PoBei Village Manual

The PoBei Village Manual is a record of information about Zhang family BaJi Quan, written during the 1930s.

## Background

PoBei (泊北) is a village located about 20 km North-East of Mengcun and was home to the Zhang Family. The manual itself was started in 1928 or 1930 by Zhang Shu-Run (张书润) and completed in 1933.

## Content

### Preface

The preface has been translated into English by Mrs Zhou and was shared by the Wu Family on their website.

> *Our Martial Art comes from the venerable elders (Zhang) YongTai (张永泰), (Zhang) YunHan (张云汉) and (Zhang) ShuLin (张书林). These three elders started to learn from Master Jiao WenMing (焦文明, i.e. a disciple of Wu Ying). After a few years, fearing that master Jiao WenMing’s teaching was uncomplete, they went personally to Mengcun and became disciples of the Wu family, and thus they received the true teaching. Later, they could consult Wu Yong (吴永， i.e. Wu Ying’s alternate name) and Wu Nan’s (吴南， probably an alternate name for Wu ZhongYu) Martial Art manual. When back home, (Zhang) YongTai never spared hard training and painstaking efforts, whatever heat and cold or day and night, and after a few years, he went to Mengcun in order to check if what he had learned was correct. Wu Mei （吴梅） and Wu Kai （吴凯）were all pleased and said that their current students in Mengcun did not have such skills, and that Zhang YongTai could be a teacher. YongTai was still unconfident, so Wu Mei and Wu Kai also said that he should try it without hesitating.*
> *Zhang YongTai later taught Zhang JiuHe (张九河) and Zhang YunPeng (张云鹏), Zhang JiuHe taught Zhang YunGe (张云阁), Zhang YunQing (张云青) and Zhang ShuNian (张书年). Zhang ShuDian (张书典, another disciple of Zhang JiuHe) taught Zhang ZhongYue (张钟嶽), Zhang ZhongXia (张钟峡), Zhang ShuZhuang（张书庄), and Zhang ZhongYu (张钟玉).*
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> *Thus, it can be deduced that above Zhang YongTai, the venerable Wu (Zhong) is our teacher, and it can be further concluded that Lai is above (Wu) Zhong and was (Wu) Zhong’s master. It is impossible to find who was above Lai, so it is generally considered that Lai should be always remembered as the first master.*
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> *However, people who study one martial art from one lineage also study from other schools. For example, the pear-flower spear was taught by Mr Liu ZhiMing (刘之明) from our county. In YinJiaZhuang (i.e. Yin family hamlet, a hamlet located east of Mengcun), Yin LiangTian (尹良田) taught his sons Yin DianYuan (尹殿元) and Yin DianFu (尹殿辅). Yin DianYuan and Zhang JiuHe were close friends, thus he taught his spear technique to Zhang JiuHe, Zhang ShuNian and Zhang ShuDian. Zhang ShuNian taught this spear technique to Zhang ZhongYue, and also to Zhang ZhongYu and Zhang ZhongXia.*
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> *When Zhang YunHan opened the QuanSheng escort office in YingTai village in GuanWai (i.e. the region beyond ShanHaiGuan), he became sworn brother with Mr Guo Wu (郭武), and they built this escort office together. Thus,  from Jue Jiao to CuiBaFan (a set from Fanzi Boxing), the first, second and fourth frames taolus, the WuMen boxing of the eastern part of YueYang (a city in Hunan) that was modified using the SanJieGun (i.e. 3 section staff) by Mr Guo Wu from ShunChang and ShunGu vilage, all these boxing and sticks methods where taught to Zhang YunPeng and (Zhang ?) JinHe and entered our family system. What was taught to Zhang ShuNian, Zhang YunGe, Zhang YunQing, Zhang ZhongYue, Zhang ZhongYu, Zhang ZhuXia, Zhang ShuZhuang is still practiced till now.*
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> *This material is from other schools, but learned from close teachers, after making friends (with them). Its meaning here is unity. So what does unity mean? It means everybody should help martial art reach up to his body and mind. After receiving the teaching, one should not forget his teachers and friends. Thus the origin and transmission of our practice had to be narrated, this is why I wrote this preface.*
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> *This is a considerable work achieved on one auspicious day of the middle ten days of the 12th month (Chinese lunar calendar) of the 10th year of the Sexagenary Cycle, 22th year of the Republic of China (i.e. 1933).*
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## References

***Preface on the origin and transmission (of our BajiQuan)***

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Pobei village Manual (1828) - Wu Family Bajiquan