Chao He Tang Battle Boxing

Chao He Tang / Tiao He Tang, Zhan Pai Shuang Zhi Quan
Battle Sect Double Branch Boxing of the Imperial Crane Martial Hall / Harmonious Martial Hall.
Today this style is often labelled as "Fujian Hung Gar" and claimed to have been created by Hong Xiguan (Hung Hei Goon) after he graduated from the Southern Shaolin temple.
The Shuang Zhi Quan part of the name comes from the system claiming two ancestral sources. The first ancestor is Bai He Xian Shi "White Crane Immortal Teacher" and the second is Chao Yuan Zu Shi "Imperial Origin Ancestral Teacher". In essence this is claiming origins with Fujian White Crane and with the Ming Taizu arts of the Ming royal family.
At the same time this way of saying it is rooted in Hong Men lore and stories from very late Qing and Republican era Wuxia books and plays.
The style it's self can be traced back to around 1840 when a cobbler named Xu Feng began to teach boxing to some local youths in Zhangzhou. Xu Feng is said to have come from Yongchun county in Quanzhou along with Daxin (possibly surnamed Cai, ie Cai Daxin depending on who you talk to) who was said to be his classmate and who worked part time in the local cloth dying factories.
Xu Feng is said to have had five students. This lineage of Chao He Tang traces to his student Wang Jin who is said to have later changed the name to Tiao He Tang to avoid trouble with the government.
There is some amount of disagreement among different lines of Xu Feng's martial art as to which Tang Hao was created when and by whom.
Wang Jin passed the provincial level martial exams and had a long successful career as a military officer serving in Anhui as well as other places before retiring after becoming sick of dealing with the corrupted local officials. Returning home he began an itinerant life of teaching martial arts and selling medicinal pastes and practicing bone setting and injury medicine. Members of his school would continue this lifestyle up through the mid 20th century.
The legends say that Xu Feng didn't need to use pliers when shaping and stretching the tough leather and rawhide for shoes because of the strength of his fingers. Instead of using a hammer he supposedly used his thumb to pound the iron nails into the soles of boots.
Three young men who would go on to be his first and best students started out by bullying Xu Feng for having come from outside of Zhangzhou whenever they saw him in the streets. Eventually he challenged them saying that if they lost they would have to leave him alone. He then threw them all to the ground, but rather than leaving him along the young men all clung to his legs begging him to teach them. These first 3 students were Wang Jin, Fan Wu, and another only remembered by his later nickname of Zhan Shu "Battle Uncle". Xu Feng would later take 2 more students and 4 of these 5 would go on to open schools with Battle Uncle being famous for his fighting skills but never taking a student.
Later the local people would begin to say that Xu Feng was a wandering Shaolin Monk on the run from the Qing government. But it is more likely that he was a member of the Hong Men society. His teaching of the meaning of San Zhan as "Feet treading the central plains, Fist Striking the Rivers and Mountains, Uniting the land under heaven" fits with this.
After he left his students continued the tradition becoming very well known for their fighting skills. Because of this the school became known as the "Battle Sect" style, and his three original students became known as the "Three Battle Uncles".
Because of the Hong Men connections the school was relatively conservative not accepting many students and choosing not to play a large role in local martial society. Although because of his skills in fighting, his highly successful military career, and his impartiality Wang Jin was often called upon to help mediate disputes between local teachers or schools
However that seems to have changed when one of the members of the school came in first in the provincial martial exams and was appointed as a prefecture level magistrate in Anhui.
After retirement he returned to Zhangzhou and began teaching at the school. It was around this time that the Chao Yang Tang changed it's name to the Tiao He Tang (Harmonious Hall).
During the mid 20th century the school became much smaller with many masters no longer teaching. This style had always had a reputation for focusing totally on combat and teaching methods which were brutal and dangerous. Many masters started to feel that in the modern era there was no longer a need for teaching methods which focused only on fighting and killing.
Because of this the art almost died out, butyin the last few decades the remaining masters changed the name back to Chao He Tang began teaching it again. Even so this art was known to have a very extensive array of weapons and empty hand forms, training methods, and special techniques, much of which have been lost.

[@reginaldwelkin]

Sadly, the subtitles were often very difficult to read, but what I gathered was interesting. I appreciate the effort!

[@naveenshastryg571]

Um.. good