Li Jing Lin - The "Sword Saint" and "Warlord" who wore the Imperial Yellow Jacket 李景林：穿著黃馬褂的“劍仙”和“督軍”

Translation of an article from the Business Times Newspaper 時代商報 

Among the Chinese Warlords, Li Jing Lin has become almost "marginalized", unlike Zhang  Zong Chang 張宗昌 whose name will stink forever, or Sun Chuan Fang  孫傳芳  whose life still attracts a lot of interest. But in actuality Li Jing Lin and Zhang Zong Chang were two of the "Five Tigers" of Zhang Zuolin. But not only was he recognized as a Warlord before Zhang Zong Chang but his status was always above that of Zhang Zong Chang. Like Zhang Zong Chang his troops were semi trained conscripts. During the Zhi-Wan (Hebei - Anhui) War 直皖戰爭  in 1920, Li Jing Lin operated as a Regimental Commander under the Anhui Clique General Qu Tong Feng, but was ousted by Wu Pei Fu and reluctantly sought refuge under the aegis of Zhang Zuo Lin. As both of them commanded troops who were not regular soldiers, their relationship was quite good. Their unit was called the United Troops of Zhili (now Hebei) and Shandong 直魯聯軍. And became blood brothers fighting in the same wars. 

What is interesting is that when one talks of Li Jing Lin, one rarely discusses his leadership ability or his life as a Warlord. But reference is always made to his status as a martial arts Grandmaster. The author believes that Li Jing Lin achieved two things that deserve to be remembered. (1) During the Xinhai Revolution, Li Jing Lin, he was Captain of the Qing Court Second Suicide Squad 清廷第二敢死隊, and was tasked with suppressing the rebellion in Hanyang.  Due to his valor in battle, the Qing Court awarded him the Imperial Yellow Jacket or Huang Magua. (As yellow was a color normally reserved for the Imperial family, this jacket granted for civil or military merit was considered the highest honour during the Qing dynasty)  (2) Like Zhang Zong Chang, he was also  a "Dog Meat General" 狗肉將軍 (the term derived from the game Pai Gow which Northern Chinese termed eating dog meat) and when gambling he did not care how much money he lost. According to the memoirs of his strategist Han Yu Chen, once he lost 70-80 thousand silver dollars of offical funds gambling and he no means to repay. He then puffed up his chest and reported to General Zhang and took responsibility saying that he did not short any of the soldiers pay [to cover his debts]. Zhang said that he did well  and wrote off the funds. Li said that he remembered this all his life. 

Discussing Li Jing Lin's martial arts

Li Jing Lin, whose courtesy name was "廣古川"  was born in 1885 and died in 1931. He hailed from Juchang County in Encai Township in Hebei. He was an ethnic Han Bannerman, and although he was not famous as a Warlord, he had the sobriquet "Sword Saint" or "God of Sword Li" which all the other Warlords were hard pressed to match. As to the source of his martial arts and as to his original teacher there are many different theories. One theory is that his teacher was Chen Shi Jun陳世均, but according to the Wudang Sword Dan School 12th generation Lineage Holder Wu Zhi Quan吳志泉 the existence of Chen Zhi Jun is questionable without any historical records. Instead he says that Li's martial arts comes from three sources (1) his martial arts learned as a child (2) Wudang Sword from Song Wei Yi and (3) Yang Taiji from Yang Lu Chan.

According to the present information, we can figure out this much. When he was young, Li Jing Lin had a foundation in Yan Qing Men 燕青門 Er Lang Men 二郎門. When he was 14 he enlisted in the youth corps 育字軍 in Luoyang. The head of the youth corps, Song Wei Yi noticed that Li Jing Lin had a foundation in martial arts and was very intelligent, thus he accepted him as his disciple and transmitted the Wudang Sword to him. Song Wei Yi's status in the martial arts circles was very high, he was the ninth generation lineage holder in the "Dan" school of Wudang Sword,  and he was the first lineage holder in the history of Wudang Sword to compose a martial arts manual. In 1922 when Li Jing Lin was First General of the Armies of the three Eastern Provinces,  he was was training his armies in the north and he reconnected with his master, they were naturally very happy to see each other. Song Wei Yi gave the martial arts manual 《武當劍譜》 he had authored to Li Jing Lin and thus received the full transmission from Song Wei Yi and became the 10th Generation Lineage holder of Wudang Sword. Thus his titles such as Sword Saint were not a bunch of hot air. 

During the Boxer Rebellion the youth corps were disbanded. That year Li Jing Lin was 16 and returned to his hometown, and went looking in the neighboring Yongnian County for a new teacher and became a student of Yang Luchan's third son Yang Jian Hou and learned the essence of Taijiquan. However there are several accounts of this period of his life, according to the famous martial artist and "walking encyclopedia" Sa Guo Zheng 沙國政, Li Jing Lin learned his Taijiquan from the eldest son of Yang Lu Chan - Yang Feng Hou and an indeed in the 1993 Fall issue of Wudang Magazine the lineage is listed as Yang Lu Chan - Yang Feng Hou - Li Jing Lin - Jiang Rong Qiao - Sa Guo Zheng. But other information states that his teacher was Yang Jian Hou. However as Yang Feng Hou passed away relatively early, even his son Yang Jiao Lin's kung fu was taught by his uncles Yang Ban Hou and Yang Jian Hou. Wu Zhi Quan also stated that Li Jing Lin studied under Yang Jian Hou and was one of his non-Yang family disciples.  

Regardless of what each party states, the source of Li Jing Lin's Taichi was Yang Lu Chan, and this can confirmed. During training he also formed a deep friendship with Yang Jian Hou's son Yang Chengpu and spent a lot of energy promoting Taichi. The current simplified Taiji set and 88 movement Taijiquan promoted by the Chinese government are based upon the original Shandong Guoshu Academy manual《太極拳講義》 which was authored by Li Jing Lin and Yang Chengpu in collaboration with others. The records state that in 1929 Li Jing Lin asked Yang Chengpu to author a manual, and after three rounds of corrections, it was demonstrated by the Head of Teaching of the Shangdong Guoshu Academy - Li Yu Lin 李玉琳 and the final version was set by Li Jing Lin. At this time there was those who called this version the Li Jing Lin Style or the "Yang Style New Frame" “楊式新架 "New Yang Style"“新楊式”. 

In addition to Taijiquan, Li Jing Lin also spent considerable effort popularizing Wudang Sword. Of special note was that Li Jing Lin obtained the approval of Song Wei Yi to publicize the historically confidential Wudang Sword. (In 1923, the manual was published in Beijng) and this helped the spread and influence of Wudang sword greatly. 

Having said this, Li Jing was not a conservative person, he widely taught and accepted disciples. This was especially true during the 1929 National Ring Fighting Competition “全國打擂比賽” and it was said that during that period more than 500 people became his disciple. 

The Ascendancy of Li Jing Lin 

Some information states that Li Jing Lin was a graduate of Baoding Military Academy, but this does not seem right. According to the information Li Jing Lin went to study in Baoding in 1903, and was the same year as Sun Chuan Fang and Wu Pei Fu. At the time the school was called the "Accelerated Military Training Hall for the BeiYang Army" and was the previous incarnation of the Baoding Military Academy. The period after Li Jing Lin graduated was not clearly documented with some information stating that he served as a lower level officer in capital. 

During the Xinhai Revolution, Li Jing Lin followed the troops south, to fight the rebels. According to the records Li Jing Lin was very brave, and volunteered to head the second suicide squad. At that time the suicide squad had 500 people, and was divided into two teams, when crossing the Xiang river straight to Sanyan Bridge, it hit the rebels so hard that they could not retaliate. He rushed to the front to capture Hanyang City's Guishan (Tortoise Mountain) and was rewarded with an Imperial yellow jacket by the Qing court. 

Before he served under Zhang Zuolin, Li Jing Lin once served under the Heilongjiang Warlord Xu Lan Zhou as a strategist. During this time Li and Zhang were not "friends" but were "competitors".  As Zhang Zuolin had ambitions to conquer the three Eastern Provinces (Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang) he had to defeat Xu Lanzhou, and as Li Jing Lin served as Xu's strategist, was caught up in the conflict, and thus for a period Li's career faced many obstacles. During the Zhi-Wan War, he even fled to serve as a regimental commander for Qu Tongfeng. When he was defeated he lost his status even as a regimental commander. Reluctantly he changed his allegiance to Zhang Zuolin, and in this respect he was similar to Zhang Congchang. However from the actual situation we can see that Zhang Zuolin respected Li's talents and did not demote him in the same way as Zhang Congchang, but promoted him several grades. After the first Zhifeng War in 1922, Zhang Zuolin restructured his command and it was at that time that Li Jing Lin became the Commander-in-Chief of the three Eastern Provinces.