on the fifth hour of the fifth day of the fifth month. Since this
was according to a lunar calendar, that meant around the be-
ginning of June. From an astrological standpoint, the timing
was propitious. After all, the competitors’ yang (male) energy
was at its peak with so much Horse energy in the air. (In East
Asian astrology, five is a powerful male number, and the horse
is a major symbol of male energy. Meanwhile, in Confucianism,
relationships between people, nature, etc., are almost always
arranged in quintuples.) On the other hand, from a political
standpoint, the ability to host a peaceful national tournament
reflected well on the central government’s credibility and
power.
1347 According to tradition, Saint Barbara becomes the patron saint
of English gunners.
About 1350 Temple art shows Southeast Asian and Indonesian aristocrats
carrying the serpentine daggers called krisses. For Vaishnavas,
these blades appealed to a serpent god, whereas for Muslims,
they symbolized a believer’s willingness to accept pain.
About 1360 Chinese authors begin writing down the oral traditions known
as Shuihu Zhuan(The Water Margin). These stories were origi-
nally set near the end of the Northern Song period, meaning
the early 1100s, and featured a social bandit named Song
Jiang. Writers associated with this transcription are Shi Nai’an
(a possible eighteenth-century forgery) and Luo Guanzhong,
the pseudonym of a fourteenth-century romance novelist. A
version running to 120 individual episodes appeared in 1614,
but in 1641 literary critic Jin Shengtan edited this to a more
manageable 71 and simultaneously reset the plot to the late
Ming dynasty. In the process the 108 bandits of the stories
were made loyal to the old emperor and ascribed other conven-
tional values. This latter text is the version of the story most
commonly translated into English. (For example, All Men Are
Brothersin 1933 and The Water Marginin 1937.)
1368 After seizing Peking from the Mongols, a Chinese warlord
named Zhu Yuanzhang establishes himself as the Hong Wu
(Extensive and Martial) emperor, thereby establishing the Ming
dynasty. Because Zhu was an orphan who had been raised at
the Shaolin Monastery, Chinese panegyrists subsequently cred-
ited all Shaolin monks with nearly supernatural fighting
prowess.
About 1374 The Malayan national hero Hang Tuah moves from Menang-
kabau, Sumatra, to Malaka, Malaya. As Hang Tuah was a
shopkeeper’s son and Malaka was a major spice-trading port,
this move was probably mercantile rather than military. Hang
Tuah is famous for introducing both krisses and silat(“quick
action,” with an implication of “a method for overcoming any
problem posed by an adversary”) into southern Malaya.
1377 After learning how to manufacture gunpowder from a Chinese
engineer, a Korean official named Choe Mu-son persuades the
Koryo court to establish a “Superintendency for Gunpowder
Weapons.”
1378 A Welsh mercenary named Owain Glyndwr is murdered in802 Chronological History of the Martial Arts
About 1345
cont.