ching or ming dynasty!!

[fiercest tiger]

hi everyone!

a lot of good systems and great masters where in the ching era, revolutionaries and societies where developed at this time.

but.....

do you think the ming era had good or better fighters and systems?

are many of these styles around or were lots wiped out lost or forgotten?

thanks :D

peace

bakmeimonk@hotmail.com

[Tekarius]

I think Hsing I chuang was made in the Ming Dynasty by Gerneral Gnoak Fei or Yuan Fei in manderine. But Im not too sure dude.

[Kung Lek]

It is said that the Ming dynasty encouraged the greatest growth in all arts and sciences when compared to other dynasties of china.

The Ming dynasty was considered the "Golden" age.
Everything from painting and music to martial arts in the temples and philosophical thought were brought to a zenith in this era.

The ching came after and saught more of a militaristic control over the peoples so much of the cultural growth that occured in the Ming dynasty was lost during the ching dynasty.

There has been and probably always be an element of martial arts as a culturally ingrained aspect of the chinese peoples.

The ming were very tolerant to new ideas, the ching were not.

peace

Kung Lek

[MoQ]

that chided the Ming to get down and martialize the populace.
Destroy the Ching!
Restore the Ming!
Destroy the Ching!
Restore the Ming!
Destroy the Ching!
Restore the Ming!

[Kung Lek]

true.

The Ching were also not from the ancestral lines of the chinese rulers.
Their incursion into China brought many martial arts to the average citizen that would have otherwise be stored in the life of a monk in a temple far from the cities and common folk.

It was indeed the goal of the Shaolin (who suffered the destruction of their temple under the ching) to kick the ching out and restore the Ming who supported the temple and in fact made it quite wealthy and an incredible repository of knowledge of many things from agriculture and astronomy to philosophy and the martial arts.
The same was true of other temples be they Taoist or "other" ha ha.

also, legend has it, it is with this ching takeover where the Lion Dance became connected with martial arts practice. Truly an interesting story there.
The casting out of the greens is in direct relation to casting out the ching. The Lion would tear up the greens (choi chiang) chiang and ching sound similar, ching transliterates to green, and spit them away. Thereby representing the prosperity and luck of the Lion to be the casting out of the Ching!

peace

Kung Lek

[Paul Skrypichayko]

Ngok Fei / Yue Fei was from the time of the southern Song dynasty. This was also the beginning of the Yuan dynasty.

[Ben Gash]

The Ming dynasty was the golden age of the northern arts, while the Ching saw the proliferation of southern styles.
During the Ming Dynasty there was the creation of such styles as the shaolin 5 animals fist, Zhaquan, Praying Mantis, Faantze Yingjow, Baji, and other lesser known northen styles. The Ching came from the north, meaning that those fleeing had to go south, which led to the rise of the south as a hotbed of revolutionary activity and martial arts development.

"Weapons are the embodiments of fear,
the wise use them only when they have no choice"
Lao Tzu

[sifuchuck]

A common saying during the end-days of many Chinese Dynasties when they became weak militarily and leaders spent more time in liesurly pursuits and debauchery. I think this happened to the Mings as well. Internal collapse and open rebellion is what led to the Manchu incursion.

After that, Ming loyalists never did overcome the Chings. I think the Tang Dynasty had some of the strongest and most courageous fighters.

[Turiyan]

What a joke. This was a *******ization of the chinese saying:

Unable to distingish between ching and wu (something like that). There is a muddy river and a clear river in china.

And a modification of "overthrow the darkness and overthrow the light".

Many of these "rebel" or "freedom fighter" societys were in fact classified as worse than "barbarians" from the north.

And even the rulers/king the imfamous martial arts hero's of lore PAID TRIBUTE to the Mongol or Manchu or Hun empires.

This includes the Trang dynasty and other adjacent non-chinese dynastys in asia.

Most of these pulp fiction hero's were executed at one time anyways for violation of protocols/treatys of some kind eventually...

Turiyan, Brahmin caste, Ordos clan

The REAL taichi:
http://www.wfdesign.com/tc/
http://www.wustyle.com/108.html

[WongFeHung]

"most of these 'rebel' or 'freedom fighters' were classified as barbarians by the north"
Gee...ya think? riddle me this, Batman, do you think they celebrate the 4t of July in England? Do you think the Brits look at the colonists as "patriots?" Do Native Americans celebrate Columbus Day", Do nazis recognize the halocaust? Heck, China still refers to Taiwan as " a disobediant stepchild"

[Ming Fai]

I'm a graduate student of Chinese Translation & Interpreting and furthermore I have been studying Chinese history since the age of 12 (autodidactic). What is really annoying me these couple of years is the misconception, among martial artists in particular, that the Ming was "good" and the Qing was "evil", IT JUST AIN'T TRUE!!!

Kunglek from Winnipeg wrote that the Ming dynasty was considered the Golden Age in Chinese history and that the Qing dynasty was a period of suppression of the Chinese people by the Manchurians. This idea is very common amongst practitioners of Chinese Martial Arts in the West, and ONLY in the West. Everyone who knows Chinese history, like every citizen of the Chinese regions (People's Republic of China, Taiwan, Hongkong and Singapore) where Chinese history is taught at school knows that this is not true.

The Ming dynasty was not a "Golden Age", on the contrary this dynasty is known in Chinese history as the Age of Darkness. Some of the Ming emperors never showed up in the throne hall to discuss political affairs with their ministers during their lives. Because the ministers never saw their monarch, the real power slowly moved into the hands of the eunuchs, who were the personal servants of the emperor. During the reign of the Ming emperors which lasted for 294 years, corrupt eunuchs and spies roamed the land, harrassing and killing innocent citizens or political enemies. Emperor Zhengde, who reigned during 1506-1522, visited the south of China many times. On each visit he and his soldiers raped women, robbed and killed the inhabitants of entire villages. At the end of the Ming dynasty bandits and rebels where rising in every part of the empire. This gave the Manchurians the chance to invade China, but even if the Manchurian invasion did not happened, the Ming dynasty would also have ended and the Chinese empire would have split into many small states battling eachother. It were actually the Manchurians who re-established the social order in China.

In Chinese history there were three Golden Ages: the Han dynasty (BC 206 -AD 220),
the Tang Dynasty (618-907) and the Qing(!) Dynasty (1644-1911). The Qing empire was 3 times bigger than the Ming empire at it's peak. The Manchurians were seen by the Han-Chinese as barbarians, because the Manchurians were not as civilised as the Han-Chinese. But while the Ming emperors were used to luxury, the Qing emperors led simple lives. Here are some statistics:


Number of female servants
(Ming) 9000 (Qing) 134
Number of eunuchs
(Ming) 100.000 (Qing) 500
Daily expenses
(Ming) 10.000 Liang (Qing) 35 Liang

The Ming dynasty had 16 emperors and they were either brutal tyrants or incompetent idiots. The Qing dynasty, on the other hand, had 13 emperors and four of them were the best emperors in China's history while the rest were also quite capable monarchs.
If the Ming dynasty did not collapse and would have lasted till the following centuries than China would have most likely been colonised and divided by Western Imperialism like it happened with Africa. That could have been the end of Chinese culture.

Although at the beginning of the Qing dynasty many martial artists indeed tried to rebel against the Qing government, and they were the founders of many Southern styles of Kungfu, we must understand that they did not had the ability to predict the future and did not know that the Manchurians would led China into a new Golden Era. Our Grandmasters were only aware of the fact that a foreign tribe has conquered their homeland and they indeed had a good reason to rebel. But nowadays we are able to know the entire history of that period and should give credit to those who deserve it. Only because these martial artists founded the kungfu styles that we practice does not mean that their political ideas were right. I am of Han-Chinese origin myself and I think that all Chinese people and practitioners of Chinese martial arts should thank the Manchurians for preserving China's unity and culture.

[WongFeHung]

Half my family is from Guangdong, they will be the first to tell you that many Cantonese people, for the most part, still refer to themselves as Han, and resent the Mandarin. I'm not saying this is right or wrong, it just is.

[Kung Lek]

Hi-

Ming Fai, I am inclined to disagree with you.

First of all, Chinese history is now so convoluted that it is very difficult to tell what the truth is about any period in times past.

The Ming was a golden Age, and there is corruption in any Dynasty under any emperor.
There were cultural developments in all eras of history of China.

In the Arts and sciences you cannot deny that there were huge leaps forward in development during the Ming dynasty. With a tremendous drop when the Manchus raided the country and instilled "THEIR" culture. Which was more Mongol than Chinese.

The Ming dynasty was a chief supporter of the Shaolin Temple and with the grants and edicts given too and for Shaolin Temple huge progress was made up until the point of the destruction at the hands of the Ching.

So, in the end, yes, all dynasties had their good points and bad points, but the Ming had some really good points.
I think your "age of darkness" story is likely coming from a PRC interpretation of the history and fed back to the people as gospel and truth.

Personally, PRC chinese history has about as much value to me as a roll of toilet paper.
Now that is corruption and Lies.

If I take a side, it is because I am bound to do so. People in the west are not idiots. The West is in my opinion the current seat of enlightenment despite all the troubles that ensue from exposing the masses to an education that is no longer structured by a scholastic regime.

Information is free flowing and the reader learner must learn to be discerning.

Information in the east is a lot more difficult to come by, especially in the areas as being discussed here.
The last thing the PRC wants it's people to know is how other eras may have been better than communism/socialism.

peace

Kung Lek

[fiercest tiger]

i love hearing about history of china, is there any good books that give an actual real view of what was really happening in these dynastys?

you guys are giving some good info-thanks!! :D

peace

bakmeimonk@hotmail.com

[Ming Fai]

Kung Lek,

"I think your "age of darkness" story is likely coming from a PRC interpretation of the history and fed back to the people as gospel and truth."

I was born and raised in Europe but I have lived in Taiwan, Hongkong and Beijing. I can assure that I am not biased towards any side. I base my conclusions on information that I have gathered throughout the years, Chinese material from Hongkong, Taiwan, Singapore and PRC as well as Western material. Some of the Chinese material were written before the Communist regime. Above all, if the PRC wants to feed the people altered history, they would most likely do that with the history of the Nationalist Republic (1912-1949) or the Qing dynasty which lasted till 1911). But why should the Chinese Communists alter the history of the Ming dynasty, a period of 500 years ago? What would be their gain? That's a bit contradictory, isn't it?

"PRC chinese history has about as much value to me as a roll of toilet paper. Now that is corruption and Lies."
I was wondering if you have ever been to China. From what I saw in Bejing and Shanghai the information about the emperial ages of China is fairly accurate. I made a comparison with material from Taiwan and it is almost identical.

"If I take a side, it is because I am bound to do so. People in the west are not idiots. The West is in my opinion the current seat of enlightenment despite all the troubles that ensue from exposing the masses to an education that is no longer structured by a scholastic regime."

Well, Kung Lek, I am no idiot either. I won't believe everything that is told in books. I will compare my information and draw my own conclusions. But if the USA represents the West, then I don't think that they are "enlightened". Americans tend to know everything about their own history but basically nothing about the rest of the world.

"In the Arts and sciences you cannot deny that there were huge leaps forward in development during the Ming dynasty. With a tremendous drop when the Manchus raided the country and instilled "THEIR" culture. Which was more Mongol than Chinese."
Well, I don't know of any leap in arts and sciences during the Ming dynasty except for the development on literature. During the Ming dynasty many great literary works were written, like "Water Margin", "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and "Journey to the West". But this was actually caused by the tyranny of the Ming, many scholars were unhappy about society and began to write novels, dreaming of a better world where heroes would rise against the corrupt government. China always had a head start in the fields of technology and science compared to the rest of the world. It was only when the Ming emperors began the stagnation of the scholastic system that Chinese civilisation began to decline.
The Manchurians didn't had a culture of high standards. When they conquered China, they embraced Chinese culture. The only thing they instilled was the tradition for men to wear their hair in a pig-tail.

If I was not sure about this matter I would not have dared to enter this discussion. Isn't it very common for martial artists to ignore or attack the ones who have different ideas and theories? So don't start about the PRC, look at the people who are around you... are they any better?

I'm not attacking anyone here. I respect every nation in the world. I respect every martial artist and his/her style. But I just think that the knowledge you guys (Kung Lek and the others) have is a bit superficial.

Please go and ask a Chinese person who has some knowledge of Chinese history about the Ming and the Qing.