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From another angle, the technique’s diverse appellations reflect the large
body of lore that grew around it. Mizong quan is surrounded by legends, many
of which associate it with the Shaolin Monastery. According to one, the tech-
nique was created by a Tang period Shaolin monk—in some versions he is the
monastery’s tutelary deity Vajrapâÿi ( Jinnaluo) himself—who was so im-
pressed with the agility of an ape-like creature that he named his fighting tech-
nique after him: “Wild-Beast Fist” (Nizong quan). Another tradition associates
the historical monastery with the fictional protagonists of the Ming novel Water
Margin. The heroic Lu Junyi is said to have developed this deceptive method at
the Shaolin Monastery and later transmitted it to his disciple Yan Qing. When
the outlaw was escaping from government troops to the bandits’ haven at Liang-
shan, he relied on it to hide his footprints in the snow, calling it the “Confound-
ing-Track Fist” (Mizong quan). Yan Qing’s disciples named the technique in
honor of their master, “Yan Qing Fist,” but in deference to its Buddhist prove-
nance referred to it also as the “Tantric Fist” (Mizong quan).
The repeated allusions to Shaolin in the legends surrounding Mizong quan
(Confounding-Track Fist) suggest that the monastery might have played some
role in its evolution. Further support for this hypothesis is found in the little we
know about the modern style’s historical lineage: Scholars usually trace the
technique to an eighteenth-century Shandong martial artist named Sun Tong
(style: Li Kuan) who might have studied at the Shaolin Monastery.^27 It is possi-
ble, therefore, that the Mizong quan (Confounding-Track Fist), with which we
are familiar today, derives—at least partially—from the Miquan (Confounding
Fist) recorded in Hand Combat Classic and Xuanji’s Acupuncture Points.
A third fighting style, described in Hand Combat Classic but missing from
Xuanji’s Acupuncture Points, is the Plum Flower Fist (Meihua quan), which is char-
acterized by a five-positions feet routine, named after the flower’s five petals.^28
Even though it figures prominently in today’s Shaolin regimen, the Plum Flower
Fist probably did not originate at the monastery. That it is mentioned in Hand
Combat Classic only (and not in Xuanji’s Acupuncture Points) might indicate that it
was not part of the original seventeenth-century Shaolin text, which had served
as the manuals’ source. Furthermore, studies of other Qing period manuals—
as well as the Plum Flower practitioners’ family genealogies—suggest that the
technique was originally developed in Xuzhou, Jiangsu, by members of the Zou
family, who transmitted it to Henan, on their way to Hebei, around 1700.^29 It is
likely, therefore, that the Plum Flower Fist was incorporated into the Shaolin
martial arts—and into Cao Huandou’s Hand Combat Classic—no earlier than
the eighteenth century.
Whether or not Shaolin monks practiced it in earlier times, the Plum
Flower Fist was firmly entrenched in their monastery’s vicinity by the mid-eigh-
teenth century. Titled Introduction to Martial Practice (Xiwu xu), one of the style’s
earliest manuals was authored by a Henan military expert named Yang Bing
(b. 1672) who had ranked third on the government’s highest military examina-
tion and had served in the metropolitan garrison. Yang compiled his Plum Fist