A few years ago, a sentence "Yuanfang, what do you think?" "The fire spread across the Internet. This online language, which now seems a bit outrageous, comes from the TV series "Detective Di Renjie", and Di Renjie always comes to such a mantra every time he encounters a bottleneck in the analysis of the case.
Since Di Renjie's mantra is "Yuanfang, what do you think", what is Yuanfang's mantra? Readers who still have an impression of the play should know that it is naturally the phrase "the great general who inspects the thousand cattle and guards".
In the play, whenever Li Yuanfang encounters an enemy, he always likes to report to his home with a sentence of "Checking and Calibrating the Great General of the Thousand Bulls and Guarding the Army", which looks majestic. And for those knowledgeable enemies, there is even the effect of winning without a fight. So the question is, what kind of official position was this "Qianniu Wei" in the Tang Dynasty, and why did Li Yuanfang always like to use this to show off?
In fact, in addition to Qianniuwei, I think everyone has also heard of "Jinwuwei". The two are actually similar, they and the left and right guards, Xiao Wei, Wu Wei, Wei Wei, leading guards and guards are called sixteen, why are only 8 called 16? Each of them is divided into 2 guards on the left and right, hence the name.
The duty of these 16 guards is to guard the safety of the capital, and at the same time they also have the power to command the "provincial soldiers" in the world. This means that as long as they go to any place in the country to handle cases, the servants of the local government must listen to their dispatches, which is also the highest military institution of the Tang Dynasty.
Among these sixteen guards, the highest status is the Qianniu Guard. Unlike other guards, Qianniu Wei did not lead the army, but was specifically responsible for "commanding the imperial sword guard attendants", to put it bluntly, it was specifically responsible for the emperor's security, similar to the later forbidden army, but the number was far less than the forbidden army, only about 2,000 people. Therefore, Qianniu Wei is the elite of the elite, and his kung fu and status are naturally higher than those of the forbidden army.
In fact, the closest thing to QianniuWei is the Jinyiwei of the Ming Dynasty, but the Jinyiwei is not responsible for the emperor's security, but is only used for reconnaissance, surveillance and secret arrest activities, so I will not repeat it here.
Back to Li Yuanfang, he calls himself "The Great General of the Inspection school Qianniu Wei" in the play. It can be seen that he is not only a Qianniu Wei, but also the highest general in it, this official position was a Sanpin military attaché in the Tang Dynasty, although it was a bit of a high or low meaning, but it was deeply trusted by the Li family, so the deterrent in the imperial court was very high.
In the play, we often see Yuanfang following Di Renjie's ass, and usually take it for granted that he is Di Renjie's subordinate. In fact, objectively speaking, the two do not have a superior-subordinate relationship, but are just colleagues. Historically, Di Renjie's biggest official was only to Zheng Sanpin, which was essentially no different from Li Yuanfang, the "Great General of Qianniu Wei" who was a military attaché of Sanpin.
Having said that, Li Yuanfang, the "Great General of the Thousand Bulls Guard", is not yet the same thing as the Eight Classics of Zheng'er. The two words "inspection" in front of him also have quite a saying. It directly weakened Li Yuanfang by half of his power, indicating that he was not a formally appointed general, but a temporary grace.
To put it bluntly, it is the same as today's "honorary president", but it is just a false position. Therefore, although Li Yuanfang is clearly sanpin, he is actually slightly lower than sanpin. In this way, it is not surprising that he lives under Di Renjie's door.
Regardless of whether it is a real position or a virtual position, in general, the "Thousand Niu Wei" was still very cattle in the Tang Dynasty, and it is no wonder that Yuan Fang always used this sentence to shock his opponents. Dear readers, how do you view the official position of "Qianniu Wei"? Feel free to speak up in the comments section.