Confucians, Daoists & Buddhists: The Cultivation Systems of Guardians of the Dafeng (大奉打更人) Explained

2026-03-31

Guardians of the Dafeng (大奉打更人) doesn't just borrow Chinese philosophy for flavor — it builds entire power systems from the actual frameworks of Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism. The result is a cultivation world where punching harder requires understanding the Analects (论语), where forming a golden core means genuinely grasping Daoist internal alchemy, and where the most devastating weapon in existence is a well-constructed sentence.

Adapted from the web novel by 卖报小郎君 (Mài Bào Xiǎo Lángjūn), the drama stars Dylan Wang (王鹤棣) as Xu Qi'an (许七安), a former modern-day detective reborn into the Great Feng Dynasty (大奉王朝) as a lowly night watchman. The world he enters operates on a strict Nine-Grade System (九品制) where every cultivator — whether scholar, warrior, monk, or warlock — is ranked from Grade 9 (lowest) to Grade 1, with the mythical Super-grade (超品) standing above all. Anyone who reaches Grade 3 or higher crosses the threshold of 超凡 (chāofán) — the transcendent — and is no longer truly mortal.

This system was established in the novel's lore by the Confucian Sage (儒圣 Rú Shèng), the most powerful figure in the world's history. He didn't just found one school of cultivation — he created the entire framework that all cultivation paths follow. That one detail tells you everything about what this story values: in a world full of swordsmen, immortals, and demons, the man who set the rules was a scholar.

Here is how each cultivation system works, what real Chinese philosophy it draws from, and which idioms capture its essence.

Martial Artists (武夫 Wǔfū) — The Body as Weapon

Xu Qi'an's primary cultivation path is that of the martial artist (武夫), and the nine grades of martial cultivation read like a textbook on Chinese internal martial arts theory:

Grade 9: 炼精 (Liàn Jīng) — Refining Essence
Grade 8: 炼气 (Liàn Qì) — Refining Qi
Grade 7: 炼神 (Liàn Shén) — Refining Spirit
Grade 6: 铜皮铁骨 (Tóng Pí Tiě Gǔ) — Bronze Skin, Iron Bones
Grade 5: 化劲 (Huà Jìn) — Neutralizing Force
Grade 4: 意 (Yì) — Intent
Grade 3: 不灭之躯 (Bù Miè Zhī Qū) — Indestructible Body
Grade 2: 合道 (Hé Dào) — Merging with the Dao
Grade 1: 武神 (Wǔ Shén) — Martial God

The first three grades — 炼精, 炼气, 炼神 — are directly lifted from the foundational concept of 精气神 (jīng qì shén) in real Chinese 内家拳 (nèijiā quán) internal martial arts. In traditions like Taijiquan (太极拳), Baguazhang (八卦掌), and Xingyiquan (形意拳), the practitioner refines physical essence (精) into vital energy (气), then refines vital energy into spiritual awareness (神). This isn't fiction — it's the actual training methodology described in classical martial arts manuals dating back centuries.

What makes the drama's system clever is how it extends beyond the real-world framework. After you've refined essence, qi, and spirit, what comes next? The drama answers: your body becomes literally indestructible, you transcend physical limitation, and at the apex you become a god of war. It takes the real starting point and extrapolates it to its mythological conclusion.

Grade 5, 化劲 (Neutralizing Force), also borrows from real martial arts vocabulary. In Xingyiquan, the three stages of force development are 明劲 (obvious force), 暗劲 (hidden force), and 化劲 (neutralizing force). At 化劲, you no longer need to meet force with force — you dissolve and redirect it. The drama makes this literal: Grade 5 martial artists can neutralize incoming attacks at a fundamental level.

Grade 4, 意 (Intent), captures the internal martial arts principle that the mind leads the body — 以意导气 (yǐ yì dǎo qì), "use intent to guide qi." At this grade, a martial artist's willpower alone becomes a weapon.

Idiom: 百折不挠 (bǎi zhé bù náo) — "Unbending through a hundred setbacks"

Meaning: Perseverance that cannot be broken by any number of failures.

This is the martial artist's idiom, and it is Xu Qi'an's defining characteristic. The path of the 武夫 is the most physically brutal of all cultivation systems — there are no shortcuts, no clever tricks, no external aids. You refine your body through pain, and you advance through combat. Every grade is earned in blood.

Xu Qi'an doesn't have the elegant powers of a Confucian scholar or the mystical techniques of a Daoist. What he has is the refusal to stay down. He fights opponents who outclass him in grade, takes damage that should kill him, and keeps standing. 百折不挠 is not just his personality — it's his cultivation method. The martial artist's body grows stronger through being broken and rebuilt. Perseverance isn't a virtue for the 武夫; it's the actual mechanism of advancement.

Use it: When someone succeeds not through talent or cleverness but through sheer refusal to quit — especially when the path forward requires enduring repeated failure.

Confucian Scholars (儒家 Rújiā) — Words as Weapons

The Confucian cultivation system is the most original creation in Guardians of the Dafeng, and the most deeply rooted in real philosophy. The grade names are not invented fantasy terms — they are the actual stages of moral self-cultivation described in classical Confucian texts:

Grade 9: 开窍 (Kāi Qiào) — Opening Wisdom
Grade 8: 修身 (Xiū Shēn) — Self-Cultivation
Grade 7: 仁者 (Rén Zhě) — The Benevolent One
Grade 6: 儒生 (Rú Shēng) — The Scholar
Grade 5: 德行 (Dé Xíng) — Virtuous Conduct
Grade 4: 君子 (Jūn Zǐ) — The Gentleman
Grade 3: 立命 (Lì Mìng) — Establishing Destiny
Grade 2: 大儒 (Dà Rú) — Great Scholar
Grade 1: 亚圣 (Yà Shèng) — Near-Sage
Super-grade: 儒圣 (Rú Shèng) — The Sage

Open the Great Learning (大学 Dàxué), one of the Four Books of Confucianism, and you will find the exact progression that this system encodes: 修身 (cultivate the self), 齐家 (regulate the family), 治国 (govern the state), 平天下 (bring peace to the world). The drama takes this philosophical roadmap and makes it literal. At Grade 8, you cultivate yourself. By Grade 4, you have become a 君子 — the Confucian ideal of a morally complete person. By Grade 2, you are a 大儒 whose words reshape reality. At Grade 1, you approach sagehood itself.

The core supernatural power of Confucian cultivators is 言出法随 (yán chū fǎ suí) — "Words become law." When a Confucian of sufficient grade speaks, reality obeys. If a Great Scholar says "be silent," you physically cannot speak. If they say "kneel," your legs buckle regardless of your own cultivation. This power scales with grade: a Grade 6 scholar might silence a room, while a Grade 2 can rewrite the rules of the world with a sentence.

This is not arbitrary magic — it's a philosophical argument made literal. In Confucian thought, the rectification of names (正名 zhèng míng) is foundational. Confucius taught that social disorder begins when words lose their proper meaning: "If names are not correct, speech does not accord with reality; when speech does not accord with reality, affairs cannot be carried out." The drama takes this principle and weaponizes it: if a scholar's moral cultivation is genuine, their words carry the weight of truth itself, and reality must comply.

At Grade 4 (君子), the Confucian condenses 浩然正气 (hàorán zhèngqì) — righteous qi — a term that comes directly from Mencius (孟子). In the Mencius, he describes 浩然之气 as a vast, unyielding energy that fills heaven and earth, produced by the accumulation of righteous action. In the drama, this becomes a tangible force: a barrier against evil, a weapon against the unjust, and the foundation of all higher Confucian powers.

Idiom: 学而不厌 (xué ér bù yàn) — "Never tire of learning"

Meaning: Genuine scholars pursue knowledge endlessly, without boredom or fatigue.

From Analects 7.2: 子曰：默而识之，学而不厌，诲人不倦，何有于我哉？ — "The Master said: 'Silently absorbing knowledge, learning without tiring, teaching without wearying — what difficulty do these present to me?'"

In the drama, this isn't just a scholarly attitude — it's a survival requirement. Confucian cultivation is learning. You don't train your body like a martial artist or brew pills like a Daoist. You read, you reflect, you debate, you write. A Confucian who stops learning stops advancing. The Great Scholars of the drama are not powerful despite being bookworms — they are powerful because they are bookworms. 学而不厌 is their cultivation method.

Use it: When sustained intellectual curiosity produces mastery that others mistake for innate talent.

Idiom: 修身齐家 (xiū shēn qí jiā) — "Cultivate the self, regulate the family"

Meaning: The first step in changing the world is perfecting yourself.

This four-character abbreviation of the Great Learning's eight-step program is the entire Confucian cultivation system compressed into one phrase. The drama makes literal what the original text meant metaphorically: moral self-cultivation (修身) is not just a good idea — it generates actual power. A Confucian who has genuinely cultivated virtue can compel heaven and earth. One who merely pretends will find their words carry no force at all.

Use it: When someone tries to lead others or change external circumstances without first addressing their own flaws — or when self-improvement produces unexpected influence.

Daoist Cultivators (道门 Dàomén) — Three Paths to Immortality

The Daoist cultivation system in Guardians of the Dafeng is divided into three sects, each representing a different philosophical approach to the Dao:

Heaven Sect (天宗 Tiān Zōng) practices 太上忘情 (tàishàng wàng qíng) — Supreme Detachment. This is a real Daoist concept: the highest state of being involves transcending all emotional attachments. Heaven Sect cultivators suppress their emotions entirely, believing that feelings are obstacles to enlightenment. The phrase comes from the Daoist philosophical tradition and appears in various classical texts — the idea that the sage feels emotions but is not controlled by them, or in the Heaven Sect's more extreme interpretation, that the sage eliminates emotions altogether.

Human Sect (人宗 Rén Zōng) practices the opposite: 七情六欲 (qī qíng liù yù) — Seven Emotions and Six Desires. Rather than suppressing feelings, Human Sect cultivators embrace the full spectrum of human experience. The seven emotions (joy, anger, sorrow, fear, love, hate, desire) and six desires (arising from the six senses) are not obstacles but fuel. This represents the Daoist principle that the natural state of humanity is itself a path to enlightenment — you don't need to become inhuman to become transcendent. In the drama, Heaven Sect and Human Sect are in constant philosophical conflict, and their rivalry is one of the story's richest threads.

Earth Sect (地宗 Dì Zōng) practices 无量功德 (wúliàng gōngdé) — Boundless Merit. Earth Sect cultivators accumulate power through good deeds and service to the world. This draws from both Daoist and Buddhist traditions of merit accumulation — the idea that virtuous action generates spiritual capital that can be converted into cultivation progress.

The grade names for Daoist cultivators use real internal alchemy (内丹 nèidān) terminology familiar to anyone who has read Chinese cultivation fiction:

筑基 (Zhù Jī) — Foundation Building: establishing the energetic foundation of the body
金丹 (Jīn Dān) — Golden Core: forming the golden elixir within the dantian (丹田)
元婴 (Yuán Yīng) — Nascent Soul: the golden core develops into a spiritual embryo
渡劫 (Dù Jié) — Tribulation Crossing: surviving heaven's test of worthiness
陆地神仙 (Lù Dì Shén Xiān) — Terrestrial Immortal: achieving immortality while remaining in the mortal world

These terms predate modern fiction by centuries. 金丹 (Golden Core) is a central concept in Daoist internal alchemy texts like the Cantong Qi (参同契), written in the 2nd century CE. The idea of refining an inner elixir through meditation and qi circulation was the Daoist alternative to external alchemy (外丹 wàidān) — instead of brewing physical pills of immortality (which often contained mercury and killed the practitioner), you cultivated an energetic elixir within your own body.

Idiom: 清静无为 (qīngjìng wúwéi) — "Quiet non-action"

Meaning: Achieving results through stillness and alignment with the natural order, rather than forced effort.

This is the foundational Daoist principle, drawn directly from the Dao De Jing (道德经). 无为 (wúwéi) does not mean doing nothing — it means acting without forcing, flowing with circumstances rather than against them. In the drama, this principle manifests differently in each sect. Heaven Sect interprets 清静无为 as emotional detachment: don't act on feelings, don't let desires drive decisions. Human Sect would say that 无为 means acting naturally, and natural humans have emotions. Earth Sect would say that 无为 means acting without selfish motive — hence their focus on merit through service.

The drama's genius is showing that the same philosophical principle produces three completely different — and mutually hostile — cultivation methods. The Daoists aren't wrong about the Dao. They just disagree about what it means.

Use it: When the best response to a situation is patience and strategic inaction — letting events unfold rather than forcing an outcome.

Buddhist Cultivators (佛门 Fómén) — Enlightenment Through Emptiness

The Buddhist cultivation system follows the path from novice to enlightened being:

沙弥 (Shāmí) — Novice Monk
法师 (Fǎ Shī) — Dharma Master
禅师 (Chán Shī) — Zen Master
律者 (Lǜ Zhě) — Vinaya Keeper
苦行僧 (Kǔ Xíng Sēng) — Ascetic Monk
罗汉 (Luó Hàn) — Arhat
菩萨 (Pú Sà) — Bodhisattva
佛陀 (Fó Tuó) — Buddha

Each rank corresponds to a real stage or role in Buddhist practice. An Arhat (罗汉) in real Buddhism is someone who has achieved nirvana and escaped the cycle of rebirth. A Bodhisattva (菩萨) is someone who could achieve nirvana but chooses to remain in the world to help others — a higher stage than the Arhat in Mahayana Buddhism, though not in Theravada. The drama preserves this hierarchy.

One of the story's most significant plot points involves Xu Qi'an introducing Mahayana Buddhism (大乘佛法 Dàchéng Fófǎ) to the world through a philosophical debate with the monk 度厄 (Dù È). In the drama's world, Buddhism initially follows only the Theravada-like path of individual liberation — the Arhat's path of personal enlightenment. Xu Qi'an, drawing on his knowledge from his previous life, introduces the Mahayana concept that true enlightenment requires saving all sentient beings, not just yourself.

This mirrors actual Buddhist history. The split between Theravada (小乘, the "Lesser Vehicle" — a term Mahayana Buddhists used, considered pejorative) and Mahayana (大乘, the "Greater Vehicle") was one of the most consequential developments in Asian religious history. The drama compresses centuries of doctrinal evolution into a single dramatic debate, and in doing so, fundamentally changes the power structure of the Buddhist cultivation system within the story.

The physical powers of Buddhist cultivators reflect their spiritual attainment. High-grade monks achieve 金刚不坏之身 (jīn gāng bù huài zhī shēn) — the diamond indestructible body, a concept from the Diamond Sutra (金刚经). Their bodies become as hard as diamond — not through physical training like the martial artists, but through spiritual purification. The purer the mind, the harder the body. It's the exact inverse of the martial artist's approach: where the 武夫 refines the body to strengthen the spirit, the Buddhist refines the spirit to strengthen the body.

Idiom: 四大皆空 (sì dà jiē kōng) — "The four elements are all empty"

Meaning: The four great elements — earth, water, fire, wind — that compose the physical world are ultimately illusory. Nothing material is permanent.

This phrase comes from the Heart Sutra (心经) tradition and captures the core Buddhist insight: attachment to the material world is the root of suffering. In the drama, Buddhist cultivators who truly internalize this principle gain power over the physical world precisely because they recognize its emptiness. A monk who genuinely believes the body is illusory can take a sword through the chest without flinching — not because his body is tough, but because he understands, at a level deeper than intellectual knowledge, that the body is not ultimately real.

四大皆空 is also the Buddhist answer to the martial artist's path. The 武夫 makes the body indestructible through refinement. The Buddhist makes the body irrelevant through insight. Two opposite methods, both arriving at a cultivator who cannot be killed by physical means.

Use it: When someone achieves freedom by releasing attachment to material things — or when reminding yourself that physical possessions and circumstances are temporary.

Warlocks and Sorcerers (术士 Shùshì) — Science as Magic

The warlock system is the most pragmatic of the cultivation paths, incorporating real Chinese practices that straddle the line between science, divination, and mysticism:

风水 (Fēng Shuǐ) — Geomancy: reading and manipulating the flow of qi through landscapes and buildings
望气 (Wàng Qì) — Qi Observation: perceiving the qi emanations of people, places, and events to predict outcomes
炼金术 (Liàn Jīn Shù) — Alchemy: refining materials and creating magical artifacts

The warlocks are based in the 司天监 (Sī Tiān Jiān) — the Heavenly Observatory, which was a real historical institution in imperial China. The actual 司天监 was responsible for astronomical observation, calendar calculation, weather prediction, and interpreting celestial omens for the emperor. In Tang, Song, and later dynasties, the Observatory held significant political power because the emperor's legitimacy was tied to the Mandate of Heaven (天命) — and the Observatory was the institution that read heaven's messages.

The drama takes the real 司天监 and asks: what if their predictions weren't just educated guesses? What if the astronomers and geomancers actually had supernatural sight? The result is a cultivation system based on observation, calculation, and manipulation — the closest thing in the drama's world to science, but science that actually works as magic.

Warlocks in Guardians of the Dafeng don't fight with swords or fists. They set up formations based on feng shui principles, brew elixirs using alchemical knowledge, and predict the future through qi observation. They are the support class in a world of combat cultivators — and one of the most dangerous, because you cannot fight what you cannot predict, and warlocks can predict everything.

Idiom: 未卜先知 (wèi bǔ xiān zhī) — "Know before divining"

Meaning: To have foreknowledge of events before they happen — intuition so sharp it surpasses formal divination.

In classical China, 卜 (bǔ) referred to divination using oracle bones or yarrow stalks — formal, ritualized methods of predicting the future. To know something 未卜先知 means your insight is so developed that you don't even need the ritual tools. You just know.

This is the warlock's aspiration. At lower grades, they need feng shui compasses, star charts, and alchemical equipment. At higher grades, they perceive the flow of fate directly. The 司天监's most powerful sorcerers can look at a person and see their past, present, and probable futures as naturally as you see their face.

Use it: When someone demonstrates uncanny foresight or intuition — the friend who somehow always knows what's going to happen before it does.

Why It Matters — Philosophy as Power

What sets Guardians of the Dafeng apart from other cultivation dramas is that the power systems are not decorative. They are arguments. Each system embodies a different answer to the same question: what is the highest form of human achievement?

The martial artist says: the perfected body. Refine your physical self until it transcends physical limits. The Confucian says: the perfected word. Cultivate virtue until your speech carries the weight of truth. The Daoist says: alignment with nature. Whether through detachment, embrace, or service, find the Dao and the Dao will carry you. The Buddhist says: transcendence of illusion. Recognize the emptiness of the material world and become free. The warlock says: understanding of pattern. Observe, calculate, predict, and manipulate.

These aren't invented for the drama. These are the actual philosophical positions that have shaped Chinese civilization for over two thousand years. The 精气神 of martial arts, the 修身齐家 of Confucianism, the 无为 of Daoism, the 四大皆空 of Buddhism, the 风水望气 of Chinese cosmology — all of it is real, all of it has been debated by real scholars and practitioners for millennia.

Xu Qi'an, as a martial artist who studies Confucian texts, debates Buddhist monks, and allies with Daoist cultivators, becomes a walking synthesis of Chinese philosophical traditions. His journey through the Nine-Grade System is not just a power fantasy — it's a tour through the intellectual history of China, one punch and one idiom at a time.

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