The Poppy War (The Poppy War #1) - R. F. Kuang Page 0,47

is where the statues to the Four Gods used to stand,” said Jiang, pointing up into the dark void.

“Where are they now?”

He shrugged. “The Red Emperor had most religious imagery stripped and looted when he took over Sinegard. Most of it’s been melted down into jewelry. But that doesn’t matter.” He beckoned for Rin to follow him up the staircase.

He lectured as they climbed. “Martial arts came to the Empire by way of a warrior named Bodhidharma from the southeastern continent. When Bodhidharma found the Empire during his travels of the world, he journeyed to a monastery and demanded entry, but the head abbot refused him entrance. So Bodhidharma sat his ass in a nearby cave and faced the wall for nine years, listening to the ants scream.”

“Listening to what?”

“The ants scream, Runin. Keep up.”

She muttered something unrepeatable. Jiang ignored her.

“Legend has it that the intensity of his gaze bored a hole into the cave wall. The monks were either so moved by his religious commitment or so seriously impressed that anyone could be so obstinate that they finally let him into their temple.” Jiang paused in front of a painting depicting a dark-skinned warrior and a group of pale men in robes. “That’s Bodhidharma there in the center.”

“That guy on the left has blood spurting out of a stump,” Rin observed.

“Yeah. Legend also has it that one monk was so impressed with his commitment that he cut off his hand in sympathy.”

Rin recalled the myth of Mai’rinnen Tearza committing suicide for the sake of Speer’s unification with the mainland. Martial arts history seemed to be riddled with people making pointless sacrifices.

“Anyhow. The monks at the temple were interested in what Bodhidharma had to say, but because of their sedentary lives and poor diets, they were weak as shit. Scrawnier than you, even. Kept falling asleep during his lectures. Bodhidharma found this somewhat annoying, so he devised three sets of exercises to improve their health. Now, these monks were in constant physical danger from outlaws and robbers, but were also forbidden by their religious code to carry weapons, so they modified many of the exercises to form a system of weaponless self-defense.”

Jiang stopped before another painting. It depicted a row of monks lined up on a wall, frozen in identical stances.

Rin was amazed. “That’s—”

“Seejin’s first form. Yeah.” Jiang nodded in approval. “Bodhidharma warned the monks that martial arts was about the refinement of the individual. Martial arts used well would produce a wise commander, a man who could see clearly through fog and understand the will of the gods. The martial arts in their conception were not meant solely as military tools.”

Rin struggled to envision the techniques Jun had taught their class as purely health exercises. “But there had to be an evolution in the arts.”

“Correct.” Jiang waited for her to ask the question he wanted to hear.

She obliged. “When did the arts become adapted for mass military use?”

Jiang bobbed his head, pleased. “Shortly before the days of the Red Emperor, the Empire was invaded by the horsemen from the Hinterlands to the north. The occupation force introduced a number of repressive measures to control the indigenous population, which included forbidding the Nikara to carry weapons.”

Jiang stopped again before a painting depicting a horde of Hinterlander hunters riding upon massive steeds. Their faces were twisted into wild, barbaric scowls. They held bows that were longer than their torsos. At the bottom of the painting, Nikara monks were shown cowering in fear or strewn about in various states of dismemberment.

“The temples that were once havens of nonviolence became instead a sanctuary for anti-Northerner rebels and a center for revolutionary planning and training. Soldiers and sympathizers would don monks’ robes and shave their heads, but train for war within the temple grounds. In sacred spaces like these, they plotted the overthrow of their oppressors.”

“And health exercises would hardly have helped them,” Rin said. “The martial techniques had to be adapted.”

Jiang nodded again. “Exactly. The arts then taught in the temple required the progressive mastery of hundreds of long, intricate forms. These could take decades to master. The leaders of the rebellion, thankfully, realized that this approach was unsuitable to the rapid development of a fighting force.”

Jiang turned around to face her. They had reached the top of the pagoda. “And so modern martial arts were developed: a system based on human biomechanics rather than the movements of animals. The enormous variety of techniques, some of which were only marginally useful to a