I expanded a short paper I wrote a while ago on the history of the Yijin Jing. The first section shows how the purported author published it during a time of great political and economic turmoil when China was threatened by internal rebellion and external invasion. The second shows how the exercise came to be associated with martial heroes in later Chinese popular culture because the manual alludes to noted fictional and historical strongmen. And the third shows how the Classic influenced patriotic martial artists struggling against the foreign rulers of the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911) to attribute their boxing styles to Yue Fei and/or pay homage to him in their writings. Comments are welcome...

http://historum.com/blogs/ghostexorc...g-classic.html