The Anti-Japanese Struggle of the Southern Shaolin Monks and Soldiers

The Japanese invasion during the Jiajing and Longqing periods of the 16th century shook the southeastern coast of China under the Ming Dynasty. The Ming Dynasty's sea defense was slack, and the coastal guards had "one or two of their warships and sentry ships left," and only four-tenths of their soldiers were left, while the remaining troops were extremely weak due to the corrupt system and the lack of military discipline. The Japanese invaders relied on the well-made Japanese swords and the strange, deceitful and secretive swordsmanship, which made it difficult for the Ming Dynasty guards to cope with the enemy, and at that time, "the guards in Jiangnan had become a sham", which led to the absurd incident of the Japanese invaders "sixty-seven of them traveled thousands of miles and killed and wounded thousands of people". The Ming Dynasty *** in the last resort. Ming Dynasty *** in the situation of last resort, and then had to draft all over the countryside soldiers, Shaolin monks is one of the most valiant armed forces. On this matter, all kinds of historical notes in the record more, in addition to the "Ming History", such as Zheng Ruozeng's "Jiangnan Strategy", Zhang Nai's "Japanese change Zhi" and Gu Yanwu's "Zhizhilu" and other books are recorded.

Zhu Yunjin's "I multiply the time small record" says: "Ming time Japanese rebellion, the chief producer Hu Zongxian began to use the Shaolin monks soldiers."

"Cloud magazine" said, Jiajing dec ugly (553 years), the Japanese first to the sea ...... by the House of Cai Gong Kequan, called the Shaolin monks more than a hundred people, the first number of the moon empty, the second number of nature, alongside the thieves camped.

Zhejiang Ningbo, Wan table in the "sea pirates" wrote: at the time of the sea pirates infestation, for the Jiangzhe suffer ...... after the Japanese chaos, Wan table knot Shaolin monks, learning fighting method, repeatedly wipe out their crowd.

The Battle of Hangzhou: (553 AD) In this year, the Japanese invaded Hangzhou. According to the records, at that time, "Hangzhou city closed", "the three divisions led the monk soldiers 40 people to defend", "greatly broken the Japanese invaders". This team of monks and soldiers "was led by Tianzhen and Tianchi". This was the first battle in which monks and soldiers participated in the fight against Japanese invasion, and also the first victory of monks and soldiers in the fight against Japanese invasion. Zheng Ruozeng's "Record of the First Victory of the Monk Soldiers in Jiangnan" details the victory of the monk soldiers. The first victory of the monk soldiers" recorded in detail that soon after that, "84 monks from Suzhou" led by Tianmen and "18 monks from Hangzhou" led by Yuekong participated in several battles.

*** army generals also tested the martial arts of the monks

According to the record of the first victory of the monks, before the battle of Hangzhou, Hangzhou *** army generals were skeptical of the martial arts of the monks, and so also designed a test. Recruitment of monks lonely boat to a banquet, secretly ambush the eight teachers of martial arts. Lone boat single came, eight teachers from the side jumped out, each holding a stick randomly hit Lone boat. Lone Zhou wrapped the sleeve of his monk's robe around the stick of one of them, snatched the stick off, and then counterattacked the eight with the stick, and the eight fell down in response to the stick. The monks were able to participate in the Battle of Hangzhou after Lone Boat convinced the Hangzhou generals with his superior martial arts skills in this competition.

After the encounter between the Southern Shaolin monks and the Japanese, the Japanese thought that they were just a group of enraged civilians, and did not realize that they were a regular army handpicked by the Chinese emperor. When the Japanese soldiers charged the monks with their swords, they were hit harder than they had ever been hit before. ------ monks with sticks were actually so strong in battle! The Japanese regarded this as a disgrace, and they made an even more foolish decision: they took the initiative to seek out and annihilate the monk regiments ------ A group of small pirates challenged the elite armed forces of the empire!