Yu Dayou (1503-1579), the word Zhifu, also known as Xunyao, was called Xujiang, and was born in Jinjiang (now Quanzhou, Fujian). Ming Dynasty anti-Japanese general, military strategist, martial artist, poet, national hero.

Yu Dayou has been fighting against the Japanese invaders almost all his life, and his military exploits are outstanding, and the "Yu Family Army" led by him can even scare the enemy away, and he is called "Yu Long Qi Hu" with Qi Jiguang, sweeping away the pseudo-Japanese who have been suffering for many years and taking advantage of the opportunity to make trouble. Although Yu Dayou has made a lot of achievements, he is often impeached and dismissed, and even has been impersonated by others many times to lead the army, but Yu Dayou never counts and still goes all out to fight against the Japanese invaders.

Yu Dayou founded the military vehicle battalion and designed and created the tactics of using military vehicles against cavalry. He was awarded the rank of Pingman General, and was posthumously named Wuxiang after his death. He is the author of military and martial arts works such as "The Art of War", "The Book of Swords", "Recent Matters of Washing the Sea", "General Essentials of the Continuation of the Martial Arts", and later generations compiled the poems written by Yu Dayou into the "Zhengqitang Collection".

In the course of the battle with the Japanese Invaders, Yu Dayou discovered that although the Japanese came from the sea, they were good at land warfare and not good at naval warfare. So Yu Dayou recruited and trained a sailor, and chose the fortune ship to fight against the Japanese at sea. In terms of tactics, Yu Dayou also pointed out that fighting at sea is nothing more than using big ships to fight small ships, many to defeat the outnumbered, and big guns to fight small guns. In the course of actual combat, the naval army established by Yu Dayou and Qi Jiguang's army cooperated with each other to effectively deal a devastating blow to the Japanese invaders.

During the period when Yu Dayou was stationed in Datong with the governor Li Wen, he found that the Saishang people were good at using cavalry. In order to target the enemy's cavalry, Yu Dayou created and invented the method of using a wheelbarrow to deal with the cavalry, and successfully defeated the enemy by cooperating with the wheelbarrow and the cavalry in actual combat. Afterwards, Li Wenjin reported the situation to the imperial court, which began to set up a military chariot battalion. Later, when Qi Jiguang resisted the Mongol invasion, he also borrowed from the methods of mutual cooperation such as troop chariots and cavalry, and successfully guarded Jimen, so that the enemy did not dare to approach.

Yu Dayou has successively written "The Art of War", "Recent Matters of Washing the Sea", "Zhenmin Draft", "Guangxi Election of the Front Military Drill Law", etc., and edited his teacher Zhao Benxue's "Taoling Inner and Outer Chapters" as "The General Essentials of the Continuation of the Martial Arts". It has made tremendous contributions to China's military development.

Yu Dayou studied with Wang Xuan, Lin Fu, Cai Qing and others as teachers in the early days to learn the study of "Yi", and later learned the art of war deduced from "Yi" by worshipping Zhao Benxue, and then followed Li Liangqin to learn the Jingchu long sword.

Yu Dayou is the author of the book "The Book of Words", although it is called "The Book of Words", but it is actually about the use of sticks and long weapons. The content includes the three methods of "sword (stick)", "shooting" and "array", and Yu Dayou believes that "the stick is the leader in the art". Emphasizing the change of "Qi Zheng Sheng" at any time, with static braking, the last to come first, when the enemy "the old force is skipped, the new force has not been sent", the assault is applied, "hit him a second time", "just before his force, after the soft multiplication of his force, he is busy and I wait, know how to shoot Ren Jun Fight". Qi Jiguang once praised the "Book of Swords" and said: "The secret of the ages lies in this, and the use of this method to teach the spear to achieve clear results is wonderful!"

Yu Dayou also liked to write poetry in his life, and he himself once said, "If you want to write about infinite things in your heart, no matter how clumsy your work is." Yu Dayou wrote a lot of poems in his life, expressing his thoughts and feelings of worrying about the country and the people, showing that the life ideal of actively serving the country is "Autumn Mountain Travel", "Double Thousand Miles of Horses in Yongdao Trial", etc., depicting the moving scenes of the battlefield battle, praising the great achievements of the soldiers are "Boat Master", "and Zhantui Mansion", etc., through the expression of sincere friendship, express their patriotic feelings have "Yang Xizhou South Expedition Presents a Battle Robe", "Crying Chen Gaofeng", etc., and others such as "Song of Peony Poems" and "Test Sword Stone" Most of Yu Dayou's poems are heroic, majestic, lyrical and argumentative, and the language style is rich and simple.

Yu Dayou once went to the Shaolin Temple in Henan Province to teach Shaolin monks to learn the stick method, and then brought back two monks to follow Yu Dayou to the military camp to continue to learn the stick method. Due to the increasingly serious problem of the Japanese invaders, the Shaolin Temple began to send monks down the mountain to help Yu Dayou, Qi Jiguang and others fight against the Japanese invaders. The number of Shaolin monks and soldiers is not large, they are all in groups of dozens of people, but they can deal a heavy blow to the Japanese and become the backbone of the fight against the Japanese invaders.

The main generals in the monk team are Tianzhen, Tianchi, Tianqi, Yuekong, etc., all of whom are monks who are good at stick techniques.

He and Qi Jiguang were collectively known as "Qi Hu Yulong", and they were two martial arts masters at that time.

In this book, the Venerable Zong Qing, who taught the Chongzhen Emperor Zhu Youzhen in the palace, was one of the two warrior monks sent by the Shaolin Temple to follow Yu Dayou to learn martial arts in the army.