Cause & Context
In mid-late Ming, severe sea-ban policy was implemented, causing overseas trade to be obstructed. Japanese Wokou pirates allied with lawless Jiangnan strongmen and ran mad burning, killing, and looting in the coastal regions of Zhejiang, Fujian, and Guangdong, with frontier defense in name only.
Epochal Overview
The renowned general broke convention to recruit Yiwu miners and farmers and built the strictly disciplined Qi Family Army. He invented the attack-defense-unified Mandarin-Duck Formation tactic, and at Taizhou and other places epically destroyed Wokou trouble.
Civilizational Impact
The victory of the anti-Wokou struggle successfully wholly cleared the Wokou trouble that had plagued the coast for decades, securing the prosperous stability of the empire's southeast coast. It became a landmark monument in the history of ancient China's coastal-defense tactics.
Key Figures
was an outstanding national hero of paramount military-innovation talent, combining military theory and engineering. The Qi Family Army officers and men coordinated through his Mandarin-Duck Formation were the absolute guardians of the coastal populace.