Zhenwu formation not that awesome?

[tape]

So it produces the power of 64 first class fighters....but a first class fighter isn't really defined. We'll use the Wudang heroes at the time the Zhenwu formation was mentioned so many years ago. 64 Wudang heroes...is that really that impressive considering they were relatively weak back then? A lot of my analysis contains rough estimation, so I'd appreciate feedback.

So Yu Lianzhou was totally destroyed in a palm clash against a Xuan Ming Elder who was holding back. This is ~10 years after we see Zhang Cuisan in action against Xie Xun, whom he is clearly inferior to in every way. We know Wudang arts is based on orthodox Taoist principles, and that it the longer you practice it, the faster it grows as said when Song Yuanqiao was compared to either Xie Xun or Abbot Kong where he would not be a match now, but in 20 years his relatively faster growth would allow him to close the gap.

So, Yuan Lianzhou improved a lot after those 10 years, but was still far inferior to a Xuan Ming Elder. In turn, a Xuan Ming Elder with about 20% palm power sent Yang Xiao stumbling and injured. This is again roughly another 10 years later, where the Wudang Heroes should have improved even more at a faster rate as compared to most other people. I think we can all agree that Yang Xiao is at least a bit greater than the Wudang Heroes especially at that point.

My point in all this is that, the Wudang heroes improved for 20 years on a logarithmic scale, and are still at about 1/5th the power of a Xuan Ming Elder at most. Sure 5 of them can surely beat a Xuan Ming Elder even without the formation, but the formation also only produces the power of 64 first class fighters, not the effectiveness of 64 first class fighters fighting in perfect unison and merging imo. It simply defies the laws of physics, as 64 fighters can thrust their swords 64 times in a blink of a second while 7 people no matter how strong, cannot do that. So I'd like to think that the 64 fighters analogy is roughly a measure of power, which is a bit subjective in martial arts terms. (i.e. The First Evil has the power of 10000 men in DGSD)

So if an improved Wudang Hero is only 20% at best of a Xuan Ming Elder 10 years ago, then 10 years ago it would roughly take 7 Wudang Heroes to roughly equal the "power" of a Xuan Ming Elder. 64 divided by 7 ~=9, so the Zhen Wu formation is equal to 9 Xuan Ming Elders. Wuji can handily defeat two of them, and it would not be a stretch at all to say he could defeat 4. They are after all inferior to the Du Monks, and 3 Du monks with an awesome formation is still less than Wuji. I think we can safely round it to 4.5 Xuan Ming Elders ~= Great...a 64 first class fighter Zhenwu formation is about equal to 2 Greats which isn't quite as powerful as I imagined.

[PJ]

It's know that Xuanming Elders excel at direct palm clashes, so in that case they can easily defeat the next tier fighters such as Yang Xiao, Wudang Heroes, and such. However, in every other method of fighting, they are only slightly better than the next tier. For example, when Xuanming Elder He Biweng fought Miejue, they were evenly matched for about 100 stances.

To compare Yu Lianzhou with a Xuanming Elder in direct palm clash is not representative of their overall martial arts. If they fought normally, it would be a long fight before a winner could be declared.

[pannonian]

It's know that Xuanming Elders excel at direct palm clashes, so in that case they can easily defeat the next tier fighters such as Yang Xiao, Wudang Heroes, and such. However, in every other method of fighting, they are only slightly better than the next tier. For example, when Xuanming Elder He Biweng fought Miejue, they were evenly matched for about 100 stances.

To compare Yu Lianzhou with a Xuanming Elder in direct palm clash is not representative of their overall martial arts. If they fought normally, it would be a long fight before a winner could be declared.

From Chapter 27 – Soaring Down from a Hundred-foot Pagoda:

In the meantime, Miejue Shitai was still in fierce battle against He
Biweng. When the floor they were on was burned down, they jumped to the
higher floor. Very soon they were fighting in the room at the corner of
the tenth floor. Her internal energy had not 100% recovered, but from
the beginning she had disregarded her life by concentrating all her
strength in offense without thinking about defense at all. On the other
hand, He Biweng was first of all anxious over his martial brother?s
safety, so he could not focus his attention to the battle. Secondly, his
previous injury from Zhang Wuji?s palm had not been healed completely.
Thirdly, he had just recovered from the poison administered by Fan Yao,
plus his acupoints were sealed for quite a long time, his limbs were not
as agile as at normal time. Therefore, the two of them fought for a long
time without clear winner or loser.

He Biweng was the weaker of the two, and had recently been beaten up by Zhang Wuji, drugged and had his acupoints sealed by Fan Yao, and was distracted by his concern for Lu Zhangke, which was his primary focus.

[PJ]

He Biweng was the weaker of the two, and had recently been beaten up by Zhang Wuji, drugged and had his acupoints sealed by Fan Yao, and was distracted by his concern for Lu Zhangke, which was his primary focus.

Yes, but as Athena pointed out earlier: Miejue had not fully recovered from poison, and she had not eaten for days. Both sides were not in their best condition.

[tape]

Keep in mind this is before Taiji was invented, which I believe greatly improved the Wudang heroes. Because of their logarithmic increase in inner power, as well as huge increase in technique due to Taiji, the 10 year period between when Yu first clashed with He and when Yang Xiao clashed with He is huge. I'm postulating about the 64 Wudang Heroes at the time of the first gathering at Wudang.

And with regards to the Xuan Ming Elders being excellent at palm clashes, it was said that they were even more powerful with their weapons. Maybe they can't win as fast as in palm clashes, but they are supposed to be even better with regards to everything else. If they are better in both weapon and hand to hand, it seems they are just overall superior. Their palm technique also I believe is quite exquisite (not just power, the technique) as they were able to land their blows on Wuji. Sure Wuji was 2 hands versus 4, but at his level it's a feat in itself. I doubt any number of Wudang heroes could land their palms on him even at that point.

[tape]

Let's also do a rough calculation of "total power" in terms of inner power of 64 Wudang heroes at that point. I'm not sure of your view on how palm clashes work, as in if the Xuan Ming elders use 20% of their palm power to defeat Yang Xiao instantly, then Yang Xiao only possesses <20% of their inner power, or if its something weird like if you have double someone's inner power, you can somehow use 20% of your power and still defeat them even though it does not make sense in a linear sense.

But if we use the linear sense, since Yang Xiao was defeated at 20% power, he can have no more than 15% of their power it seems. The Wudang heroes then at most have around 12%, as they are worse than Yang Xiao. This means it takes roughly 9 of them to match a Xuan Ming Elder. The Xuan Ming elders are individually worse than the Du Monks, and Wuji is greater than 3 Du Monks. So Wuji is >> 3 * 9= 27 post 10 year Wudang Heroes. We can do a rough rounding and again it turns into ~= 2 Greats in terms of "inner power", "palm power", if there is a difference.

I'm not using this as evidence for anything at all, and would love to hear how dumb I sound with a lot of this fuzzy math.

[PJ]

And with regards to the Xuan Ming Elders being excellent at palm clashes, it was said that they were even more powerful with their weapons.

I don't recall this information being presented in the novel.

[tape]

When they were defeated by Wuji, they pulled out their weapons. I thought it was mentioned there but I might be wrong.

Edit: Just read over it, and it was never stated they were more powerful. However, being named for their weapons they can't be too shabby either.

[tape]

I'm curious as to how powerful you think the Wudang Heroes are during the time Zhang Cuisan committed suicide, and the post 10 years where we see them all in action again.

I don't know how much the Xuan Ming Elders and Wudang Heroes improved, but even after 10 years we see they are only a fraction of Wuji in terms of power.

[tape]

Another point I've thought of is that the Zhenwu formation was created even BEFORE the Mt Wudang incident, most likely well before Zhang Cuisan met Xie Xun. They were already described as first class fighters, and if it's 64 of them, that's not much superior to the power generated by the Quan Zhen formation. I guess it all comes down to if you believe that if 7 Greats were using it, it would equal 64 Greats in power (incredibly unlikely imho), or if it equals 64 "first class fighters" which can vary a lot.

When it was created, a first class fighter such as a Wudang hero has no hope against Xie Xun. It could easily take 3-4 of them before they stand a chance. A Xie Xun conversely has no chance against a Great, it would take 10 of him at the least to equal a Great in terms of power.

[PJ]

Well, I think the formation's power is dependent on the individual contributors' powers. I'd think that the formation comprised of 5 Wudang Heroes in present-day HSDS, compared to the same 5 guys from 20 years ago, would be much more powerful.

In "reality" I don't think it would quite work so nicely for Great level exponents for the reason you mentioned. But for the Wudang Heroes, who never quite surpassed the rank of First Class Fighter, it should work for them as they make improvements throughout HSDS.

[tape]

The problem I have with the Zhenwu formation is that it seems to rely more on footwork and stances more so than combining inner strength. When the Big Dipper formation is mentioned, it constantly talks about how they use Yin/Yang energy to complement, they keep their hands on shoulders to merge energies, etc. Granted the Zhenwu formation isn't described in detail, but considering Zhang Sanfeng wanted it originally for 1 person, it seems like it's more focused on maybe controlling space and your opponent through technique somehow.

To me, this means that it scales much worse than something like Big Dipper, due to the fact that an external technique/formation generally has much less room for you to improve than one where you can merge energy with someone else and have your force multiplied.

[PJ]

It could work like the ad hoc semi-formation of You Tanzhi + Murong Fu, which was much more powerful than the sum of their individual powers. Even Xiao Feng wasn't able to break them up.

It won't be even to break the Zhenwu formation. Even someone with Sweeper Monk's great insights will have to fend off the mammoth power while devising a strategy to break it.

[AnhHung]

To me, this means that it scales much worse than something like Big Dipper, due to the fact that an external technique/formation generally has much less room for you to improve than one where you can merge energy with someone else and have your force multiplied.

But Big Dipper is dependent on excactly 7 members, whereas Zhenwu can have from 2 to 7.