134 Fist Fighting and Self-Cultivation
lin Monastery’s vicinity. Beginning in the seventeenth century, and all
through the Qing period, Henan was a hotbed of martial arts. Along the Yel-
low River basin (from Shanxi through Henan to Shandong), numerous fight-
ing styles emerged, many of them in the context of sectarian rebellion. The
intimate connection between martial art and religious sectarianism in the
north China plains is attested by common nomenclature. We have seen above
that Plum Flower was the name of a bare-handed style (quan) as well as a reli-
gion (jiao), and our earliest evidence of Eight-Trigrams Palm (Bagua Zhang)
comes from the religious uprising of that name. In 1786 and again in 1813,
the Eight-Trigrams sect rebelled in Hebei and Northern Henan. The confes-
sions of its captured members, many of whom came from Hua County,
Henan, provide us with the earliest accounts of the bare-handed style of that
name.^61
Another unarmed style that figured in Qing period Henan is Xingyi
Quan (Form-and-Intent Fist), also known as Xinyi Liuhe Quan (Mind-and-
Intent Six-Harmonies Fist). Qing period manuals and family histories sug-
gest that it was created by Ji Jike (fl. 1650), who was a native of Henan’s
neighboring Shanxi province. Ji is said to have created his empty-handed
style on the basis of a spear method, in which he had excelled. Following the
Fig. 30. The “Supreme
Ultimate Eight Steps” in
Hand Combat Classic.