I’ve been trying to track down the dates of the brith and death of Zhang Xiangwu for some time now. I am kind of hoping that maybe I can find more if I configure my browser to go through a Taiwanese proxy server. Local webseraches give little info as Zhang Xiangwu, my Shiye, was a KMT guy and his records have been kindof supressed.
I was recently startled to learn that evne my own Shifu, who trained directly under him, is not clear when exactly he died. General Zhang Xiangwu was in charge of the 5th army of the KMT. He cooperated with the communists to fight the Japanese but was eventually executed by them. Because of this, historical info on him is scarce. My teacher has lots of stories but he trained with him when he was very young. Liu Yunqiao talks about him and confirms that Zhang Xiangwu was his “elder brother” in gong fu and introduced Liu Yunqiao to Bagua and forced him to study Taijiquan as well. Liu’s introduction to Gong Baozhai was also made by General Zhang.
So I keep thinking that if he was indeed a general in the KMT, which everyone seems to agree on, then somewhere there should be an official record of his execution. All I have been able to turn up so far is that he was killed, “Right after the communists took over…” But no specific dates have turned up.
So if anyone knows anything specific that’s great. But I am calling special attention to our Taiwan posters for referalls to Taiwanese proxy servers as my usual resource www.proxy4free.com is not showing anything from Taiwan these days.
I have read about General Zhang Xiang Wu in Liu Yunqiao’s baji book,if i am not wrong it is written as 張驤伍,his military title from what i got from Taiwanese yahoo is 山東省膠東第五路總指揮張驤伍將.
Unfortunately like what you had found info on his is very scarce(only 18 results),and all are MA related,talking more or less about the same thing. My guess is,though he was a KMT general,he wasnt that prominent enough to have such big profile.
Or u can try going to wutan’s forum to ask them about it,but if even ur sifu doesnt know i dont think anyone there would know…
Actually, I have at least a couple of Wutan guys drooling over whatever snippets I can give them already. My teacher has already given me a few stories and promised eventually to release a bunch more. But hard historical stuff is still sketchy. Most of what my teacher can give me is MA related just like what you probably found on Yahoo, which by the way, was more hits than I got here.
I just wish I could find the details of his death. Heck, even the exact date would be good.
Could you post a link to the forum your referring to? I still haven’t had much luck getting used to Chinese forums but I browse and lurk on them once in a while.
Ok,but there is more than one wutan forum,and from what i gathered from Taiwanese forum there seems to be a dispute as to who has the ‘real’ stuff from GM Liu Yun Qiao…
Some wutan website: http://www.tacocity.com.tw/dasinew/ http://www.wutang.com.tw/
I know u wouldnt care coz u not from Liu’ lineage,but think of _ing _hun lineage war… :XXbazooka
And yes,even Liu admitted in his book that Zhang was his senior and received pointers from him.