Shaolin martial arts have a long and storied history, tracing back more than fifteen hundred years. In the late Sui dynasty, thirteen warrior monks from the Shaolin Temple aided Li Shimin, the Prince of Tang, in defeating Wang Shichong, and from that moment on, Shaolin martial arts gradually gained renown.
During the Five Dynasties period, the eminent Shaolin monk Fu Ju invited eighteen martial arts masters from across the realm to the temple to showcase their arts. After three years of collective practice, they drew upon the strengths of various schools, discarding the crude to retain the refined, and compiled the Shaolin Boxing Manual. It can be said that the period from the Sui and Tang to the Jin and Yuan dynasties was one of rapid development and gradual maturation for Shaolin martial arts.
The Shaolin Temple truly achieved worldwide fame during the Ming and Qing dynasties. Especially during the Jiajing reign of the Ming dynasty, when Japanese pirates plagued the southeast coast, more than eighty Shaolin warrior monks, led by Yuekong and others, bravely rushed to the battlefield and repeatedly blunted the enemy's advance. Over thirty of them gave their lives for their country, writing one stirring and tragic chapter after another.
Chapter 865