Chapter 14 Chapter Thirteen Chen Yuanyun - the Patriarch of Japanese Judo

Judo is a sport that the Japanese love and are good at. It is a martial arts sport created by combining Chinese boxing and wrestling with traditional Japanese martial arts.The origin of Japanese judo can be traced back to Chen Yuanyun, a Chinese scholar who lived in Japan in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties.On Mount Aiyan in Tokyo, there is a stele of boxing that dates back to the judo school. The inscription reads, "The transmission of boxing began with Chen Yuanyun, a man of the Ming Dynasty." Chen Yuanyun (1587-1671 A.D.), a contemporary of Zhu Shunshui, was also an outstanding figure among the Chinese living in Japan in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties.He is versatile, capable of writing and martial arts. He is not only a scholar, but also a writer, philosopher, calligrapher, martial artist and pottery expert. He has made outstanding contributions to the spread of Chinese culture and the promotion of Sino-Japanese cultural exchanges.Chen Yuanyun, formerly known as Xiangxiang, with the word Xidu and the word Shisheng, has aliases and pseudonyms such as Zhishan, Hupo Taoist, Yinghu Yishi, Ju Xiuxuan, Jibaishanren, etc. He was born in Yuhang, Zhejiang.Young and smart, well-versed in classics and history, and talented, but failed in the imperial examinations.When he was young, he went to Shaolin Temple in Songshan, Henan to study martial arts and pottery making. He liked to read Taoist books of Laozhuang and Zhuangzi and the poems of Yuan Hongdao, a writer of Ming Dynasty.And has the ambition to roam the world and visit strangers overseas.

In 1619, at the age of 33, Chen Yuanyun went to Nagasaki, Japan with a Chinese merchant ship to Japan, where he stayed for recuperation due to dysentery, taught himself Japanese, and made a living by teaching calligraphy. In 1621, the Ming Dynasty sent Shan Fengxiang, a military officer of Zhezhi District, to Japan to negotiate the Japanese pirates. He temporarily invited Chen Yuanyun to participate in the negotiation work, and he went to Kyoto together for three months.As a result, I got acquainted with Japanese sinologists Lin Daochun, Toda Hanaya and others at that time. They often sang poems and wine, and became famous for a while.Afterwards, he was hired by Terumoto Mori, the lord of the Nagato feudal clan, as a guest, and compiled the "Nagato Kingdom Records" in Chinese. The original manuscript is now in Yamaguchi Prefecture.

In 1625, Chen Yuanyun went to Edo (now Tokyo) to teach boxing.Later, he lived in Nishikubo Guochang Temple in Edo, and taught Chinese Shaolin martial arts boxing to the temple monks Guizuo, Jiuyuan and others.At that time, the three Japanese martial artists Fukuno Shichiroemon, Miura Yojiroemon, and Isogai Jiroemon who were living in Kokusho Temple also learned Chinese martial arts from him, and studied it painstakingly. Cheng sect, spread to disciples, gradually formed Japanese judo, and Guochang Temple has long been the center of judo.Chen Yuanyun advocated the Taoist thought of Lao Zhuang, while judo advertises that it uses softness to overcome rigidity, and uses emptiness and tranquility to regulate breath. The source of its ideas is actually Taoism.

After Chen Yuanyun arrived in Edo, he met Tokugawa Iemitsu, the third general of the Edo shogunate, and Date Masamune, the lord of Sendai. In 1634, he met Yoshinao Tokugawa, the lord of the Owari Domain in Edo, and enjoyed cherry blossoms, chanted poems and sang harmony with Confucian official Takeno Ansai and other celebrities. In 1638, he was hired as a Confucian official of the Owari domain and went to Nagoya.There, he got acquainted with Yuan Zheng, a Japanese Chinese poet and monk of the Nichiren sect. Although Yuan Yun was 36 years older than Yuan Zheng, the two formed a long-lasting friendship.Yuan Zheng also liked Yuan Hongdao's poems and essays, and they imitated each other for singing.Chen Yuanyun married a Japanese woman and gave birth to a son named Fujimatsu. When he went to Kyoto, he entrusted Yuanzheng to educate his son.Later, he and Yuan Zheng shared the secret books of Yoshida Genshun, a great bibliophile in Kyoto. In 1663, Yuan Yun and Yuan Zheng co-authored "Yuan Yuan Chang He Ji" was published. Its content includes five-character quatrains, seven-character quatrains, regulated poems and words, Fu, prose, etc. This is the crystallization of cultural exchanges between China and Japan, and also the A testimony of the friendship between Chinese and Japanese poets.Yuan Yun's poems and essays include "Shuangxing Poetry Draft", "Jibai Mountain People Collection", "Hulin Poetry Collection", "Sheng'an Poetry Talk" and so on.Many of his poems reveal the natural and quiet artistic conception of Taoism. Yuan Zheng praised his poems as "the pen touches the three rivers to moisten the dry bones, and the couplets of poems illuminate the cold cottage".However, Yuan Yun liked Yuan Hongdao the most in his poems, and among Japanese poets, he admired Yuan Zheng's "remote, strange, distant, hearty and clear".

Chen Yuanyun also established a deep friendship with the famous Japanese sinologist U [ti title] Kai Shizhai.Shi Zhai gave lectures in a private school in Kyoto. Under the influence of Yuan Yun, he taught more than 30 Chinese classics and history collections under pseudonyms, so as to popularize Sinology.Yuan Yun also ordered "Zhu Zi's Family Instructions" under a pseudonym.Shi Zhai also entrusted Yuan Yun with his manuscript. After Shi Zhai died in 1664, Chen Yuanyun wrote his epitaph. Chen Yuanyun is a broad-minded person. He admires Laozhuang Taoism, but does not reject Buddhism and Confucianism. He has contacts with Zhu Shunshui, a great Chinese Confucian who lived in Japan at the same time, the eminent monk Yinyuan, and the famous doctor Zhang Zhenfu.When he was 84 years old in 1670, he completed the book "Laozi Tongkao", which was officially published in Japan.In the preface, he praised Lao Tzu's book "understanding the subtlety of the universe" and "doing everything in the world". In 1671, Chen Yuanyun died in Nagoya at the age of 85.Buried in Jianzhong Temple, Dexing Mountain, Nagoya, the inscription on the stele is "Daming Kingdom Wulin Jibaishan Ren Guangxue Chen Yuanyun Kuanwen died on June 9th, 11th year".Although Yuan Yun regarded himself as a survivor of the Ming Dynasty, he traveled east to Japan in the forty-seventh year of Wanli in the Ming Dynasty, and Nurhachi, the emperor of the Qing Dynasty, had just flourished.He traveled overseas because he was more influenced by Taoism to escape the vulgar society in the domestic reality.As he wrote in a poem:

Chen Yuanyun is also an outstanding calligrapher.He is proficient in various calligraphy styles, and there are authentic works of all styles of Xingcao Kaili, and every word on a piece of paper is cherished by the Japanese.Especially his regular script, with elegant and round handwriting, quite like Zhao Mengfu's calligraphy style.Japanese calligraphers Toya Meifeng, Honda Dotora, Sasaki Shizumo, Ito Guan, etc. all learned his calligraphy.His inscriptions on gold and stone, as well as the leftover inscriptions on the Buddhist bell of Shotoku-ji Temple in Nagoya, are now designated as Japanese national treasures.There is also the inscription on Wuju Huabiao of Bagui Shrine, and the calligraphy is in Zhao Ziang style.Yuan Yun sometimes painted, and the Japanese art critic Rinka Sasakawa believed that his paintings were "full of fun and fun". He was especially good at painting bamboo, and his surviving works are also cherished by the Japanese.

Chen Yuanyun is also known as an expert in ceramics.The Owari feudal lord once asked him to preside over the "Yi Ting Yaki", using Seto soil, importing Chinese yellow glaze, making his own calligraphy and painting, and applying green and white transparent watercolor, which is called Yuanyun Yaki.Most of the tea sets that have been handed down are tea sets, as well as snack plates, fan-shaped bowls, wine pots, vases, etc., which are highly valued by collectors and have a certain status in the history of Japanese ceramics.Local potters inherited his skills and passed them on from generation to generation.Nagoya is still a famous place for pottery in Japan, and it has a lot to do with him.

In addition, Chen Yuanyun also made contributions in the fields of catering, architecture, and medicine.For example, there is a kind of tea food in Nagoya called "Ban Yuanyun", which is said to have been created by him.Until the end of Edo, Oyo Confectionery still advertised with his portrait.He is also proficient in tea ceremony and medicine, and once wrote a postscript for the book Acupuncture and Moxibustion Juying written by Banban Buzhai.In terms of architecture, he participated in the design of Tokugawa Yoshinao's tomb temple at Omenzan Jokoji Temple in Nagoya. Chen Yuanyun has lived in Japan for more than 50 years. He not only devotes himself to spreading Chinese culture, but also has a deep understanding of Japanese culture. An outstanding figure in the history of Sino-Japanese cultural exchanges.