Ming weisuo military garrison and military-household system

Timeline

1. 1384–1580Five Chief Military Commissions (Nanjing) · JiangnanThe weisuo system placed military registers under the Five Chief Military Commissions and troop deployment under the Ministry of War: one guard comprised 5,600 households, subdivided into battalion and company units; military households served hereditarily, sustained themselves through military colonies, and were mobilized by guard in wartime. By the 1580s this idealized structure still existed on paper, but actual active personnel fell far short of establishment.
2. 1581–1590Northern Zhili · North ChinaEarly Wanli registers revealed large-scale desertion of military households, who became tenant farmers or merchants under landlords, while military colonies were seized by officers and local elites; in the 1580s the court repeatedly tried to re-register households and recover colony land, with limited results, leaving the hollowed-out guard establishment a structural weakness in the defense of the Nine Frontiers.
3. 1583–1590Liaodong garrison · LiaodongIn the 1580s the major garrisons of the Nine Frontiers, including Liaodong and Jizhen, still retained weisuo designations and garrisoning households, but the main combat forces had become recruited troops (such as Liaodong guest soldiers) and commanders' personal retinues; generals like Li Chengliang supplemented the guards with private forces, marking the transition from a national standing army to a frontier recruitment system.