Most of Jin Yong's novels are coherent, especially the Condor Trilogy, which is actually very suitable for comparing martial arts levels according to historical periods.
Let's talk about different eras first. During the "Tianlong" period of the Northern Song Dynasty, the sweeping monk was definitely the first. During the period of "Shooting the Condor" and "The Divine Condor" in the Southern Song Dynasty, Wang Chongyang was definitely recognized. Zhang Sanfeng during the "Yitian" period of the Yuan Dynasty. The Ming Dynasty's "Swordsman" has a clear and refreshing style. "Blue Blood Sword" by Yuan Chengzhi in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties.
One characteristic of martial arts in Jin Yong’s novels is that the further back in history, the higher the martial arts! ! !
A simple comparison can be made:
The great gods of the Northern Song Dynasty basically did not use weapons. For example, Qiao Feng, a beggar gang in "The Eight Parts of the Dragon", has only heard of "Eighteen Subduing the Dragon" Palms and dog beating sticks are rarely used, so it can be seen that the dog beating stick method is not as good as the Eighteen Dragon Subduing Palms; Duan Yu uses the air sword; Xu Zhu uses the steam borneol (the talisman of life and death). Although Qiao Feng was a hero during the Northern Song Dynasty, it can be seen from the description in the book that there were at least four or five people with higher martial arts skills than him.
By the Southern Song Dynasty, three of the Eighteen Palms for Subduing the Dragon in "Shooting the Condor" were missing. With Hong Qigong's ingenuity, three of them were missing. The dog-beating stick technique was comparable to the Eighteen Palms for Subduing the Dragon, and Hong Qigong ranked among the top four with these two martial arts. It can be seen that the Eighteen Dragon Subduing Palms at this time are far inferior to Qiao Feng's palm skills back then. In the Northern Song Dynasty, even Murong Fu could not beat the Duan family's Yiyang Finger. In the Southern Song Dynasty, Master Yideng actually ranked among the top five with this skill. It can be seen that the martial arts in the Southern Song Dynasty were already a level lower than those in the Northern Song Dynasty. Moreover, every master in the Southern Song Dynasty basically had weapons, such as Wang Chongyang's swordsmanship, Huang Yaoshi's flute, Ouyang Feng's snake staff, Hong Qigong's dog-beating stick, Yang Guo's iron sword, Jinlun Dharma King's wheel, etc. Although They are very strong with their bare hands and do not use weapons as their main weapon, but compared to the masters of the Northern Song Dynasty, they do not appear to be so skillful.
In the Yuan Dynasty, Zhang Sanfeng and Guo Xiang in "Yi Tian" became the masters of their time just because they heard the incomplete version of the "Nine Yang Manual". Then during the Southern Song Dynasty, they learned the complete version of the "Nine Yin Manual" "Guo Jing, Huang Rong, and Hong Qigong should be higher than Zhang Sanfeng and Guo Xiang. Of course, Zhang Sanfeng lived to be 100 years old, and his final power may be higher. In the original text of "Yi Tian", "Zhang Wuji... passed an extremely strong and extremely soft Nine Sun Magic Power from his palm to Zhang Sanfeng's body. Zhang Sanfeng was shocked... The only person he has ever met in his life is my master Jueyuan. Only a few people, such as the great master and hero Guo Jing, have achieved this level of cultivation. As for the current masters, apart from himself, I really can’t think of anyone else who can achieve this level.” This paragraph shows that Zhang Sanfeng thinks he does. His internal strength is comparable to that of Guo Jing and Jue Yuan, but he is 100 years old after all! At the same time, Guo Xiang's martial arts also came from Guo Jing. The black iron sword used by Yang Guo in his youth was fused by Guo Jing and Huang Rong into the Yitian Dragon Slaying Sword. It became the dominant weapon in the Yuan Dynasty's martial arts world. It can be seen that the martial arts in the entire Yuan Dynasty was lower than that in the Southern Song Dynasty. layer.
In the Ming Dynasty, Linghu Chong was powerful enough in "The Swordsman", but he had lost all his internal skills and could become famous by relying only on his external sword skills. Without the sword, he was basically a useless person, with his hands and feet broken off. How many times! Moreover, during the Ming Dynasty, there was no emphasis on combining internal and external skills. Feng Qingyang was almost the best in the world with his sword skills and external skills, and he also discriminated against the internal skills sect of Huashan. From the beginning to the end, Dongfang Bubai's peerless martial arts only highlighted the word "fast". No matter how good Feng Qingyang or Dongfang Bubai's swordsmanship is, or how fast his acupuncture skills are, they have to be close to be effective, right? In "Tianlong", Qiao Feng is usually three feet away from the enemy and slaps him with one palm. From the original work, "Xiao Feng felt both regret and anger in his heart. He immediately took a big step, with a stroke of his left hand and a palm of his right hand, he struck towards Ding Chunqiu's strike was exactly the move of the Eighteen Dragon Subduing Palms, "A strong dragon has regrets". When he struck out, he was still fifteen or sixty feet away from Ding Chunqiu, but he reached it as soon as he said it, and the power came from his palm. Now, the distance between the two is no more than seven or eight feet. No matter how powerful your palms are in the world, there is no way that you can hit anyone more than five feet away. , I didn't look down on him at all, but I saw that he was about 15 or 15 feet away, and I never expected that this palm was aimed at him. Unexpectedly, Xiao Feng was already three or four feet away from him as soon as the palm came out. Another move from ten feet away, "A strong dragon has regrets", the back palm pushes the front palm, and the strength of the two palms is combined, and the overwhelming pressure comes over the two palms, which are superimposed three or four feet away. "In addition, Ming. For warriors, the internal strength cultivation during the Dynasty was vastly different from that during the Song Dynasty. Duan Yu in the Northern Song Dynasty had profound internal strength and basically rebounded automatically when faced with an external attack. Dongfang Invincible might have been as childish as a child in front of the likes of Qiao Feng. generally.
In the Qing Dynasty, in the early days, Yuan Chengzhi's martial arts in "The Blue Blood Sword" should have been the best, but in the middle and late period, "The Deer and the Cauldron", "The Book of Swords", "The Flying Fox in the Snow Mountain" and other books, even acupuncture points were mentioned. It has become a very powerful martial art (in The Deer and the Cauldron, Shuang'er was able to save Wei Xiaobao N times by just relying on acupoints), but in "Dragon", acupuncture is just a "common" martial art that even a girl like A'Zhu can do. Really high-end acupoints The martial arts skills of Yiyangzhi were not top-notch at that time.
So, to sum up, among the characters in Jin Yong’s novels, the strongest martial arts should be from the Northern Song Dynasty, and the first one should be the sweeping monk.