Chapter 173 - 169: Martial Arts Practice_1

Translator: 549690339

In the afternoon, the Jiang family gathered together for dinner.

“Daddy, Uncle Zhang Meng wants to teach my younger brother martial arts.”

Yingbao told her parents, “Today he demonstrated a boxing sequence for us. I think it was quite good, he should be skilled.”

Jiang Sanlang was not surprised, “Zhang Meng and Xu Kun are both frontier soldiers. They are old acquaintances with Wen Fu, so their martial arts skills should be evenly matched.”

He wasn’t clear about Zhang Meng and Xu Kun, but he knew that Wen Fu was highly skilled.

Jiang Sanlang asked his two sons, “Do you really want to learn martial arts?”

Jiang Jie shook his head again and again, “I don’t want to.”

He was frightened when he saw Uncle Xu Kun beat Uncle Zhang Meng with a hammer, so he didn’t want to learn any martial arts from them.

Jiang Wu blinked his eyes and nodded his head, “I want to learn, and sister will learn too.” Meaning his sister would learn with him.

Jiang Sanlang flicked his son’s forehead and unceremoniously said, “If you want to learn, do it. If not, don’t force your sister. Your sister is a girl, how could she wield swords and guns?”

More importantly, how could he let his daughter become a male teacher’s disciple? This was absolutely inappropriate.

“Why not?” Jiang Wu said unsatisfactorily while rubbing his forehead, “If sister doesn’t learn, I won’t either.”

Jiang Sanlang didn’t want to argue with his son. He ate his porridge and said, “Suit yourself. If you don’t want to learn martial arts, then study hard and pass the civil service exams in the future.”

Jiang Wu: .

He didn’t want to take the civil service exam, and he wouldn’t pass it either.

Because every time the Master checked recitations, he got his palms beaten. If it weren’t for the fear of being beaten by his parents, he wouldn’t even go to the academy.

After giving it some thought, Jiang Wu asked, “If I learn martial arts, does that mean I don’t have to study?”

“Who said you don’t have to study when you practice martial arts?” Jiang Sanlang glared at him, “If you don’t study, how will you practice martial arts? What have you learned from the Three Character Classic? An uncarved gem cannot be used, if a person does not learn they won’t understand righteousness, hasn’t the Master taught you that?”

Jiang Wu’s face fell.

After dinner, the two boys washed up and headed back to their room and climbed on the Kang (a heated bed).

Jiang Jie heard his brother sighing continuously, he quietly said: “You’re so clueless. If you practice martial arts every day, you won’t have to stay at the academy all the time, and if you can’t recite texts, you’ll at least have an excuse.”

Can it be like that? Jiang Wu had an epiphany.

Yes, training with Uncle Zhang would leave no free time to attend the academy. That way, the Master wouldn’t be able to hit his palms anymore.

“Hehe, our Master also said that, ‘every person who has talent must play a role’. If I can’t pass the civil service exam, I can still do other things. As long as one works hard and puts in effort, one can excel in any line of work. From now on, I will be the Martial Champion.”

Although their master was old-fashioned, he was open-minded at times. He didn’t mind whether his students could pass the exams or not. But if a student reads for a day under his teachings, he must work for an entire day. If they don’t study hard, they get their palms beaten.

The next day, Jiang Wu got up early, and without his parents noticing, he ran to tell Uncle Zhang that he had decided to learn martial arts.

“Did your parents agree?” Zhang Meng was delighted to hear the news, but he was also worried if it was only a child’s wishful thinking.

If Jiang Village Chief disagreed, he wouldn’t be able to accept the kid as his disciple privately.

“Agree! They all agreed! They even said they would prepare gifts for the ceremony of accepting a teacher.” Actually, they hadn’t, but as long as he promised to take learning martial arts seriously and it wouldn’t affect his studies, his parents wouldn’t object.

Zhang Meng laughed heartily and patted Jiang Wu’s small shoulders, “Good! If that’s the case, let’s start now.”

“Start what?” Jiang Wu was confused.

“Tendon stretching!” said Zhang Meng: “The first step in learning martial arts is to understand how to stretch the major tendons in your body and make them flexible.”

Seeing that Jiang Wu was still confused, Zhang Meng picked up a tree branch and broke it in two, “See this, this branch is like your bones. Without protection, they can break with a bend.”

He then picked up two ropes and wrapped them around the branch, “These ropes are like your major tendons. They not only protect your bones from external forces, but also help you exert force to attack others with maximum strength.”

Jiang Wu nodded, looking intently at his master, not blinking once, as he listened attentively.

Zhang Meng pinched Jiang Wu’s shoulders, elbows, spine, and legs, “There are large tendons here. First, you must train the toughness of these tendons and bones, allowing the large tendons to protect your limbs at all times. Only then can you learn the moves.”

Jiang Wu seemed to understand.

Zhang Meng continued, “Your large tendons are not strong, tough, or thick enough. So first, we need to strengthen your muscles and tendons. That’s the essence of tendon training.”

“All right, Master, go ahead.” Jiang Wu looked forward to it.

Zhang Meng’s face twitched. He thought there was still a long time left and he couldn’t scare away his new apprentice yet. “Once you officially become my disciple, we will formally start. For now, I am just telling you how to use your muscles and exert strength.”

“Okay, okay!” Jiang Wu excitedly responded.

At noon, Jiang Sanlang and Chunniang brought gifts with their son to formally recognize their new masters.

Chunniang wasn’t sure what gifts to bring when recognizing a martial arts master, so she prepared something practical – two portions of pork, two sets of new clothes, two pairs of new shoes, along with five taels of silver as tuition.

Zhang Meng and Xu Kun were very satisfied and readily accepted them.

Jiang Wu then kowtowed to officially recognize his masters.

With this, he had recognized two masters.

Zhang Meng excelled at boxing, wrestling, and knife skills, while Xu Kun was skilled in fighting on horseback.

However, the Jiang family didn’t have a horse yet. They could only focus on training the boy’s physical ability for now, and the riding skills would be taught later.

Soon, Jiang Wu realized what it felt like to shoot oneself in the foot.

On the first day, he was exhausted and his legs were trembling on his way home; he didn’t even recover the next day.

Regretting his decision, Jiang Wu refused to get up from bed. But his father showed no mercy and bundled him off to learn under his master again. He continued the horse stance from the previous day and endlessly threw punches to train the muscles in his arms and back.

This one exercise alone nearly killed him with exhaustion; he couldn’t sleep at night due to the aching all over his body.

Jiang Wu ran crying to his sister, complaining that he didn’t want to practice martial arts anymore and wanted to study instead.

Yingbao handed him a bowl of water and softly said, “You should never give up halfway. You must endure the path that you chose. If you give up today, you will continue to surrender when facing other difficulties in the future. Do you want to be a man of integrity, or do you want to become a good-for-nothing that can’t do anything right?”

Jiang Wu whimpered, “I, I want to be a hero.”

His sister once told him that the good-for-nothing people sleep in pigsties and eat pig food, even dogs despise them. He certainly did not want to become one of them.

Yingbao patted his head and stuffed the bowl into his hand, “Here, drink the water and then go to sleep. Your legs will stop hurting tomorrow.”

Jiang Wu obediently drank the water.

Surprisingly, after drinking it, he felt warm all over, and his waist and legs didn’t hurt as much.

After waking up, Jiang Wu felt refreshed and full of energy, not only was there no pain, but he also felt more powerful.

That day, he managed to maintain the horse stance for the duration of three incense sticks, which surprised both Zhang Meng and Xu Kun.

Even Wen Fu praised him, saying the boy was indeed a promising lad and martial arts prodigy.

A few days later, Jiang Wu was able to hold the horse stance for over an hour without feeling tired, and he could also jog for two or three miles as a warm-up afterward.

Seeing this, Zhang Meng added more exercises for him; he let him hold a small bucket of water in each hand to train his shoulder, back, and arm strength. Only after finishing these could he rest a bit.

Due to the lack of space in the vegetable garden, Jiang Sanlang built a martial arts training field next to the fruit orchard. Following Zhang Meng and Xu Kun’s suggestion, he also placed several plum piles around the field.

Yuanbao, Huzi, and other village boys were curious about all this and often came to watch Jiang Wu’s martial arts training, some even secretly imitated him.

Even the teenagers of the Jiang family like Jiang Quan and Jiang Cheng found this interesting. They sneakily climbed the plum piles when nobody was around at night but ended up falling down, resulting in sore bottoms for days.