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In the process of the rise of the Qing Dynasty, the Eight Flags system played a decisive role.
From Nur Hachi to Huang Taiji, the Eight Banners soldiers are the main force of military operations, and they have fought for many years in the frontier to defeat the Great Qing River.
In today's film and television dramas, we can often see the figure of the Eight Flags.
But it is often written in film and television dramas that the flag owner who manages a flag is a special existence. Most of them were arrogant and powerful, and seemed to be on an equal footing with the emperor.
So in real history, how powerful was the Qing Dynasty flag owner? What is the development history of the Eight Flags Power Brigade, which the Qing government is proud of?
First, the eight flags are powerful, and the banner owner is king
The origin of the Eight Flags system was a temporary organization called Niulu during the Jurchen hunting in the Ming Dynasty. Before each hunt of the Jurchens, a temporary ox recording team would be organized, and after the hunt was completed, it would be disbanded.
The so-called Niulu is a special formation for the Jurchen people when hunting. Niu Lu has a total of 10 people, 2 in the middle, 4 on the left and 4, enveloping the prey. One of the Niu Lu was selected as the general leader, and the 9 people were guided to move forward in each direction.
In the 11th year of the Wanli Dynasty of the Ming Dynasty, Nur Hachi raised troops in the city of Feia, he thought that this Niulu organization was very disciplined, so he borrowed it as an army establishment, and on this basis, he continued to invent and create, and slowly formed the later Eight Flags system.
In the 29th year of Wanli, after many years of conquest, Nur Hachi submitted to obedience to more than 190 tribal leaders, more than 10,000 direct soldiers, and more than 700 war horses, in order to facilitate management, began to form the four-banner military system.
On the basis of Niulu, he developed the three levels of management of Niulu, Jiala, and Gushan, and expanded the number of Niulu, from the initial 10 to about 300, while Jiala, who managed Niulu, and Gushan managed Jiala.
In this way, Nurhachi divided his more than 15,000 soldiers into 4 gushan, 20 jiala, and 100 ox lu, and has since developed on this basis.
Among the four Gushan, Nurhachi still followed the encirclement formation of hunting, selecting one Gushan in the middle and the other three surrounded in three directions: southeast, southeast and west.
The yellow flag is used for the middle Gushan, the red flag for the western Gushan, the white flag for the eastern Gushan, and the blue flag for the southern Gushan. In military operations, the four-color flag corresponds to different directions, forming a strict military decree.
In the forty-third year of Wanli, Nurhachi found that the number of people in the army had increased, which made the original staffing gap large and very untidy, so he expanded the four Gushan to eight.
The original four Gushan mountains are called by the color of the flag, forming "yellow flag, white flag, blue flag, and red flag".
The reconstituted Four Flags did not re-use other colors of flags, but placed different colored edges on the original flags. Hence the "yellow flag, white flag, blue flag, red flag".
At this point, the far-reaching Eight Flags system was formally established, and the Eight Flags Army also became a strong force of Nur Hachi.
In the eight-banner system, Nurhachi is the supreme commander, and the eight banner owners must obey him. And those who can serve as flag owners are generally his children and nephews.
At this time, the Eight Flags system was not a simple military system, but a social system for managing the military and civilians. The owners of the banner naturally owned fields, property, and slaves, which further extended their power.
Although the owner of the Eight Flags obeyed Nur Hachi, the democratic co-governance system within the Eight Banners formulated by him made him only manage the banner owner, but could not control the banner people. That is to say, within the eight flags, the banner owner is king.
It is subordinate to the flag owner and has an indirect relationship with Nur Hachi, even if Nur Hachi wants to transfer troops, it must go through the flag owner.
Moreover, after the establishment of the Eight Banners system, all the military and civilians under Manchuria were subordinate to the Eight Banners. The military and civilians in the Eight Flags are the private property of the owners of the Eight Banners.
The banner owners are not subordinate to Nur Hachi in everything, and when they encounter major military and political affairs, Nur Hachi must convene the eight banner owners to discuss together.
Nurhach's heir, who cannot be personally appointed, must be elected by consultation among the eight banners. Later, after Nurhach's death, Emperor Taiji succeeded to the throne.
He found that after years of conquest, there were already a lot of Han people in the ranks, so he transferred the Han people of each banner and organized them into another banner, with black as the banner.
Later, more and more Mongols returned to the ranks, and in order to facilitate management, he specially established the Mongolian Eight Banners, and the original Eight Banners were changed to the Eight Banners of Manchuria.
Therefore, after the establishment of the Qing Dynasty, the army was no longer the Eight Banner Army of the year, but actually had a total of 24 flags, namely the Manchurian, Mongolian and Han armies.
Although the Eight Flags military system continues to develop, what remains unchanged is the status of the banner owner "Earth Emperor", which also made the Qing emperors deeply hated.
2. Rectify flag affairs and take back privileges
Since Emperor Taiji, emperors have been exploring how to weaken the power of banner owners. Huang Taiji's approach was to abolish the joint rule within the Eight Banners during the Nurhachi period.
After Emperor Taiji succeeded to the throne, according to the old system of Manchuria, he had to jointly manage the state affairs with Daishan, Manggultai and Amin, and sat side by side on the throne to be greeted by the courtiers.
These three Baylors can not only sit with the emperor, but also the lord of the banner. After Huang Taiji became emperor, the first thing he did was to abolish this old system.
In this way, killing two birds with one stone, it not only eliminated the threat of the Baylor brothers to their throne, but also greatly weakened the power of the banner owner. At the same time, he himself directly commanded the three banners, causing the status of other banner owners to decline.
Since then, the status of the banner owners in the Eight Banners of Manchuria is no longer equal, and there is a distinction between upper and lower. Those directly administered by the emperor were revered as the upper three banners, while the others were called the lower five banners. Huang Taiji thus changed the convention of equality between the owners of the Eight Flags.
However, after the Manchu Qing Dynasty entered the customs, the Manchurian Eight Banner Banner owners still maintained a lot of traditions outside the customs, enclosing the land within their own banners as kings, and the imperial order still could not bypass the banner owners.
Although the Emperor Taiji distinguished the status of the banner owner, the banner owner of the Lower Five Banners was still the leader of the Manchurian aristocracy, and the tradition of the banner owner serving the army had not changed much. This became a headache for all emperors of the Qing Dynasty.
These banner owners not only owned extensive fields and a large number of Manchurian enslavements, but also had the privilege of participating politically in the Council of Ministers. Therefore, the actual power of the flag owner is still very large, which can affect the development of military affairs.
During the reign of Kangxi, Ao Bai and Mingzhu took advantage of the privileges of the banner owner in the Council of Ministers of the Emperor to collude with each other and be arrogant, posing a serious threat to the imperial power of the Qing Dynasty.
In his later years, he realized that he wanted to take back the privileges of the flag owner and rectify the flag affairs, so he let his sons handle the matter, in order to strengthen the management at all levels. But I didn't expect it to be self-defeating and become a tool for princes to compete for the throne.
Kangxi had a total of 35 sons, except for the second son, the crown prince, all the other princes colluded with the power of various banners, established friends, intrigued with each other, and fought openly and secretly in the court, bloody storms.
Yongzheng emerged from the struggle of nine deaths and ascended the throne. He was well aware of the threat of the banner owners to their thrones, and used almost cruel means to weaken the power of the banner owners.
He killed the Manchurian magnates, forbade the Eight Banner nobles to collude with the courtiers by strict regulations, and even directly sent his own henchmen to manage the affairs of the banners.
Before the Yongzheng dynasty, the banner owner was called "Gushan Erzhen" in Manchu, where "Erzhen" means "lord" in Manchu. He ordered that "Ezhen" be changed to "Aung Bang", which means "minister" in Manchu.
He also ordered that the law be used to force the Eight Banner Ding to break away from the banner owner and directly subordinate it to the emperor. And enforce it, and those who disobey the decree are dealt with seriously.
In his drastic reforms, the power of the banner owners was greatly weakened, and the eight banners were directly controlled by the emperor. The banner owners exist in name only, and the banner people only know that there is a king, but they do not know that there is a banner owner.
Starting with the Yongzheng Dynasty, the Eight Banners Army truly belonged to the Qing emperors. They finally cleared the thorns in the eye and flesh that threatened the throne.
But taking back the privileges of the flag owners will not save the reality of the decline of the Eight Flags Army. This strong army, which once made great contributions to the Great Qing Dynasty, has long become a parasite of the Qing Dynasty under the nourishment of privilege.
Third, the eight flags of success and defeat
It is a well-established fact that the Eight Flags Army has made great achievements, and the Qing emperor also treated the Eight Banner Army very favorably. After entering the customs, the Shunzhi Emperor implemented a policy of "kindness" for the banner people.
He declared that the Eight Flags Army would never have to pay taxes and conscription, but would only undertake military service. In many aspects, it also tried to give the Eight Flags Army various privileges so that they could enjoy a life without worries about food and clothing.
These privileges nourished the Eight Banner Banner Lord's pursuit of power, and made the Eight Banner Army a place where the emperor could not govern, and arrogance and corruption became increasingly breeding.
The Qing government regarded the Eight Banners Army as the foundation of the country, but after entering the customs, the population of the Eight Banners multiplied rapidly, the Banner people were separated from production and labor for a long time, and their living habits gradually became corrupt and deteriorated.
The entire life of the Eight Flags Army depended on the government for its entire livelihood, so it was separated from production. However, there are quotas for soldiers in the banner, and there are quotas for food and salary, which has produced many idle people in society.
They can't leave this flag to fend for themselves, so they wander around all day and live a luxurious life. The government allocated not enough money to spend, so they survived on pawn debt.
The Qing government repeatedly allocated money from the national treasury to pay off debts, but finally filled the bottomless pit of dissatisfaction and desire.
After Yongzheng weakened the strength of the main forces of the Eight Banners, he also took various measures to revive the heroic posture of the Eight Banners Army in galloping on the battlefield.
His first measure was to admonish the Eight Flags Army to "make a living for a hundred years," and at the same time adopted the necessary compassionate policy for the banner people.
He also ordered that bannermen be strictly prohibited from drinking and cockfighting, quitting extravagance, and developing the habit of thrifting, and then issuing subsidies to some bannermen in the lower strata of society.
But his measures were clearly unable to save the Eight Flags Army, and they did not work for many years. In the 12th year of the Yongzheng Dynasty, he could only helplessly sigh and say that "the people of the Eight Banners who have not changed their bad habits in recent times have not changed their bad habits, and they fight more extravagant people."
But the Yongzheng Emperor did not give up, and he was still exploring the New Deal. Zi Xian Wei what 2023/5/18 start, obviously, all kinds of measures ended in failure.
The reason is that as early as the establishment of the Qing Dynasty, the Eight Flags Army has been separated from the front line of war for a long time, and its main work is to prevent and suppress the people, and its combat effectiveness has declined, and it has gradually become a parasite with four bodies that are not diligent.
During the Yongzheng period, there were two types of people within the Eight Banners Army, one was a Manchu and the other was an account holder. The account holder was originally a Manchu slave and occupied a handful of positions over the course of years of competition.
Yongzheng believed that solving the livelihood problem of the Eight Flags Army was a great good thing for the Manchus, and the account holders could not be allowed to take advantage. So he ordered that the account holders be cleared out of the Baqi account and that the Manchus fill the vacancy.
Yongzheng thought this was a good idea, and after his death, his son Qianlong also inherited his practice, even more extremely.
Qianlong used the measure of "raising the flag for the people" to exclude all non-Manchurian elements of the Eight Banner Army, including the account holders and the Eight Banners of the Han Army.
But what they didn't know was that the most vigorous team in the Eight Flags Army at that time was the account holder and the Eight Flags Han Army. The wrong approach of the two emperors directly led to the decline of the military discipline of the Eight Flags Army, so that the former powerhouse never returned to the sky.
In this way, the Eight Flags Army, which was invincible in the early days and had amazing combat effectiveness, lived in a comfortable and comfortable environment for nearly a hundred years, and gradually became a group of parasites, drunk and dreaming of death, and became a huge burden and burden for the Qing Dynasty.
The rise of the Qing Dynasty relied on the Eight Banner Army, and the decline also originated from the Eight Banner Army.
Epilogue:
The Eight Flags Army was a team created by Nur Hachi when he started his army, followed Nur Hachi to conquer the world, subdued many tribes, and promoted the establishment of the Later Jin and Manchu dynasties.
Once they were a powerful army on the battlefield and had a great reputation, but after their lives were stable, they were idle, arrogant and extravagant. The banner owners played with their power, and the banner people languished to survive.
In the end, the Eight Flags Army became a group of parasites in a stable life.
This is reminiscent of a saying of Mencius, the saint many years ago: "Born of sorrow, die of happiness!" ”
Resources:
"Records of Emperor Shizong of the Qing Dynasty"
《Ming Shi Record》
Mencius
"Records of Emperor Taizuwu of the Qing Dynasty"