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Thread: Ah Qing, one of the most prolific martial arts geniuses in the JY canon

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    Default Ah Qing, one of the most prolific martial arts geniuses in the JY canon

    Ah Ching, the heroine of Jin Yong's short story, Sword of the Yueh Maiden, is not that well known to mainstream Jin Yong enthusiasts. The story is set in the 5th century B.C. around the time of the Warring States period in Chinese history.

    Note: The "Yueh" character is the same as the "Viet" in present day Vietnam, as the kingdom of Yueh was formed by aboriginal peoples in Southern China. Many scholars believe that the present day Vietnamese are the descendants of the kingdom of Yue. Therefore, Yueh Maiden Swordsmanship is not connected to the Yueh Maiden Heart Sutra or Yueh Maiden Swordsmanship of ROCH and XAJH. That "Yueh" character refers to "jade".

    Continuing on, many dismiss the swordsmanship displayed by Ah Ching to be quite elementary, and not exceeding the level of around a 3rd generation Taoist of Quanzhen (around Wan Ziping's level). The arguments they bring forth are that there were no true martial arts displayed in that story and furthermore, she definitely had no internal energy cultivation and all her martial arts were merely external sword stances. I will proceed to argue that those points are completely incorrect and that Ah Ching was not only a prolific martial arts expert but also a martial arts prodigy in her own right.

    The first point we have to take into consideration is that there was no real "wulin" or "jianghu" during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States period. The entire world was engulfed in war and kingdoms rose and fell in a matter of years. Many of the wuxia stories we are accustomed to have a "wulin" community because at the very least there was a single government which was set in place. If the entire world was engulfed in constant warfare, most likely all the adept and skilled fighters of the time would choose to side with their native kingdoms and serve in their own kingdom's armies. They didn't have the luxury of forming sword schools or sects and clans as in the later dynasties, because every day their lives were at stake. At any time, another kingdom could be knocking at their door asking for invasion. Thusly, it is very logical to conclude that there existed no real "wulin" underworld community and all the skilled fighters of the era were in the service of their kingdom's military.

    In the first half of the story, eight swordsmen from the Kingdom of Wu visited the Kingdom of Yueh and thoroughly embarassed all the swordsmen there. The Wu swordsmen fought in formations which coincided with Sun Tzu's Art of War where a few would specialize in defense while the rest focused on offense to outnumber the opponents. It was said that their swordsmanship was invincible during the era.

    When Ah Ching first makes her appearance, she bests all eight of them effortlessly making each one of the battle-hardened veterans lose an eye. Her movements were described as too fast for the eye to perceive and her technique was similar to the theories of Dugu Jiujian in which she used simple moves which perfectly countered her opponent's attacks. In addition, she did all this with just a bamboo stick.

    The next instance that we see Ah Ching in action is when she practices with her Grandpa White. It turns out Ah Ching claims that her sword skills were not taught to her at all. She just started stick fighting with bamboo sticks against a giant white ape at the age of 13. They would try to score hits on each other and at first Grandpa White would win but after a while, Ah Ching won every contest. When Feng Li sees Ah Ching and Grandpa White spar, it was described as just a green blur and a white blur encircling each other. This type of description warrants incredible lightness skill. Similar comparisons of a person being described as a blur moving around were used for Dongfang Bubai and Little Dragon Girl, who are both considered TOP experts in speed. But that is not the extent of Ah Ching's swordsmanship. At one point, Grandpa White sped up his attacks even more but Ah Ching then slowed down her attacks by standing still. Each attack that Grandpa White made, Ah Ching was able to thrust first and force Grandpa White to retreat. Her sword technique seemed VERY similar to Dugu Jiujian in that it always attacks and perceives holes in the opponent's moves and exploits them, forcing the opponent to have no choice but to retreat or defend.

    Ah Ching was next summoned to the court of the Yueh kingdom to spar against 20 of their best swordsmen, she defeated them singlehandedly. She then defeated another 30, and another 30. Those swordsmen, who were able to just merely experience her sword technique, experienced enough to slightly mimic her and teach the rest of the Yueh soldiers. With that miniscule amount of Ah Ching's swordsmanship, the Yueh soldiers were able to easily crush the Wu army, the strongest army at the time.

    At the conclusion of the story, Ah Ching assaults the palace of Feng Li which was heavily guarded by 1000 armored soldiers and 1000 elite swordsmen. All Feng Li heard when Ah Ching stormed in were the sounds of weapons dropping. In a matter of moments, Ah Ching swept through all of them singlehandedly, 2000 soldiers were not enough to stop her.

    This is one of the rare occasions where we actually see a single fighter take on literally thousands of troops. Although many instances, it is mentioned in novels that a person is the equivalent of several thousand troops, Ah Ching actually DOES it and takes down 2000 soldiers singlehandedly and without breaking a sweat, also in the matter of moments. It wasn't like she was just defending either, she was the one ATTACKING and sweeping through the thousands of soldiers. We can only guess as to how many thousands of soldiers it would take to even make Ah Ching flinch. All this again, with a BAMBOO STICK.

    One other instance of thousands of soldiers versus martial arts experts was in the ending chapters of DGSD. A group of several hundred wulin fighters assembled to help free Xiao Feng from the Liao palace. Even in that fight, the several hundred soldiers struggled to keep back the several thousand Liao soldiers. We can use this as a point of comparison as to just how high Ah Ching's martial arts level was.

    To answer the last question about Ah Ching not having internal energy, when Ah Ching finally breaks through to Feng Li's room where his beloved Si Shi was held, she points the tip of her bamboo stick towards Si Shi. Ah Ching then marveled at how beautiful Si Shi actually was and decides to leave the couple alone. Later, Si Shi reached at her chest where Ah Ching pointed, and it CLEARLY states that even though Ah Ching's bamboo stick never touched her, the pure sword chi which emanated from her bamboo stick had injured her. Ah Ching was able to generate sword chi which is an obvious sign that her internal energy cultivation was quite high. Not even many of the top tier swordsman in the other JY novels were able to generate sword chi.

    Now for the most shocking part. Ah Ching was described as a young maiden. She was most likely in her late teens, early twenties. To be THAT young and have that kind of incredible martial arts skill, sword chi, speed is ridiculous. The more amazing part is that she had NO MASTER who taught her and NO MARTIAL ARTS MANUAL to learn from. All her skills were gained from playfighting with the white ape, and from that in a few years she was able to derive godly high levels of sword technique, Dongfang Bubai levels of speed and lightness skill, and even sword chi, all at such a young age. Moreover, she created these skills HERSELF. The ape and her both were not adept at the sword when they first started playfighting, so this is NOT a case similar to the Condor teaching Yang Guo. Ah Ching created her Yueh Maiden Swordsmanship herself through practice and sparring witht the ape.

    What other characters were this prolific in the martial arts that, in the span of at MOST ten years, created their own sword techniques from basically nothing. Ah Ching is one of the greatest martial arts prodigies of Jin Yong's canon. She is my favorite Jin Yong heroine and I hope after reading this, you will see her in a whole different light as well. Thanks for reading!


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    she's even better than tian shan tong lao

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    Senior Member Laviathan's Avatar
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    Default Well said!

    Excellent description of Ah Qing, and extremely well written article!

    "Sword of the Yueh Maiden" was intended to be the first of 33 short stories, each telling the tale of a superhuman hero/heroine of ancient Chinese folklore. These 33 stories would have formed a different world on its' own, where the rules and standards of the Jin Yong Wuxia Universe do not apply. "Sword of the Yueh Maiden" is therefore not considered to be part of Jin Yong's wuxia canon, and Ah Qing is not a person from Jin Yong Wuxia Universe. The novel is not even considered to be a wuxia story by Mr. Louis Cha himself.

    The character of Ah Qing and her martial arts should therefore be treated differently than characters from the Jin Yong wuxia novels.

    But I totally agree that Ah Qing is a unique martial arts genius. The warriors of Wu and Yue were considered to be the toughest fighters of their era, but Ah Qing could handle thousands of them effortlessly, disarming them with her bamboo stick with inhuman speed. Her internal power, speed, Qinggong and fighting skills would have made her the Super Version of Dragon Girl in the Jin Yong Universe.
    對 敵 須 狠 , 斬 草 除 根 , 男 女 老 幼 , 不 留 一 人

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    Senior Member Han Solo's Avatar
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    My views on the Yueh maiden is on record before.

    And yes, i'm the one who compared the Yueh maiden to the chuen zhen sect.


    2 points for consideration and debate:-

    1) When Feng Li saw the fight between the Yueh maiden and the ape, and wonders about the super-natural quality of the speed and strength of both; one does wonder about his power of observation and ability to make informed opinion.

    One wonders if it is similar to the scene at the beginning of LOCH when the Jurchen Prince first noticed the 7 freaks!

    2) The Yueh maiden's "martial" arts were transmitted to the thousands of soilders that she eventually beat. And those were only pale shadows of her arts.

    Naturally, she would know the strength and weaknesses of each of the moves that the soilders has made. Also, being pale shadows of her tecniques, the soilders wouldn't be able to exploit the strength of her moves, making it easier for the Yueh maiden to defeat her.



    I know that i tend to underestimate her, but in that short story, there's only few descriptive paragraphs about her fighting abilities. We never know how good she really is. To compare her just with the common soilders would unnecessarily elevate her into Sweeper monk level.

    Ramblings,
    Han Solo

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    Senior Member Han Solo's Avatar
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    Before i leave, good job by bliss to explore this area of JY's works.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Han Solo
    2) The Yueh maiden's "martial" arts were transmitted to the thousands of soilders that she eventually beat. And those were only pale shadows of her arts.

    Naturally, she would know the strength and weaknesses of each of the moves that the soilders has made. Also, being pale shadows of her tecniques, the soilders wouldn't be able to exploit the strength of her moves, making it easier for the Yueh maiden to defeat her.
    What do you mean by this? It doesnt make sense.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Han Solo
    My views on the Yueh maiden is on record before.

    And yes, i'm the one who compared the Yueh maiden to the chuen zhen sect.


    2 points for consideration and debate:-

    1) When Feng Li saw the fight between the Yueh maiden and the ape, and wonders about the super-natural quality of the speed and strength of both; one does wonder about his power of observation and ability to make informed opinion.

    One wonders if it is similar to the scene at the beginning of LOCH when the Jurchen Prince first noticed the 7 freaks!

    2) The Yueh maiden's "martial" arts were transmitted to the thousands of soilders that she eventually beat. And those were only pale shadows of her arts.

    Naturally, she would know the strength and weaknesses of each of the moves that the soilders has made. Also, being pale shadows of her tecniques, the soilders wouldn't be able to exploit the strength of her moves, making it easier for the Yueh maiden to defeat her.



    I know that i tend to underestimate her, but in that short story, there's only few descriptive paragraphs about her fighting abilities. We never know how good she really is. To compare her just with the common soilders would unnecessarily elevate her into Sweeper monk level.

    Ramblings,
    Han Solo
    About your first point, even though we can question Feng Li's grasp of martial arts, and he even admitted he wasn't well versed in the subject, the observation was a physical one. Feng Li wasn't commenting on the martial arts of the ape and Ah Ching, he merely stated that all he saw were two blurs. The only way you can attribute this to lack of knowledge on his part is if we say he had REALLY bad vision where normal speed appeared blurry to him. This has nothing to do with grasp of martial arts theories.

    Ah Ching sparred on only three occasions with 80 of the Yue soldiers. She didn't formally teach anything at all. The 80 soldiers merely pieced together parts of what they remember, so it wasn't an extremely accurate replication of Ah Ching's swordsmanship. Although I do understand where you are coming from, the sheer quantity and time that Ah Ching ripped through 2000 soldiers can only be described as otherworldly.

    Even if she knew all the holes in their techniques, she was fast enough and powerful enough to withstand the pure brute numbers. It wasn't as if she fought them one by one, she literally stormed through 2000 of them in a matter of moments. This at least is an attestment to ridiculous qinggong and speed. Even if you say she knew all the holes in their techniques, she'd still have to be extremely fast to take down 2000 battle hardened veterans.

    And those soldiers were living in a time period wrought with war, I think if they saw the first 100 or so soldiers being disarmed easily because their techniques were derived from Ah Ching, maybe they'd start resorting to using their own fighting styles. In any case, the point isn't that taking on massive number of soldiers is difficult, its just how effortlessly and quickly Ah Ching pulled it off that begs for attention.

    One last point, you skipped the point where the narrator (Jin Yong) explicitly mentions Ah Ching's sword chi. If you can convince me that a 3rd Generation Quanzhen Taoist could emanate sword chi then I will accept that Ah Ching is around their level.

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    Senior Member rabadi's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Laviathan
    "Sword of the Yueh Maiden" was intended to be the first of 33 short stories, each telling the tale of a superhuman hero/heroine of ancient Chinese folklore.
    So, what happened to the rest of 32 short stories?

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    Not only did Ah Qing defeat 2000 soldiers (1000 swordsmen, 1000 armored) quickly, she also simply disarmed them all. That makes her feat even more impressive.

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    My 2 cents - Fighting 2000 soldiers does not mean fighting them all at the same time. At any one time, you would probably only be fighting 10-15 at any one time at the most. The rest would be lined up behind doing probably nothing.

    Would fighting 2000 be that much different from say fighting 100? I think, in terms of skill, no. In terms of stamina, yes.

    I also wonder, why the soldiers didnt just rain arrows on her - ala Hero (Jet Li)...

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    Quote Originally Posted by rabadi
    So, what happened to the rest of 32 short stories?
    Jin Yong did not had the inspiration to follow through, so he quit after writing the first story.
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    Where is this story from? I don't remember coming across it before. And I thought I had already finished reading all Jin Yong's books. Actually I should go and borrow them again. The last time I read them (except for LOCH and HSDS) was over 10 years ago. Should refresh my memory.

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    Quote Originally Posted by bliss
    The first point we have to take into consideration is that there was no real "wulin" or "jianghu" during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States period. The entire world was engulfed in war and kingdoms rose and fell in a matter of years. Many of the wuxia stories we are accustomed to have a "wulin" community because at the very least there was a single government which was set in place. If the entire world was engulfed in constant warfare, most likely all the adept and skilled fighters of the time would choose to side with their native kingdoms and serve in their own kingdom's armies. They didn't have the luxury of forming sword schools or sects and clans as in the later dynasties, because every day their lives were at stake. At any time, another kingdom could be knocking at their door asking for invasion. Thusly, it is very logical to conclude that there existed no real "wulin" underworld community and all the skilled fighters of the era were in the service of their kingdom's military.
    The Spring & Autumn & Warring States period lasted a long time and there was a core of states that existed in both periods. The bigger states in each period would have provided an element of stability in their respective realms.

    The entire world was not necessarily engulfed in war all the time. When a hegemonic lord ruled there was relative peace.

    I don't believe there has to be a single government set in place for a wulin to exist. It certainly helps and affects it but i don't see why it is necessary.

    Many talented ppl served states other than which they were born. Many famous ministers of states were not born there: eg Li Si, Sun Tzu, Wu Zixu. The states simply could not afford to only recruit native talent. Some ppl had to wander around all the states before finally finding enployment, if any.

    All the skilled fighters were not in the service of the kingdoms, even if they were it would not be for all their lives. There are stories of skilled fighters being recruited to assassinate such and such.

    Many of JY's stories take place in times of turmoil and where there are foreign invaders but still clans and sects exist. Some may be destroyed, some may have to move and re-establish themselves etc.

    War is a great time of innovation and is a greater vehicle for change than peace. Just as there were many famous scholar teachers to train new officials there was probably skilled fighters who trained ppl in martial arts. It was said that Lord Sun Ling had 3000 guests under him. He took his own mini-army to rescue the state of Zhao when the Wei Emperor refused to help.
    TristeCoeur on Lady Yang: Someone needs 2 tell her that when u want 2 save people from being killed, u need to hurry the hell up, not play bull#### music & dance around. Her mission failed big time

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    I only brought in those arguments as side commentary to support the fact that soldiers who served in the army at that time were not totally incompetent. I didn't mean for those statements to be looked upon as absolute truth. The main argument is just that we assume soldiers in that era were at least semi-able fighters since they were brought up in times of war. If anything, those soldiers of Yue and Wu were since those two nations were at odds with each other. My main point was simply that the governments of the time and the wulin community weren't as disconnected as they are in JY's other stories. Therefore, leading to the hypothesis that soldiers during that era were at least decent fighters.

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    Senior Member Zhuge Liang's Avatar
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    Sorry i thought you meant the exact opposite.
    TristeCoeur on Lady Yang: Someone needs 2 tell her that when u want 2 save people from being killed, u need to hurry the hell up, not play bull#### music & dance around. Her mission failed big time

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    i enjoyed reading your writing about Ah Qing. never read this novel though, is Ah Qing really that good ?

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    Quote Originally Posted by chickenfeet
    i enjoyed reading your writing about Ah Qing. never read this novel though, is Ah Qing really that good ?
    Here an english translation of 'Sword of the Yue Maiden' : http://www.heroic-cinema.com/eric/yuehmaiden.html

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    There's just something about Ah Qing's naivety and innocence (and godly sword art) that makes her so utterly cute. I admit it, Ah Qing is my favorite!

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    Innocence mixed with Danger I see the attraction....
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    Quote Originally Posted by JigSta
    Innocence mixed with Danger I see the attraction....
    You wanna take a risk?
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