In the 80s of the last century, a "Huo Yuanjia" became popular in the Chinese circle, and Huo Yuanjia became a well-known screen image. Although there are many fictional plots in the TV series, Huo Yuanjia does have a person in history, he is chivalrous and patriotic, highlights the dignity of the country, founded the Jingwu Association, promotes martial arts, and his deeds are all real.
However, it is regrettable that Huo Yuanjia died suddenly and died young shortly after founding Jingwumen.
Huo Yuanjia's sudden death has attracted widespread attention and speculation. The cause of his death has always been a mystery, but legend has it that he drank the tea that had been poisoned. In order to find out the truth, when Huo Yuanjia's great-granddaughter moved the grave in 1989, she asked experts to conduct an autopsy on Huo Yuanjia's bones, and finally uncovered this ** that has been passed down for nearly a hundred years.
What is Huo Yuanjia's true image and his heroic deeds? How did he die? It's all about his personal experience. He was born in a martial arts family in Jinghai County, Hebei Province, and the ancestral Lost Trace Boxing was created by the Bodhidharma Patriarch, known for its complex routes and characteristics of confusing opponents, and was one of the famous "Meridian Gate Thirty-six Killer Skills" at that time.
Although Huo Yuanjia's physical condition was not superior, he eventually became an outstanding martial artist through stealing and unremitting efforts. So, how exactly did he die?
The answer lies in Huo Yuanjia's personal experience. However, it will take a deeper look at his story to find the ultimate answer.
The Huo Yuanjia family has become a leader in the martial arts world in seven generations. However, Huo Yuanjia had a weak physique since he was a child, and his father thought that he was not suitable for martial arts, and was worried that he would damage his body by using too much force or damage the reputation of the Huo family, so he had been forbidden to practice martial arts.
However, Huo Yuanjia's love for martial arts is increasing day by day. Whenever his father taught other brothers to practice martial arts, he couldn't help but secretly learn and practice on the side. In this way, he practiced until he was twenty years old, and his kung fu became more and more sophisticated.
One day, a young man came to the Huo family to challenge martial arts. According to the rules of martial arts, Huo Yuanjia's father sent two sons of the same generation to fight. However, the strength of the person who came was extraordinary, and he defeated Huo Yuanjia's eldest brother and third brother in a row, which made the Huo family lose face.
At the critical moment, Huo Yuanjia stepped forward and defeated the opponent within a few moves, saving the reputation of the Huo family.
Huo Yuanjia's father was both happy and surprised when he saw this situation, and after learning about what happened, he was deeply moved by Huo Yuanjia's perseverance, so he decided to do everything he could to teach him.
Huo Yuanjia is talented, he not only quickly mastered his own boxing skills, but also absorbed the strengths of other families, improved his skills, and became a grandmaster-level figure who opened a new generation of martial arts at a young age.
However, at that time, martial arts training was only a means for the lower classes to strengthen their bodies and protect themselves, and it could not bring additional income. So although the Huo family is famous for their boxing, their lives are not rich.
Huo Yuanjia usually mainly relies on farming for a living, and in the off-season, he also needs to chop firewood and scavenge to supplement his family. In the month of 1895, Huo Yuanjia went to Tianjin Wei to sell firewood as usual, but met a ruffian who came to ask for "land money".
Huo Yuanjia is known for his extraordinary martial arts, but he is low-key and rarely fights with others. In the past, when he encountered similar situations, he would give them some money, but this time he had just arrived in the city and had not yet opened for business, so he really had no money to give them.
Huo Yuanjia tried his best to communicate with them, but they still didn't give up, and even beat Huo Yuanjia. As a last resort, Huo Yuanjia had no choice but to fight back, and with just that one move, he put the ruffian on the ground.
However, this ruffian was not willing to stop there, he found a few helpers, who surrounded Huo Yuanjia with knives, guns and sticks. But Huo Yuanjia only used a flat pole to ** them all.
When the leader of the ruffians, Shopkeeper Feng, heard about this situation and felt that Huo Yuanjia was a rare talent, so he hurriedly invited Huo Yuanjia to his home, not only set up a banquet to entertain him, but also let him take over his own footsteps.
After Huo Yuanjia became a footman, he still worked diligently, often carrying goods with his porters. Once, they went to Tianjin Huaiqing Pharmacy to carry medicinal materials and met the head of their peers.
This leader is also from a martial arts background, tall and powerful, and quite powerful. When he saw Huo Yuanjia sharing his life, he became hostile to Huo Yuanjia. So, he carried a bundle of medicinal herbs weighing five hundred catties by himself and provoked Huo Yuanjia in public.
Huo Yuanjia heard that he was overbearing in his business, so he decided to take this opportunity to show his strength. He picked up a flat pole, easily picked up two large bundles of medicinal herbs, and carried them into the warehouse in a hurry.
The onlookers saw his infinite strength and praised him as "Huo Hercules", a title that accompanied him and was finally engraved on his tombstone. Huo Yuanjia's feat soon spread to Nong Jinsun, the shopkeeper of Huaiqing Medicine House.
Nong Jinsun was born in the ** family of the Qing Dynasty, but he opposed the rule of the Qing Dynasty and decided to devote himself to the anti-Qing cause. His family disowned him as a result, and he changed his name to Nong Jinsun.
Nong Jinsun was moved by Huo Yuanjia's strength and courage and decided to support his anti-Qing cause. He provided resources and funds to help Huo Yuanjia recruit more people to join the anti-Qing movement.
Huo Yuanjia's martial arts were also widely disseminated, and he became one of the leaders of the anti-Qing movement.
After studying in Japan, Nong Jinsun joined the Anti-Qing Salvation Organization League and became Dr. Sun Yat-sen's right-hand man. In order to develop the revolutionary forces, Sun Yat-sen sent him back to Tianjin to establish the "Huaiqing Pharmacy", which was not only a pharmacy for hanging pots to help the world, but also a place for the League to secretly contact patriots and find martial arts talents.
Nong Jinsun found that Huo Yuanjia was not only excellent in martial arts, but also bold and bold, and an ideal revolutionary talent, so he invited him to work in the medicine store. Under the guidance of Nong Jinsun, Huo Yuanjia accepted the bourgeois revolutionary ideas and became an anti-Qing aspirant.
In order to strengthen the anti-Qing ranks, Nong Jinsun encouraged Huo Yuanjia to break the traditional view of Chinese martial arts and openly accept apprentices. Huo Yuanjia's first ** is Liu Zhensheng, who is already famous.
However, in the martial arts with a strict feudal system, Huo Yuanjia's approach was regarded as a great rebellion, so he did not accept ** again for a long time after he accepted Liu Zhensheng.
In order to raise strength for the revolutionary team as soon as possible, Huo Yuanjia began to look for the heroes of the world again.
One day in 1900, when Huo Yuanjia was walking at the Haihe River Wharf, he saw a grain boat boss bullying a hawker. He did not hesitate to step forward and teach the boat boss a lesson.
However, he didn't know that the boss of the ship was a subordinate of Wang Zibin, the treasurer of the Beijing Yuanshun Dart Bureau. When it comes to "Big Knife King Five", I believe few people will feel unfamiliar.
He is the founder of Beijing Yuanshun Dart Bureau, and is known as the "Big Knife King Five" because he is good at using broadswords. Although he was born poor, but with the help of his friends, he opened the Yuanshun Dart Bureau, and after making a fortune, he not only knew how to be grateful, set up "righteous school" for poor children, but also cared about national affairs, and often made righteous deeds.
During the First Sino-Japanese War, he escorted an imperial historian who had been demoted for criticizing Li Hongzhang to Zhangjiakou; During the Hundred Days Restoration, he became brothers with Tan Si.
After Tan Sitong**, he tried to contact the people in the rivers and lakes to rescue, but the operation failed. Later, he tried to assassinate Yuan Shikai and Rong Lu, who participated in the arrest of Tan Sitong, but they were unsuccessful because the other party was heavily guarded.
After learning that Huo Yuanjia had taught his subordinates, instead of blaming him, Wang Wu personally came to the door to thank him. The two hit it off at first sight and soon became friends with each other's hearts.
Then, Huo Yuanjia introduced Wang Wu to Nong Jinsun. They are also full of respect for each other, and they hate to see each other late. Soon after, the Boxer Rebellion broke out, and Huo Yuanjia and Wang Wu joined the Boxer Rebellion with patriotic hearts.
However, after they joined, they found that the Boxers were too radical, and instead of killing many foreigners who invaded China, they killed many innocent Chinese who believed in foreign religions.
Huo Yuanjia stepped forward and took the initiative to explain to the Boxers that China's belief in foreign religion did not mean treason, and corrected their radical behavior. However, due to his loss of confidence in this, he quit the organization soon after.
Sure enough, the Boxer Rebellion not only failed to drive away the foreigners, but instead attracted the retaliation of the Eight-Nation Alliance. The Eight-Nation Alliance, with its powerful equipment, quickly captured Tianjin.
The Boxers were forced to disperse. Wang Wu had a chance to escape, but after seeing a foreigner oppressing a Chinese woman, he decided to come forward, but was eventually killed because he was unable to defeat the foreigner's musket.
In order to punish the people of Tianjin, the foreigners hung Wang Wu's body on the city gate for public display. Upon hearing this news, Huo Yuanjia was extremely angry, he ventured into the city at night, successfully stole Wang Wu's body, buried him in the suburbs of Tianjin, and asked the famous Confucian Liu He to write an inscription for him.
Huo Yuanjia felt that the national physique was weak and could not compete with the foreigners, so he decided to practice martial arts again to protect the country. However, due to the gateway view of the Tianjin martial arts sect, he chose an unusual path, returned to his hometown to recruit people to practice martial arts, and actively appealed to the various sects.
After continuous efforts, by 1909, he had become famous in Tianjin Wei and became the "yellow-faced tiger" that foreigners were afraid of. In this year, the famous British Hercules Opiyin came to Shanghai and published a provocative newspaper: "I am willing to wrestle with the Chinese."
The move caused unanimous indignation among the general public, who took the stage to challenge Opiyin. However, Opiyin's strength should not be underestimated, and he has defeated dozens of masters in our country for several days in a row.
In this case, Chen Youmei, a veteran of the Alliance, and others sent out a heroic post, hoping to find a skilled martial artist to challenge on the stage and show the courage of our nation.
After Nong Jinsun got the news, he immediately thought of Huo Yuanjia.
In order to defend the dignity of the nation, Huo Yuanjia decided to challenge Opiyin. He led his family from Tianjin to Shanghai, ready to show the charm of Chinese martial arts in the ring. When Opiyin heard about Huo Yuanjia's reputation, he actually asked to compete according to the rules of Western boxing on the eve of the fight, which meant that Huo Yuanjia could not use his feet.
Huo Yuanjia rejected this unfair demand, and the people also expressed their dissatisfaction. After a long debate, the two sides finally agreed to use wrestling, with the body landing as the winning criterion.
In order to allow more people to see the competition, they decided to set up the ring in Zhang Yuan. Chen Qimei and others also funded the construction of a ring four feet high and 20 feet wide. However, when the race was about to start, Opiyin fled back to England in fear.
Huo Yuanjia therefore won without a fight, which also reflects the highest state pursued by martial arts is "a soldier who surrenders without a fight". Such a result has undoubtedly enhanced the self-confidence of the Chinese and thwarted the arrogance of the foreigners.
Although the ring had been set up, Huo Yuanjia decided to show his martial arts skills in the ring in order not to spoil the audience's interest, and also to make friends with heroes.
In the ring, Huo Yuanjia successfully defeated Donghai Zhao, Haimen Zhang and other Shanghai martial arts masters, and since then he has become famous in Shanghai.
After the ring match, Huo Yuanjia's Nong Jinsun and others in Shanghai tried their best to stay and decided to stay in Shanghai. In order to continue to practice the concept of "practicing martial arts to protect the country", he established the Jingwu Gymnastics Association with the support of Nong Jinsun and others.
In the establishment announcement, Huo Yuanjia generously said, "If the people want to resist humiliation, they must first improve themselves, and I hope that the compatriots in the province will be vigorous and join this way, strengthen their physique, and make our Chinese land full of vitality, and the whole country will become athletes, if so, the nation will have hope, and China will be rejuvenated." ”
In order to achieve the goal of "resisting humiliation and self-improvement", Huo Yuanjia adopted many innovative methods in the Jingwu Gymnastics. In terms of spiritual construction, he put forward the spirit of "loving my China, strengthening the country and strengthening the people", advocating patriotism and self-cultivation, justice and helping others.
In terms of teaching methods, he advocates the three education of "physical, intellectual and moral", and pays attention to all-round development. In terms of the goal of educating people, he advocated cultivating the three virtues of "wisdom, benevolence and courage", and paid attention to both ability and political integrity.
In terms of teaching practice, he not only taught Lost Trace Boxing without reservation, but also broke the view of the door, and recruited masters from all walks of life to serve as instructors, so that students could gather their strengths and practice superior martial arts.
Huo Yuanjia firmly believes that only through self-improvement can the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation be truly realized.
The Jingwu Gymnastics Association under Huo Yuanjia was on the right track, but it was founded less than three months ago, and Huo Yuanjia died suddenly. His death made the people in Shanghai, Tianjin and other places grief, and they came to mourn.
Friend Nong Jinsun personally wrote the elegiac couplet, highly praising Huo Yuanjia's bravery and patriotic spirit. However, the cause of Huo Yuanjia's death has always been disputed, and some people say that he was poisoned to death before a martial arts match with Japanese samurai, but the truth has never been confirmed.
Now, after a hundred years, the true cause of Huo Yuanjia's death has finally surfaced.
Huo Yuanjia did not die of poison during the fight, but because he took the medicine containing buttercup prescribed by a Japanese doctor, buttercup is commonly known as "rotten lung grass", a small amount of it can relieve cough and asthma, but a large amount of it will cause irreversible damage to the lungs, resulting in the condition "first mild and then severe", and finally died.
This truth was found after Huo Yuanjia's great-great-granddaughter Huo Jinghong searched historical materials, and was confirmed after experts re-identified the bones. Although the rumor that Huo Yuanjia died coughing up blood at home has been circulating for nearly a hundred years, this truth has made the world re-understand Huo Yuanjia, who was poisoned by the Japanese, not poisoned in the process of fighting.
After the death of Huo Yuanjiaxian, the "Jingwu Society" he founded did not die out, but continued to grow and develop with the continuous efforts of later generations, and has now become a large-scale non-governmental organization with hundreds of thousands of members in nearly 50 countries and regions.
While disseminating Chinese martial arts, it also actively promotes cultural exchanges. For this reason, Mr. Sun Yat-sen once inscribed a plaque for it that reads, "Defend the country and strengthen the species with force". Although today's Chinese no longer need to physically "protect the country and strengthen the species with force", at the spiritual level, they still need to learn Huo Yuanjia's "martial spirit" and maintain perseverance on the road of national rejuvenation.