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54. 秦良玉 Qin Liangyu (a woman with many official titles)
Qin Liangyu (1574—1648 AD) was a female general and strategist with great fighting skills. She had a lot of titles such as left governor (next to governor), magistrate somewhere in Sichuan province, head general of an army somewhere, Marquise of Zhongzhen (literally meaning loyalty), and first-rank ladyship, etc., the only female who had so many official titles in the history.
In 1592 AD, she married Ma Qiancheng, a magistrate. She helped her husband to train an army, called White Cudgel Army. In 1599 AD, she marched her army and defeated the rebels in west of the country. In 1613 AD, When her husband died, she took over the position and became the high-rank official. In 1620 AD, she sent her brothers, one elder and one younger, with three thousand White Cudgel armymen, to Shenyang city in the northern China, for a defensive combat. At that time, a minority there often invaded Ming dynasty (1368—1644 AD).
In the third moon of 1621 AD, she herself marched her army there and defeated the minority. In the ninth moon of the same year, she was sent by the emperor to Sichuan province and conquered the rebels there. Next year,she took back Chengdu city and Chongqing city occupied then by rebels. In 1623 AD, she wiped out all the rebels in that area in Sichuan province. At that time, the Manchurian turned strong and often invaded Ming dynasty. In 1630 AD, they took four towns and threatened the safety of the capital. No other generals but female general Qin came to the rescue and drove back the invaders.
In 1634 AD, another group of rebels entered Sichuan province, she went there to drive them away. In 1640 AD, still another group of rebels entered to Sichuan province. Why they wanted to occupy Sichuan province was because the land features were easy to defend and hard to attack, and besides, there produced provisions galore, enough to feed the army or rebels. So the female general went there again to vanquish this group of rebels. In 1646 AD, the Manchurian army occupied Peking, the capital of Ming dynasty and marched south. General Qin was already over seventy and took Sichuan province as her base to resist the Manchurian army. In 1648 AD, on the twenty-first of the fifth moon, she died at the age of seventy-five. She had started her fighting career at twenty-six and fought for forty-four years. She was a unique female in the history. |
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