The formation of the Ming Dynasty general family system is closely related to the decline of the Tuntian system and the Weisuo system. It can be said that it was precisely because of the decline of the Tuntian system and the Weishou system implemented in the early years of the Ming Dynasty that the generals of the Ming Dynasty's border army had to use Jiading as the main force of the army.
First, the rise of the tun tian system
First of all, the subject's statement that "the Ming Dynasty supported more than two million troops" is actually only a theoretical statement, although in the early years of the Ming Dynasty, due to frequent wars, the Ming Dynasty once had more than two million troops, but such a peak combat strength is not as strong as imagined.
First, for a new regime like the Ming Dynasty, it was extremely difficult to maintain such a large army. You know, if you want to arm a soldier, even if you don't think about the equipment, the cost of food alone is enough to drag down a family of ten. For example, at the end of the Ming Dynasty, Xiong Tingbi, the Liaodong Jingluo, once wrote to the Emperor of Heavenly Revelation requesting "180,000 soldiers and 90,000 warhorses", how much did these soldiers need to spend? The history books record that "each soldier is worth 18 taels of silver, counting 3.24 million taels." Such a soldier's salary was already on the same order of magnitude as the ming dynasty's national tax at this time.
Of course, due to the frequent wars in Liaodong, Liaodong at this time mainly relied on the conscription system to maintain military expenses, and the consumption of military salaries was naturally different from that of Chengping, but during the hongwu emperor's period, it was also quite difficult to feed two million troops. To this end, Zhu Yuanzhang decided to implement the tun tian system.
The so-called tun tian system generally refers to the system of using soldiers and landless peasants to reclaim wasteland. The Ming Dynasty's Tun Tian system was a farming system based on the Weishou system, in which soldiers were soldiers in wartime and were responsible for farming like tenant farmers in Weishou in peacetime. Emperor Hongwu once said smugly: "I raise millions of soldiers without spending the people graining rice, Gaizu made the Tun Army three points to defend the city and seven points of tun seeds, every fifty acres of zhengzi grain on the warehouse, with the main grain twelve stones for self-sufficiency, the surplus grain six stones to the defending city, the field of one army is enough for the use of an army."
Second, the decline of the tun tian system was followed by the decline of the border army
For the Ming Dynasty, this system did solve the problem of insufficient military spending. However, this is only one side of the tun tian system. On the other hand, the establishment of this system led to the binding of millions of soldiers in the guardhouse, and the generals of the guardhouse had almost life-and-death power over these soldiers. Under these circumstances, the generals, who had no system to check and balance, used their powers to usurp the land property of the Weishuo and privately sold it to others, and the Records of Emperor Ming Yingzong said that these border generals "extensively set up tun tian and privately served the tun army... And the people took possession of the seeds and anointed tun tian." Such an incident is not a special case of one county and one place, but a bad phenomenon that spread throughout the Ming Dynasty.
Because of the deterioration of the situation, some of the military families lost the farmland on which they depended for their livelihoods, and some of them were forced to bear the exploitation and encroachment of the generals beyond the limit of their bearing, and under such circumstances, these non-commissioned officers had to choose to flee the military households, take refuge or make a living for themselves.
Shi Ren once said: "In recent years, there have been many years of private service in the army, and the anointed people have cultivated and reaped the benefits for themselves, and the thin people have allocated them to the tun army, which is not real in name." In this case, the Tuntian system and the Weishou system, which were implemented from the Hongwu Dynasty, also gradually declined.
Third, the rise of the general family system
Corresponding to the gradual decline of the Weisuo system is the rise of the general family system. Some of the military families who lost their land because of the generals of the border army had no choice but to take refuge in the generals. The reason for this is that only by sheltering under the door of the generals can they escape the servitude and taxes that they had to bear, and some of these people who are appreciated by the generals will be granted status and treatment far higher than ordinary soldiers by the generals, which is the prototype of the general's family.
At that time, there was always a controversy over this kind of family ding, "it is said that the generals of the two towns of Xuanda, each adopted Yiren as a family ding, its use and its kind, there are also see ren tour commanders, sitting in the camp of a thousand general officers, rong temperament, it is appropriate to suppress it in time." The Lord is allowed to do it". It can be seen that due to the needs of actual wars, the imperial court ultimately failed to stop the emergence of these foreign family members, and even some family members were promoted to guerrilla, command, and thousand general because of military merit. In fact, these foreign families did become a destabilizing factor for the Ming Dynasty's border troops, such as the Battle of Ningxia in the Wanli Dynasty, which was triggered by the rebellion led by yi generals. However, due to the gradual intensification of military conflicts in the Border Areas such as Liaodong since the Apocalypse, the Imperial Court could only drink and quench its thirst and generally continue to use these foreign families.
Fourth, the combat strength of the general Jia Ding
Unlike the soldiers of the Weishou, the strength of the general Jia Ding in the late Ming Dynasty shocked the descendants. The history books record that most of these family members who were personally selected and recruited by the generals were soldiers who dared to fight "with one to ten and destroy the front", and among the border generals who raised the family ding, they were also the most famous family members led by Li Chengliang, the general of Liaodong Xiao, and the history books said that these people were "brave and vigorous, and the bow horses were idle."
In this way, the Li family of the "Three Armies of Courage" repeatedly defeated the invasion of Liaodong by the Duoyan Sanwei and Jurchen forces in Liaodong, and even reached his old lair at the critical moment when the latter's power was gradually expanding, and in the more than ten years that Li Chengliang had been through Liaodong, he "successively played ten great victories", and the "History of Ming" praised him as "the grandeur of the martial arts of the Bian Shuai has not been seen in two hundred years." And what he relied on, in addition to his own bravery and strategy, the thousands of families under his command were also the most important military factors. In the "Wild Harvest Compilation supplementary army department Jia Ding", it is stated: "Jia Ding Gai Fang was in tang ji fan town, such as Tian Chengsi's Wei Fu Ya Bing ... To the altar. There are also those who are obedient to the inferiority, especially Xiao Jian. Near Liaozuo Li Ningyuan dedicated himself to this tree xun." The Li Ningyuan mentioned here is Ningyuan Bo Li Chengliang.
The reason why the border general Jia Ding has such combat strength, in addition to the fact that the general deliberately chooses those soldiers who are strong and brave in the selection, the preferential treatment is the key to jia Ding's use for life. The treatment of these soldiers is much higher than that of ordinary soldiers, and this difference is mainly reflected in the salaries and equipment of soldiers: "The family of the generals in the northwest is now a soldier, and his clothes and weapons are ten times greater than that of the soldiers, and whenever the enemy is a big enemy, he is used to trap the army." Most of its good fighters have made their first contributions." For these specialized fighters, the generals often give the best weapons and equipment, and in terms of income, the salary of a family soldier is often more than ten times that of an ordinary soldier. It is no wonder that the family members at that time were regarded as the elite forces of the flag-grabbing generals by the border generals everywhere.