In the tenth year of Wanli in the Ming Dynasty (1582), a generation of reformers Zhang Juzheng died of illness, which was sad news for Qi Jiguang.
01
Qi Jiguang has a close relationship with Zhang Juzheng, and the growth of Qi's army is inseparable from Zhang Juzheng's unsparing recommendation. In the Jiajing Dynasty, in the southeast coastal areas of Fujian and Zhejiang, there were two famous anti-Japanese generals, one was Yu Dayou, and the other was Qi Jiguang.
Zhang Juzheng admired both of them, after Longqing entered the cabinet in the second year, he was in charge of the military, and it was under his strong recommendation that Qi Jiguang had the opportunity to transfer from Zhejiang to Jiliao, promoted to the general army and took on the heavy responsibility of guarding the Beijing Division.
After Zhang Juzheng became the first assistant, he persuaded the emperor to allow Qi Jiguang to do two things that violated the ancestral system.
The first thing was to withdraw the eunuch around Qi Jiguang;
the second thing is to allow Qi Jiguang to recruit new soldiers from Zhejiang;
The overseers exercised military control on behalf of the emperor, and the system of the main army implemented during the Hongwu period was unshakable. And Zhang Juzheng's help to Qi Jiguang undoubtedly gave him more power.
Without the constraints of the prison army, and with the recruits he recruited, Qi Jiguang made great achievements in the position of the general army of Jizhen.
In addition, Zhang Juzheng also wrote to Qi Jiguang many times, reminding him of the matters that need to be paid attention to, and he can also contact him directly if there is any major matter. He also deliberately transferred the officials who obstructed Qi Jiguang's military training to other places, and specially transferred his protégés to Jizhen as governors. It can be said that he cares about Qi Jiguang very much.
Later, after the fall of Yan Song, the first assistant of the cabinet, Hu Zongxian was reinstated, Yu Dayou was dismissed from office, and the relationship between Qi Jiguang and Hu Zongxian was also extraordinary, but he was able to escape, which is inseparable from Zhang Juzheng's protection.
However, Qi Jiguang has a good relationship with Zhang Juzheng, and it is also because Qi Jiguang can be a man. Wang Shizhen, a native of the Ming Dynasty, said that when Qi Jiguang and Zhang Juzheng met, Zhang Juzheng was still the secretary of the Guozijian and the attendant of the Yuwang Mansion, although the official position was small, but the future was great.
The two met thanks to Qi Jiguang's old boss Tan Lun, and after they met, they kept writing letters to each other. Every time Qi Jiguang won a big victory, he would seize a large amount of materials and property, some of which were handed over, and most of them were used to reward his subordinates and give gifts to his superiors.
With Zhang Juzheng's promotion, the relationship between the two has become closer and closer. By the time of the reign of Emperor Longqing, the two elders in charge of the cabinet attached great importance to the border army, and each had his own cronies and border generals.
Gao Gong has Xuanda Governor Wang Chonggu and Xuanfu Commander Ma Fang, while Zhang Juzheng has Jiliao Governor Tan Lun, and later Qi Jiguang's northern transfer is not only because of the need to strengthen the northern border defense, but also because of Zhang Juzheng's need to strengthen personal rights and interests.
Since then, during the period when Zhang Juzheng was in charge of the cabinet, Qi Jiguang's career was also thriving.
But Qi Jiguang may not have thought that his glory was given by Zhang Juzheng, and the low point of his life also rose because of Zhang Juzheng.
02
After Zhang Juzheng's death, Emperor Wanli of the Ming Dynasty began to liquidate Zhang Juzheng, not only after all the titles and rewards of Zhang Juzheng during his lifetime, but his family either starved to death or was exiled.
The city gate caught fire, affecting the pond fish, and Qi Jiguang was also impeached. There are economic problems with his impeachment, and some say that he once sent troops to escort Zhang Juzheng back to his hometown, which was "a conspiracy to misdeeds and endanger the community."
At this time, another of his supporters, Tan Lun, had also passed away, but fortunately, Shen Shixing, who was the first assistant to the cabinet at the time, appreciated him, and under Shen Shixing's protection, Qi Jiguang finally fell into a horizontal transfer and was transferred to the Guangdong General Army.
This year, Qi Jiguang was 55 years old, which is the best time for an excellent military strategist to serve the country, and he has reached a peak in military strategy and thinking.
Therefore, this change is undoubtedly a heavy blow to Qi Jiguang, who is dedicated to making meritorious contributions. After that, Qi Jiguang knew that the officialdom was sinister, and since then he has been disheartened, and after taking office in Guangdong, he has repeatedly asked to retire.
In the thirteenth year of Wanli (1585 AD), Qi Jiguang retired and returned to his hometown, and he should have enjoyed the leisurely life of family happiness, but he suffered another accident, this time it was a blow from his family.
03
Qi Jiguang is an old man, his father was 56 years old when he was born, and when he was sixteen or seventeen years old, his father died, and he married his wife Wang and took on the responsibility of taking care of the family.
Wang is also the daughter of a large family, and she is also a heroine among women, and she also led women to guard the city during the Anti-Japanese War. Therefore, Wang's personality is bold and strong.
She has a good relationship with Qi Jiguang and has a daughter, but unfortunately there is only one daughter. In the feudal era, under the idea of "there are three unfilial pieties, and no queen is the greatest", not having a son has become a piece of Qi Jiguang's heart.
After that, he continued to take concubines, first accepted the Shen family, and after a year did not have a child, and then accepted the Chen family, and the Chen family gave birth to three sons in a row, namely: Qi Zuoguo, Qi Anguo and Qi Baoguo.
At the same time, Shen also gave birth to a son, Qi Changguo. Later, he took another concubine Yang and gave birth to a son, Qi Xingguo.
Qi Jiguang was very relieved to have five sons in this way, but he couldn't help but be frightened, because of the concubine matter, he did it behind his wife's back Wang, if the Wang family knew about it, his fate might be embarrassing.
Indeed, after the Wang family knew what Qi Jiguang had done, he was furious, picked up a knife and almost killed Qi Jiguang. And Qi Jiguang also understood Wang's temper, and when he went to see her, he was wearing armor, he cried bitterly in front of his wife, and explained while crying that he took a concubine just to pass on the lineage.
Wang is old and feels helpless without his son, so after hugging Qi Jiguang and crying in the end, he accepted this fact.
But judging from the outcome of her life, she is still haunted by this incident.
Among Qi Jiguang's five sons, the Wang family liked Qi Anguo more, regarded him as his own, and cared for him, but unfortunately, Qi Anguo died soon after marriage.
The Wang family was devastated, and all thoughts were lost, she actually returned to her parents' house with all Qi Jiguang's savings, and never came back since, which shows that in her heart, she has a grudge against Qi Jiguang.
Qi Jiguang spent two years of loneliness alone in Penglai, in addition to the blow from the Wang family, and the death of his younger brother Qi Jimei, it also became an insurmountable hurdle in his heart.
A few months before his death, the imperial historian Fu Guangzhai also went to the imperial court to ask for Qi Jiguang to be reinstated, but he was punished, and after that, no one dared to mention Qi Jiguang.
In his later years, his career was frustrated and his life was unsatisfactory, and Qi Jiguang passed away desolate on December 20 in the fifteenth year of Wanli (1588).
Long after his death, the imperial court gave him the nickname "Wuzhuang", and a few years later an ancestral hall was built for him to commemorate his great contribution to the country and the nation.
So, after Qi Jiguang's death, what happened to his Qi family's army?
04
Qi Jiguang left, but the battle of the Qi family army was not over. After he left, the Qi family army was basically used as cannon fodder, especially in the three major campaigns of Wanli.
- In the nineteenth year of Wanli, the Bibai rebellion broke out in Ningxia, and 4,000 people of the original Qijia army stationed in Jizhou went to quell the rebellion, and at the cost of more than half of the casualties, they powdered the attempt of the barbarian Mongols to rescue Ningxia.
- In the same year, Japan's Toyoshi Hideyoshi launched a war of aggression against Korea, and in the Battle of Pyongyang, in order to ensure the smooth siege of the main force, the Qijia army was sent to attack the Japanese fortress Peony Peak, and the 3,000 Qijia army fought against the 5,000 Japanese defenders, and finally succeeded in containing the main force of the Japanese army.
After that, the Qi family army also participated in the Battle of Jisan and the Battle of Ulsan, all of which performed well.
After the end of the War to Resist Japanese Aggression and Aid Korea, the Qi family army was ordered to go to Banzhou and participated in the suppression of Yang Yinglong's rebellion.
In the second half of the Wanli Dynasty, the Qi family army was split little by little and thrown into various battlefields, belonging to different military towns.
Historical records record that the last battle in which the Qi family army participated was the Battle of the Hunhe River in the first year of Ming Qi (1621), which was already a battle with Nurhachi.
The Qi family army with more than 3,000 people against Nurhachi's 40,000 army, the battle was fought from morning to night, the Eight Banners Army was never able to move forward, but because they could not wait for the rescue of the Ming army, the whole army was martyred, and the generals died more than 120 people.
In order to appease the morale of the army, Nurhachi also held a memorial meeting after the war to commemorate the victims of the Battle of the Hunhe River.
This is also the only defeated battle recorded by the Qi family's army in history, and it is also their curtain call.
Qi Jiguang and his Qi family army have become history, but the exploits they established will always be remembered.