Quickly conquer the martial arts world, and let your fists dominate the heavens!

Chapter 196 The Severed Martial Arts, Divine Strike Technique!
Zhao Hongbao left behind quite a few books, and with the addition of those collected from various sources, the most numerous were the copies sent by the Qingyi Society.

It filled the entire room.

Chen Zhan didn't want everything. He didn't care about novels or fiction. These books were all related to martial arts or alchemy, including Taoist classics and some Buddhist martial arts.

Let's see if there are any clues.

Of the three major internal martial arts, Tai Chi has the longest history, but its origins are actually unverifiable.

There are two theories. One is that Tai Chi was created by Chen Wangting from Chenjiagou, Wen County.

At that time, the Chen family had a long tradition of martial arts. Chen Wangting was influenced by the culture of the Central Plains from an early age and was proficient in both literature and martial arts. He was famous for his boxing skills in his youth. In his later years, he lived in seclusion in his hometown. Based on his ancestral boxing skills, he drew on the strengths of others and combined them with theories such as the "Huang Ting Jing" to create Tai Chi Chuan, which includes the Five-Route Boxing, the Five-Route Hammer, and the 108-Style Long Fist.

Another theory is that Tai Chi Chuan originated in Wudang. It comprehensively absorbed the boxing techniques of famous masters in the Ming Dynasty, combined with Taoist guiding and breathing techniques, and developed using ancient Chinese Yin-Yang theory and traditional Chinese medicine meridian theory.

The legend of Xingyiquan originated from Yue Fei's Yue Family Army, but this cannot be verified. What can be verified is that the actual founder of Xingyiquan's predecessor, Xinyi Liuhequan, should be Ji Jike during the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty.

Its technical system was developed and perfected by Li Luoneng in the mid-to-late Qing Dynasty, forming the mature form of "Xingyiquan".

But even if we include Yue Fei's army...

How many years has it been? Five or six hundred years?
The problem is that the way of martial arts cannot only have a few hundred years of history. Ancient Chinese dynasties have records for thousands of years. How could all martial arts have been created in the last few hundred years?

We won't talk about unofficial histories or folk tales.

Historical records clearly state that Yu's bravery was unparalleled throughout history, with a clear record of killing hundreds of people, and he even charged into battle, taking heads from among thousands of soldiers.

From the Qin and Han dynasties to the Three Kingdoms period, and then to the Tang and Song dynasties, countless heroes and warriors emerged.

Are these people all about brute force? Are they just reckless brutes?
Even if there were no martial arts at the time, their talents alone could not have allowed them to create their own.
Martial arts only emerged in the last few centuries.
is it possible?
Chen Zhanxian started by reading books related to martial arts from recent years, including many newspaper reports.

A very famous event.

Two years ago, the Central Martial Arts Academy was established, and following the rules of the martial arts world, it was divided into the "Shaolin School" and the "Wudang School".

Based on the characteristics of martial arts, Tai Chi, Baguazhang, and Xingyiquan are classified as "internal martial arts" and belong to the Wudang school; other martial arts styles, such as Shaolin boxing, Taizu Changquan, and Twelve-Road Spring Leg, are classified as "external martial arts" and belong to the Shaolin school.

This classification method originated from the classification of internal and external martial arts styles in the "Epitaph for Wang Zhengnan" by Huang Zongxi, a great Confucian scholar in the early Qing Dynasty, and was quite popular from the late Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China period.

However, this division remains controversial, both now and in the future.

From Chen Zhan's current perspective, this is also very inappropriate.

The simplest reason is that all three major internal martial arts styles have external training methods, which are all good at training muscles, bones, and skin. However, there is a limit to how much muscle, bone, and skin can be trained; humans cannot truly harden their skin to the point of being as hard as iron.

Switching to internal training is an inevitable path.

The martial arts classified as external Shaolin styles, such as Taizu Changquan and Hongquan, are not simply external martial arts. They can also be practiced from the outside in. Once external skills are mastered to a certain level, they can be transformed into internal skills, ultimately achieving the same goal through different paths.

The difference is that external martial arts training produces results faster, while initially it is simply about training strength and resistance to blows.

Those with high talent can leave the mountain in six months and become masters in a year.

This high talent refers more to physical attributes, such as a broad back, thick waist, and bulging eyes, indicating a naturally robust physique.

Therefore, the forced division between internal and external martial arts, with Wudang being the internal school and Shaolin being the external school, has caused dissatisfaction among many in the martial arts world.

Upon seeing this, he began to take out relevant Shaolin and Wudang classics to read.

Shaolin needs no introduction; its lineage is ancient. Legend has it that Bodhidharma traveled east to spread Buddhist teachings during the Northern and Southern Dynasties period, which is a long enough time.

However, the martial arts recorded include the Seventy-Two Shaolin Arts, the Yi Jin Jing, the Shen Zu Jing, and so on.

There is no Shaolin Temple left today.

Some of them are Shaolin Five Elements and Five Symbols Fist, Shaolin Plum Blossom Fist, Shaolin Arhat Fist, and Shaolin Long Fist. These kung fu styles, when traced back to their origins, were created during the Ming and Qing dynasties.

Needless to say, Wudang has the Nine Palaces Eight Trigrams Sword, Wudang Tai Chi, Wudang Taiyi Five Elements Fist, and Wudang Xuan Gong Fist.

Although they are all secret traditions, they can be traced back to at most a few hundred years of history.

The more Chen Zhan looked, the more he felt something was wrong.

The decline in martial arts skills is more serious than I imagined.

Chinese civilization has been passed down for at least two thousand years since the Qin and Han dynasties without any signs of interruption. Various historical books, texts, and bronze artifacts provide very complete records.

However, there are absolutely no records of martial arts from a thousand years ago.

If one had to say, Chen Zhan only knew one exercise: the Five Animal Frolics, a health-preserving exercise traditionally created by Hua Tuo.
Thinking of this, Chen Zhan took out the "Eight Pieces of Brocade for Strengthening Internal Strength" that he had obtained from Ma San. This was a health-preserving exercise that was similar to traditional Chinese medicine, but with excellent effects. It could even strengthen the body's internal energy and blood.

This picture, I don't know which dynasty it was passed down from, is clearly not the original version. Even some of the annotations are written in the common characters used in the Republic of China era.

But the effects of this skill were the most terrifying Chen Zhan had ever seen.

Now that he has reached the Dantian stage, he has been practicing several diagrams, and each time he has made slight improvements. With his current blood and energy, if he continues to cultivate for ten or twenty years, who knows what level he will reach.

Perhaps without relying on luck to improve one's destiny, can "Qi and Blood Like a Tiger" advance on its own?
This martial art didn't seem like a product of this era to him; at least it had nothing to do with the three major internal martial arts or various external martial arts.

No internal or external martial arts style has a method to improve one's qi and blood so quickly. Of course, it is also very difficult. When he reached the level of mastery, his qi and blood combined with his talent made him no longer an ordinary master of mastery, but he still found it very difficult to cultivate. Each time he followed the diagram, he could only maintain the practice for half an hour.

Otherwise, that family would still have people practicing martial arts by now.

Possessing a treasure trove but being unable to cultivate one's skills, the suffering involved is difficult to describe.

At the time, Gong Baotian probably only knew that it was a strange skill, and couldn't possibly know its effects. Otherwise, he would have taken it by trickery or force. The desire of a Grandmaster of Internal Energy to achieve the Core Formation stage is extremely difficult to suppress.

However, this matter could not be verified. Later, Chen Zhan asked Gong Ruomei to inquire about it. The other party only said that it was passed down from their ancestors, and Gong Ruomei left some silver as compensation.

Chen Zhan read very quickly, finishing the books in about three hours. Among them were many subtle martial arts techniques, but none of them were useful to him.

However, it's still good to organize it so that it can be used by the disciples in the future.

In his conjecture, martial arts were perhaps much more flourishing hundreds of years ago than they are now. Without guns and cannons, everyone only had this one path, so it was impossible for them to be inferior to the talents of the three great masters of internal martial arts.

No records of a break in the lineage of martial arts have been found; it seems to have always been this way, and no one questions it.

However, in a book of miscellaneous notes, he saw a martial art that he had never encountered before, and had never even thought existed.

"Divine Strike Technique!"

Records indicate that it first spread in the southwest region. During the mid-Qing Dynasty, folk religions were active, and traces of "divine striking techniques" can be found in the southwest region.

The "Qinglian Sect," which emerged during the Daoguang era, claimed to use talismanic water to cure diseases. It asserted that those who drank the water would be possessed by a god and would be able to fight, a skill known as "Qinglian Divine Strike," which could be learned by both men and women.

Those who drink the talisman water perform amazing feats such as sitting on a board of nails, climbing a mountain of knives, and hitting themselves with a sledgehammer, claiming that they will not feel pain after "inviting the gods to possess them".

There is also the "piercing arrow" ritual of the Leizhou God Parade, in which a sharp arrow or wire is pierced through the face, which is also considered to be a manifestation of the "invitation of the god" in the spirit-striking technique.

There is also a type of spell that can, through specific rituals and incantations, allow deities or martial spirits to attach themselves to one's body.

Such incantations include: "A swift horse with a whip, the Supreme Lord Lao, one finger moves the Heavenly Gate, one finger opens the Earthly Gate, learn martial arts, invite the gods, Heaven and Earth are divine, I respectfully invite the Ancestral Master to manifest his power!"

They then began to punch as if possessed by a god, and felt no pain when attacked by others.

In different records and legends, the divine fighting technique manifests in various forms.

In earlier years, and in recent decades, the most widespread use of "divine striking techniques" was by folk organizations such as the Boxers and the Red Lanterns.

The red lantern illuminates the Holy Mother, and Lin Heier then proclaims himself invulnerable to swords and spears, capable of going into boiling oil and climbing mountains of knives, and omnipotent.

He knew these things before, but he hadn't thought about them in terms of "divine striking techniques".

Looking back now, Lin Heier's actions were essentially "self-deification," not much different from "inviting a god to possess one's body."

"Divine Strike" is a folk martial art with a mysterious aura, often associated with rituals involving spirit possession and various incantations, making it extremely terrifying.

From Chen Zhan's perspective in the eyes of later generations, this "divine fighting technique" may have been achieved through self-hypnosis, suggesting to oneself that one is a deity, thereby enhancing one's abilities in various aspects through mental suggestion, producing an effect similar to being possessed by a deity.

It is not impossible to be unafraid of pain after hypnosis.

However, the content explicitly recorded in the Boxer Rebellion and even in these books is not as simple as it seems.

After all, ordinary people are easy to fool, but martial arts practitioners are not.

A martial arts practitioner is essentially a half-master of magic; it's a pipe dream to think that such a method could fool a true expert, yet Lin Heier has never failed in a fight.

That's something worth pondering.

Chen Zhan thought it over and over. He couldn't verify the lack of a lineage in martial arts, but this kind of "divine fighting technique" was still circulating in many places, including Guangdong and Guangxi, and the Southwest. However, it was more often integrated into magic tricks, and no martial arts sects had ever heard of it being used.

When Chen Zhan came out of the house, it was already dark.

After talking with Ye Ningzhen for a while, Ye Ningzhen said, "Most of the things left by my aunt were looted when the Eight-Nation Alliance entered the city. People were in a hurry to leave and didn't have time to take anything with them. However, some of the things were recorded by the survivors and are stored in the Foshan Jinlou."

"Well, I'll pick out some of these books and put them on the bookshelf. I'll also ship them to the south."

"You don't want the rest?"

"No, these are just unofficial historical stories, they have no value."

"I'll go out and kill a few more people. I probably won't have time to go out tomorrow. The situation is urgent, and time is of the essence," Chen Zhan said to Ye Ningzhen, noticing that it was getting late.

Although it was just nightfall, the fog had reduced visibility even further.

"Okay, I'll arrange it."

Ye Ningzhen didn't really understand why Chen Zhan was in such a hurry, as if something was urging him from behind.

Despite the two men causing a huge scene in Fengtian, the Japanese made no further moves, as if they had given up.

Beiping was heavily fortified, and the Northeast Army was also strong and well-equipped. If a real battle broke out, with the Northeast Army outside the Great Wall and the Central Army and Northwest Army coming north to attack from both sides, could the Japanese army really win so easily?
She didn't quite understand, but she didn't question it; Chen Zhan's judgment had always been accurate throughout their journey.

Ye Ningzhen had also gotten used to relying on him.

(End of this chapter)