Wuxia Genre History Tidbits:
(1) Wuxia genre researchers generally agree that 水滸傳 Water Margin—one of the Four Great Classical Chinese Novels—is the precursor of the Qing- and Modern-era wuxia fiction. Jin Yong himself admitted that his early works were indeed influenced by Water Margin.
(2) In the Tang dynasty (618 – 907), the most popular genre fiction written in classical Chinese was called "legends" 傳奇小說. Such legends were structured as short novels and grouped into four main categories—wuxia, romance, historical and supernatural.
(3) All these numerous Tang legends were later compiled into the mammoth anthology (consisting of 500 volumes) called 太平廣記 Extensive Records of the Taiping Reign and edited by the Song scholar 李昉 Li Fang and others.
(4) The most well-known “wuxia legend” collected in the Anthology as 卷一百九十三豪俠一 (Volume 193, Wuxia I) is called 虬髯客傳 Legend of the Dragon Beard. This is widely considered the first wuxia novel. The story tells how Dragon Beard helps Li Shimen seize the throne as the second Tang emperor, Tang Taizong.
(6) The fantastical martial arts feats as depicted in 聶隱娘 The Assassin are very likely to have inspired all the qinggong (flying kungfu feats) in wuxia/xianxia fiction of later eras. The excerpt below shows how the protagonist is trained in kungfu by a nun and her two girl disciples.
The two girl disciples, both aged about ten, were very pretty and smart and often abstained from food. They were able to fly around the mountain crags like monkeys leaping from tree to tree. The nun gave me a pill and an ultra sharp sword about two feet long. I learned how to scale heights by chasing the two girls and in time, I felt light as the wind. A year later I could use my sword to strike down monkeys. Then tigers and leopards were my targets and I would cut their heads and bring them home. After three years, I could fly and was capable of striking eagles in mid-air. Every strike hit home. Then the blade of my sword became shortened by five inches. Birds in flight were never aware of my looming sword.
已有二女，亦各十歲，皆聰明婉麗不食。能於峭壁上飛走，若捷猱登木，無有蹶失。尼與我藥一粒，兼令長執寶劍一口，長二尺許，鋒利，吹毛令剸，逐二女攀緣，漸覺身輕如風。一年後，刺猿狖。百無一失。後刺虎豹，皆決其首而歸。三年後能飛，使刺鷹隼，無不中。劍之刃漸減五寸。飛禽遇之，不知其來也。
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