Chapter 24 Section 17 Mao Yuanyi, a master of military science, and his compilation of "Wu Bei Zhi"

Mao Yuanyi was an outstanding strategist and writer in the late Ming Dynasty.The masterpiece "Wu Bei Zhi" compiled by him is the military encyclopedia with the most volumes and the most complete categories in ancient China, and has been highly praised by Chinese and foreign scholars. Mao Yuanyi, courtesy name Zhisheng, nicknamed Shimin, Donghai Bochen, Mengge master, etc., was born in Gui'an (now Wuxing, Zhejiang).The grandson of Mao Kun, a famous scholar in the Ming Dynasty, was born in the 22nd year of Wanli (AD 1594).As an adult, he knows the narrow passages along the Great Wall like the back of his hand.Facing the rise of the Later Jin Dynasty and the corruption of the Ming court, he determined to write a book, explore the military strategies of the past dynasties, and collect information on equipment and war equipment. ) engraved (see Figure 16).Since then, he became famous and was appointed as a Zanhua in the name of a soldier. He followed the great scholar Sun Chengzong to supervise the Liaodong, resisted the Houjin, and went to the south of the Yangtze River to recruit warships and boats to improve the combat effectiveness of the Ming army.Together with Sun Chengzong, Yuan Chonghuan, Xu Guangqi, Li Zhizao, Sun Yuanhua and others, they are the backbone of defending the country against the enemy.After Sun Chengzong was ostracized, Mao Yuanyi was also dismissed from his official position and returned home due to illness.Soon after Emperor Chongzhen succeeded to the throne, he submitted the "Wu Bei Zhi", and was exiled to Jiangcun, Dingxing (now Hebei) for the crime of arrogance because he was slandered by powerful officials such as Wang Zaijin.In the winter of the second year of Chongzhen (AD 1629), the Houjin cavalry approached Beijing, and Sun Chengzong was ordered to supervise the division again.Mao Yuanyi and Sun Chengzong, the 24th cavalry guard, rushed from Dongbianmen to Tongzhou (now Tongxian County, Beijing), repelled the Jin army, and relieved Beijing from danger.Mao Yuanyi was promoted to deputy commander because of his meritorious service, and supervised the navy of Juehua Island (now Juhua Island, Xingcheng, Liaoning).Soon after, he was dismissed by powerful officials and tired of the Liaodong soldiers, so he was sent to Zhangpu (now Fujian).When the Liaodong army was in critical condition, he asked to serve as King Qinqin, but was obstructed by powerful officials. He died of drinking around the tenth year of Chongzhen (1637 AD, or 1640 AD).Mao Yuanyi was both civil and military, and people at the time praised him as "a young man who came out of Western Wu, became famous as Beiquewen, and was called a scholar when he was lowered, and he was about to be an army when he was mounted."He had written more than 60 works with millions of words in his life, but because they were repeatedly banned and destroyed, many were lost, and "Wu Bei Zhi" was handed down to later generations.

"Wu Bei Zhi" has a total of 240 volumes, more than 2 million words, and nearly 738 drawings.Existing publications include Mao Yuanyi’s edition in the first year of Mingqi (AD 1621), Qing Daoguang’s Nakagi movable type edition, Japan’s Kanbun 4th year (AD 1664) Suwaraya Mohei and other publications, among which the Tianqi publication is the best. "Wu Bei Zhi" is compiled into five categories according to military credits: "Bing Jue Commentary", "Strategic Research", "Array Training System", "Military Resources", and "Zhan Du Zai". The 18 volumes of "Bingjue Commentary" selected famous military books such as "Sun Tzu's Art of War" and "Wu Zi" before the Ming Dynasty, commented on them, and discussed their essentials. The 33 volumes of "Strategic Research" selected and recorded more than 600 wars and battle cases in 16 dynasties from the Spring and Autumn Period to the Yuan Dynasty, and commented on the gains and losses from a strategic perspective. The 41 volumes of "Zhan Lian Zhi" are composed of "Zhan Lian Zhi" and "Practice".It records in detail the various formations and formations before the Ming Dynasty, as well as the selection, elimination, training, rewards and punishments of soldiers. "Military Resources" has 55 volumes, including eight aspects of battalion, warfare, attack, defense, water, fire, pay, and horses. Among them, military technology has the most content, including various weapons and equipment, chariots, warships, There are six to seven hundred kinds of materials such as military fortification. The 93 volumes of "Zhan Du Zai" contain not only the ancients' simple understanding of astronomy and meteorology, but also absurd and superstitious theories. content.

"Wu Bei Zhi" has a large scale and uses detailed military materials. It is not only based on the family books collected by Mao Yuanyi's grandfather Mao Kun, but also has more than 2,000 rare books of secret maps from various families, covering all aspects of military science at that time.Mao Yuanyi, who is rigorous in his studies, has carefully selected all kinds of materials based on his achievements in panning gold in the sand, discarding the false and keeping the true, and picking the good and picking the bad. "Wu Bei Zhi" fully imitated the compilation style of "Wu Jing Zong Yao", and on the basis of almost transcribing most of the content of "Wu Jing Zong Yao", it greatly expanded and extended the width and depth of each category and its content, including It has absorbed the latest achievements created since the Song Dynasty, and also integrated the fresh content at that time, absorbing "Ji Xiao New Book", "Records of Military Training", "Chi Hai Tu Bian", "Zhen Ji", "Wu Bian", The creative achievements of military books such as "Shen Qi Pu" and "Bing Lu" have been compiled into masterpieces and written into masterpieces, which have strong characteristics of the times.The whole book has a complete and unified system, clear organization, distinct levels, strict logic, and reasonable structure. The materials are classified and arranged according to the connotation of military science.There are classifications under the category, and the main items and details are set up under the classification as needed.There are notes in the text to explain difficult words, phrases and allusions.There are eyebrow comments on the article, and the editor's comments are written, with appropriate praise and criticism, and vivid images.

When Mao Yuanyi discusses the connotation of categories, he adopts the method of starting from the general to the detailed, according to the order of development of things, writing in order, and deepening layer by layer.Taking "Military Resources" as an example, the author unfolds them one by one according to the eight classifications of battalion, battle, attack, defense, water, fire, salary, and horse: when the army gathers to go to the battlefield, it must first establish a camp, and then it can be deployed. In war, when you send troops to attack the enemy, you must also pay attention to defense when attacking the enemy. The attack methods include water attack and fire attack. omitted in the book.

When elaborating the essentials of these eight aspects, "Military Zicheng" records in detail all the military technical conditions on which wars are carried out.Among the six or seven hundred kinds of military technical materials collected in the book, there are rare "Zheng He's nautical charts" and "navigational astronomical charts", as well as some rare weapons, warships, Lu Gong chariots, sacred fire flying crows, fire dragons out of water, etc. in the Ming Dynasty. , with text and pictures, can be used for reference.From Volume 102 to Volume 134, the book discusses ancient military technologies in five categories: field warfare, siege warfare, city defense warfare, water warfare, and fire attack, and gives an overview of the manufacture and use of various weapons and equipment. Comprehensive reflection, with high scientific nature, can be regarded as a book of war that gathers the culmination of ancient Chinese military technology.

Although "Wu Bei Zhi" is a compiled military encyclopedia, Mao Yuanyi's main military thoughts are also reflected in the "preface" and comments on various categories.In view of the decline of the Ming Dynasty's national power, the emptiness of the treasury, the leaks of national defense, and the low combat effectiveness of the Ming army, he called on the authorities to implement the policy of enriching the country and strengthening the army, and making every effort to govern.He believes that only a rich country and a strong army can defeat a strong enemy and eliminate border troubles. The most urgent task is to "enough pay" and train troops.Then he put forward the idea of ​​rewarding land reclamation and developing farmland, so as to build a "strong army" on a solid material foundation.He attaches great importance to the training of the army, and believes that "if the soldiers are trained, the six arts of the sage are also. If the formation is not practiced, the puppet will be a man with eyebrows and eyebrows" ("Preface to the Formation Training System").At the same time, he believes that in order to ensure national security, it is necessary to strengthen border defense, coastal defense and river defense.The nomadic peoples in the north often commit plunder and plunder, and people fight on their own, so they must use the strategy of clearing the fields with strong walls, building fortresses, and defending themselves ("Military Zicheng·Fort Covenant·Preface").On the southeast coast, the strategy of "rejecting the sea" was adopted to deal with it ("Zhan Du Zai Haifang Preface").In order to prevent the enemy from breaking through Haikou and breaking into the Neijiang River, "the main point of the river is to connect with the border and the sea" ("Zhan Du Zai Jiang Fang Preface").Mao Yuanyi believed that in order to improve the combat effectiveness of the Ming army, it is necessary to have weapons and fine weapons, and vigorously develop the technology of firearms manufacturing and use.In his "Military Preparations: The Law of Using Firearms", he required soldiers to be good at choosing different types and quantities of firearms to attack the enemy according to the time, place, enemy, weapon, and battle.For this reason, soldiers should be good at making use of the wind and weather conditions, and use firearms with the wind, so that they can win all battles.When the enemy came to attack the city in a dense and solid crowd, they attacked with artillery.When attacking the enemy's strong city, it is necessary to use artillery to blast the gap, and then break into the city.If you want to seize the food, grass and supplies of the enemy who has already set up camp, you must set up an ambush around the enemy's camp, and then attack suddenly in the dark.In water warfare, one must be good at attacking enemy ships with bow guns, shotguns, rockets, etc. at different distances from far, middle, and near, and finally jump on the enemy ship to wipe out the enemy.When deploying formations to fight, it is necessary to deploy multi-level attacks around the camp with firearms of different powers, killing and reducing the enemy's strength one by one, until the enemy is finally wiped out.

After the publication of "Wu Bei Zhi", it has not only been valued by academic circles since the Ming and Qing Dynasties in China, but also respected in the world.In addition to reprinting it into a Japanese version in the fourth year of Kanbun (1664 AD), Japan obtained the original edition in the 18th century.In 1782 AD, JJMAmiot, a French Jesuit living in China, quoted the gunpowder and firearm technical information in "Wu Bei Zhi" in the French "Chinese Art of War".Since then, "Wu Bei Zhi" has become a must-read book for Western scholars studying gunpowder and firearm technology.