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Chapter 166 Qi Jiguang's Life

Zhu Qiyu immediately agreed to hold on to Beijing and let Yu Qian be responsible for the defense of Beijing to deal with the invasion of Wala. At this time, people in Beijing were in a panic. Both civil and military officials and residents remembered the Jingkang Incident 300 years ago, when Emperors Huizong and Qinzong were captured and the Central Plains fell.

At this critical moment, could Yu Qian really turn the tide and save the country and the people? At that time, the Ming Dynasty had two most difficult problems. The first was that the emperor was still in the hands of the Oirat, and the second was that the court had no soldiers available.

The most elite forces in the Ming army were the three camps, namely the Five Army Camp, the Three Thousand Camp and the Shenji Camp. They were the most important military legacies left by Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Di. In the Battle of Tumu, the three camps were completely wiped out, and only the old, the young, the sick and the disabled were left in Beijing. However, the Oirat took Zhu Qizhen as a hostage and asked him to pry open the gates of the city along the way.

In order to deal with the invasion of Wala, Yu Qian drew troops from all over the country to Beijing, and selected the remaining soldiers from the three camps to reorganize them into regiments, and recommended Zhu Qizhen's brother Zhu Qiyu to the throne, and respected Zhu Qizhen as the emperor. The next month, the Wala army broke through Zijing Pass and attacked the capital. Yu Qian drove the 22 troops out of the city, closed the city gates and ordered that all soldiers were not allowed to retreat. If anyone retreated, the rear team would kill the front team.

Yesen thought that there were only old and weak soldiers left in the city of Jingbei, and he could easily capture it. Unexpectedly, when he arrived outside the city of Jingbei, he found 22 troops waiting for him. Yesen only brought tens of thousands of people and could not break through any of the city gates. After five consecutive defeats, he had to withdraw to the desert with Zhu Qizhen in disgrace. The victory of the defense of Jingbei not only saved the Ming Dynasty, but also saved the people of the Central Plains from the war. Later generations regarded Yu Qian as a national hero who could be as famous as Yue Fei. One saved the Southern Song Dynasty, and the other saved the Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Qiyu, who valued Yu Qian, also gained great prestige. But before Zhu Qiyu could be happy for long, someone in the court suggested to welcome the emperor back to the court as soon as possible. Zhu Qiyu was very unhappy. If the emperor came back, could he still be the emperor?

After Yu Qian's persuasion, he reluctantly sent people to Wala to negotiate with Yesen. A year later, Yesen agreed to send Zhu Qizhen back to the Ming Dynasty, but Zhu Qizhen was imprisoned in Nangong by Zhu Qiyu as soon as he entered BJ. Zhu Qiyu trusted Yu Qian very much and appointed him as Shao Bao. He would consult him on matters and accepted Yu Qian's opinions completely.

However, there was only one thing he could not accept, and that was the issue of appointing a crown prince. When Zhu Qiyu ascended the throne, he promised to pass the throne to his nephew Zhu Jianshen. But after Zhu Qiyu took the throne, he was eager to replace the crown prince with his own son. So he ignored the opposition of his ministers and forcibly deposed Zhu Qizhen's eldest son Zhu Jianshen from crown prince to king, and appointed his only son Zhu Jianji as crown prince instead. Unexpectedly, Zhu Jianji died soon, and Zhu Qiyu had no other sons.

Yu Qian advised Zhu Qiyu to re-appoint Zhu Jianshen as the crown prince, but Zhu Qiyu was very stubborn and pinned his hopes on having another son. However, he could no longer wait until that time.

In 1457, Zhu Qiyu was seriously ill. Yu Qian wanted to persuade Zhu Qiyu to make Zhu Jianshen the crown prince. However, Cao Jixiang, Shi Heng and others got the handwritten edict of Empress Dowager Sun first, broke into the Nan Palace, and supported the restoration of Emperor Retired Zhu Qizhen.

Shi Heng had long harbored a grudge against Yu Qian, and after Zhu Qizhen was restored to the throne, he took the opportunity to arrest Yu Qian and put him in prison, and instigated Zhu Qizhen to kill Yu Qian.

Zhu Qizhen was still a little hesitant, thinking that Yu Qian was a meritorious minister, but Xu Youzhen said that Yu Qian should not be killed, and this move was regarded as nameless. A few days later, Yu Qian was beheaded at the age of 60 and buried at the foot of Santai Mountain in West Lake, Zhouhang. Later generations called him the Three Heroes of West Lake together with Yue Fei of the Southern Song Dynasty and Zhang Huangyan of the Southern Ming Dynasty. Yu Qian was upright and honest throughout his life. His family had no extra money, only the dragon robe and sword given by Zhu Qiyu.

——"The famous god of war killed Yu Qian and was criticized for more than five hundred years."

——"Although Yu Qian has the bearing of Wei Zheng and Xun Yu, Yingzong does not have the tolerance of Tang Zong and the King of Wei."

——"Yu Qian had only one sentence in his life: three generations of grandfather and grandson treated him as a treasure, and the Ming Dynasty God of War killed him with one strike."

——"This month I had the honor of paying homage to Yu Shaobao."

[Twenty-three years without defeat, understand Qi Jiguang's life in one breath Ming Dynasty history Qi Jiguang]

He used 3000 conscripts to build the strongest army in East Asia in the 16th century, expelling Japanese pirates and foreign enemies without a single defeat for years. He was an ever-victorious general in the fight against Japanese pirates and Mongols, but was abandoned by the empire.

He invented various firearms, making the Ming army's amphibious equipment the world leader, built hollow enemy towers on the Great Wall, invented the mandarin duck formation, and frightened the Japanese pirates and Mongolian soldiers. However, he was regarded as a remnant of Zhang's party by the emperor and was overthrown. This video will let us understand the life of Qi Jiguang, a famous anti-Japanese general, in chronological order.

Dongshan Penglai was formerly known as Dengzhou, and is one of the four major trading ports in China, along with Zhouquan, Yangzhou, and Mingzhou. It is also an important coastal defense military base. The city has a governor-general's office for defending against Japanese invaders, and Qi Jiguang was born here.

Qi Jiguang was a romantic and charming boy with a strong personality when he was young. He loved reading and was well-versed in ancient and modern history. At the age of 17, Qi Jiguang inherited his position and served as the commander of Dengzhou Guard. After two years in office, Qi Jiguang went to Beijing to take the military examination. At that time, the coastal areas of Shandong were often burned, killed and looted by Japanese pirates. Qi Jiguang wanted to kill the pirates and wrote the poem "I don't want to be a marquis, I just hope the sea waves are calm."

The original meaning of "wokou" refers to the invasion of Japanese people. Many wokou were poor warriors who were defeated in the war in Japan. They lived in the mountains and went out to sea as bandits. Because wokou mainly plundered, coupled with ocean currents and monsoons, the places where wokou roamed were mainly the coastal areas of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Jianfu.

Later, Japan was divided into many states and civil war broke out. Each state needed money, so they sent troops to the coast of the Ming Dynasty to rob money. Because the army was limited in number, they hired many ronin as cannon fodder, thus forming an armed invasion group composed of pirates, samurai and ronin, which is what we now call the Japanese pirates.

In 1551, the Ming Dynasty reopened the Japanese pirates' defense, but large-scale plundering became increasingly serious. Driven by profit, the sea merchant Wang Zhi became an accomplice to the Japanese pirates and started a no-cost plundering business with them.

Two years later, at the recommendation of Zhang Juzheng, the 26-year-old Qi Jiguang managed 25 guard posts in Dengzhou, Wendeng and Jimo to defend against Japanese pirates along the Shandong coast. Wang Zhi's pirate nest in Zhoushan Port was forced by Yu Dayou to flee to Japan and set up his base in present-day Nagasaki.

Two years later, Qi Jiguang was transferred to Zhejiang as a lieutenant general, responsible for the defense of Ningbo, Shaoxing and Taizhou. In the middle and late Jiajing period, due to the weak concept of coastal defense, there were few warships left, more than half of the troops in the garrisons were missing, the soldiers were a mixture of old and young and lacked military training, and they became the target of exploitation by officers at all levels.

This made the invasion of the Japanese pirates as easy as entering a no-man's land. They penetrated deep into the interior, burned, killed and looted, and people within hundreds of miles died. Just after Qi Jiguang took office, Wang Zhi and his party rebelled in Cengang, looting food and grass everywhere, building camps, and clamoring to avenge Wang Zhi.

Thus, the Battle of Cengang, an important battle in Qi Jiguang's anti-Japanese career, broke out. Surrounded by mountains on three sides and facing the sea on one side, Cengang was easy to defend but difficult to attack. The Japanese pirates relied on the dangerous terrain to entangle with the Ming army for several months. The coastal counties were also in flames, and Qi Jiguang and other generals were exhausted. After a long period of siege, he waited for an imperial edict from the capital, which deprived General Yu Dayou and Lieutenant General Qi Jiguang of their positions and required them to wipe out the Japanese pirates within one month.

The Ming army had to change their tactics. Soldiers beat drums and feinted at all times of the day and night. After a while, the Japanese pirates became exhausted and lost their fighting spirit. They also developed suspicion among themselves. Qi Jiguang took the opportunity to attack Cengang. Although he won the battle, some of the Japanese pirates still fled by sea and headed straight for Jianfu.

In the end, the Ming army suffered more than 3000 casualties, while the enemy suffered less than casualties, and some of the bandits escaped. This was also one of the most costly victories in the history of the Ming Dynasty.

The Japanese pirates who escaped from Cengang burned, killed and looted in Taizhou. When someone in the court was about to impeach Qi Jiguang for his suspected collusion with the Japanese pirates, Qi Jiguang was appointed adjutant for his contribution in suppressing Wang Zhi. Qi Jiguang realized that in order to completely drive the Japanese pirates out of the Ming Dynasty, they must be completely annihilated or severely damaged. In order to achieve a real victory, what should this young commander do?

After Qi Jiguang took up his post in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, he found that the combat capabilities of the soldiers in the garrisons were average, while the people in Jinhua and Yiwu were relatively tough. So Qi Jiguang went there to recruit 3000 people, and under his guidance, trained them into an elite force, known as the Qi Family Army.

After Qi Jiguang recruited soldiers in Yiwu, the final battle between Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi broke out. The defeated samurai and ronin poured into the Ming Dynasty in large numbers, causing a large influx of Japanese pirates in the Ming Dynasty.

Therefore, when the coastal areas were in danger, Qi Jiguang, based on the fact that the coastal areas of Fujian and Zhejiang were densely covered with mountains and swamps, and that the Japanese pirates had strong individual combat capabilities and were good at ambushes, suddenly got inspiration during a private fight between soldiers and created a formation specifically to restrain the Japanese pirates. As the formation was symmetrical on the left and right, it was named the Mandarin Duck Formation.

The Yuanyang formation changed the tradition of large-scale military operations in the past and set up an 11-man combat team, which is also known as the earliest special forces. The captain is at the front, holding a battle flag or a long spear, and behind him are two teams on the left and right. The front is the shield bearer, and the shield is also divided into a long shield and a rattan shield.

The wolf-whip of the Mandarin Duck Formation is made of bamboo, which can neutralize the power of the Japanese sword and block the line of sight. A strong person can also turn the handle of the spear and kill the enemy directly. The success of the Mandarin Duck Formation lies in the close cooperation of the whole team, which can attack and defend, and there are almost no flaws.

During the Jiajing period, Chinese and foreign firearms developed in combination, and Qi Jiguang believed that the bird gun could be ranked first, so the Mandarin Duck Formation could be transformed into a firearms formation at any time, with spearmen replaced by bird gunmen to exert greater power.

In 1561, Japanese pirates led more than 2 people and more than 50 warships to invade Zhejiang. A group of 3000 Japanese pirates burned, killed and looted along the way and rushed to Taizhou. Qi Jiguang led 1500 Qi's army to march 110 miles overnight and rushed to Taizhou to meet the Japanese pirates at Huajie. The Battle of Huajie showed the power of Qi Jiguang's long-rehearsed mandarin duck formation. The Qi's army won a great victory and wiped out the invading Japanese pirates, killing 308 enemies and only three of them were killed. Later, the Qi's army killed 344 enemies in the Battle of Shangfengling and three of them were killed. In the Battle of Changsha, 56 enemies were captured and killed, and no one of them was injured or killed. These consecutive victories were called the Taizhou Victory in history.

Qi Jiguang led his army forward bravely, frightening the Japanese pirates who were ravaging the Zhejiang coast. Since the formation of his army, he had fought hundreds of battles, big and small, without a single defeat. In the battles with the Japanese pirates, he created an amazing record of 1000:1 enemy casualties. In the eyes of the Japanese pirates, he was like a god. Qi Jiguang was therefore nicknamed "Qi the Tiger".

A year later, Japanese pirates invaded Jianfu, and joined forces with pirates from Funing, Lianjiang and other places to capture many places. Because the pirates were so powerful, the local government troops did not dare to attack, so the court asked Qi Jiguang to lead troops to suppress the pirates. Qi Jiguang used the soldiers to fill the trenches with a bundle of straw each, and defeated the Japanese pirates, beheading more than 2200 of them.

Qi Jiguang then pursued the Japanese pirates to Fuqing, destroyed Niutian, and cut off the Japanese pirates' nest. The Japanese pirates fled to Xinghua in a hurry, but Qi Jiguang did not stop and chased them all the way, destroying more than 60 Japanese pirate camps and beheading countless of them.

After several battles, Qi Jiguang killed almost all the Japanese pirates in Linguang area. After Qi Jiguang returned to Zhejiang, new Japanese pirates from Japan took the opportunity to invade again. As their numbers grew, they took the opportunity to capture Xinhua City.

In 1563, Qi Jiguang led the Zhejiang troops to support. As the vanguard, Qi Jiguang besieged Pinghaiwei and broke it in one fell swoop, beheading more than 2000 people. Afterwards, he led the troops to pursue and kill more than 3000 people. Qi Jiguang also replaced Yu Dayou as the general because of his many military exploits.

In 1567, the imperial court decided to appoint Qi Jiguang as the deputy commander of the Shenjinying to train soldiers in the Jimen area. The Shenjinying was a special unit equipped with firearms established by Emperor Zhu Di of the Ming Dynasty, which was about a century earlier than the musketeers created in Spain in the early 16th century in Europe.

During the battle, Qi Jiguang found that although the bird gun was accurate, its lethality was too weak, and although the Portuguese gun had great lethality, it was very heavy. So Qi Jiguang invented the tiger squat cannon.

It is more lethal than a bird gun and easier to carry than a falconet. It is named the Crouching Tiger Cannon because it looks like a crouching tiger when firing. The Crouching Tiger Cannon made up for many shortcomings of foreign firearms in its design. It was much more advanced than the mortars of Europe and the United States at the same time. It can be said that the level of domestic firearms at that time was far ahead of the world.

Emperor Wuzong of the Ming Dynasty also asked Qi Jiguang to train soldiers in Jizhou, Changping, Baoding and other places, and all officials below the general commander were under Qi Jiguang's control. In 1573, the little prince of the northern barbarians and Dong Huli planned to invade and asked for rewards from the Ming court, but were rejected, so the two burned, killed and looted at Xifengkou.

Qi Jiguang learned about this and led his troops to quell the rebellion, and almost captured Dong Huli alive. The Jimen Gate guarded by Qi Jiguang was impregnable, and the northern barbarians could not break in, so they turned to invade Liaodong. Qi Jiguang led his troops to reinforce and assisted the Liaodong defender Li Chengliang to repel them. Qi Jiguang was also named the Prince's Grand Tutor by the court for his merits, and later promoted to the Grand Tutor.

However, with the death of Zhang Juzheng, the chief minister of the imperial court, Qi Jiguang was transferred to Guangdong. Three years later, the censor Zhang Ding impeached Qi Jiguang again, and Qi Jiguang was dismissed. He returned to his hometown and died at the age of 61.

——"The famous general I admire most is a man of both literary and martial talents, and a man of inventions and creations."

——"I have no desire for a title of nobility, but I wish for a peaceful sea."

——"Literature can be written with great difficulty, martial arts can decide the fate of the world."

——"Except for the weapons, everything else about his army is very close to being modernized."

——"This casualty ratio is simply horrific. It's a ruthless massacre."