Defending the Nation 79
I hear that this is the Sha Family Method,
Disdaining the “rivers and lakes,” alone worthy of praise.
His clumsiness conceals an art—deep meditation,
His adroit turns joined together—six-flowers formation.^89
The movements are no different from the divine shuttle,
The coiling is identical to fluttering silk brocade.
His four limbs made boneless supple,
His empty fist hardened into a battleaxe.^90Li Lantian was not a monk, and his bare-handed style did not originate at a
Buddhist temple.^91 That Zhang Yongquan chose to describe his Sha Family Fist
in religious terms indicates that the association of Buddhism and the martial
arts was not limited to monastic circles. Whether they belonged to the clergy or
to the laity, some practitioners invested the martial arts with a spiritual signifi-
cance, which was expressed in Buddhist terms.
Mount Funiu
In the popular imagination, mining has often been associated with
crime. From California gold mines to Guangxi coal pits (where the Taiping
rebellion began), miners have been portrayed as an unruly bunch, at best ad-
venturers in search of easy money, at worst ruthless gangsters.^92 Such percep-
tions have also been applied to Henan miners, for whom—a Ming author
tells us—“mining was a vocation, and killing people was a means of liveli-
hood.”^93 Perhaps for this reason, Zheng Ruoceng attributed the Funiu
monks’ military activities to the dangers posed by gold hunters. In order to
protect themselves against the latter, he explained, Funiu monks had sought
Shaolin martial training.^94
To this day, gold is still excavated from the slopes of Mt. Funiu, in remote
southwestern Song County, Henan. During the Ming period the mountain
featured several Buddhist monasteries, the most famous of which was the
Clouds Cliff (Yunyan) Temple. Founded during the Tang period by monk
Zizai (fl. 627), the Yunyan Monastery flourished under Ming rule. It was de-
stroyed during the dynasty’s turbulent last years, when Li Zicheng’s rebel
army advanced through Henan.^95 The bandit leader likely detested its monks
because of their steadfast support of the dynasty.
In September 2001, I joined a small Shaolin expedition to Mount Funiu.
Shaolin monks were curious about their old brethren, and the local authorities
wished to develop the mountain’s tourist industry after the successful Shaolin
model. The renowned Buddhist archaeologist Wen Yucheng also joined the
trip.^96
The remains of the Yunyan Monastery are situated just under Mount Fu-
niu’s six-thousand-foot Longchiman Peak. The temple was originally made of
two sections: Lower Monastery and Upper Monastery. The former still features
a Ming period hall, now serving as a village shrine. Of the latter nothing is left,