"As Ming empire began to weaken, its once-mighty military machine based on Wei Suo (衛所) system also fell into disarray. Soldiers were undertrained and underpaid, and desertion became increasingly rampant. Realising the worrying decline of the army's combat strength, some Ming generals took it upon themselves to recruit and train better troops out of their own personal pockets. However, Ming Dynasty laws explicitly forbid its generals to raise private armies, so these generals exploited a loophole in the law — by categorising these private troops as Jia Ding (家丁), or "housemen/house servants" instead of soldiers. Thus was the origin of the Jia Ding system.
Jia Ding was also known by a great variety of other names, such as Jia Ren (家人, lit. 'Family member'), Qin Bing (親兵, lit. 'Close soldier'), Jia Bing (家兵, lit 'House troop'), Jia Zhong (家衆, lit . 'Family crowd'), Cang Tou (蒼頭, lit. 'Blue head') and so on. Unlike regular troops, Jia Ding owe allegiance to their commanders, rather than to the state, which drew parallel to housecarl as well as druzhina. True to their status as elite troops, Jia Ding enjoyed several times the pay of regular troops, as well as a slew of other benefits. However, the money did not come easy, so many generals resorted to various legally dubious means such as monopolising local business activities, confiscating farmlands originally given to Wei Suo for personal profit, and raiding nomadic settlements for loot to increase their income.
During the reign of Emperor Shenzong, the law was laxed and Ja Ding became officially recognised by the state. Ming generals started to receive financial support from the government to pay for their private armies, and Jia Ding changed from answering solely to their commanders into a status of dual allegiance to both their commanders and the state (although in practice their loyalties still lied with their commanders). Ming government also raised a number of Jia Ding directly without intermediates. These government-employed Jia Ding were known as Zai Ying Jia Ding (在營家丁, lit. 'In-regiment Jia Ding'), contrasting the dual allegiance Jia Ding called Sui Ren Jia Ding (隨任家丁, lit. ''Accompanying Jia Ding')…"
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