Late Ming Guardsman. Xuanfu Guard of the Left 宣府左卫

March 08, 2025

Late Ming Guardsman. Xuanfu Guard of the Left 宣府左卫

Late Ming dynasty cavalryman in brigandine armor equipped with a lance, bow, and a saber strapped by his side. Late Ming dynasty, 16th-17th century

Music: The Backyard Beast

Armor by 函人堂

Reenactor: 厦门黄东邪

A Xuanfu Guard of the Left 宣府左卫 (14th century- 17th century) in teal brigandine armor 暗甲. He is equipped with armguards called Bi fu 臂縛 lit. "Arm Binding"- frequently worn by Ming cavalrymen made up of segmented armored bands that coincidentally resembles Roman manica armguards. He is armed with a bow and long saber.

These guard divisions were deployed as part of an extensive Ming effort to militarize the northern frontier and were deployed in the Hebei and Shanxi regions that bordered Mongolia. The Xuanfu Garrison was part of a vast series of Ming entrenchments called the 9 Garrisons that eventually solidified into what eventually became the Ming Great Wall- a detailed report on the Ming Great Wall could be found here. Being the garrison directly due west to Beijing it was a vital garrison and had a Guard of the Left, Guard of the Center, and Guard of the Right.

The Walls were alive: The Great Wall as a defense matrix. Each of the massive Ming garrison HQ was designed to be able to autonomously resist a large scale invasion by an enemy army. Each of the garrisons have five subdivided levels in descending order: Zhen 镇, Lu 路, Wei 卫, Suo 所, and Bao 堡. In English this translates to (Township > Road Towns > Guard Garrisons > Guard Department > Fort in descending order. They could be thought of as a clever defense-in-depth where the commanders at the far rear has the leisure to pin the bogged- down enemy with a sledgehammer of Ming reinforcements.

The Nine Garrisons 镇 of the Great Wall (Yellow)- and later additional Garrisons along the Ming Great Wall (white): The Tumu Crisis spurred on the aggressive building of the Ming Great Walls. After the Ming defeat, the court began to build a series of localized walls at the Ordos loop: the greatest stretch of steppe- transition land between the Mongol and Ming domains. Over the next half a century, the stretches of what we associate as the Ming Great Walls emerged on the Ming's northern back, soon to be followed by expansions in the west in Gansu, and also all around Beijing. Until ultimately, by the late Ming period nearly all of the gaps along the wall were obsessively blocked by the walls, including in some of the most unimaginable slopes and peaks.

A guard or wei 卫 unit consisted of 5,600 men, each guard was divided into battalions of 1,120 men (qiānhù), each battalion contained 10 companies of 112 men (bǎihù), each company contained two platoons of 56 men (zǒngqí), and each platoon contained five squads of 11 or 12 men (xiǎoqí). Due to the need for rapid response and interception along the steppe lands, Ming deployed the majority of their cavalry in the north. Detailed article about late Ming military frontier gunner can be found here.

Armor by 函人堂

After the 1600s- Ming began to field arquebuses and changdao- though neglected for a time, saw a resurgence in the later period.

Guardsman equipped with a trident called Tiger Spear

Breech-loading swivel guns were brought to China after Ming defeated the Portuguese in the 16th century. At the Battle of Xicaowan in 1522, after defeating the Portuguese in battle, the Chinese captured Portuguese breech-loading swivel guns and then reverse engineered them, calling them "Folangji" or "Fo-lang-chi" (佛郎机炮 – Frankish) guns. Ming breech- loading cannon from 1546 could be seen here. The Ming greatly prioritized rapid firing cannons and these guns had mug-shaped chambers that allowed a mug of pre-loaded projectiles to fire then immediately be taken out and replaced with another loaded chamber. The mugs of these cannons are called Zipao 子炮 "Son Cannon" (sub cannon) and the barrel is called Mupao 母炮 "Mother Cannon." By the 1620s Ming cannons were some of the most valued assets against besiegers on the deeply fortified northeastern Liaodong front.