Hand Combat 117
with empty-handed techniques, mentioning their staff method instead. Fur-
thermore, Qi Jiguang did not relate the Song dynasty founder, Emperor Zhao
Taizu (reigned 960–975) to the monastery. Ming period lore attributed to the
emperor a popular bare-handed technique known as “Zhao Taizu’s Long-
Range Fist” (Zhao Taizu changquan). As befitting a Shaolin manual, Hand
Combat Classic twisted the legend, having the emperor study his method at the
monastery.^11
The late Ming context of Hand Combat Classic and Xuanji’s Acupuncture
Points supports Cao Huandou’s 1784 claim that the manual he annotated had
been authored more than a century earlier. It would seem that the two manu-
als derived from an earlier text that had been authored around the Ming-Qing
transition. Further support for this time frame, as well as for the manual’s
Shaolin provenance, is provided by the name “Xuanji,” to which both manuals
attribute their teachings. A 1631 Shaolin stele inscription alludes to a monk
named Xuanji as a dutidian (superintendent), which term was commonly ap-
plied to military appointees in the monastery’s internal administration. It is
likely, therefore, that Xuanji was a seventeenth-century Shaolin fighting monk,
as asserted by the treatises that purport to record his teachings.^12
If the Shaolin method recorded in both manuals dates from as early as the
seventeenth century, we are struck by its complexity. Hand Combat Classic and
Xuanji’s Acupuncture Points depict a sophisticated fighting system. They expound
underlying principles such as “the weak defeating the strong” (ruo di qiang) and
“the soft subduing the hard” (rou sheng gang); they analyze fundamental tech-
niques such as stepping (bu), throwing (die), seizing (na), and throwing off bal-
ance by hooking the opponent’s legs (guan); and they provide detailed
instructions for the proper maneuvering of each body part: the head, eyes,
neck, shoulders, arms, hands, chest, waist, buttocks, legs, knees, and feet.
The two manuals concur that in certain instances “close-range hand com-
bat can overcome long-range hand combat” (duanda sheng changquan), for
“short-range makes it easier to reach the adversary’s body.”^13 The Hand Combat
Classic includes an entire text—missing from the other manual—titled “Com-
prehensive and Original Treatise of the Shaolin Monastery’s Close-Range Fist
Body Method” (“Shaolin si duanda shen fa tong zong quan pu”).^14 For its part,
Xuanji’s Acupuncture Points elaborates on another short-range style called “Yue
Family Close-Range Fist” (Yuejia duanda).^15 The emphasis both manuals place
on “close-range hand combat” is typical of late Ming and early Qing military
literature, which usually distinguished between two types of hand combat:
“long-range” (changquan) and “close-range” (duanda). Sixteenth- and seventeenth-
century military experts allude to various short-range styles including “Cotton
Zhang’s Close-Range Fist” (Mian Zhang duanda), “Ren Family Close-Range Fist”
(Renjia duanda), and “Liu [Family] Close-Range Fist” (Liu duanda).^16
As suggested by its title, Xuanji’s Acupuncture Points, the second manual also
expounds the techniques, attributed to the Shaolin monk, of striking the oppo-
nent’s cavities, or acupuncture points (xuedao). The concept was borrowed from