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| The Song Jiang Battle Array |
n southern Taiwan, martial arts sometimes appear in a form that can be difficult to categorize.
They are not quite martial-arts classes.
They are not simply theatrical performances.
And they are not merely religious processions.
The Song Jiang Battle Array (宋江陣) combines martial arts, weapons, group formations, music, community organization, religious ritual and theatrical elements into one living tradition.
Today it is particularly associated with southern Taiwan, especially Tainan and Kaohsiung, where traditional battle-array groups continue to appear at temple festivals and community celebrations.
For a martial-arts historian, however, Song Jiang Battle Array is interesting for another reason.
It preserves traces of a world in which martial arts were not necessarily practiced by individuals standing in a school performing empty-hand forms.
They could be part of the defensive, religious and social life of an entire community.
What is Song Jiang Battle Array?
A traditional Song Jiang formation combines several kinds of martial activity.
Depending upon the group and occasion, performances can include individual martial routines, paired weapon exercises, group formations and coordinated maneuvers accompanied by drums, gongs and cymbals.
Weapons are particularly important.
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| Song Jiang Battle Array |
Traditional arrays employ a remarkable collection of implements, including staffs, swords, sabres, spears, hooks, shields, rakes and other weapons—some resembling implements associated with rural life and others corresponding to weapons attributed to characters from Water Margin.
This immediately distinguishes Song Jiang Battle Array from the modern image of Chinese martial arts as primarily empty-hand fighting.
Here, martial arts are embedded within something much larger.
Why is it called Song Jiang?
Song Jiang (宋江) is the leader of the famous band of outlaws in the Chinese novel Water Margin (水滸傳).
The novel tells the story of 108 heroes who gather at Mount Liang and eventually form a powerful fighting force.
That number became symbolically important to Song Jiang Battle Array traditions.
Traditional accounts sometimes describe formations of 108 members, corresponding to the heroes of the novel. Smaller formations of 72 and 36 became common, relating symbolically to the 72 Earthly Fiends and 36 Heavenly Spirits associated with the Water Margin heroes.
In practice, however, the number of performers has varied considerably. Official Taiwanese cultural documentation records 36-person formations as especially common and also documents other numbers.
So the old claim that there must never be more than 107 participants should be treated as a particular tradition or ritual rule, not a universal historical requirement.
Where did Song Jiang Battle Array actually come from?
This is where the history becomes complicated.
There is no single demonstrated origin.
Several explanations have traditionally been proposed.
Some connect the formations directly to the fictional military formations of Song Jiang's heroes.
Others connect them with the famous Ming general Qi Jiguang (戚繼光) and military formations such as the Mandarin Duck Formation (鴛鴦陣).
Another tradition associates them with Zheng Chenggong (鄭成功), better known as Koxinga, and military training introduced during his campaigns.
Still others connect their development with militia traditions brought from southern Fujian and subsequently adapted to conditions in Taiwan.
Taiwanese cultural authorities themselves acknowledge that the historical origin remains uncertain. Tainan cultural material notes that scholars tend to connect the martial formation tradition with Qi Jiguang's military methods, while another official account emphasizes southern Fujian festival and theatrical traditions that subsequently combined with martial arts and folk religion.
That means we should be careful.
Koxinga may belong to the traditional explanations of Song Jiang Battle Array, but we cannot presently say that he created it.
Likewise, we cannot simply describe Song Jiang Battle Array as something that appeared completely independently in Taiwan.
Its ingredients have connections with traditions from mainland China.
What developed in Taiwan, however, became something distinctively Taiwanese.
From community defense to temple tradition
The social environment of Qing-period Taiwan helps explain why martial organizations became important.
Government authority and policing were not equally effective throughout rural areas. Communities therefore developed various forms of local organization for protection and collective security.
Taiwanese government cultural sources describe Song Jiang formations becoming associated with these locally organized defensive groups. During periods of insecurity, martial training could therefore serve purposes considerably more practical than festival entertainment.
This is an important distinction.
We should not imagine every modern sequence performed in a Song Jiang array as an unchanged Qing-dynasty battlefield drill.
Traditions evolve.
But martial training, community defense and the later performance tradition clearly became intertwined.
Over time, the defensive function diminished while religious and cultural functions became increasingly prominent.
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| The Song Jiang Battle Array |
Martial arts inside the temple community
Today Song Jiang Battle Arrays are strongly connected with temples.
That connection shouldn't be treated as something merely decorative added to martial arts.
The religious component is part of the tradition itself.
Groups may undergo rituals connected with forming the array, preparing for performances and entering or leaving the temple environment. The precise rituals and taboos vary between communities and lineages.
The arrays can function as part of temple processions and as symbolic protection for deities during religious events.
This combination of martial arts and ritual helps explain why Song Jiang Battle Array cannot adequately be described simply as “Kung Fu demonstrations.” It belongs simultaneously to martial, religious and community culture.
36, 72 and 108
The famous numbers associated with Song Jiang formations come from the cosmology surrounding the Water Margin heroes.
A complete symbolic formation may be associated with 108.
But actual groups vary.
Thirty-six-person arrays became particularly common, while 72-person formations and formations exceeding one hundred participants are also documented.
There are even different regional branches and related traditions.
Over time Song Jiang traditions contributed to or became associated with formations such as Golden Lion Arrays (金獅陣) and White Crane Arrays (白鶴陣).
That diversity is another reason we shouldn't describe Song Jiang Battle Array as a single standardized system.
What happened during Japanese rule?
The old version of this article said that the Japanese completely prohibited Song Jiang Battle Array after taking control of Taiwan in 1895.
That needs qualification.
There certainly were restrictions, particularly later in the Japanese colonial period, and some local traditions declined or suspended their activities. Tainan's cultural documentation records individual Song Jiang groups becoming weaker when temple activities were increasingly restricted during the later colonial period.
But that is different from demonstrating that every Song Jiang Battle Array throughout Taiwan was continuously prohibited from 1895 to 1945.
The historical picture was more complicated.
This is another case where a simple story should give way to better evidence.
A window into an older martial culture
For me, this is where Song Jiang Battle Array becomes particularly valuable.
Modern martial arts encourage us to think about martial practice primarily in terms of styles.
Wing Chun.
White Crane.
Taijiquan.
Bajiquan.
And so on.
But martial culture historically could also be organized around families, villages, temples, militias, occupations and community associations.
Song Jiang Battle Array allows us to see something of that older social environment.
Weapons are prominent.
Group coordination matters.
Individual martial skill exists within collective movement.
Religion, community identity and martial practice overlap.
That doesn't mean a modern Song Jiang performance is an unchanged military training system preserved intact from three hundred years ago.
It isn't a time machine.
But neither is it merely a theatrical curiosity.
It is a living cultural tradition that preserves elements of Taiwan's martial past while continually adapting to new circumstances.
And it is still alive.
In places such as Neimen in Kaohsiung and communities throughout southern Taiwan, Song Jiang traditions continue to be practiced, performed and preserved. Neimen's tradition was officially registered by Kaohsiung as traditional art in 2012, while individual Tainan formations continue to receive cultural-heritage recognition.
It shows us that martial arts were never only about styles and masters. They could also belong to villages, temples and entire communities.
Tainan City Government, Traditional Performing Arts Resources (臺南市藝陣資源網). “Song Jiang Array / 宋江陣.” Overview of the history, martial organization, weapons, formations and religious role of Song Jiang arrays in southern Taiwan.
https://tnyj.tnc.gov.tw/index.php?cid=2&group=2&id=16&inter=intro
Taiwan Cultural Memory Bank (國家文化記憶庫). “Song Jiang Array / 宋江陣.” Ministry of Culture records concerning the development of Song Jiang arrays from local village-defense organizations into martial and religious performance traditions.
https://tcmb.culture.tw/zh-tw/detail?id=567355&indexCode=Culture_Invisible
Ministry of the Interior, Taiwan — Taiwan Religious Culture Map. “Neimen Song Jiang Array / 內門宋江陣.” Historical and cultural overview of the Neimen tradition and the transformation of Song Jiang arrays from community defense and martial training into religious and folk performance.
https://taiwangods.moi.gov.tw/html/landscape/1_0011.aspx?i=89
Yang, Jo-yun (楊若芸). Taiwan Battle Arrays in the Changing Process: Take the Song Jiang Array of Hsin Chia Village, Hou Pi Hsiang as an Example (變遷中的台灣武陣－以後壁鄉新嘉村宋江陣為例). Master's thesis, National University of Tainan, 2008.
https://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/