Why did the Ming Dynasty lose to the Qing army when its military strength was so strong?

The first is the military system. The system of the Ming dynasty was "the soldiers are not experts, and the soldiers are not private." The soldiers of the Ming army will not be together, but will be separated and independent, and they will gather when they need to fight. This can prevent the generals from supporting troops to rebel, but once they fight, they are inefficient, chaotic in management and lack of training. Second, the issue of military resources. The main source of the Ming army's strength is "piling up soldiers". "Duijun" is to divide a large number of people into military ranks and pass them on from generation to generation. Emperors of the Ming Dynasty generally turned captured enemy troops into a source of troops. The life of military households is quite miserable. Compulsory military reclamation cannot be carried out on behalf of generations, and the salary is meager. They used to be cannon fodder in wartime and coolies in peacetime. When they flee, they will sit down and force relatives and family members to take their place. Such a source of troops originally lacked strong fighting capacity and high morale. Moreover, this kind of "professional" soldier who "fights for the war" is easily distracted and has a strong war-weariness mentality. Recruitment system was adopted in the late Ming Dynasty. As a result, the people robbed them of their salaries and fled for their lives. Then there is the problem of raising soldiers. The military reclamation system in the Ming Dynasty was really self-reliant and didn't cost the state money. But it doesn't work in wartime. If the emperor deducts military pay on the pretext that he can farm fields, it will easily lead to mutiny. Soldiers' lives are already miserable, and even deducting normal expenses will only make the army lack training, reduce its combat effectiveness and have no fighting spirit. Pay in wartime is an extremely serious problem. Divine greed, Wei Zhongxian, who was favored by Zong, was also greedy. Those powerful eunuchs are also insatiable. People who want to get development can only use money to seek promotion, and after promotion, they will naturally be exploited a thousand times. The same is true of the management of the army. Officers are corrupt and falsely report the number of soldiers, so the military expenditure is getting bigger and bigger, and households have no money, which can only increase the tax revenue of the people. In this way, contradictions have intensified, but military issues have not been resolved. Political strategy directly affects war strategy.

In the Ming Dynasty, literature was more important than martial arts, and the commanders of the army were basically literati, such as Yuan Chonghuan, who was also a scholar. It is not easy to produce a real talent among literati. The Ming dynasty was very lucky. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, there were three famous soldiers who made outstanding contributions: Xiong Tingbi, a scholar in the 26th year of Wanli (A.D. 1596). Sun Chengzong was the second scholar in the thirty-second year of Wanli (AD 1604). Yuan Chonghuan was a scholar in the forty-seventh year of Wanli (A.D. 16 19). There are three military experts among the scholars admitted to the stereotyped writing. But Ming Chengzu fired one of them and killed the other two. Other literati commanders were basically wiped out. The strategy of the Ming Dynasty was basically defense, so Yuan Chonghuan was able to defend10.3 million late Jin army with thousands of soldiers. The Great Wall of Ming Dynasty is very famous, which is the product of typical defensive strategic thinking. But in the field, it is difficult for the superior forces of the Ming Dynasty to defeat the Qing soldiers. In the late Ming dynasty, there was a lack of aggressive emperors, so it was normal for the strategy not to make progress. Coupled with the constraints of system and strength, it is impossible to carry out offensive warfare in the later period. The so-called super equipment of the Ming army became a disadvantage under certain conditions. Red cannons come from foreign countries, and it costs a lot of money to make these equipment. In order to avoid loss and outflow, these equipments are generally preserved. But when it comes to war, soldiers won't use these guns, and it often happens that they hit their own people. What is even more ridiculous is that the management of the treasury is controlled by eunuchs, who want to defend the enemy with artillery and pay bribes to eunuchs. So the progress of military technology is completely offset by political corruption. It can be seen that political corruption can completely offset the advantages of military strength and equipment. This military advantage has even become a disadvantage at the expense of others. From a strategic point of view, the war has been won and lost before it started. If we don't change the corrupt system or the autocratic system of the Ming Dynasty, even if we accumulate victories at the tactical level, we will only linger on. The decline of the Ming Dynasty doomed the decline of the whole dynasty. The rout of the Ming Dynasty cannot be saved by a hero. It was a tragic era, and the protagonist was doomed to the tragic fate.