A Young Commander’s Awakening

In 1544, a pivotal moment unfolded in Chinese military history when seventeen-year-old Qi Jiguang embarked on a journey to Beijing to formally inherit his father’s military position. The young heir arrived in Shandong’s coastal stronghold of Dengzhou the following year, assuming the role of Assistant Regional Military Commissioner at just eighteen. What awaited him was a sobering introduction to military reality.

The Dengzhou garrison, comprising thousands of soldiers and managing tens of thousands through military colonies, had degenerated into a lethargic, corrupt shadow of its former self. Qi’s enthusiastic reforms—strict attendance policies and tightened discipline—met with utter indifference from veterans who scoffed at the “beardless youth” attempting to change systems older than his grandfather. This harsh lesson taught Qi that uncompromising idealism wouldn’t achieve his goals, marking his early realization of the need for strategic pragmatism—an insight that would later distinguish him from allies like Zhang Juzheng.

Forging Strength Through Discipline

Undeterred by institutional resistance, Qi channeled his energy into rigorous self-improvement. His daily regimen included:
– Pre-dawn physical training
– Intensive martial arts practice
– Extreme endurance exercises
– Scholarly study with the dedication of ancient scholars who tied their hair to rafters to prevent sleep

This discipline prepared him for the military examinations, which he pursued despite already holding a fourth-rank military position—a testament to the Ming Dynasty’s emphasis on examination credentials over hereditary privilege. His 1549 success in the provincial military examinations and subsequent journey to the metropolitan exams in Beijing would unexpectedly redirect his career path.

Baptism by Fire: The Gengxu Incident

During Qi’s examination preparations in 1550, history intervened dramatically when Mongol leader Altan Khan besieged Beijing in what became known as the Gengxu Incident. The crisis prompted the Ministry of War to mobilize all examinees for combat duty. Qi distinguished himself during the emergency, composing the acclaimed “Strategies for Defending Against Altan,” which earned him recognition from senior officials.

This experience proved transformative. As the Ming government strengthened border defenses post-crisis, Qi was assigned to garrison duty at Jimen—one of the empire’s four key defense zones. Though initially relegated to patrol duties among senior officers, these three formative years allowed Qi to deeply study military classics, particularly Sun Tzu’s “Art of War,” developing his own annotated interpretations that would later astonish veteran commander Yu Dayou.

The Laboratory of War: Zhejiang Campaigns

Transferred to Zhejiang in 1555 as a Regional Military Commissioner, Qi faced the dual challenges of bureaucratic infighting and ineffective troops. His unsolicited strategic proposals, initially ignored, eventually caught the attention of Governor Hu Zongxian, who secretly tested Qi’s character before appointing him Regional Commander of Ningbo-Shaoxing-Taizhou in 1556—a prestigious position others had actively lobbied for.

Qi’s first major engagement at Cixi’s Longshan revealed systemic weaknesses when his numerically superior forces fled from a smaller倭寇 contingent. Undaunted, Qi personally turned the tide by sniping three enemy leaders with remarkable archery—a skill honed over a decade of practice. The subsequent battle exposed deeper issues when pursuing troops casually returned, explaining it was “tradition” to only drive pirates away temporarily.

These experiences culminated in the disastrous Cen港 campaign of 1558, where Qi’s supposedly reformed troops failed against entrenched倭寇. The defeat cost Qi his command temporarily and revealed a fundamental truth: no amount of training could overcome inherent limitations in his soldiers’ regional characteristics.

The Eureka Moment: Discovering Yiwu’s Warriors

Qi’s breakthrough came during an 1558 inspection trip to Yiwu, where he witnessed an extraordinary four-month communal battle between local miners and outsiders from Yongkang. The conflict’s scale—involving 30,000 participants with 2,500 casualties—and the participants’ relentless fighting spirit (including deathbed exhortations to continue the fight) convinced Qi he’d found his ideal recruits.

As he later told Yu Dayou: “In all my campaigns, I’ve never encountered such fearless fighters as the people of Yiwu—they terrify even me.” Governor Hu approved Qi’s request to recruit 4,000 Yiwu men, leading to the creation of history’s most selective military recruitment criteria.

Building the Perfect Army

Qi’s selection standards eliminated:
– Urban sophisticates and martial arts performers
– Government clerks and those over forty
– Boastful talkers and the timid
– Fair-skinned men and the psychologically unstable

His ideal soldier was a muscular, simple-minded, law-abiding countryman with physical strength and instinctive obedience. The selected recruits underwent revolutionary training documented in Qi’s “New Treatise on Military Efficiency,” featuring:
– Uncompromising drills with corporal punishment for errors
– Nine-tiered martial arts ranking system with cash rewards for advancement
– Realistic combat simulations where losing meant demotion and beatings
– Psychological conditioning linking performance directly to survival

This brutal regimen transformed Yiwu’s peasants into history’s most formidable anti-piracy force—the legendary Qi Family Army, one of only two Chinese military units ever named after their commanders (the other being Yue Fei’s forces).

The Proving Grounds

The new army’s 1558 debut near Taizhou’s Jiao River stunned even Qi. His abused soldiers channeled years of repressed frustration into annihilating倭寇 contingents, chasing survivors into the sea and winning four consecutive engagements. However, the 1558 Cen港 campaign revealed remaining weaknesses against organized enemies, prompting Qi’s temporary dismissal before his tactical ingenuity redeemed him.

This final lesson clarified Qi’s military philosophy: technological, tactical, and training superiority meant nothing without the right human material. His subsequent reforms would combine Yiwu’s natural fighters with scientific training methods, creating a force that would redefine Chinese warfare and leave an enduring legacy in military history worldwide.