Leaving aside the Generals of the Hongwu Dynasty who were born in the Founding War, and mentioning the famous generals of the Ming Dynasty, Qi Jiguang may be the first thing most people think of.
There are many labels on him, so they are also well known by people of different ages and different eras.
We know that he is a famous anti-Japanese general and a national hero;
In military history, we know that he was a pioneer in the exploration of the modernization reform of China's military system, and his writings have influenced him to this day;
At the time of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, he was praised as "a great country and a dry city", "Xunming Taidou", and the Confucian general style impressed both wen and wu... A military general born in the era of heavy literature and suppressing martial arts can get such a high popularity and evaluation, and the only one who can match it is probably Yue Wumu.
Along with Qi Jiguang, the "Qi Family Army" with extremely strong combat ability is his subordinate.
Above_Qi Jiajun
Qi Jiajun, founded in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, grew up in the War of Resistance Against the Wu Dynasty, matured in Jibei, and in the late Ming Era, when wars were still frequent, served as the firefighter of Daming in the Eastern Expedition to the West, until the last drop of blood was shed. Whether it was the encirclement and suppression of the Wokou in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, the attack on the Japanese daimyo in the Korean battlefield, or even the Jin heavy army after the battle in the Liaodong battlefield, the Qi family army showed strong combat effectiveness.
The recruitment system of the Ming Dynasty entered the "Great Leap Forward" period during the Jiajing period, and the drawbacks of elite soldiers flying high and weak and weak soldiers who could not withstand the first battle had begun to appear. The Qi family's strict discipline and bravery and good fighting are inseparable from Qi Jiguang's strict training methods -- that is, focusing on the recruitment of soldiers and the establishment of military camps, and on this basis is the training and combat.
His first subordinates were three thousand soldiers from Shaoxing. After his training, the military appearance was strict and orderly, the combat effectiveness was greatly improved, and in the thirty-eighth year of Jiajing, the Wukou who invaded Taozhu were completely annihilated, which greatly demoralized the morale of the Wukou and changed the appearance of the japanese officers and troops who were weak and did not experience war.
Qi Jiguang (1528-1588)
In fact, this was counted as the elite of the Ming army at that time, but it still could not meet Qi Jiguang's requirements. In Qi Jiguang's view, these soldiers covet military merit, and sometimes even take the heads of ordinary people and wounded soldiers as military merit, while they are savvy in calculation, they can obey orders to kill the enemy in the face of weak and small Wokou, and when faced with enemy troops of equal strength or more strength, they will cower, no matter how the commander-in-chief orders them cannot make them charge into the battlefield. These are all problems with the source of soldiers - "the soldiers are all city-dwellers, and they are cunning", and they fight for personal bounties, not to protect the border and the people.
These were the common problems of the entire Ming army at that time. After the Ming Dynasty began to carry out large-scale conscription, the "mercenary" of the army became increasingly serious.
On the one hand, the expanding military power consumes the national treasury;
On the other hand, these soldiers fought for personal rewards, mutinied and rebelled, and even collective defections were not uncommon.
In the face of the slightly weaker combat effectiveness of the army can still bravely kill the enemy, once encountered vicious battles and dangerous battles, especially large-scale battles, the Ming army camp will inevitably fall apart.
It was precisely because Qi Jiguang foresaw this that he was determined to re-recruit soldiers. After witnessing the scene of the volunteer people's armed struggle, he praised "its arrogance and hostility, its habits and self-contempt, its vulgar strength without him, it should be encouraged, and now it is a simple training, that is, one brigade can be used as three armies." After personally recruiting four thousand people, the real Qi family army was truly formed.
Above_Mandarin duck array model
Subsequently, Qi Jiguang created a Mandarin duck array adapted to local conditions on the basis of the new organization.
The basic unit of the Mandarin Duck Formation is a team of eleven people: the captain is responsible for command, the front is two long shield soldiers responsible for defense, flanked by wolfmen holding more than three meters, responsible for dispersing the enemy's military strength and killing and wounding the elite enemy troops in the front row; followed by four spearmen, killing and injuring the enemy troops who have evaded the wolf in the middle distance; and finally two palladium bearers are responsible for vigilance and support.
Qi Jiguang abandoned the two military establishments of the guardhouse and the battalion, but selected it from top to bottom, from the general to the sentry officer to the sentry commander to the captain to the soldier. This advantage is that it can ensure the unity between soldiers, and the Mandarin Duck Formation that Qi Jiajun is good at most needs the tacit understanding and unity between soldiers.
In the ensuing war, this Qi family army created a mythical victory, the myth of which was not how to inflict heavy damage on the enemy, but its own casualties were negligible. From here, it is not difficult for us to see a fact from the side - that is, the Jiangsu and Zhejiang years of the Qi family army, facing a group of pirates and poor cowards, they fight for wealth and practice for thieves, so they are not strong opponents, once the drum is broken, the pursuit of the north can immediately make their corpses spread across the field. Whether it is the Mandarin Duck Formation or the Wolf's Defeat of the Enemy, they can only be auxiliary factors in reducing casualties or expanding the results of the battle, and what really affects the war situation and makes the Qi family army invincible is their army style of sincere unity and courage and loyalty.
Above_ The Tiger Squat Gun is the most commonly used firearm of Qi Jiguang's army, with a short range and suitable for mountain combat
The Five Thunder God Machine was invented by Qi Jiguang when defending the Mongol army on the Northern Front
However, what really made Qi Jiajun and Qi Jiguang famous in the world was not only the conquest and suppression of Wukou in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, but also the Great Wall guarding the imperial northern captives.
After Qi Jiguang was promoted to the Beijing Division, he was appointed as a senior general of the capital garrison (deputy general of the Shenji Battalion) and the commander-in-chief of the Border Defense Army (The Prime Minister, Chang, Liao, and Bao Military Affairs, and the General Army obeyed the moderation), comprehensively rectifying the defense of the Great Wall north of the Beijing Division.
At that time, he proposed three plans: the Northern Expedition, the decisive battle of the main force, and the rectification of defense, but the Ming Court, which was busy with reforming the law and unable to organize a large-scale war, chose to keep the enemy out of the country. It is worth mentioning that Qi Jiguang advocated training other border guards through the Qi family army he trained as a seed unit, although he failed to achieve it during his lifetime, but it was finally put into action during the apocalypse years - although it ultimately failed, it still showed that this strategy was recognized by the Ming court.
Above_ "Record of Military Training" is a military work of the Ming Dynasty. Written by Qi Jiguang during military training in Jizhen.
Training, organization and equipment in the north became the first element.
Different from the Qi family army in the south, the northern defensive line, as the immediate eyes of Tianzi and the outskirts of Qifu, the size of the army was even larger, and the formation and organization of the south were no longer applicable. In the face of new enemies, Qi Jiguang continued to carry forward his well-organized and proficient in formation.
Under his reorganization, the Ming army began to train a large number of car battalion troops. The battalion unit has five parts:
Regular troops - three men on each side are responsible for firing firearms and assisting two;
Cavalry - four men equipped with bird claws and long knives;
Horse soldiers - two bird long knifemen, two fast gunners, two palladium rocket soldiers, two knife and stick hands, two gunmen;
Light Cavalry - Four members of the Bow Knife Team, two Palladium Rocket Troops, and four people with hook guns and guns;
Ten men in the infantry regiment.
The design purpose of this formation was that "there is no need to pick up the danger of the sea and the danger of the sea, and there is no need to be in the camp according to the situation of the city and the city", and the step by step camp makes the Mongol army, which is accustomed to plunder, lose ground. Chariots are well-defended and able to dodge bows and arrows, while their many firearms are effective in killing and injuring enemy forces at long distances, and there are many cavalry and infantry ready to turn the tide of battle.
Above_Qijia knife
In the first year of the Wanli Calendar, the Mongol "Little Prince" and Dong Fox invaded the Great Wall defense line, and Qi Jiguang led his army to Xifengkou, defeated the Mongol army, and almost captured Dong Fox; Dong Fox's nephew Dong Changang then attacked again and was defeated by Qi Jiguang. In the second year of the Wanli Dynasty, Qi Jiguang defeated Dong Chang'ang's uncle Dong Chang bald and captured him alive, frightening Dong Fox to come and ask for submission, and to release back the materials and civilians he had looted earlier.
The Jizhen Border Pass, which Qi Jiguang was in charge of, finally ushered in peace after a series of victories, and the Qi family army he was organizing also reached its peak. The characteristics of the Qijia army in Jizhen are that there are many battalions and heavy firearms to make up for the lack of mobility of the troops and the inferiority of the Mongolian army in riding and shooting, and they use infantry and bicycles to coordinate operations, and have both offensive and defensive weapons to "be afraid of hope."
In addition to the war, Qi Jiguang set his sights on the future, believing that the era of hot weaponsization of war is coming, and new methods of selecting soldiers and training troops and building weapons should be adopted for the new mode of war - but they have not been adopted.
Zhang Juzheng (1525 – July 9, 1582)
Unfortunately, with the death of Zhang Juzheng and the transfer of Qi Jiguang, the development of Qi Jiajun stopped here. However, the results of his military training still affected future generations, and at the end of the Ming Dynasty, Sun Chengzong and Yuan Chonghuan successively supervised Ji Liao, and their training adopted the method of Qi Jiguang first selecting troops and then training the formation, and adopted the mode of coordinated operations between cavalry and infantry of the car battalion to deal with the more durable and mobile Houjin army.
Although the offensive and defensive trends are ultimately reversed, success or failure cannot hide the glory of an army in a particular era. With the passage of time, the slogan of "the ten rooms will have faithfulness, and the whole of Zhejiang will have no courage" is still resounding in China.
Text: Left light bucket
bibliography:
Zhang Tingyu,Ming Shi. The Biography of Qi Jiguang
Wang Zhaochun, "From the Perspective of Qi Jiguang's Contribution to Ancient Military Science"
Qi Guozuo's Compilation of Qi Shaobao's Genealogy
The text was created by the History University Hall team, and the picture originated from the Internet and the copyright belongs to the original author