Study On The Social Foundation For The Boom Of Wushu In Ming Dynasty

The development of Chinese Wushu appeared to be in a state of being prosperous by the period of Ming Dynasty. At that time, the integrated system of Wushu came into being with large amounts of masterpieces concerning Wushu springing up unprecedentedly. The appearance of the various styles of Wushu featuring a series of fluent movements respectively and the participation in Wushu with far-ranging strata exerted positive effect on the development of Wushu. In addition, the overseas communication also played an important role in the boom of Wushu in Ming Dynasty. The Wushu of Ming Dynasty had witnessed a much higher degree of prosperity in comparison with that of several other previous dynasties, in which the Wushu was meant to serve military affairs instead of the folk ones. There must be a profound social root responsible for the prominent disparity of Wushu between Ming Dynasty and some previous dynasties. The research on the social foundation for the prosperity of Wushu in Ming Dynasty actually concentrates on the work aiming to find out what kind of background the booming Wushu of Ming Dynasty is based on. This paper attempts to conduct a well-rounded investigation in the Wushu of Ming Dynasty from the point of view of sociology with an aim of exploring the rule of the development of Wushu.Different research methods including reviewing literature, inductive method and deductive method have been adopted in this paper. The masterpieces and literature relating to the history of the Wushu in Ming Dynasty have been collected and analyzed during the research. Furthermore, many academic findings concerning the politics, economy, military affairs, religion, thought and history also have been gathered here for reference. The influence on the Wushu generated by different aspects of the society at that time will be summarized after finishing analyzing the relevant literature referring to the Wushu and history of Ming Dynasty. According to the requirement of this paper, the relevant opinion and perspective will be inferred on the basis of the conclusion generated by the field of Wushu's history at present time. This paper discusses the social foundation for the boom of Wushu in Ming Dynasty from different points of view of politics, economy, military affairs, religion and thought. It indicates that the politics of Ming Dynasty turned out to be changing so much after the rule of Xuanzong Empero(r宣宗). The treacherous court officials and eunuchs were in charge of important political affairs and then plunged the whole society into a state of chaos. By the middle of the ruling period of Ming Dynasty, the economy of Ming Dynasty began to enjoy a period of prosperity with agriculture developing quickly and towns and handicraft industry flourishing. With the capitalism sprouting, the lands were annexed drastically; more and more people were forced to flee their home as refugees. In view of being menaced by the threat of the remnant force of Menggu(蒙古)from northwest and the rise of Manzhou(满洲)from northeast, the great attention had been paid to the military Wushu with the purpose of national defense since the Ming Dynasty was founded in early period. Moreover, the never-ending harassment of Chinese coastal cities by the Mongols almost through the whole period of Ming Dynasty also should be taken into consideration. The dark politics and land annexation resulted in continual rebellions, in which some of south minority nationalities got involved. The status of Shaolin(少林)and Wudang(武当)had been established in Ming Dynasty with the existence of large amounts of clandestine religions and tongs which would become the prelude to practicing Wushu in backdoor tongs in Qing Dynasty. Ming Dynasty inherited the theory of chengzhu(程朱理学) from Song Dynasty and made it to become the ideology of Ming Dynasty. By the middle period of Ming Dynasty, Wang Yangming王阳明(Wang Shouren王守仁), a greatest Ming philosopher of Confucianism, created an anti-intellectual thought called "School of the mind" (Xinxue心学) which is based on the idea put forward by Lu Jiuyuan(陆九渊), a famous philosopher of human nature and universal order (that was called "School of Nature and Order" lixue理学) in Song Dynasty. The combination of practice and theory in his thought exerted crucial influence on the whole society, especially on Wushu, in Ming Dynasty. The factors mentioned above provide a solid foundation for the boom of the Wushu of Ming Dynasty by activating the relevant work focusing on the study, organization and innovation of Wushu.