
cord the original Shaolin Fist. The most famous is Secret Formulas of the Shaolin
Hand Combat Method (Shaolin quanshu mijue) (1915), which is still regarded by
some as an authentic composition. However, scholars have shown that most of
these publications have nothing to do with the monastery. Secret Formulas, for
example, expounds a southern Chinese style known as the Hong Fist (Hong-
quan), which is related to Shaolin by legend only. According to late Qing lore,
the Hong Fist was created by Shaolin monks who fought the Manchu invaders.
The latter supposedly burnt the monastery, whereupon the monks escaped to
the south, where they established the Hong Fist lineage. We will return to this
legend, which was celebrated in nineteenth-century fiction, Triads’ literature,
and manuals of southern style fighting. Here, suffice it to note that its influ-
ence on Secret Formulas belies the latter’s authenticity.^8
Whereas most Republican Shaolin manuals derive from late Qing lore,
Hand Combat Classic and Xuanji’s Acupuncture Points share a seventeenth-century
frame of reference. The martial techniques they mention were practiced dur-
ing the late Ming, and even the legends they paraphrase date from that period.
Consider, for example, the opening paragraph of Hand Combat Classic:
The history of hand combat originated at the Shaolin Monastery. Ever
since the Song emperor [Zhao] Taizu studied there, the monastery’s
fame spread throughout the land. Thereafter, there have been “Wen
Family Seventy-two Posture Moving Form,” “Thirty-six Posture Locking
Form,” “Twenty-four Throws Pat on Horse,” “Eight Evasive Maneuvers,”
and “Twelve Postures Close-Range Fist,” Lu Hong’s hard “Eight Throws,”
Shandong Li Bantian’s leg technique, Eagle Claw Wang’s grappling
technique, and Zhang Jingbai’s striking technique. These techniques
are all famous throughout the land, each having its own wonderful
aspects. However, they are all guilty of either emphasizing the top to the
neglect of the bottom, or the bottom to the neglect of the top. Even if
one successfully relies on them to overcome an opponent, they cannot
be considered perfect in every respect.^9The entire paragraph has been borrowed from the sixteenth-century gen-
eral Qi Jiguang’s Essentials of the Hand Combat Classic (Quan jing jieyao) (ca.
1562).^10 The only difference concerns the Shaolin’s role in the evolution of
bare-handed fighting. The late Ming general did not associate the monastery