---
title: "Wang Ziping (王子平, 1881–1973) — the \"Thousand-Pound King\""
---

**Wang Ziping** (**王子平 / Wáng Zǐpíng**, 1881–1973), courtesy name **Yong'an (永安)**, was a **Cangzhou Hui (Muslim)** master of **查拳 (Chaquan)** famous for prodigious strength — the **"Thousand-Pound King" (千斤王)** who answered the touring foreign strongmen, headed the Shaolin gate of the [Central Guoshu Institute](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/central-guoshu-institute), and spent a long second life as one of China's most renowned bone-setters.

## Life

Born in **滄州 (Cangzhou)**, then Zhili, into a **Hui** family with a martial tradition. He trained [**查拳 (Chaquan)**](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/cha-hua) under **楊鴻修 (Yang Hongxiu)** and Huaquan under 沙寶興, and became legendary for raw power — lifting, stone-locks, and feats of strength that earned him the name **千斤王, the Thousand-Pound King**.

## The Russian strongman

Wang is the foremost of the era's masters who **actually fought a foreign strongman and won**. At **Beijing's Central Park** — by most accounts in **1918 or 1919** (sources differ) — he confronted the touring Russian **Kang Tai'er (康泰爾)**, who billed himself the "world's strongest man." Accounts agree Wang prevailed; several add that the Russian, faced with a real challenger, **declined to fight** — which is why historians treat the dramatic "defeat" as part fact, part embellishment. (The very same Kang Tai'er victory is also claimed by the Xingyi master Han Muxia — see [Foreign Strongmen](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/foreign-challengers).)

## The Guoshu Institute, and a second life in medicine

In **1928** Wang was appointed **head of the 少林門 (Shaolin / external-arts gate)** at the Nanjing [**Central Guoshu Institute**](https://wulin.openmindspace.org/central-guoshu-institute). He was also, for decades, one of Shanghai's leading **traumatologists and bone-setters (傷科 / 骨科)** — a healer as famous as the fighter. After 1949 he served as a vice-chair of the China Wushu Association, and in **1960**, aged about eighty, accompanied Premier Zhou Enlai to Burma as the wushu delegation's chief coach.

His daughter **王菊蓉 (Wang Jurong, 1928–2009)** became a founding professor of wushu who later taught in the United States. Wang left the manuals **《拳術二十法》** and the therapeutic **《祛病延年二十勢》 ("Twenty Postures to Dispel Illness and Lengthen Life," 1958)**.

## See also

<PageRef space="notes" slug="cha-hua" text="Cha + Hua (查拳) — his art" />

<PageRef space="notes" slug="foreign-challengers" text="Foreign Strongmen &amp; the Big-Sword Army — the Kang Tai'er story in full" />

<PageRef space="notes" slug="central-guoshu-institute" text="Central Guoshu Institute — where he headed the Shaolin gate" />

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

## Sources

**[1]** *王子平*, Chinese Wikipedia ([zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/王子平](https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%8E%8B%E5%AD%90%E5%B9%B3)) and Baidu Baike — dates, the Chaquan lineage, the 千斤王 name, the Guoshu Institute role, the bone-setting career. The Russian match is best dated **1919** in the most authoritative sources (some popular accounts say 1918).

**[2]** Benjamin Judkins, *"Wang Ziping and the Strength of the Nation,"* Kung Fu Tea ([chinesemartialstudies.com](https://chinesemartialstudies.com/2018/06/15/lives-of-chinese-martial-artists-22-wang-ziping-and-the-strength-of-the-nation/)) — the strongman matches and their historiography. **[3]** *Wang Jurong*, English Wikipedia — his daughter's career.