The general soldier was established from the Ming Dynasty, after hundreds of years of development, after the Qing Dynasty officially became an official position, and the official rank is Zheng Erpin, which is one level higher than the Inspector's Congerpin, it is also a very good official rank, just because the general soldier has played a more important role in history, so many people are more interested in the general soldier.
So how big is the real power of the general army, what level can it be counted in the Qing Dynasty, and how many troops are there? With these questions in mind, let's make a detailed analysis of the special post of general soldier.
The chief soldier during the Ming Dynasty
As mentioned earlier, the general soldiers were established from the time of the Ming Dynasty, but the general soldiers in this period were not yet a position with a structure, but only a large number of officers urgently dispatched by the emperor in times of danger, in other words, the general soldiers of this period generally held other positions in the DPRK, but they were only ordered to become the general soldiers to lead the troops to fight.
Of course, even if the chief soldier in this period was only a concurrent position, it did not affect the important role played by the chief soldier in the history of the Ming Dynasty, for example, in the Battle of Jingnan, Zhu Yunjiao appointed his cousin Li Jinglong as the chief soldier to go to the crusade against Zhu Di in an emergency.
At that time, Li Jinglong was a down-to-earth general, and he was also a relative of the emperor and the state, and his position in the DPRK was irreplaceable, and Zhu Yunxiong granted him tremendous power in the midst of danger, which is enough to show that the general army in this period had considerable military power in his hands, and it also had a great impact on the direction of history.
At the end of the Ming Dynasty, due to the rise of the Jurchens, the imperial court began to pay attention to the matter of guarding the frontier, and specially sent many large officers to sit in the town, and in order to give these military generals who sat in various places a legal establishment, the position of chief soldier officially appeared.
At this time, the general soldiers, although not as powerful as the general soldiers in the early Ming Dynasty, were definitely the most outstanding people in the military generals at that time, who were qualified to become the general soldiers, such as Li Rusong, Qi Jiguang, Wu Sangui, Zu Dashou and others in the late Ming Dynasty, who were all the general soldiers of the nine-sided town in that year.
At the end of the Ming Dynasty, there were more than 20 general soldiers scattered in various places across the country, and in terms of military strength alone, the strength of a general soldier was at least tens of thousands, and the number of troops could reach about 100,000.
The total military strength during the Qing Dynasty
To say that the period of the greatest change in the general army must be the Qing Dynasty period, after the Jurchen people entered the customs, although they roughly inherited many systems from the Ming Dynasty, they also carried out drastic reforms on this basis, such as the general army is a more thorough part of its reform.
During the Ming Dynasty, the general soldiers had too much military strength and real power, even in the case of more than 20 general soldiers in the country at the end of the Ming Dynasty, the real power of each general soldier was still very large, so the Rulers of the Qing Dynasty were particularly uneasy about these general soldiers, afraid that they would rebel and overthrow their rule.
The Qing court's way of reducing power is very simple and crude, that is, directly dividing the places where the original general soldiers were guarded, turning them into several relatively small places, and arranging a general soldier in each place, thus weakening the real power of the original general soldiers.
The full name of the general soldier during the Qing Dynasty was generally "the chief soldier of a certain place in the town guard", which belonged to the establishment of the green battalion soldiers, which was essentially different from the Eight Banner Soldiers, which I will elaborate on later. In order to have a clearer division of labor for the general troops, the Qing court called the troops under the command of the general soldiers "towns", and under the town, there were also sub-stationed units such as the association, battalion, and flood, and the deputy generals were set up, the battalions set up staff generals, guerrillas, capital divisions, and garrisons, and the flood set up thousand generals, general generals, and foreign commissioners.
After the division of labor in the post was clear, the general soldiers also had to divide the work in terms of authority, and the Qing court divided the army of a town under the jurisdiction of the general army into two natures, one is the standard battalion, the other is the battalion flood jurisdiction, of which the standard battalion is some officers and men who have undergone centralized training, which can be used for conquest, while the battalion flood command soldiers are mainly to maintain local law and order, and they are rarely trained, which is equivalent to a group of security guards.
Under normal circumstances, in order to prevent the general army from becoming bigger and stronger, the Qing court will limit the real power of the general army, and the best way to achieve the purpose of the restriction is to reduce the proportion of the standard camp, the standard camp in the Qing Dynasty, in principle, is not allowed to exceed one-third of the total number of troops in a town, that is to say, a town of 10,000 people, the standard camp is only more than three thousand people at most.
At the peak of the Qing Dynasty, a total of 83 soldiers in the country had 630,000 green battalions, an average of 7590 people under each total army, but under the real situation, the size and importance of the towns under the jurisdiction of the general soldiers were different, so the troops would not be evenly distributed, in the more important defensive places, the total troop strength of the total army up to more than 20,000, and in some unimportant towns, the total number of troops was only a few hundred or thousand troops.
The status of the general soldier during the Qing Dynasty
The military system during the Qing Dynasty was divided into eight banner soldiers and green battalion soldiers, in fact, the eight banner soldiers were the most trusted and valued military force of the Qing court, so in terms of power and status, it was naturally more biased towards the eight banner soldiers, such as the garrison generals and the capital of the eight flag soldiers, which not only belonged to the first product in the official rank, but also one level higher than the main two products of the total soldiers, and their military de facto power and the status of the imperial court were also far higher than the general soldiers, and there were only 14 garrison generals in the country during the Qing Dynasty, and their status and real power were naturally self-evident.
It can be said that among the Eight Banner Soldiers, it is the garrison general and the metropolitan general who have the highest status and the greatest real power, in addition, there are local officials such as the governor and the governor, the governor, the governor, the governor of The governor of The garrison, the governor of The governor of Huguang, the governor of Huguang, etc., are all very powerful, of course, sometimes there are also the generals of Fuyuan, but because they are not permanent, we will not analyze and discuss. After the Eight Banner Soldiers, it was the Green Battalion Soldiers, but the position of the General Soldiers in the Green Battalion was very embarrassing.
In the Green Battalion, the highest power and status is the Admiral, the Admiral and according to the difference between the water army and the army, specially set up the Land Admiral and the Admiralty of the Water Division, during the Qing Dynasty, there were 12 land admirals and 3 admirals in the country, and the admiral was naturally the highest in the actual power and status of the Green Battalion soldiers, and its official rank was also from one product, one level higher than the total soldiers.
In summary, although the general army has been established since the Ming Dynasty, its status during the Qing Dynasty is not very high, not to mention compared with the commanders of the Eight Banner Soldiers, it is simply within the Green Battalion, the General Soldier is also limited by the Admiral, and the scope of power is very small.
epilogue
The general army from the Ming Dynasty period, to the Qing Dynasty formally matured, in the Qing Dynasty, there are a total of 83 general soldiers in the country, each total soldier's strength ranges from hundreds to twenty thousand, although on the surface they still seem to be relatively beautiful, but in fact, the status of the general army is not only inferior to the eight banner soldiers in the garrison general, the capital, the local governor, the inspector, and even the admiral in the green battalion is also the superior of the general soldier, and the space for play is not large!
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