---
title: Che Yizhai (車毅齋, 1833–1914) — leader of Shanxi Xingyi
---

**Che Yizhai** (**車毅齋 / Chē Yìzhāi**, 1833–1914), given name **Che Yonghong (車永宏)**, was the foremost **Shanxi Xingyiquan** master of his generation and the founder of the **Che-style (車氏)** line. After his teacher [**Li Luoneng**](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/li-luoneng) returned to Hebei, it was Che who became the great carrier and systematizer of Xingyi in Shanxi.

## Life

Born in 1833 into a **poor farming family of Taigu (太谷), Shanxi**. He trained with local teachers before, in **1856**, being accepted as a disciple of **Li Luoneng** (on the recommendation of a co-disciple). When Li returned north, Che became the leading exponent of the **Shanxi branch**. **Sun Lutang** records that, having mastered the art, Che *"looked upon wealth and rank as passing clouds"* and gave himself to teaching. He died in 1914. *(A few sources give his death as 1915.)*

## What he gave the art

Che was the great **systematizer of Shanxi Xingyi**: much of the art's body of **two-person fighting sets** is credited to him, and he developed the linked form **雜式捶 (Zashichui, "Mixed-Style Pounding").** His line is one of the two great trunks of Xingyi alongside the Hebei branch.

## Students

- **Li Fuzhen (李復禎)**, far better known by his given name **"Chang You" (常有)** — Che's foremost successor and a renowned fighter, the head of the dominant Che-style line.
- **Bu Xuekuan (布學寬)** — a key Taigu transmitter into the 20th century.
- **Fan Yongqing (樊永慶)** — from whom the **樊系 (Fan branch)** of Che-style descends.
- Together with Che's own sons, these carried the Shanxi art forward.

<Callout type="warning">
  **The patriotic legend — read as tradition.** The most-told story of Che Yizhai, said to be recorded on his tombstone, holds that in his later years he accepted a public challenge from a visiting **Japanese martial artist** (named in Chinese tellings as 板三四郎) at Tianjin, and — using a **white-wax staff** against the man's spear — struck him down; the defeated challenger asked to become his student and invited him to Japan, which Che refused, unwilling to let his country's art pass abroad. The adversary's name, the venue, and the embellishments vary between versions (and the Japanese name suspiciously echoes the *fictional* judo hero Sanshiro Sugata), so it is best held as **lineage tradition**, not documented history.
</Callout>

<Callout type="info">
  **A common error to avoid:** **Guo Yunshen** and **Sun Lutang** are sometimes loosely listed as Che's "students." They were not — **Guo Yunshen was Che's co-disciple** under Li Luoneng, and Sun Lutang met Che as a revered elder.
</Callout>

## See also

<PageRef space="notes" slug="xingyi" text="Xingyi (形意拳) — the full style overview" />

<PageRef space="notes" slug="li-luoneng" text="Li Luoneng (李洛能) — his teacher, the founder of Xingyiquan" />

<PageRef space="notes" slug="guo-yunshen" text="Guo Yunshen (郭雲深) — his co-disciple (not his student) under Li Luoneng" />

<PageRef space="notes" slug="history" text="A Short History of Chinese Martial Arts" />

## Sources

**[1]** *形意拳*, Chinese Wikipedia ([zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/形意拳](https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%BD%A2%E6%84%8F%E6%8B%B3)) — Che Yonghong/Yizhai among Li Luoneng's eight; the Shanxi branch; his students.

**[2]** Sun Lutang's account of his teachers' generation (1924), tr. Paul Brennan — [The Voices of Sun Lutang's Teachers](https://brennantranslation.wordpress.com/2013/04/29/the-voices-of-sun-lutangs-teachers/).

**[3]** *Xingyiquan*, Taiping Institute ([taipinginstitute.com](https://www.taipinginstitute.com/)) — the Che-style lineage, the two-person sets, and the tombstone tradition of the Japanese challenge (dates given there as 1833–1915).