Rituals & Rewarding Of Five Camps Celestial Soldiers (五营兵将)

Rituals & Rewarding Of Five Camps Celestial Soldiers (五营兵将):

1) Diao Bing Qian Jiang (调兵遣将), this is a procedure that all groups that needed to perform before any Events commence

2) Fa Bing Dian Jiang (发兵点将), this is a procedure to summon, gather and appoint tasks to the Marshals and their respective subordinates

3) Jie Jie Ding Fang (结界定方), this is a procedure to set the Territory for the Marshals and Armies to stand guard, etc (Mend for External and Internal Camps).

4) Gao Shang Jun Ma (犒赏军马), this is a procedure to reward the Marshals and Armies after a certain Ritual/Ceremony ended

5) Dian Jiang Shou Ying (点将收营), this procedure only occurred at the end of the whole Ritual/Ceremony, this is to send back all the Marshals and their Armies to their respective posts (各营皆回各自岗位).

The rewarding the troops (犒軍) ritual is common in settlements mainly populated by Hoklo (福佬) migrants. In traditional society when faced by disease or invasion a “ritual expert (儀式專家)” would be invited to conduct the rewarding the troops ritual to “relieve disaster (消災解厄)”; a “release of the troops ritual (放軍)” would also be held to dispatch divine troops to guard the boundaries of the village, after the troops had pitched camp, the rewarding of troops ritual had also to be held on a regular basis.

The most distinctive rewarding the troops ritual in Taiwan is held in Penghu (澎湖). At dusk on the first and 15th days of the lunar calendar, the village temple “incense burner (香爐)”chosen for that year lays out a table with an incense burner and cooked five offering, Joss paper and rice wine in the temple square, inviting the 36 divine generals to partake. Under the table there is a tiger god statue, incense burner and raw three offerings, rice bran water and straw for their horses. Local families successively place food on the offerings table in front of the temple. The head exorcist (小法) of the six exorcists, the “ling ling (領令),” burns incense and hits the table with a wood sounding block, then, holding a ritual whip, carries out the altar opening, whipping and altar purification rituals. The members of the exorcist group on either side chant and beat drums while the exorcist (a trainee) holding the five camp order banner (五營令旗) and the ling ling who represents the marshal (元帥), respectively call the troops and horses of the five camps to the temple square (廟埕). After their arrival is confirmed by the throwing of divination blocks (擲筊), the troops and horses are inspected and rewarded. After the reward ritual, the troops are ordered back to their posts. Before religious rituals are carried out in a temple fair the five camp divine troops who guard over the village boundaries need to be called back to stand guard and, each time, they have to be rewarded for their effort through this reward ceremony.

The camps of the five directions (五營) are represented by blue, red, white, black and yellow triangular flags (三角令旗), each camp having its own commander, name and troop number:General Zhang (張將軍) leads the east camp nine barbarian tribe army (東營九夷軍) of 99,000 troops to guard the east; General Xiao (蕭將軍) leads the eight barbarian army (八蠻軍) of 88,000 troop to guard the south; General Liu (劉將軍) leads the six rong army (六戎軍) of 66,000 to guard the west, and General Lian (連將軍) leads the five di army (五狄軍) of 55,000 troops to guard the north; Marshal Lee Nuozha (李哪叱元帥) leads the three Qin army (三秦軍) of 33,000 troops to guard the center.

The rewarding the troops ritual comprises of three parts: the ritual expert, the temple and five camp heads (五營頭, space and buildings) and believers, consequently, the rewarding the troops ritual in each area is affected by 1)the faction the ritual expert belongs to and their scope of service 2) the main temple and branch temples 3) the distribution of believers, and, thus, the contents differ. For example, the rituals carried out by a Daoist priest (道士), a ritual master (法師) or a six man exorcist group are different in terms of ritual intervals and form; a rewarding the troops ritual that has believers but is not held at a temple or lacks a ritual expert can be classed as a household ritual not a settlement ritual. New religions that have sprung up in recent years, such as Cihu Temple (慈惠堂) in Songshan (松山), Taipei (臺北), even feature ritual experts wearing holy robes rewarding the troops with tang yuan (湯圓, glutinous rice balls) fruit and vegetables.

The rewarding the troops ritual is common in Hoklo areas. The Yimin Gods (義民爺) belief sphere of the Hakka (客家) people of north Taiwan does not have this ritual but the similar “offering rice (奉飯)” ritual is widely practiced, the difference being that the rice is offered to the Yimin gods not to divine troops; mixed Taiwanese (ancestors originally from Fujian) and Hakka areas in the Dongshi (東勢) area of central Taiwan practice the rewarding the troops