Cheng judged superior to that of another martial artist, Guo Wu, who also
taught Japanese fencing; others, like Qi Jiguang approached the matter
differently. Qi, as already discussed, stressed better training and the use of
spears and other polearms to defeat Japanese swordsmanship. This was
entirely effective, overcoming samurai techniques in the same way that
Japanese commoners were doing in Japan. Cheng Zongyou recorded the
techniques he had learned, though it does not appear that the tradition of
Japanese fencing remained in practice in China for very long. This is not
surprising, as Japanese fencing was diminishing in importance on the
battlefield even in its native land.
Fencing with Long Swords
Although during the Yuan Dynasty the long sword enjoyed a partial and
idiosyncratic resurgence on the battlefield in the hands of some Mongol
troops, it fell out of favor again in the Ming. Just as before, a small number
of expert martial artists in the ranks of the army still made effective use of
the long sword, but it remained a very specialized weapon. Ordinary
soldiers, and even most swordsmen outside of the military, used swords,
not long swords. Perhaps because the long sword was no longer an
ordinary weapon, it gained a new meaning for literati. It had become, by
definition, a refined weapon of ancient pedigree that could only be appre-
ciated or properly wielded by an extraordinary swordsman.
A number of Ming literati are described as“liking long swords and
books”and, connected with this, riding horses, practicing knight-errantry,
and roaming about. Often these descriptions are used to characterize them
in their youth, creating a sense that established scholars and civil officials
were bold, heroic men of action. The long sword had become the weapon of
the educated man. Scholars could investigate and discuss the early history of
the long sword, lament the decline of long sword manufacturing, and trade
in long swords as art objects. Literati swordsmen, or at least those interested
in the history of long sword fencing, wrote descriptions of this skill.
Ming martial arts scholars determined that there werefive or six schools
of long sword fencing, creating an esoteric knowledge of the subject for
themselves. These schools were traditions of fencing still present in the
general population, even though they no longer existed in the military. It
seems unlikely that these scholars, who were unable to fully enumerate the
styles of boxing or sword fencing, were able to completely survey the
extant long sword styles either. They were able to record several mnemonic
devices for memorizing principles or motions of the styles, in itself an
Fencing with Long Swords 179