Zhang Tingyu commented on Qi Jiguang in the "History of Ming": "Jiguang is a general who gives strict orders, rewards and punishes letters, and no soldier dares not to use his life." He and Da Dian are famous generals. The conduct is not as good, but the fruit is too strong. The veteran general of Dayu holds a heavy job, and Jiguang is a power generation, repeatedly destroying the Great Kou, and the name is even more prominent. Qi Jiguang used soldiers, and his prestige shocked Huanyu. However, when Zhang Juzheng and Tan Lun were in charge of state affairs, zhang Dingsi, Zhang Xigao and other juyan roads were abolished. The way of the general can also be known. ”
In China's thousands of years of history, there are countless famous military generals, but there are very few who can really fight a lifetime of battles without losing, and the national hero Qi Jiguang, as we know it, is one of them.
When it comes to Qi Jiguang, there are almost no people who do not know some of his deeds to a greater or lesser extent. There are countless descriptions of this famous general in history, such as his brilliant deeds such as being a national hero, pacifying coastal defense, defending the country, and so on. But at the same time, his wife and daughter in his later years were separated, and poverty was also sad.
Qi Jiguang, a famous general in the war
In the early years of the Ming Dynasty, the Wokou constantly invaded China's Coastal Shandong and other places, among which Dengzhouwei, where the Qi family was located, became an outpost of coastal defense. From the time of Zhu Yuanzhang, the ming emperor, to Qi Jiguang's father Qi Jingtong as the commander of Dengzhou Wei, the Qi family has been guarding Dengzhou Wei for five generations and has stood at the forefront of the anti-Wu dynasty for more than 140 years.
Qi Jiguang's father, Qi Jingtong, was promoted to the governor of Shandong and was responsible for preparing the Military, and was also ordered to enter Beijing as the deputy general of the Shenji Battalion. Qi Jiguang was born in such a family, and such a family not only gave Qi Jiguang a hereditary position of commander, but more importantly, the experience accumulated by the Qi family in more than a hundred years of anti-Wu battles. This also laid the foundation for Qi Jiguang to become a generation of famous anti-Wu generals.
In the twenty-third year of Jiajing (1544), Qi Jingtong died of illness, and Qi Jiguang, who was only seventeen years old, inherited the post of commanding you. Later, Qi Jiguang participated in martial arts and received more attention from the imperial court, when Qi Jiguang, who had just shown his head, had become a "general" of the Ming Court, and was praised by the imperial court ministers as a "national soldier", calling him "brave and unique, and his zhijie was more transcendent".
In 1553, Qi Jiguang met the noble man in his life, Zhang Juzheng. On the recommendation of zhang Juzheng, the first assistant, Qi Jiguang entered the capital to command the affairs of you, and began to take charge of the defense of the three battalions and twenty-five guards along the coast of Shandong to defend against the coastal Wokou.
After taking office, Qi Jiguang embarked on vigorous rectification, reform, and strengthening military affairs to ensure tranquility along the coast of Shandong. Two years later, Qi Jiguang was promoted to the post of Governor of Zhejiang, and went to Zhejiang, where the war against the Uighurs was fierce, and then served as a staff general, beginning a 12-year campaign against the Wokou in the southeast.
During this time, Qi Jiguang strengthened the training of the army and created an army with tenacious combat effectiveness, the Qi Family Army.
In the following ten years, Qi Jiguang led the Qi family army to participate in thirteen battles, including the Battle of Taizhou, the Battle of Fujian, the Battle of Xinghua, and the Battle of Xianyou. At the same time, it achieved a record of total victory, and killed more than 60,000 Wukou in succession, sweeping away the Wukou in Fujian and Zhejiang Provinces.
Since then, Qi Jiguang has become a famous figure in the world, because of his merits in guarding the border, Qi Jiguang was promoted to the rank of Zuo Dudu (左都督) and the official rank of Zheng Yipin (正一品), and later for his assistance to the Liaodong general Li Chengliang,he was given the title of Prince Taibao (太子太保) and later as Shaobao (少保).
At this time, Qi Jiguang can be said to have reached the peak of the Ming Dynasty's military generals, and Qi Jiguang at that time became the most beautiful military general of the Ming Dynasty.
But even if it is beautiful, Qi Jiguang is still a military general, and in the political pattern of the Ming Dynasty's "heavy literature and light weapons", he has already doomed him to the loss of fate.
Heavy on literature and light on force, military weakness
As we all know, an important feature of the era in the middle and late Ming Dynasty was the emphasis on literature and light on martial arts.
Because the way of doing things between civilian officials and military attaches has always been very different, and civilian officials have always regarded the maintenance of balance in all aspects as the standard of governance, these scholars can use economic, political and even legal means, but they will not resort to force.
For in the concept of the civil servant, if force is to be used, it proves not that the use of force is necessary, but that the administration fails. If the victory of the enemy is won by a military general, it will be only a temporary and partial success in their eyes. But in the event of an accident, such as a soldier plundering the people, such a punishment is carried by the military attaché.
It can be seen that in an agricultural country ruled by civilians, the situation of military generals is very difficult, and it is absolutely impossible for military personnel and civilian officials to go hand in hand.
This vast Ming Empire replaced the law with etiquette and morality, so that there were no written rules to be obeyed between the various institutions, and when things were encountered, they blamed each other, resulting in delays in doing things. Under such a political system, even if it really has the military power to build modernization, it cannot play a real role.
The patron fell, and his old age was bleak
Qi Jiguang's fall began with Zhang Juzheng's death in 1582, as Qi Jiguang's biggest patron, Zhang Juzheng withdrew from the government, And Qi Jiguang had no one to rely on, and it was difficult to move forward.
In addition, the Ming government at that time also set off a storm of purges against Zhang Juzheng. As a minister closely related to Zhang Juzheng, Qi Jiguang was naturally deeply influenced.
Soon, someone impeached Qi Jiguang and Zhang Juzheng's close relationship, but at this time, the Wanli Emperor was still concerned about Qi Jiguang's military merits, so he only demoted Qi Jiguang and let him go.
It was not until 1585 that some of the imperial court ministers once again impeached the relationship between Qi Jiguang and Zhang Juzheng, which led to the Wanli Emperor directly dismissing Qi Jiguang, and also dismissing Qi Jiguang's younger brother, Qi Jimei, who was serving in Guizhou. Since then, Qi Jiguang has retired from the official arena.
This year was the year when Qi Jiguang was 58 years old, from the age of 17 to the officialdom, decades of hard work were in vain, and he returned to his hometown of Penglai in Shandong Province alone.
Although Qi Jiguang was an official for many years, his Feng Lu was used to fund the army for many years, and he did not have much savings, making his later life very poor.
The history books use such a passage to describe him: "The four mentions will be printed, Peiyu has been more than thirty years, the wild has no field, the bag has no sustenance, but the collection of books is only thousands of volumes." It can be seen that Qi Jiguang's poverty has fallen.
In addition to poverty, the death of his brother and the abandonment of his wife caused a desolate generation of celebrities to die three years later.
brief summary
Qi Jiguang was born into a hereditary military family, good at fighting, patriotic and loyal to the king, but in the institutional and political environment of the Ming Dynasty at that time, he was doomed to fail to realize his life ambitions, and he had to rely on the civilian official clique, and eventually he was inevitably involved in political struggles, which showed his helplessness.
Qi Jiguang's misfortune lies precisely in the fact that the whole set of measures he implemented in Jizhou broke the balance of the civilian-official clique, and coupled with the fact that he was a close confidant of Zhang Juzheng, with heavy troops in his hands, and Zhang Juzheng fell, he was naturally framed for rebellion.
In this contradiction of compromise, Qi Jiguang still made an immortal contribution to suppressing the Wokou and severely injuring the Tatars; at the same time, the Qi family army he compiled and trained, as well as the military books such as the "New Book of Ji Xiao", which he compiled, made him admired by posterity.
Reference: History of the Ming Dynasty
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