Is it just me, or...

[angryclown]

Is it just me, or does anyone else think it just as likely that Chen Bu and his crew actually were the bandits that threatened Changyang Village?
"I have good news and bad news. The bad news is, there are bandits all around! The good news is, me and my crew of hardened killers are here to protect you! Aren't you lucky?!?? In payment for our noble sacrifice, these are the buildings we'll be taking over..."

ChinaFromInside.com presents... TAIJIQUAN - Origins and Development of Taijiquan

This day, Chen Bu arrived at the bank of Yellow River and saw a ridge called Qing Feng Ling (Green Wind Ridge). This ridge, although not very high or precipitous, was like a natural screen, keeping off surging yellow water, torrential muddy waters. There was a village on the ridge, and there was an old Chang Yang temple inside the village. Village was called after the temple - Chang Yang Village. Chen Bu entered the village and saw that on the south was a boundless sandy banks with a murmuring snake-like Yellow River winding to the east. To the north of the village was a high mound in a shape of head of a tiger, called Tiger Head Mound (Hu Tou Gang), although high and hungry for rain, but not failing to be used as farmland. Whole village was low in the south and high in the north, sunny and out of the wind and the crops would be guaranteed even during droughts or excessive rains. Chen Bu was very satisfied with this place. However he heard the villagers saying that there were many bandits hiding in the nearby hills, who would often come out to fight and rob the households and disturb the villagers. Villagers many times reported this to the local government but the officials did not send troops to suppress bandits. Since Chen Bu was a very skilful martial artist, he just laughed at it. Thereupon he fixed a date and moved with whole family from Chenbuzhuang to Changyang Village. After Chen Bu settled down in Changyang Village, indeed saw the bandits from nearby hills constantly coming to the village molesting its inhabitants and plundering their households. In order to protect the homes and defend the villagers, indignant Chen Bu started preparations, and lead over one hundred of his disciples and young and strong people from the village. They slipped into Qing Feng Ling and, relying on exquisite methods of the boxing passed from ancestors, attacked bandits' lair, wiping them out at one fell sloop. Hence Chen Bu's fame shook the nearby villages and everyday more and more people were coming from all quarters to ask for teaching.​

Chen Bu established a martial arts school in the village and was accepting students and passing on his knowledge. The martial art inherited from his ancestors and other styles that Chen Bu brought from Shanxi started to spread far and wide because of this school and practice of martial arts became family custom of Chen clan. Time flies like an arrow, "sun and moon move back and forth like a shuttle", more than two hundred years passed in the twinkling of an eye. Chen Bu's descendants were more and more and there were more people named Chen in the village; Chen family martial arts were passed on from generation to generation and enjoyed great prestige around; since there was a ditch in the village, people changed the name of the village from Changyang to Chenjiagou - Chen Family Ditch.​

 

[Marin]

Is it just me, or does anyone else think it just as likely that Chen Bu and his crew actually were the bandits that threatened Changyang Village?
"I have good news and bad news. The bad news is, there are bandits all around! The good news is, me and my crew of hardened killers are here to protect you! Aren't you lucky?!?? In payment for our noble sacrifice, these are the buildings we'll be taking over..."

ChinaFromInside.com presents... TAIJIQUAN - Origins and Development of Taijiquan

That's not very clear. I think you are sort of coloring it with cynicism, due or undue. More likely you are just trolling history. Sure it could be seen as sort of a protection racket, there is plenty of precedent for that. However considering Chinese history and the time period it is pretty reasonable to accept the idea that farming villages, peasantry etc were often unprotected and would actually benefit from the symbiotic exchange of sharing territory with those who need it and offered military capabilities. It could be bad or good. Well, we got gongfu out of it and therefore ... morality etc.

 

[angryclown]

Definitely a bit of trolling history, although I think it unlikely that a bunch of random strangers moved into an existing town and they thought the new kids were so great they were going to rename the place. More likely the Chens just started cranking out so many babies that they outnumbered everyone else and the name changed vernacularly over time. But it does kind of fit with how Yang style made inroads into the west initially, and then the Chen clan rallied and swept up a huge chunk of the market, financially, once they saw an opportunity. Or stories about how the property for the current Chen village school was obtained, and all the pavilions, etc. they've had built to make it a tourist destination. It's just kind of the story of an aggressively acquisitive clan through history, competing internally and externally for all they can get. People don't generally come into power with wanting it or trying for it...

 

[Marin]

It's just kind of the story of an aggressively acquisitive clan through history

I don't think the Chen family/clan is unique in that way at all. They are really just normal northern Chinese population. I also don't think that we can look at the current or recent Chen family activities and character as any indicator of historical character. In a general sense Chinese across the board have all gone through really radical changes since WW2, Sino Japanese war, revolution, communism, and political turmoil as a result. Coming out of all that in the 1980's it's a specific influence on culture, that I think cannot be casually compared to the values of pre-war Chinese population. Studying Chinese history I think it would be difficult to find any clan or set of population that was somehow not competitive or not interested in power. That is just the norm.