In a Hong Kong TV series, Li Bai is played as a martial arts master, and I saw some serious people criticizing it: "Hong Kong TV dramas are too nonsense, too dramatic, and they actually play Li Bai as a martial arts master, and a Li Bai story into a martial arts movie."

Although there are a lot of jokes in Hong Kong TV dramas, the role of Li Bai as a martial arts master should not be far from the historical facts. The real Li Bai in history, martial arts should be quite good. He had been learning swordsmanship since he was 15 years old, had learned from the masters of his time, had long lived as a ranger, and, according to the hints in his own poems, seemed to have been an assassin, and could not have been a lowly martial artist. He had traveled all over the world, had no planes or even a bicycle, and was not afraid of encountering robbers, so he was obviously in good health. If we portray Li Bai as a neurotic poet, who is weak and powerless, then we are really joking about Li Bai.

The bigger misunderstanding is Confucius, the image of Confucius in most people's minds should be similar to the old teacher in our movie, thin and slightly hunchbacked, and the image of a martial arts master has nothing to do with it.

We don't know for sure what Confucius's martial arts were, but he calmly coped with all kinds of difficulties with superhuman wisdom throughout his life, and did not encounter a situation where he had to fight and compete on his own. What's more, there is Zilu among the students, and Zilu is sure that he is a martial arts master at that time, and he doesn't need to let his teacher take action. However, at least I have a reasonable guess that Confucius was by no means thin and weak, and his martial arts should be good. First of all, from the genetic point of view, Confucius's father's uncle Liang Su was one of the top martial arts masters in the Lu country at that time, and he was able to lift a thousand catties of gates. Of course, just looking at genetics is not enough evidence to be sufficient evidence, for example, Fang Zuming, the son of kung fu actor Jackie Chan, cannot make martial arts movies. Maybe Confucius is more like a mother? However, Confucius is tall and abnormally tall, and he is a well-known "elder man" in the Lu State, and it is estimated that he is still more like his father. In addition, among the six arts taught by Confucius, in addition to poetry, writing, etiquette, and music, there were also archery and royalty, which was an out-and-out martial art at that time. Archery is archery, and the royal is to drive a chariot, which is equivalent to what we now call shooting technology and racing technology. Moreover, Confucius also clearly expressed a high degree of confidence in his archery skills. If he wasn't a martial arts master, with his modest character, how could he boast of being a master in front of all the students of martial arts masters, including Zilu!

In fact, in ancient China, especially before the Song Dynasty, it was not uncommon for literati to have martial arts. Therefore, some of the literati with strong martial arts are not outliers. Ban Chao can throw a pen from Rong, and it is precisely because he is in good health. When Zu Ti heard the chicken, he did not get up and dance ballroom dance, but sword dance, and practiced martial arts.

Dating back to the pre-Qin period, in fact, the requirements for "scholars" were both civil and military, and most of the scholars at that time were indeed able to be civil and military. Even later, there was a division of labor between scribes and samurai, and scribes tended to double as samurai. The literati of the Han, Jin, Sui and Tang dynasties practiced martial arts, and they were not peculiar. The gradual formation of the image of Chinese literati as weak and powerless began in the Song Dynasty.

Song Taizu Zhao Kuangyin himself was born as a military general, but after becoming a country, he was deeply wary of martial artists. He believes that martial artists are often the culprits of wars, and if the world is peaceful, martial artists cannot be allowed to have too high status and power. Therefore, the high-profile emphasis on literature over military force, the top student in the civil examination, can wear red and flowers to boast in the market, but the status of military generals is far lower than that of civilian officials, and even close to criminals. Even Di Qing, a famous general of a generation, will still be despised by civil officials. Among the literati of the Song Dynasty, there were also martial arts masters, such as Xin Qiji, who was able to lead hundreds of people into a camp of more than 200,000 people and assassinate the traitors in the camp. However, his fate was also to be stripped of his military power. After that, the tendency of literati to "literate" rather than "martial" gradually strengthened, and finally formed the image of literati in the minds of modern Chinese - weak, sissy and timid like Peking Opera Xiaosheng. When encountering things, they have no assertion or courage, and they often need beauties to save them. Their only strength is that they are "good at reading" and can be admitted to the top score.

Does whether a scholar become a martial arts master or not has an impact on the Chinese national character? In my opinion, this is not only there, but it is also not small, we imagine that if Li Bai does not practice swordsmanship and his body is weak and weak, can we still imagine that he will have that kind of majestic spirit like a great peng? Although psychological courage does not depend entirely on physical strength, physical weakness tends to weaken a person's mental strength and weaken one's courage and mental strength, which is a definite tendency. A man as feminine as a Peking Opera student may be as careful as a hair, but in terms of decisiveness, it is generally relatively poor. Reading itself may not require a strong body, but if a person wants to engage in practice, he cannot do without a body that is at least relatively strong. Therefore, the weakening of the body of the scribes must have led to more and more cowardice in the decision-making of the scribes, and to the weaker and weaker ability of the scribes in terms of strategy and practice, or in other words, the weaker and weaker ability of the scribes to act. The weakness of the Chinese nation is also related to this.

Fortunately, there was a Wang Yangming in the Ming Dynasty, who advocated the unity of knowledge and action, which saved the national character to a certain extent and made it not weaken. Wang Yangming himself is good at archery, and when he was competing with soldiers, he once amazed the soldiers with the results of hitting the red heart with three arrows, although he was thin on the outside, but he was actually strong. Wang Yangming's legacy influenced Zeng Guofan and many later scholars, and became an important cultural resource for the Chinese.

The mind is not limited by the body, so the weak can also be courageous, just as the growth of precious plants depends not only on the land, but more on the seeds. But after all, the body is the dwelling place of the soul, and the fertile soil must be suitable for cultivating good seeds, so a strong body must have an auxiliary effect on a strong spirit. In today's world, people with outstanding talents should strive to eliminate the decadence of scribes after the Song Dynasty and restore the martial spirit of many ancient scholars from Confucius to Li Bai. If the body of the scholar is strong, it will be conducive to strengthening its spirit, and if the spirit of the scholar is strong, it will be conducive to strengthening our race, and the dream of strengthening the country must start from strengthening the people.

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