General Yu and the Escaping
Pirates
At 55 years old General Yu Dayou was renown for his
military planning. He was suppressing pirates that had
been launching raids from their stronghold on Zhou Shan
Island, making repeated attacks off the coast of the
heavily populated Zhe Jiang Province. Though General
Yu’s naval troops had besieged Zhou Shan Island they
were repeatedly frustrated in their attempts to take it
over, After almost a year General Yu’s opportunity
appeared, spies reported that the pirates had grown
tired of the harassment and planned to escape Zhou Shan
Island. But, Yu’s superior, Supreme Commander Hu refused
permission for the attack and simply let them sail away.
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Ship
formations from the time of General Yu |
The Arrest of General Yu
The pirates successfully escaped Yu’s area of
responsibility and sailed to Fu Jian where they
continued raiding the countryside. A censor of Fu Jian,
enraged by the sudden influx of bandits and pirates,
accused Supreme Commander Hu of deliberately sending
them to Fu Jian so that he wouldn’t have to deal with
them. Supreme Commander Hu immediately suspected that
General Yu, a Fu Jian native, had made the pirates
release known to the censor of Fu Jian.
In April of 1559 Supreme Commander Hu had General Yu
arrested, ironically, the charge was failing to pursue
those same pirate fleets that had escaped Zhou Shan
Island. General Yu was impeached from office and
dismissed.
Between the time of General Yu’s dismissal and his later
reinstatement on the ‘barbarian frontier,’ sometime in
1567, he finished the martial classic, Compilation of
the Righteous Hall. It includes the famous Sword
Classic, detailing Yu’s stick fighting method known
as "Jing Chu Long Sword" as well as several general
formulas that can apply to both empty hand and weapons
fighting.
‘Governing
Formula of Mantis Hands,’ Cui Shoushan’s mantis
manuscript, is a rewriting of Yu Dayou’s (General Yu)
formulas. One of the most interesting of the formulas
defines hard and soft.
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Yu Dayou
Straight through the center 8
hard 12 soft.
Shave when high roll when low divide left and
right.
For striking and killing connect high, low, left
and right.
The moving hands follow each other and work
together. |
Mantis
Formula
Straight through the center
apply hard and soft.
Raise when high, roll when low divide left and
right.
When moving your hands connect high, low, left
and right.
The moving hands follow each other and work
together. |
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| "Raise when
high," When a strike enters high, push it up so
you can attack below. "Roll when low," when a
strike enters low your first hand keeps it low,
second hand controls it and third hand enters. |
Taking Advantage of His Strength
Most of the old mantis forms and theories have either a
preface or postscript which gives some formula
for the application of the techniques. The eight elbows
form, one of the oldest forms of mantis has a
postscript which is almost exactly the same as Yu
Dayou’s formula;
Yu
Dayou’s version
Hard is applied before encountering his strength.
Soft takes advantage of his strength.
He moves in haste while I calmly wait.
Through knowledge of striking can you fight
accordingly.
This is the
definitive explanation of hard and soft. The sentence,
’He moves in haste while I calmly wait.’ predates
the first appearance of the main principle of the
internal school of martial arts by 100 years written by
Huang Zongyi in 1669, ”...the internal school uses
stillness to prevail over movement.”
I strike the
opponent with an unbendable force and take advantage of
his defense to enter. This is to 'take advantage of
the opponent's strength.' A principle first written
by Yu Dayou but later used by Mantis Boxing and other
styles to describe a fundamental fighting theory
More
Articles
Information on Yu Dayou from The
Cambridge History of China Vol. 7 Part I
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