Wu Zhong
吴钟
A member of the Hui minority from Mengcun in Cangzhou, the first historically documented figure of bajiquan, nicknamed the god of the spear for his spear mastery.
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Wu Zhong (吴钟, 1712–1802) is the first historically documented figure in the history of bajiquan. He came from the Wu family of the Hui (Muslim) minority from the Mengcun area in Cangzhou in Hebei province. According to genealogical records, his great-grandfather moved about 50 km to the village of Houzhuangke in Shandong province, where Wu Zhong was born; the family then returned to Mengcun. Bajiquan itself is older: the earliest written mention of it is in the military treatise Jixiao Xinshu by General Qi Jiguang (1528–1588).
The origin of his mastery remains unknown, and the individual branches of bajiquan dispute over it. One theory names the Taoist monk Lai as his teacher and Pi as his student; this version, however, is probably a legend. A second theory names the monk Zhang Yueshan from the Yueshan temple in Henan.
For his mastery of the spear he was nicknamed the god of the spear. He was summoned as an instructor to the imperial court under Prince Xun. Around the age of sixty he returned to Mengcun and devoted the last thirty years of his life to passing on his art.
His only child was a daughter, Wu Rong, who married an expert in changquan and gave up martial arts. He therefore passed bajiquan on to his adopted distant nephews Wu Ying and Wu Zhongyu. In 1790 Wu Ying first used the name bajiquan and wrote the first combat manual of the Wu family. The lineage later split into the Hui branch from Mengcun and the Han branch from Luohan.