Chen Wangting
Officer of the late Ming dynasty (1597–1664 according to Wile) from Chenjiagou in Henan, whom the Chen family and the historian Tang Hao regard as the creator of Chen-style taijiquan.
Quick Facts
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Chen Wangting was an officer of the late Ming dynasty from the village of Chenjiagou in Wen County, Henan Province, whom the Chen family and, since 1931, the historian Tang Hao regard as the creator of Chen-style taijiquan. Douglas Wile gives his dates as 1597–1664, David Gaffney as 1600–1680. We have not resolved the dispute.
According to local annals cited by Gaffney and to Sal Canzonieri, in 1641 he commanded the armed forces of Wen County, and after the fall of the Ming dynasty he returned to Chenjiagou. We have not read the annals ourselves. The Chen family relates that in retirement he worked the family exercises into forms. The Zhaobao lineage claims instead that Jiang Fa taught him, and the newly published genealogy of the Li family of Tang village links him with his cousins Li Zhong and Li Yan and with the abbot Bogong.
What his real share was is disputed among historians. Chen Xin, in a book published in 1933, does not mention him in the preface, and the Chen genealogy says only that he excelled in taijiquan. In 1963 Tang Hao and Gu Liuxin listed 29 movements from a text by General Qi Jiguang that also appear in Chen family forms. In 2017 Wile called it premature to judge whether the Li family documents are genuine.
The family tradition that bears his name gave rise to further styles. Chen Changxing (1771–1853) taught Yang Luchan, founder of the Yang style, and through Chen Qingping the Zhaobao style also traces itself to it. We have not found a traceable quote of Chen Wangting with an origin in a book or manuscript.
Early life
According to family tradition, the Chen family came to Chenjiagou in Wen County from Hongtong in Shanxi Province, and the martial tradition of the village was founded by the ancestor Chen Bu. We know this tradition from English Wikipedia, and we have not read the book by Gaffney and Sim, nor the work of Chen Mark, ourselves. Douglas Wile gives the dates of Chen Wangting as 1597–1664, David Gaffney as 1600–1680. The genealogy of the Li family of Tang village lists him as the cousin of Li Zhong and Li Yan, whose mother was the sister of his mother. Wile considers this genealogy disputed.
Training and teachers
According to local annals cited by David Gaffney, in 1641 he was commander of the garrison of Wen County. Sal Canzonieri describes him in the same year as commander of the local militia and places his return to the village in 1644. The lineages differ on whom he learned martial arts from. A preface to the Taiji HPMA manual dated 1634, published by T. Julian Chu and co-authors, names the abbot Bogong as his teacher. The Zhaobao lineage claims that Jiang Fa taught him. According to the Li family genealogy, he and his cousins beat to death an unjust examiner, and the Chen family tells the same story without the involvement of the Li family.
Contribution and innovations
In his 1931 work Shaolin Wudang kao, Tang Hao named Chen Wangting, on the basis of family documents, as the creator of taijiquan and thereby abandoned the legend of the Taoist Zhang Sanfeng. English Wikipedia, which relies on Yu Gongbao and Chen Mark, attributes to him the working of the family exercises into seven forms, among them the first form and Cannon Fist. In a 1963 study Tang Hao and Gu Liuxin listed 29 movements from the text of General Qi Jiguang on fist fighting that also appear in Chen family forms. Chen Xin, author of the family manual published posthumously in 1933, does not mention him in the preface, and the Chen genealogy says only that he excelled in taijiquan.
Legends and documented facts
The legend attributes taijiquan to the Taoist Zhang Sanfeng. According to Wile, the researcher Anna Seidel found that his biographies do not describe him as a fighting master at all. Tang Hao visited Chenjiagou in the early nineteen-thirties, Wile gives the year 1930, Wikipedia 1932. Even the thesis of Chen Wangting as creator is not undisputed, however. Li Bin claims that the Li family genealogy documents the joint origin of the art with Li Yan, Li Zhong and Chen Wangting, while Li Shirong rejects his role entirely. Douglas Wile wrote in 2017 that if the four newly found documents were genuine, they would seriously challenge the thesis of Chen Wangting, and he considers a judgment of their authenticity premature. We have not been able to find documented students of Chen Wangting in a better source than Wikipedia.
Legacy
According to Gaffney and Sim, Chen Changxing (1771–1853) unified the family forms into two forms of the Old Frame and was the first to teach outside the family. His student was Yang Luchan, founder of the Yang style. English Wikipedia says that Chen Youben of the 14th generation taught Chen Qingping, from whom the Zhaobao style derives. In 2007 the Chinese General Administration of Sport awarded the village of Chenjiagou a plaque as the birthplace of taijiquan, and according to Wile it had to remove it two months later after protests. Gaffney writes that a portrait of Chen Wangting with Jiang Fa was lost during the Cultural Revolution.