There is a Song generation, there are few military ministers, but Di Wuxiang (Di Qing) meritorious Guangnan, a little colorful, Renzong placed the cardinal mansion, very well controlled. It was Ouyang Gonglu who impeached him, and he was afraid that he had other intentions, how could he love and cherish talents for the country? Di Gong finally died of grief. ——(Aisin Gioro · Zhaoqi "Xiaoting Miscellaneous Records")
Di Qing, the word Hanchen, is a native of Xihe County, Fenzhou. When he was a teenager, because of the fight of the villagers, he was assigned to the army, because the Northern Song Dynasty advocated civil rule and despised martial arts, and the status of the military was very low. In order to avoid a large-scale escape of soldiers, Di Qing was not spared from the practice of tattooing words on the faces of soldiers at that time, because Di Qing was good at riding and shooting, and he was quite ambitious in the army. In the early years of Baoyuan (1038), Li Yuanhao rebelled in the Dingyan Army, the northwest was in turmoil, and the imperial court mobilized all kinds of soldiers and horses to fight in the northwest.
At that time, the Northern Song Dynasty had been peaceful for a long time, and the military equipment was lax, and the Song army was repeatedly defeated by the Western Xia army, and the soldiers were afraid and timid. Di Qing took the lead, leading his troops to fight 25 battles with the Western Xia army, with as many as 8 random arrows in his body, defeating the Western Xia army many times, and becoming the most dazzling star on the northwest battlefield. With the military exploits with the Western Xia army, in October of the second year of Qingli (1042), Song Renzong promoted Di Qing to be the deputy governor of Qinzhou Assassin History, the deputy capital of Jingyuan Road, and the deputy envoy of Jinglu Recruitment, ranking among the senior generals of the Song army. Generally speaking, at this level of generals, Song Ting is mostly a civilian official, which shows Song Renzong's special recognition of Di Qing.
Due to the improvement of his status, Song Renzong also persuaded Di Qing to apply medicine to get rid of the tattoos on his face, after all, every time he went to court, the ministers used it to ridicule Di Qing. But Di Qing said that he wanted to keep this trace, so that he could encourage the low-level soldiers and let them know that as long as they worked hard, they could be recognized by the imperial court. In June of the fourth year of Emperor You's reign (1052), Song Renzong promoted Di Qing to the rank of privy deputy envoy (equivalent to the deputy commander-in-chief of the three armies of the Song army). In the same year, the barbarian Nong Zhigao of Guangyuan Prefecture rebelled, captured Yongzhou (now Nanning), and then marched all the way east, besieging Guangzhou, and Lingnan was shaken for a while.
Because the generals of the Song army on the front line could not quell Nong Zhigao's rebellion for a long time, Song Renzong had no choice but to let Di Qing go out, and use Di Qing as the envoy of the southern court of Xuanhui to control the soldiers and horses of Guangnan (now Guangdong and Guangxi), and be fully responsible for counterinsurgency matters. After Di Qing arrived at the front line, he quickly lifted the siege of Guangzhou, defeated the rebels under the city of Yongzhou, recovered Yongzhou, and seized tens of thousands of gold, silver and jade silks, and thousands of miscellaneous animals. Then, with a surprise attack, he attacked Kunlun Pass, which was guarded by the rebels, and killed the rebel leaders Nong Zhigao, Huang Shimi, Nong Jianzhong, and Nong Zhizhong, and settled the rebellion and restored Guangnan.
After the war, Song Renzong promoted Di Qing to be the privy envoy (equivalent to the commander-in-chief of the three armies of the Song army), according to the ancestral system of the Song Dynasty, the position of privy envoy could only be held by civilian officials, and Song Renzong's arrangement was fiercely opposed by the ministers. After Di Qing served as the privy envoy, rumors began to spread, and public opinion against him began to brew, and finally Di Qing only stayed in the privy envoy for four years, and in the first year of Jiayou (1056), Song Renzong was forced to remove Di Qing from the privy envoy position, and let him know Chenzhou to avoid trouble. Di Qing was depressed in Chenzhou, and in March of the second year of Jiayou (1057), Di Qing died of illness in Chenzhou, and a generation of famous generals fell.
The author of "History of the Song Dynasty" commented: "The Qing Qi ranks and is famous, deep and wise, and can protect the end with fear." When the Song Dynasty was Renzong, Chengping was a hundred years old, although there were those who were killed by the martial arts, they died to the government, and they were faintly famous generals at the time, but Qing and (Guo) Kui were two people. Qing fought twenty-five battles on the border, no big victory, no big defeat, and finally Kunlun in one fell swoop, quite amazing. Tested his knowledge, but also far ahead. ”