preface:
Feng Menglong was not only a literary master of the Ming Dynasty, but also had a very in-depth study of the art of war, and compiled a wisdom "textbook" "Wisdom Tank" for this purpose. It contains the "Mandarin Duck Array" invented by Qi Jiguang, a famous anti-Wu general of the Ming Dynasty, who made many achievements in the war with the Wokou, and the "Wisdom Tank" praised the subtlety of this formation. During the Ming Jiajing period, the Wukou invaded the southeast coast, and the local people were deeply affected, and the Ming court sent troops to resist. However, the Ming army did not hesitate to have low combat effectiveness, weapons and equipment did not have the advantage, and in the face of the changeable formation of the knife, it repeatedly suffered defeats. How to restrain the melee attack of the knife has become a big problem that the Ming army urgently needs to solve. It wasn't until Qi Jiguang appeared with a secret weapon that the Ming army had a killer weapon to fight against the Wokou. In Qi Jiguang's "New Book of Ji Xiao" and "Record of Military Training", a large amount of space is spent to record the characteristics and usage of this secret weapon.
An excellent weapon invented by the Zhuang people
This secret weapon is called the wolf's whip, and there are many theories about who invented the wolf's whip, but the Qing Dynasty literary master Naran Zhide and the Yongzheng Period Guangxi Inspector Li Fu said that it was a weapon created by the Zhuang people. Naranjande was a scholar of the early Qing Dynasty, and his research results are very credible. Li Fucai was very knowledgeable, during his tenure in Guangxi, he repeatedly ordered the collection of various local materials and compiled them into the "Guangxi Tongzhi", he was very familiar with the history, culture, customs and customs of Guangxi, and personally experienced the power of the Zhuang wolf, so his statement also has a certain authority. To talk about the power of the wolf's claw, we must first explain its opponent, the knife. With the continuous improvement of Japan's forging knife technology, the Japanese swords in the Ming Dynasty have reached the point of pure fire. Not only are the craftsmen who make the knives highly skilled, but every aspect is also refined. Japanese ronin love knives like life, can not eat enough to wear or warm, but must have a good knife.
The comparison between the knife and the mainstream weapons of the Ming Army
The Japanese Ronin's exclusive customized knife, the quality of the blade is very sharp on the upper level, coupled with the practice of knife techniques since childhood, it has naturally become their preferred weapon. Zheng Ruozeng, a strategist of the Ming Dynasty, said in the Compilation of The Chart of Chips that each Wokou was equipped with three knives, the main combat weapon was a long knife, plus a short knife as an auxiliary, and a small knife for miscellaneous purposes. Long knives and short knives can make timely adjustments to the space of combat and the distance between the enemy and us, and unexpected situations. Among them, the long knife of the knife is close to two meters long, and when fighting, the wooden knife is held in the left hand and the real knife is used in the right hand, using falsehood to confuse the opponent, and the combination of length and shortness is very powerful. The weapons equipped by the Ming army include spears, sticks, knife sticks, waist knives, etc., but the Ming court has limited investment in this and pursues large-scale rapid mass production, so the weapons of the Ming army, whether it is materials, processes, or functions and qualities, are difficult to compete with the knife. For example, Qi Jiguang said in the "Record of Military Training" that the Ming army's waist knife was three feet long, half shorter than the knife, and the craftsmanship was also shoddily made, and although the Ming army could take him to cut people during the battle, it had no lethality.
The Ming army had no power to fight back
In the battle, these waist knives even appeared to break the blade, and the quality was very low. According to historical records, the knife is very sharp, and a knife can cut off more than a dozen metal weapons of the Ming army, so the Ming army has abandoned its weapons and fled. There was a very large gap between the weapons of the Ming Army and the sword, so Qi Jiguang often lamented this. In addition, the Wokou also used exquisite sword techniques and special formations to maximize the advantages of the Wokou and fight bravely and invinciblely with the Ming army. The "Ming Dynasty Wokou Kaoluo" records that the Wukou's formation method is orderly organized, and it is also very confusing, coupled with the cooperation of the sharp Wokou knife, which makes the Wokou like a tiger. The knife method is known for its vigorous slashing, generally holding the knife with both hands, by changing the direction and technique of force, it can be slashed and stabbed, and their bodies are light and good at jumping, making it difficult for the Ming army to overwhelm. In the early days of the Anti-Wu Dynasty, the Ming army did not have an effective countermeasure and was also weak in weapons, and there was a situation in which every knife was defeated.
The wolf's restraint on the power of the sword
This decline was improved until the appearance of the Zhuang wolf soldiers, who were summoned by the imperial court to the front line of the anti-Wu Dynasty, and the wolf raft was able to be used in the battlefield directly under zhejiang. Qi Jiguang discovered the secret weapon of the wolf, thus ending the weakness of the Ming army that was not good at close combat, inhibiting the lethality of the knife, and improving the morale and self-confidence of the Ming army. The wolf flute uses large moso bamboo, which is connected to four side branches, two feet thick and one foot long, which can cover the whole body when fighting, just like a large wolf's tooth stick, giving people a very strong self-confidence, and is a solid killing weapon. The bamboo itself has a certain length, and dense and tough branches, which can form a large area of circles in defense, and the close slashing of the Wokou is blocked by branches, which is difficult to effectively kill the Ming army. Originally, the Ming army was able to use more to less, relying on sharp knives and flexible and changeable formations, disrupting the formation of the Ming army, and then breaking the scattered Ming army, and the body and mind of the Ming army were repeatedly hit, resulting in a serious fear of the enemy.
Improving the wolf-drawn raft has become a weapon for both attack and defense
However, the shape of the wolf's whip can just restrain the knife, first of all, its length is twice that of the knife, and it can be distanced from the knife and is not threatened by close proximity. The hard branches and iron of the second wolf can counteract the powerful slashing of the knife and dissolve the blade of the knife. The third is that the defensive area of the wolf's reed is very large, and the jumping and flexible body methods of the Wokou are all strongly suppressed. While defending, the wolf can also swing the spear to kill the enemy, and its function has been greatly expanded, so it can give the soldier strong confidence. At that time, the wolf raft of the Zhuang people was made of a special kind of bamboo, and Qi Jiguang's wolf basket used large moso bamboo, which is a bamboo abundant in the south and can be found everywhere in Jiangsu and Zhejiang. But the big moso bamboo straight split is easy to break, Qi Jiguang transformed it, the tip of the bamboo wrapped in iron, into a sharp metal thorn, and both sides of the branch are ironed by fire, enhancing the attack power of the iron wolf, but also as a spear to attack the enemy, from a defensive weapon, into an offensive and defensive weapon.
Qi Jiguang invented the wolf-wolf combat method
With the weapon in hand, the next step is to master it, the Ming army at first saw this strange weapon, the fear has not yet started, it was frightened and thrown on the ground, becoming a burden on the battlefield. Qi Jiguang believes that it must be solved, this fear of soldiers, the iron wolf shape system is still very heavy, the average person can not control, so Qi Jiguang selected some people with great strength to control. In view of the characteristics of the wolf,筅,Qi Jiguang also developed six methods of use; in the training of soldiers, he selected soldiers suitable for controlling wolves by observing the soldiers' body methods, footwork, techniques, and the effect of fighting with weapons such as spears and long knives. Qi Jiguang improved the wolf raft, so that the Ming army had a magic weapon to restrain the Wokou, but in the face of some long-range weapons, such as bows and arrows, fire hammers, the wolf raft is still powerless, so it is not enough to rely on the wolf raft, and the wolf raft moves slowly from the main weight, causing great physical exertion to the control soldiers, which will cause opportunities for the enemy, so the wolf raft needs to cooperate closely with other weapons to exert its maximum power.
The wolf-drawn raft became the essential weapon of the Mandarin Duck Array
The "Mandarin Duck Array" mentioned in "Wisdom Tank" has entered the stage of history, which is a kind of combat group that closely integrates attack and defense, including a captain and a rattan player, two wolf fighters, four spearmen, and two knifemen. The rest of the weapons rely on the wolf's raft to wait for the opportunity, and can also make up for the shortcomings of the wolf's basket and help the wolf's basket play a better role in battle. Mandarin duck means to rely on each other, learn from each other's strengths, when fighting, the captain holds the shield in the front, mainly to defend the enemy's long-range weapons, shield and protect their own warriors, the wolf hand follows closely behind the shield, using its own advantages to block the knife attack shield hand, the spear is used to accurately assassinate the enemy, to protect the safety of the wolf hand, the knife hand is behind the hall at the end of the team, to prevent the enemy from slashing the spearman. If the commander rushed up with a shield, the other soldiers were too timid to follow up, or did not protect the commander, they would all be dealt with by military law, and the severe military law contributed to the whole combat group of life and death.
The Mandarin Duck Array changes flexibly according to local conditions
In addition, there are two formations of the Mandarin Duck Formation, which are divided into a single wolf basket and a double wolf raft lineup, the double wolf basket is the left and right of the Mandarin Duck Array, becoming two parallel teams, the left team is the shield at the front, followed by a wolf basket and two spears, behind the short knife hand hall, the right team is the same. On this basis, the single wolf-wolf team has become two horizontal rows, which is the famous "three talent array". The left team is from left to right with shields, spears, wolverines, spears and short knives, and the right team is short knives, spears, spears, spears, and shields from left to right. According to the situation of the battlefield, different formations can be adjusted and changed, such as areas with narrow roads, using the large Mandarin duck array, and in the place where the road is wide, the "three talent arrays" are displayed. The flexible formation of the Mandarin Duck Array can suppress the Wokou in different areas, and if it encounters a large number of Wokou, Qi Jiguang's single-handed team is combined, and the combined column is a large array to meet the enemy, forming a cross team to jointly fight against the Wokou.
The subtleties of the Mandarin Duck Array's Tianji horse racing
The captain of the cross center is the core of the whole team, the other four teams are surrounded by four teams, this method of knotting the team and the team together, when increasing the number of troops, a hundred soldiers are arranged in a tic-tac-toe shape, establishing a long-term commander as a command, plus a military order with clear rewards and punishments, to supervise and drive the army. Large-scale joint operations, like spider webs, need to be accumulated as a connecting link, and individual soldiers can be combined into a whole, so as to improve combat effectiveness. Qi Jiguang rationally split and integrated the Mandarin Duck Array, created a new method of warfare, enhanced the combat effectiveness of the Ming army, so that at the beginning of the War of Resistance Against the Wo, the Ming Army had no strength to fight back, and had the magic weapon to restrain the Wokou, thus driving the Wokou out of their homeland. The subtlety of the Mandarin Duck Formation lies in using my short shield to deal with the enemy's long-range weapons, fire bolts and bows and arrows, using my long-range wolf claw to suppress the enemy's second-long sword, and using my second-long spear to deal with the enemy's shortest knife, which has the advantage everywhere in weapons, which can be said to be a replica of the Tianji horse race.
End
Weapons, as the material basis of war, reflect the wisdom and civilization of a country and the times, the ancestors of the Zhuang nationality adapted to the harsh living environment, in order to strive for living space, in the long-term fight against foreign aggression, accumulated a lot of experience, but also invented many characteristic weapons and tactics. In the Ming Dynasty, when the country was in danger of survival, the Zhuang wolf soldiers took on the responsibility of defending their families and defended the country, rushed to the battlefield to fight against the Wokou, and carried the weapons of the wolf, which benefited the Ming army infinitely, and was regarded as a typical example of learning from the Ming Dynasty, and was given new life and meaning in the War of Resistance Against the Wo. Qi Jiguang's record of the information about the wolf's raft not only showed the wisdom of using the wolf's basket to the world, but also conveyed to future generations the historical memory of Chinese working together to defend the family and defend the country.
[References: "Think Tank", "New Book of Ji Xiao", "Record of Military Training"]