The invasion of the Manchus and the subsequent founding of the Ch’ing dynasty (A.D. 1644-1911) signaled the decline of the Shaolin temple organization. The Manchus, as foreign invaders attempting to assert control over a vast territory of hostile natives, made it a priority to eliminate all possible sources of resistance. They naturally regarded with great suspicion the famous fighting monks of the Shaolin temple organization. In 1736, the Ch’ing emperor ordered an attack on the Fukien Shaolin temple. With the assistance of a traitorous monk, the temple was destroyed and many of the monks killed.
While Ch’ing harassment was undoubtedly unpleasant for the Shaolin monks, in a strange way it ultimately proved beneficial to the growth of the Chinese martial arts. Prior to the Ch’ing dynasty, the practice of Chinese kung-fu was largely restricted to disciples of the Shaolin temple organization. With the destruction of the Fukien temple, however, a number of Shaolin monks fled into the countryside, where, for the first time, they began to teach their arts to ordinary people. Throughout the remainder of the Ch’ing dynasty, Shaolin kung-fu continued to spread outside the confines of the temple walls. In this manner, just as a forest fire sparks the growth of new trees, the persecution of the Shaolin temple organization was the catalyst for the dissemination and renewed growth of Chinese kung-fu during the nineteenth century.
In the waning years of the Ch’ing dynasty, the Shaolin temples were allowed to resume activity without interference, but their importance as the center of Chinese kung-fu continued to diminish into the early years of the twentieth century. In 1911, the imperial government was overthrown, and the country was subsequently divided into territories controlled by various local warlords. Eventually, the Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek embarked upon a campaign to strip the warlords of their power and reunify the country under central leadership. This campaign proved to be the final undoing for the Shaolin temple in Honan Province.
In 1927, Chiang dispatched General Feng Yu-hsiang to Honan Province to fight the warlord Fan Chung-hsiu. It so happened that the abbot of the Shaolin temple, Miao Hsing, was a good friend of Warlord Fan. General Feng soon rousted Fan in battle, forcing the latter to take refuge in the Shaolin temple. When Feng arrived to capture Fan, Miao Hsing ordered his monks to attack the government troops in a bid to save the vanquished warlord. In the ensuing skirmish the monks were no match for the guns of Feng’s soldiers and many were killed, including Miao Hsing. After the battle, Feng ordered the temple burned to the ground.5
Although this was the final straw for the Shaolin temple organization, the study and practice of Chinese kung-fu continued to flourish in the countryside. It was during this period that a number of lay organizations dedicated to the martial arts were founded. The first of these, the Ching Wu Association, was established in Shanghai in 1909.
In 1927, the newly restored Republican government created the Central Kuo Shu Institute in Nanking to consolidate, organize, and promote Chinese kung-fu. The institute brought together five famous martial artists, known to posterity as the Five Tigers of Northern China. One of the Five Northern Tigers was the Pek Sil Lum and ch’i kung expert Ku Ju-chang, whose student Lung Tze-hsiang was later to become Lai Hung’s Pek Sil Lum instructor.
A few years later, the Five Northern Tigers went to Canton and established a second institute along with a group of renowned masters known as the Five Tigers of Southern China. One of the Five Southern Tigers was a Choy Lay Fut expert named T’an San, whose pupil Li Ch’ou was later to become Lai Hung’s Choy Lay Fut instructor.
In 1937, the Japanese invaded China and the nation spent the next eight years at war. Later, as World War II drew to a close, the Chinese became embroiled in a civil war between the Nationalist government and Communist insurgents. After the Chinese Communists ascended to power in 1949, Chinese kung-fu came to be regarded as an unpleasant relic of the past. Many Chinese martial artists eventually emigrated to Hong Kong, Singapore, and other parts of the world, where they could continue to practice their arts without interference. And so this tradition lives on today.
There is a curious footnote to the story of the Shaolin temple organization. During the kung-fu craze that swept the world in the 1970s and again in the early 1980s, a number of movies featuring heroic Shaolin monks were filmed. Before long, kung-fu fans around the world came to regard the Shaolin temple organization as the ultimate martial arts academy. When China eventually opened its gates to tourism, visitors clamored to see the Honan temple. Unfortunately, by this time the temple had fallen into a state of great disrepair. The Chinese government soon recognized that the temple represented a potential tourist gold mine, and initiated a program to have it refurbished. While there is currently some debate over whether the monks now inhabiting the Shaolin temple in Honan are truly Shaolin disciples or simply kung-fu performers capitalizing on the tourist industry, it is now possible for anyone to pay for instruction at this historic site!
Chapter 3
The Origin of Pek Sil Lum
The roots of Pek Sil Lum are obscure and open to debate. No one knows I for sure when the system originated, what styles influenced it, or who exactly was responsible for developing its ten primary forms. Yet without exception, all legitimate Pek Sil Lum instructors today trace their lineage back to one of the twentieth century’s most celebrated martial artists: Ku Ju-chang (Fig. 1).
Ku Ju-chang was born in Chiangsu Province around 1894. His father, Ku Lei-chi, owned a business that provided armed escorts for merchants and rich civilians traveling through the bandit-infested roads leading to and from Nanking. Ku Lei-chi apparently had a connection to the Honan Shaolin temple and was himself an accomplished practitioner of the martial art style known as t’an t’ui, which originated within China’s small Muslim community. The elder Ku died when Ju-chang was about fourteen years old, but before passing away, he told his son to seek out a Shaolin monk named Yen Chi-wen, who was at that time living in Shantung Province. Two years later, at the age of sixteen, Ku Ju-chang left home to begin his studies with Yen Chi-wen. By most accounts, Ju-chang studied with Yen Chi-wen for eleven years, mastering various Shaolin temple styles. Whether the ten primary forms of Pek Sil Lum were passed on to Ku Ju-chang directly from Yen Chi-wen is impossible to say. It does seem likely, however, that Yen Chi-wen taught Ku Ju-chang the iron palm and ch’i kung techniques that later made him famous throughout China.
Ku Ju-chang had already attained some fame by the late 1920s, when he participated in a martial arts competition sponsored by the National government and the martial arts community. He is said to have finished among the top ten in this competition, which was, by most accounts, the largest and most prestigious ever witnessed in China up to that point. Around the time of this competition, the Nanking Central Kuo Shu Institute was founded, and Ku Ju-chang was invited to serve as one of its martial arts instructors. The institute succeeded in bringing together the preeminent martial artists of the day, known as the Five Tigers of Northern China. This select group included Ku Ju-chang, Wan Lai-sheng, Fu Chen-sung, and Li Hsien-wu. Aspiring martial artists flocked to the institute to take advantage of the opportunity to study with these renowned masters.
A year or so later, these five patriarchs went to Kwangtung Province to assist in the organization of a second Kuo Shu Institute in Kwangchou. There, they were joined in their endeavors by a group of famous martial artists known as the Five Southern Tigers, most notably among them a Choy Lay Fut practitioner named T’an San (Fig. 2). Ku Ju-chang opened a school not far from T’an San’s academy, and these two eventually came to openly exchange both knowledge and students. It seems likely that both T’an San and Ku Ju-chang incorporated techniques learned from the other into their respective styles, perhaps modifying them as a result.
In addition to his exchange with T’an San, Ku Ju-chang is said to have studied a variety of other styles with famous masters, including