Zhou Tong ( and ; pinyin: ; died late 1121) was the archery teacher and second military arts tutor of famous Song dynasty general Yue Fei. Originally a local hero from Henan, he was hired to continue Yue Fei's military training in archery after the boy had rapidly mastered spearplay under his first teacher. In addition to the future general, Zhou accepted other children as archery pupils. During his tutelage, Zhou taught the children all of his skills and even rewarded Yue with his two favorite bows because he was his best pupil. After Zhou's death, Yue would regularly visit his tomb twice a month and perform unorthodox sacrifices that far surpassed that done for even beloved tutors. Yue later taught what he had learned from Zhou to his soldiers and they were successful in battle.Kaplan, Edward Harold. Yueh Fei and the founding of the Southern Sung. Thesis (Ph.D.) – University of Iowa, 1970. Ann Arbor: University Microfilms International, 1970. pp. 10–12
With the publishing of Yue Fei's 17th folklore biography, The Story of Yue Fei (1684), a new, fictional Zhou Tong emerged, who differed greatly from his historical persona. Not only was he now from Shaanxi, but he was Yue's adopted father, a learned scholar with knowledge of the eighteen weapons of war, and his personal name was spelled with a different, yet related, Chinese character.Hsia, C. T. C. T. Hsia on Chinese Literature. Columbia University Press, 2004 (), pp. 448–449, footnote #31 The novel's author portrayed him as an elderly widower and military arts tutor who counted Lin Chong and Lu Junyi, two of the fictional 108 outlaws on which the Water Margin is based, among his former pupils.Qian, Cai. General Yue Fei. trans. Honorable Sir T. L. Yang. Joint Publishing (H.K.), 1995 (), p. 39. A later republican era folktale by noted Yangzhou storyteller Wang Shaotang not only adds Wu Song to this list, but represents Zhou as a knight-errant with supreme swordsmanship. The tale also gives him the nickname "Iron Arm", which he shares with the executioner-turned-outlaw Cai Fu, and makes the outlaw Lu Zhishen his sworn brother. Because of his association with the outlaws, he is often confused with the similarly named outlaw Zhou Tong. See number 6 on p. 4. Notice the author portrays him as the outlaw from the Water Margin and spells his name as , instead of the correct (historical) or (fictional).
Various wuxia novels and folk legends have endowed Zhou with different kinds of martial and supernatural skills. These range from mastery of the bow, double broadswords, and Chinese spear to that of Wudang hard qigong and even x-ray vision. Practitioners of Eagle Claw, Chuōjiǎo and Xingyi commonly include him within their lineage history because of his association with Yue Fei, the supposed progenitor of these styles. He is also linked to Northern Praying Mantis boxing via Lin Chong and Yan Qing. Wang Shaotang's folktale even represents him as a master of Drunken Eight Immortals boxing.Børdahl, 1996: p. 373. However, the oldest historical record that mentions his name only says he taught archery to Yue Fei.Yue, Ke (). Jin Tuo Xu Pian (), 1234 – Chapter 28, p. 16. Nothing is ever said about him knowing or teaching a specific style of Chinese martial arts.
Zhou has appeared in various forms of media such as novels, comic books, and movies. His rare 20th century biography, Iron Arm, Golden Sabre, serves as a sequel to The Story of Yue Fei because it details his adventures decades prior to taking Yue as his pupil. This was later adapted into a ten volume Lianhuanhua comic book.Xiong, Ti (). The Legend of Zhou Tong () (Vol. 1–10). Zhejiang Literature and Art Publishing House (), 1987 He also appears in a novel concerning one of his fictional martial arts brothers.Lou, Yun He (). Jin Tai Fights the Shaolin Monastery Three Times (). Zhejiang Literature & Art Publishing House (), 1986 He was portrayed by three different actors in a string of black and white Yue Fei films produced in the 1940s and 1960s, one of which featured a ten-year-old Sammo Hung as the lead. Veteran martial arts actor Yu Chenghui, who played the sword-wielding antagonist in Jet Li's Shaolin Temple, stated in a 2005 interview that he has always wanted to portray Zhou in a film.
History
Mention in Yue family memoirs
On his deathbed, Yue Fei's third son Yue Lin (, 1130–1192 AD) asked his own son,Kaplan: p. 16. the poet and historian Yue Ke (, 1183–post-1240), to complete Yue Fei's memoirs. This two-part memoir was completed in 1203, some sixty years after the general's political execution, but was not published until 1234.Kaplan: p. 2. It was later abridged in 1345 and published in the Yuan dynasty's dynastic chronology History of the Song Dynasty under the title Biography of Yue Fei (chapter 365, biography 124).Wilhelm, Hellmut. "From Myth to Myth: The Case of Yueh Fei's biography", in Confucian Personalities, ed. Arthur Wright and Denis Twitchett. Stanford studies in the civilizations of eastern Asia. Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press, 1962 (), p. 147. Zhou's mention in Yue Ke's memoir was only briefly summarized in the Yuan rewrite. It reads, "He [Yue Fei] learned archery from Zhou Tong. He learned everything and could fire with his left and right hands. After Tong's death, he would offer sacrifices at his tomb".)Selby, Stephen. Chinese Archery. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2000 (), p. 258.
Western Washington University history professor Edward Kaplan explains Zhou was a "local hao" ( – "heroic (person)"). He comments Hao can also mean "a 'knight errant' in poetic translation, or in prosaic terms a professional strongman and bodyguard.'" This means Zhou was a local hero from Tangyin County, Anyang prefecture, Henan province (the same area as Yue Fei).Foster, Robert W. "Yue Fei, 1103–1141" in The Human Tradition in Premodern China. Human tradition around the world, no. 4, ed. Kenneth James Hammond. Wilmington, Del: Scholarly Resources, 2002. (), p. 95.Kaplan: p. 5.
Historical and scholarly sources spell his personal name as (Tong), meaning "same or similar". This differs from the spelling present in fictional sources, which will be further explained below. So, "周同" represents the historical archer.
Tutelage
Despite being literate, giving him a chance to become a scholar, young Yue Fei chose the military path because there had never been any tradition of full-fledged Confucian civil service in his family history. He would stay up all night reading military strategy books and idolized such great historical heroes as Guan Yu.Wilhelm: p. 149. However, the Yue family was much too poor to afford military lessons for their son, so, Yao Dewang, the boy's maternal grandfather, hired Chen Guang () to teach the eleven-year-old how to wield the Chinese spear. Yao was very surprised when his grandson quickly mastered the spear by the age of thirteen.Kaplan: p. 13. Zhou was then brought in to continue Yue's military training in archery.Qian, Ru Wen (). Biography of Song Yue, Prince of E (), 1924 Dr. Kaplan describes Zhou as the "most important" of the two teachers.Kaplan: p. 10.
A section of the Jin Tuo Xu Pian, the second part of Yue Ke's original published memoir, describes one of Zhou's archery lessons and reveals that he took other children as his pupils:
"One day, T'ung gathered his pupils for an archery session and to display his ability put three arrows in succession into the center of the target.Shooting three successive arrows was known as "three-in-row", which was one of the "Five Archery Techniques" according to the Tang dynasty archery manual of Wang Ju () (Selby: p. 202). Pointing to the target to show grandfather , he said: 'After you can perform like this, you can say you are an archer'. Grandfather thanked him and asked to be allowed to try. He drew his bow, let fly his arrow and struck the end of T'ung's arrow. He shot again and again hit the mark. T'ung was greatly amazed and subsequently presented to grandfather his two favorite bows. Thereafter grandfather practiced still more he was able to shoot to the left and right, accurately letting fly the arrow as he moved.This sentence refers to a technique taught to Song archers that involved them "[moving] their feet in co-ordination with their draw so that they could advance or retreat and shoot at the same time" (Selby: p. 242). When he became a general he taught this to his officers and men so that his whole army became skilled at shooting to the left and right and frequently used this technique to crush the enemy's spirit".Kaplan: p. 11.Li, Hanhuan (). Chronology of Yue Wumu (). Shanghai: Shangwu Press, 1947 – Chapter 4, p. 3b.
The last sentence of the passage is similar to one from the Republican era Biography of Song Yue, Prince of E. But instead of teaching them his own technique, it states Yue taught what he had learned from Zhou to his soldiers who were victorious in battle.
Death
Zhou continued to teach the children until his death, prior to Yue's legal adulthood. Following his passing, Yue became extremely depressed since Zhou had been the greatest influence on his early life. Zhou's student would regularly visit his tomb on the first and fifteenth of every month with sacrifices of meat and wine and would shoot three arrows in succession with one of the two bows his tutor had presented him with (it is never mentioned whether any of Zhou's other archery pupils came to visit his tomb).This means the tomb was somewhere close to the Yue family village. Dr. Kaplan comments that this continuous unusual display of mourning "went far beyond the ceremonial appropriate for even a highly respected teacher". Noted Sinologist Hellmut Wilhelm claims even though the display of grief was genuine, it was also a way of emulating the stories of his heroic idols and " in the public eye". Yue's father later followed him secretly to Zhou's tomb after striking him during an argument over his melancholic behavior. There, he saw him perform the unorthodox obediences involving the meat, wine, and three arrows. When he finally confronted him, the son confessed that "his gratitude for Chou's instruction could not be requited simply by the usual first and middle of the month ceremonies and so he ... shot off the three arrows to symbolize that Chou had been the source of his inspiration as an archer".Kaplan: p. 12. Dr. Kaplan's states this happened just prior to Yue's entrance into the army and that the entire event served as a symbol for Yue's "entrance into responsible manhood".
The Chronology of Yue Wumu lists the events at Zhou's tomb happening in 1121 when Yue was nineteen,Li, 1947: p. 9. but Yue would have been eighteen in that year since he was born on "the fifteenth day of the second month of 1103".Kaplan: pp. 3–4 The author of the original source material was using xusui age calculation, in which a child is already considered one year old at birth.DeFrancis, John. ABC Chinese–English dictionary: alphabetically based computerized. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1996 (), p. 696. Since Yue joined the military shortly after Zhou's death, a relative time frame can be given for when he died. During the early months of 1122, the Song empire mobilized its armed forces to assist the Jurchen in confronting their common enemy, the Liao dynasty.Kaplan: p. 32. Therefore, it appears that Zhou died in late 1121, before the call to arms was issued.
Fiction