Chongwu Ancient City is located on the Chongwu Peninsula in Hui’an County, Fujian. It is flanked by two peaks of Daqi Mountain to the east and north, and embraced by two arc-shaped bays to the west and south, like a long dragon, winding across the The shores of the turbulent East China Sea. The people of Chongwu have lived and worked peacefully here for generations, but something unexpected happened 600 years ago. Japanese pirates took advantage of the darkness and landed in Chongwu, killing people and setting fires. They left corpses everywhere and looted all the people's property. In order to resist the invasion of Japanese pirates, in the 20th year of Hongwu in the Ming Dynasty (1387), Chongwu Haiphong City was built to defend against Japanese invasion. The city is entirely built with granite stones, forming a relatively complete military defense system and expressing the Chongwu people's determination to resist the Japanese and protect their territory. In the late Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty, the Japanese pirates who committed all kinds of evil were repeatedly defeated in Zhejiang under the attack of the Qi Jiajun, so they shifted the focus of harassment to Fujian, so the coastal areas of Fujian became the hardest hit area by Japanese pirates. In August of the 41st year of Jiajing (1562), the national hero Qi Jiguang led an army of 6,000 people into Fujian to suppress the Japanese. In half a year, they won three major victories in Hengyu, Lindun and Pinghaiwei. However, due to the continuous fighting and the fact that many soldiers were acclimatized and fell ill, in order to prepare for the new battle, the Qi army chose Chongwu City as a training base during the rest period, and set up the Central Military Platform on the Lotus Stone outside the south gate. During the short-term rest and recuperation, on the one hand, they stepped up military training and laid the foundation for quelling the Japanese pirates who invaded Fujian. When Qi Jiguang was stationed in the army, he organized manpower to rebuild the city defense, and built beacon towers, observation towers, virtual platforms for placing guns and cannons, and horse paths on the east, south, and north walls to make the defense system more complete.
In November of the following year, the Japanese pirates gathered more than 30,000 people from Japan and other places, divided into dozens of large and small ships, and once again launched a large-scale invasion and harassment of Fujian. Xianyou used 20,000 troops as a breakthrough point to form four camps outside the east, west, south and north gates, and adopted a layer-by-layer siege method in an attempt to occupy the county seat and then develop to the surrounding areas. In the situation where the enemy was outnumbered, Qi Jiguang decided to take the defensive first and sent some troops into Xianyou in advance to help the defenders hold on to the city in order to contain and consume the enemy's forces. After a month of stalemate with the enemy, the troops mobilized were concentrated. Qi Jiguang personally led the main force of Chongwu, concentrated the superior forces, first broke through the south base of the siege of the Xianyou Japanese pirates, and then took advantage of the victory to sweep the east and west bases, and finally used an unstoppable force They stormed the North Base with great force, and the Japanese pirates collapsed across the board before they "awakened". Most of them were killed or injured, and they achieved the "Great Victory of Immortal Travel" in which they defeated many with less. After that, Qi Jiguang severely wounded the Japanese pirates twice in Tong'an and Zhangpu, which frightened them and fled the coast of Fujian. Within two years, the Japanese pirates in Fujian were pacified. The Chongwu people loved this hero who served the country and the people with great devotion and spontaneously erected monuments, built temples and shrines in his honour. It is said that there are no fewer than ten Qi Jiguang temples in Hui'an County, as well as private martial arts training organizations such as "Qi Jia Quan".
Extended information:
Qi Jiguang (November 12, 1528 - January 5, 1588), whose courtesy name was Yuanjing, also known as Nantang, later named Mengzhu, and his posthumous title was Wu. Yi. Han nationality, native of Penglai, Shandong (some say his ancestral home is Dingyuan, Anhui, and he was born in Luqiao Town, Weishan County, Jining, Shandong) [1]. A famous anti-Japanese general of the Ming Dynasty, an outstanding strategist, calligrapher, poet and national hero.
Qi Jiguang fought against Japanese pirates on the southeast coast for more than ten years, eliminating the Japanese pirates that had plagued the coast for many years and ensuring the safety of lives and property of the coastal people; later he fought against the Mongolian tribal invaders in the north for more than ten years, safeguarding He ensured the security of the northern territory and promoted the peaceful development of the Mongolian and Han peoples. He wrote famous military books such as the eighteen-volume "New Book of Jixiao" and the fourteen-volume "Records of Military Training", as well as "Zhizhitang Collection" and Submit memorials and amendments to the imperial court in various historical periods.
At the same time, Qi Jiguang was an outstanding weapons expert and military engineer. He transformed and invented various fire attack weapons; the large and small warships and chariots he built made the Ming army's waterway equipment superior. To defeat the enemy, he creatively built a hollow enemy tower on the Great Wall, which could be used to advance, attack, retreat or defend. It was a very unique military project.