Shaolin Warrior Monks: Larger than Life

Hello, my name is Wang Yan and I’m a reporter with NewsChina. With our podcast, we aim to provide insight into the current trends of modern China allowing you to clearly see what’s happening today through a historical lens.

Today, we’re going to talk about how monks at the Shaolin Temple in central China’s Henan Province were trained to become Kungfu masters and fought to turn the wheels of fortune for an empire.

Four decades ago, a retired national martial arts champion debuted in a movie about how Shaolin monks saved a Tang emperor from a warlord. The movie, called Shaolin Temple, was an overnight success. This big-screen blockbuster not only propelled its leading actor Jet Li from a mere martial arts master to a full-fledged movie star, but it also made “Shaolin” a household word around the world.

The Shaolin Temple is arguably the most famous Buddhist temple in China, renowned for its Kungfu warrior monks. With amazing feats of strength, flexibility, and endurance of pain, the Shaolin monks have created a worldwide reputation as the ultimate Buddhist warriors.

Established in the year 495, the Shaolin Temple stands at the western foot of the Songshan Mountain in Dengfeng City of central China’s Henan Province. The then-Emperor Xiaowen of the Northern Wei Dynasty, existing from 386 to 557, had the temple built to accommodate the Indian monk BuddhabHadra. The style of Buddhism developed at the Shaolin Temple centered on Zen meditation and martial arts training.

To many, the combination of Zen meditation and martial arts training sounds paradoxical. Buddhism is generally considered a peaceful religion with an emphasis on principles such as non-violence, vegetarianism, and even self-sacrifice to avoid harming others. If that’s the case, how was it that Shaolin monks became the awe-inspiring warriors we know today?

Monk and Warrior in One

One legend has it that 32 years after BuddhabHadra established the temple another Indian monk called BodhidHarma arrived at the Shaolin Temple to preach Zen doctrines. He found that Shaolin monks were weak and unhealthy after practicing meditation for a long time. So, he developed martial arts to strengthen the monks and to protect them from the onslaught of wild animals as well.

The martial arts developed by BodhidHarma formed the basis of Shaolin Kungfu. Although Shaolin Kungfu is more often seen as a performance art today, Shaolin monks have served as “official soldiers” in different historical periods, playing a key role in defending the country in times of need.

The fortune of the Shaolin Temple rose with the ascension of the Tang Dynasty in 618. During the turmoil of the early Tang Dynasty, 13 Shaolin warrior monks rescued Li Shimin, then Prince of Qin and the future second Tang emperor Taizong, and helped him defeat a warlord named Wang Shichong. Wang had overthrown the preceding Sui Dynasty, lasting from 581 to 618, and set up a short-lived successor state before the establishment of the Tang Dynasty.

In recognition of their help, when Li Shimin took power, he rewarded the monks with land and wealth, and proclaimed the Shaolin Temple as the imperial temple of the Tang Dynasty and the Supreme Temple of China. Over the next few centuries, the Shaolin Temple thrived as a Kungfu center with masters from around the country.

The story of the movie Shaolin Temple was adapted from this episode out of history. It is the earliest military campaign that Shaolin monks took part in. They established an impression of upholding justice with their demonstrated combat skills. Afterwards, whenever the country was in trouble, the Shaolin monks would charge forward to serve the country.

Fighting Japanese Pirates

One of the most colorful stories told to exemplify the Shaolin warriors was a time they were called upon to drive off bands of Japanese pirates. In the 15th and 16th centuries, Japan was in a state of great unrest. The SenGoKu Period saw all of Japan plunge into small-scale regional wars. Many defeated samurais and impoverished farmers turned to piracy. They often occupied offshore islands near the coast of China and raided Chinese coastal cities. These Japanese pirates were called wokou, literally “dwarf pirates”. The silk and metal goods they raided from China could be sold at 10 times their normal price in Japan.

During the same period, the Chinese Ming Dynasty had problems of its own. Although the dynasty would hang on to power until 1644, by the mid-1500s, it was beset by nomadic raiders from both the north and the west. While the elite imperial troops were concentrated in the north to deal with the Mongols, the southeast coastal lines became a soft spot susceptible to maritime offenses.

In 1523, two Japanese warlords fought for the right to trade with the Ming empire in Ningbo, in east China’s Zhejiang Province. Their fights wreaked havoc in the coastal areas. Ming Emperor Jiajing issued an order to forbid trade with Japan. However, this well-intentioned closed-door policy unexpectedly made things worse.

Similar to today, many people in the coastal areas at that time made a living by going out to sea, but the ban on trade completely cut off their livelihoods. So, rather than sit and do nothing, especially given the weakened state of the imperial forces, the more unscrupulous fishermen in the area colluded with the Japanese to loot, pillage, and plunder, even kill. Chinese officials and businessmen were also sometimes enticed by the profits and engaged in smuggling.

According to the record of the Ming History, one of the official Chinese historical works known as the Twenty-Four Histories, the so-called Japanese pirates were in fact a motley crew of Japanese, Chinese, and even some Portuguese, with the “real” Japanese accounting for only about 30 percent.

In 1548, Emperor Jiajing sent an official to supervise the military affairs in southeast China’s Fujian Province. The official put 96 pirates to death. By doing this, however, he interfered with the vested interests of local bureaucrats and businessmen. He was forced to commit suicide in the end. After that, none of the officials dared to mention the Japanese pirates in front of the emperor.

More surprisingly, when the Ming court sent the imperial army to crack down on the Japanese pirates, the local people assisted the Japanese in resisting. Once, a tiny force of 72 Japanese pirates, some say it was as few as 53, had the gall to besiege Nanjing, an important city in the south of the Yangtze River with tens of thousands of soldiers in garrison. The Ming army suffered 8- to- 900 casualties, while the Japanese pirates managed to escape barely harmed.

Thus, when the imperial army and navy troops proved unable to stamp out the pirate menace, the Ming court decided to mobilize the well-trained Shaolin warrior monks as a last resort to destroy the Japanese pirates.

The monks fought the pirates in at least four battles, with the second battle achieving the greatest victory. It was the Battle of Weng-Jia-Gang, which was fought in the Huangpu River Delta in July of 1553. 

Two months before the battle, 120 Shaolin warrior monks set off for Song-Jiang. There they prepared leather and bamboo armor for the battle. In terms of weapons, they forged 24 steel pitchforks, 24 hooked spears, and 12 iron rods. They learned from the imperial army how to line up in combat formation and organized themselves into 10 squads.

By contrast, Japanese pirates were known to engage the enemy in very disorderly formations. They divided themselves into groups of about 30 people, with each group separated by a mile or two, and when needed, they blew the conch shell horns as their signal to rally. The Shaolin monks formulated corresponding strategies – the cavalry marched in the front to clear the road, while the infantry followed and advanced in horizontal ranks instead of in vertical columns to avoid being overrun.

In combat, the monks divided themselves into teams of 7 soldiers. Within each team, they maintained carefully calculated formations to maximize the synergy of different weapons. When the battle started, the monks with long spears rushed to the enemies at the forefront. The monks with hooked spears followed to attack the feet of the enemies. In the meantime, the monks with bows and crossbows and firearms discharged them simultaneously.

In the Battle of Weng-Jia-Gang, the Shaolin warrior monks annihilated about 100 Japanese pirates. Subsequently, they assisted the imperial army in launching a counterattack that wiped out a total of 250. Their fight against the Japanese pirates lasted until 1555, after Ming General Qi Ji-Guang established his disciplined and elite army called “Qi family army”. After another 10 years of fighting, peace finally returned to the southeast coastal areas.

Well, that’s the end of our podcast. We want to thank you for listening and hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please tell a friend. For our writer Lv Weitao, translator Yang Guang, and copy editor Pu Ren, I’m Wang Yan. See you next time!