Chongzhen revived the Ming Dynasty

Chapter 361 Cultivating the Martial Spirit
As soon as the martial arts competition began, a potential general was discovered, which made Zhu Youjian extremely happy and he watched with even greater interest.

Liu Zongmin's reward was the same as the previous winner of the dragon boat race, a centurion title. The difference was that he was recruited into the army and joined the Warrior Four Guards Battalion under the Imperial Horse Administration, becoming the emperor's personal soldier and a talent to be used in the future.

Zhu Youjian, the winner of the silver medal, did not like him and did not recruit him into the Imperial Horse Administration. However, Zhang Tongchang was very interested in him and promised him that if he followed him to Jiangling Principality, he would be granted the title of a centurion.

In his opinion, such a person who is good at sumo wrestling is very useful in conquering the barbarians. When he is negotiating and gambling with the barbarians, he can just send this person to fight. After conquering the barbarians, the next step will be easier.

When faced with Zhang Tongchang's recruitment, this sumo wrestler was reluctant to leave the prosperity of the capital at first, but after some hesitation, he finally chose to accept.

After all, his popularity in the capital plummeted because of his failure in this competition. Not only will there be fewer people supporting him in the future, but after missing this opportunity, he may not be able to become an official in the future.

At this moment, he has realized that in the best-of-five system, his weakness of lack of physical strength may be exploited by more people, and he may not be able to enter the finals in the next martial arts tournament.

If you are not sure of winning first place, of course you should seize the opportunity to become an official at this time.

This sumo wrestler had a good idea, but after the implementation of the multi-round system and weight classification, heavy sumo wrestlers like him quickly fell out of favor.

Few people recruited them to serve in the army. Even if some princes occasionally recruited them, their purpose was the same as Zhang Tongchang's, to use their large physique to intimidate the barbarians.

Compared with the heavyweight sumo wrestlers who were fought over as potential fighters, their situation was far worse. In the Ming Dynasty, sumo competitions became heavyweight-oriented.

These are all things for the future, and now Liu Zongmin enjoys the glory of the winner. Zhu Youjian also gave him a golden belt, and asked him to wear a gold medal, a golden belt, and a big red flower, and ride around the field on a horse to signal to the audience.

The people in the capital were a little dissatisfied with Liu Zongmin's victory over the local sumo wrestler, but after he came before everyone like a top scholar, they quickly accepted him.

After all, most of the top scorers in the imperial examinations were not from the capital, so they were used to it!

The civil officials watching the game nearby were a little shocked when they saw this scene, because they were keenly aware that the emperor was raising the status of military men.

After all, the official position awarded to the top scholar was only the sixth-rank editor, and Liu Zongmin got the sixth-rank centurion, which was half a rank higher.

In the eyes of some ignorant people, these people are regarded as martial arts champions.

After thinking about this, some civil servants were so angry that they almost lost their temper and advised the emperor on the spot.

However, it was not a court meeting, and the emperor was surrounded by princes and nobles. Even if they wanted to advise, their voices would not reach there.

However, some people had prepared a plan in mind, intending to persuade the emperor not to indulge in material things and favor crude military men, just as they had advised Emperor Zhengde.

Since ascending the throne, Zhu Youjian has continuously improved the status of military generals, which began to arouse backlash from civil officials.

He didn't know all this at the time and was still watching the swimming competition with great interest.

Unlike rowing and sumo, which only have one event, swimming has long been divided into distances:
There are three short distances: 50 meters, 100 meters, and 200 meters, three middle distances: 1 mile, 2 miles, and 3 miles, and three long distances: 5 miles, 10 miles, and 20 miles, for a total of nine events.

Diving competitions were also added to the swimming events, allowing the use of tools and encouraging the improvement of diving equipment.

Diving is also included because it is helpful to jump off the boat to save people.

So swimming has many competitions.

These competitions were held one after another, and many swimming talents were discovered.

Zhu Youjian asked the three vassal states, the King of Han, the Duke of Jiangling, and the Earl of Ningyuan, to recruit talents and promised that all the finalists would be able to serve as sergeants in the navy. The top three would be able to study at the Naval Academy and become naval officers after graduation.

This reward was far less generous than the previous one, but many people still flocked to it. They used various swimming styles to show their abilities - after all, as long as they swam well, they would have the opportunity to become an official, which was unimaginable to them.

In order to avoid losing this opportunity in the future, many people who came from various southern provinces to participate in the martial arts conference actively participated in the swimming competition.

The people of Beijing were not very interested in swimming competitions, but the land track and field events were equally attractive. The 100-meter, 200-meter, and 500-meter sprints and the 3-mile, 5-mile, 10-mile, 20-mile, and 50-mile long-distance races attracted many people to watch.

Competitions such as long jump, high jump, javelin and grenade throwing attracted cheers from many people.

The various competitions opened the eyes of the people in the capital, especially the opportunity for the winner to become an official, which aroused the ambitions of many people.

Those who feel they have talent in a certain event are already thinking about training hard and striving to participate in the next final.

But the most attractive thing is the martial arts project.

After sumo wrestling, boxing, which is also a bare-handed competition, finally began to be held. Except for some long-distance swimming and running competitions, other competitions gave way to boxing.

After all, for a martial arts tournament, fighting is the main event. The winner of the boxing event will also be awarded the title of centurion.

The contestants who entered the boxing finals were Chen Wangting from Henan and Zhang Qiandie from Shandong.

The two were of similar strength, but the match was not good to watch. Because Zhang Qiandie was good at ground punches, and often hit three roads after falling. Although his strength was not bad, he gave people a sense of rogue. And rolling on the ground was not a good scene.

Zhu Youjian frowned, feeling that this kind of competition would hardly attract people to watch, and ordered Li Shunzu:
"Remember, change the boxing match to boxing where only fists are allowed, fighting where fists, kicks, elbows and knees are allowed but falls are not allowed, and wrestling where fighting can continue after falls."

“Also by weight classification, there will be more competitions.”

"No-holds-barred fighting doesn't have these divisions. People who are good at boxing and taking down want to fight, let them participate in no-holds-barred fighting with no restrictions on skills and weight."

"How can a boxing match attract people to watch if it's like this?"

Zhu Youjian was quite dissatisfied with this match. With reference to boxing, free fighting, Sanda, wrestling, judo and other competitions in later generations, he subdivided boxing into boxing, fighting and wrestling.

He needed not only to select talents who were good at martial arts, but also to attract more people to watch, so as to make the people interested in sports, cultivate their martial spirit, and reserve more qualified soldiers.

From this point of view alone, playing well and attracting people is more important.

So he gave orders to subdivide boxing matches.

Li Shunzu was so frightened that he broke out in a cold sweat and felt the emperor's dissatisfaction.

Looking at the boxer rolling around on the ring, he himself felt it was not a good sight, so he decided to send those who were good at wrestling to wrestling events and let them play by themselves.

At the same time, I also hope that Chen Wangting will win, so as not to make the emperor even more dissatisfied.

After all, he knew that the emperor wanted to find a few martial arts teachers to learn new boxing techniques, and thought that this kind of rolling and tumbling method was not suitable for the emperor to learn.

Chen Wangting didn't know what Li Shunzu was thinking, and he didn't even have time to think about it. On the ring, he was facing an unprecedented enemy.

As the descendant of Zhang Qiandie, Zhang Qiandie was a master of the wrestling technique, even better than his ancestor. If Chen Wangting had not known this frequently performed wrestling technique, he might have been defeated.

But even so, he still had a hard time facing Zhang Qiandie. In the end, he used the Chansi Jin that he had learned to win the game.

(End of this chapter)