Patriotic Hero—Qi Jiguang
Qi Jiguang is today widely remembered as a national hero. He was a famous general who spent forty years in army through wars in the south and north of China. He was a national hero and a strategist who scored great military achievements.
Qi Jiguang was born into a military family in Shandong province. His ancestors had been upright and honest officials. Since his childhood, Qi received strict education.
In Qi’s time, Japanese pirates along the Zhejiang coast increased. They plundered (掠夺) the coastal regions in collaboration with Chinese bandits. People suffered greatly. From the bitter experience of the Japanese pirates’ assault, Qi created a plan to train volunteers to defeat the invaders. His plan was approved by the supreme commander, and three thousand men received military training.
Qi Jiguang took over his father’s post and became the captain of the Dengzhou Garrison and Shandong. When Qi conducted the defence against Japanese pirates, he reconstructed an abandoned defence work and turned the army into a well-trained force with commanders and fighters in solidarity. In awe of Qi’s defence work, Japanese pirates kept clear of the coast of Shandong.
When later Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces suffered from daily worse harassment of pirates, the imperial court appointed Qi as the associate commander of Zhejiang. Despite victories over Japanese pirates, Qi discovered the vulnerability of the government troops, that the soldiers were afraid of the enemy and the commanders did not know how to direct battles. He recruited soldiers from peasants and miners into a new army. Trained strictly by Qi Jiguang, the new army soon became a crack force known as “the Qi’s army”.
The Qi’s army fought bravely in the battles at Huajie and Baishuiyang in heavy rain. Deployed in the battle array designed by Qi, the soldiers beat the enemy with a force inferior in number.
Not long after Qi’s army moved to Fujian to fight Japanese pirates. The army won one victory after another. After over ten years’ resistance, the piracy at China’s southeast coast was cleared. Qi Jiguang was repeatedly commended by the court.
Apart from fighting against pirates, Qi Jiguang was often sent to guard the northern borders. He spent more than ten years to fortify the Great Wall and thus the defence at the northern border was strengthened.
Qi Jiguang was not only an outstanding general but also a strategist. His books on warfare were important works in history.
Qi Jiguang was also a poet. He expressed his patriotic sentiments and his noble personality in his poems.
Four supreme Emperor, I galloped north and south;
Midst river flowers, the border grass, aloud I laughed out!
Now then, three hundred sixty days out of each year-
I’m riding, spear in hand, my trusted war horse dear.
Qi Jiguang’s heroism and upright characters have been widely praised.