In the middle and late Ming Dynasty, the ruling class became increasingly dull and decaying, and the emperor lived deep in the inner palace, indulged in dogs and horses, and ignored the imperial government for many years. Eunuchs took advantage of the opportunity to abuse power and act arbitrarily, the whole country was bloody, wolf dogs were full of streets, and the people lived in misery. Militarily, it is lax armament and lax coastal defense.
At that time, Japan, a neighbor with China, was in the Warring States Period, when the north and the south were divided and warped. Frustrated politicians, defeated samurai and peasants displaced for their livelihoods became pirates, engaged in smuggling and robbery at sea, and often harassed the southeastern coast of the mainland.
In ancient times, the mainland called Japan Wako, so people called the Japanese robbers who invaded the mainland as Wako. From the Hongwu era in the early Ming Dynasty, the Wokou often harassed the coastal areas of the mainland, and experienced the Jianyuan, Yongle, Xuande, Jingtai, and Zhengde dynasties, and the harm of the woe became more and more serious, and it became more rampant during the Jiajing period, plundering hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians in Zhejiang within a few years.
They brutally abused the exile Chinese residents. They forced men to do extremely heavy work for them, and put them ahead of the line to die during the war. The women who were taken captives were forced to reel silk for the bokou during the day and vent their bestial desires at night. Many were devastated, resisted or fled, but were captured or killed.
Even more heinous, this group of inhuman robbers took pleasure in slaughtering Chinese children. They stripped abducted children and even babies of their clothes, poured boiling hot water on them, and watched the children cry, struggle and convuls, clap their hands and laugh.
The invasion of the Wokou brought great disaster to the Chinese people, but the Chinese people were not intimidated by the vicious Japanese devil. They took up arms to defend their homeland, and they thwarted the fierce flames of the Wokou again and again, and dealt a heavy blow to the invaders.
However, the Wokou were mostly samurai, many powerful people, and had a certain organization, wandered everywhere, and colluded with corrupt officials and bullies all over the coast, and people could not completely eliminate them, until the national hero Qi Jiguang led the Qi family army to resist the Wakou, the plague basically subsided.
Qi Jiguang character Yuanjing, number Southern Tang, ancestral home in Penglai, Shandong. At the end of the Yuan Dynasty, his seventh ancestor Qi Xiang accompanied the peasant army led by Zhu Yuanzhang to the south and the north, and made great contributions to the establishment of Daming. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, he fought for the final unification of China in the east and west, and finally died in Yunnan.
Emperor Ming Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang attached great importance to his old subordinates, and in recognition of Qi Xiang's military exploits, he made Qi Xiang's son Qi Bin a Mingwei general, and successively served as the commander of Dengzhou (present-day Penglai, Shandong). Since then, the Qi family has moved to Penglai, and the sixth generation from Qi Bin to Qi Jiguang has held this position.
Qi Jiguang's father, Qi Jingtong, was an honest man who was clean and upright in the officialdom. When he was promoted to the post of general manager of Jiangnan grain transport, when he first transported grain to Taicang, some experienced subordinates persuaded him to send some belongings to the warehouse official so as not to cause trouble, but he resolutely refused.
Sure enough, the warehouse official framed him for unclear accounts, and according to the law, he should be demoted. His subordinates were very sympathetic to him and volunteered to offer 300 taels of silver to help him dredge up relations, but he insisted that he would never do anything against his conscience.
After Jiangnan transported grain and threw away the general official, Qi Jingtong still returned to Dengzhou to serve as a servant. When his superior, Qi Xun, the governor of Shandong Beiwei, heard this, he admired him very much, and wanted to recognize his family with him, but Qi Jingtong was unwilling to climb the dragon and attach the phoenix, and politely refused, saying that his surname was not Qi but Ni.
When Qi Jingtong was appointed as the commander of Daningdu, the Yamen lacked a secretary. Many people want to get this seat. A commander surnamed Cai sent Qi Jingtong a lot of money in an attempt to get this beautiful errand. Qi Jingtong not only did not accept money, but also reprimanded the briber. Resolutely do not let that man succeed.
After driving away the briber, Qi Jingtong appointed a shrewd and capable person as a secretary, this person was very grateful, and specially sent him 100 taels of silver, who expected Qi Jingtong to be furious: "I appointed you in order to select the virtuous, but I didn't expect you to give me silver, which shows that I recognized the wrong person!" ”
On the first day of October in the seventh year of Jiajing, Qi Jingtong, who was more than half a hundred years old, was happy to have a son, and the child was born in the middle of the night and the sky was full of stars. The next day, the sun rose in the east and the morning sun was shining. Qi Jingtong, who had a son in his twilight years, was very happy, and linked the scene in front of him with the child's future, naming the child Jiguang, which means inheriting the great deeds of the ancestors of Guangda.