Martial Arts of Zhou Tong - Military

Military

Yang Jwing Ming, author of Analysis of Shaolin Chin Na: instructor's Manual for all Martial Styles, states Zhou Tong taught Yue Fei "a complete system involving barehand combat, weapons, military tactics, horsemenship, archery, and other related subjects." The historical Yue Fei Biography states, “家貧力學，尤好【左氏春秋】、孫吳兵法。"

"Despite his family's poverty, was studious, and particularly favored the Zuo Zhuan edition of the Spring and Autumn Annals and the strategies of Sun Tzu and Wu Qi."

A 1930’s Xingyi manual, which details a Yue biography that appears to be a variation of the semi-historical Biography of Song Yue, Prince of E, Prince of E, says the “military leader Zhou Tong” taught Yue the “deployment of troops”.

Sinologist Hellmut Wilhelm theorized that Yue Fei purposely patterned his life after famous Chinese heroes from dynasties past. Apart from studying literature under his father, Yue Huo (Chinese: 岳和, d. late 1122), Yue loved to read military classics. Although his literacy afforded him the chance to become a scholar, which was a position held in much higher regard than the common soldiery during the Song, Yue chose the military path because there had never been any tradition of civil service in his family. Therefore he had no reason to study the Confucian classics in order to surpass the accomplishments of his ancestors or to raise his family’s social status to the next level. His fourth-generation ancestor, Yue Huan (Chinese: 岳涣), had served as a functionary on the lowest rung of the government ladder, but he was never a full-fledged member of the civil service rank. The paper goes on to say the Yue learned "archery, swordsmanship, and lanceplay" from Zhou Tong.