Ming Dynasty Wei Garrison Military System

Timeline

1. 1390–1424Nanjing · ChinaThe Ming founder built a standing military-administrative network covering northern and southern frontier garrisons and the interior, based on dispersed wei garrisons, hereditary military households, and self-sustaining military colonies.
2. 1403–1449Beijing · ChinaYongle moved the capital to Beijing and strengthened the Nine Frontier garrisons, forming a large-scale frontier garrison system facing the Mongols and Jurchens.
3. 1571–1580Jizhen · HebeiIn the 1570s, military household desertion and abuse of corvée worsened; the court reformed military colonies in Jizhen and Liaodong and tried to restore wei-suo combat power, but institutional decline had become hard to reverse.
4. 1555–1588Taizhou · ZhejiangQi Jiguang recruited and trained new troops in the southeast alongside the wei-suo system, marking the late Ming military shift from hereditary households to recruitment and battalion organization.