Introduction: Many people dream of returning to ancient times to become a soldier, following the general Northern Expedition to the north of the desert to realize the blood of the Han family boys. However, when we open the history books, we will find that history will remember the "Huo Zhi Disease" who have achieved fame and success, but it will not remember those who have become big heads of bones. We still assume three pieces of history, peeking into the real history from the fake story.
Qin Jun's pawns
I am a farmer in the Guanzhong region, and I am now being ordered to assemble and prepare to attack the Zhao state under the leadership of General Bai Qi. Speaking of General Bai, he is really a great hero, as a fallen nobleman's son, all the way to regain the glory of his ancestors by military merit. It is said that his ancestor was Bai Yibing, the general of Mu Gong, and by his generation he had been very depressed. Of course, as a descendant of the nobility, the starting point of the general is still not comparable to our pure grass people. According to the laws of our Qin state, knighthoods are divided into twenty grades, and only the lower eighth rank can be obtained through military merit, the so-called "civil knighthood is only eight".
[Bai Qi is not the representative of the civilian people that some people imagine.] The family is a standard aristocratic descendant]
Of course, the general is only a ceiling higher than our grass people. Beheading does not mean that the heads of all enemy forces can be cut off and replaced by knighthoods, so wouldn't it be jazz all over the country? According to the laws of the Shang Jun (Shang Martingale), only by beheading the noble officer on the opposite side, that is, the "knight", can he exchange his title, and the average soldier can be killed for a reward or land at most.
It's really too difficult for us, and the nobles who can go to the battlefield often have a medium-sized armor and good martial arts. For us, the soldiers who had just been recruited from the fields, it was as difficult to kill them as it was to go up to the sky. My brother once participated in the siege of an officer of the Yan Kingdom, and a dozen people went up and came back alive with two or three people, including my brother. But he said that even if he could kill this nobleman, there would be a fight between his companions, after all, everyone had worked hard and shed blood, so why should you go to the credit? There were even vicious incidents of cutting off the heads of dead comrades-in-arms and passing off their faces to impersonate enemy nobles.
[Ordinary Qin troops can never kill the nobles of the Six Kingdoms alone]
From this point of view, it is indeed not easy for General Bai Qi to be promoted all the way through military merit. Let's recruit pawns like this, cut down the first rank of miscellaneous soldiers and exchange some rewards. The only thing that makes me unfair for the general is that no matter how high his military merit is, it is only a high "knighthood", and the actual management of the country does not depend on the military merit class. Even local officials get their positions through recommendations. This kind of civil servant is a family of its own, and the recommenders and recommended people are generally acquaintances or even teachers and students. Because according to the Great Qin Law, once the person who is recommended commits an offense, then the recommender will also be unlucky, and even sentenced to the same crime. This also leads to a strong closure of this circle, after all, no one is willing to use their head to guarantee a person they don't know.
Hey, it's not easy for everyone in these years, and I, an ordinary person who has no high gate and no well-known mentor, still wants to think about how to take care of his own land after the battle.
Recruitment in the Tang Dynasty
I am a jian's son under Fan Yang Jiedushi An Lushan. (Note: The Tang Dynasty called recruiting soldiers Guan Jian or Jian Er) Speaking of our Youzhou, it was really a good place to be a soldier. At the beginning of the country, the Tang Dynasty still used the prefectural military system, and all soldiers needed to report in the folding chong province and then receive weapons.
[Famous soldiers have only played a role in a specific period of time]
However, this system is a typical Military System of the Northern Dynasty, and it is not widely used in many places. With the passage of time, the Juntian system was destroyed, and the imperial court abandoned that system and concentrated on recruiting professional soldiers.
Now there are opportunities for people like us. In the past, we had to go home to cultivate the land after the war, but now we can occupy a piece of land for generations to pass it on to future generations. But this is also equivalent to fixing our lives, like my father came here to take root, I must inherit my father's position. With the annexation of land, farmers are not as tightly locked in their fields as they once were. On the contrary, soldiers like my family have become very pitted, unable to leave their land at all, their status is far inferior to that of those families, and even the merchants seem to be freer than us.
[The reason why the soldiers of the Tang Army in the later period became the confidants of the Jiedushi envoys was that the Jiedushi envoys were "central airborne", but the soldiers were the snakes of the ground]
To say that we have any advantage is that the imperial court not only gives us land but also gives us military salaries. However, with the rise of Yang Guozhong's traitor to power, the bureaucracy was more corrupt than in Li Linfu's time, and it became more and more difficult for us to get military salaries from the central authorities. Fortunately, our Commander An was very interesting, and he used the grace given by the emperor to unify the military and political power of the three towns, and then used the power in his hand to trade with the surrounding Hu tribes, and finally used the money to pay us military salaries. It is really worthy of Sogdian origin, and the brain of the marshal is flexible.
[In fact, few people know that even after the Anshi Rebellion, the three towns of Heshuo still insisted on enshrineing his statues]
It's much more comfortable than our attached Hu people. They were often requisitioned on a tribal scale, so the imperial court's restraint on individual Hu soldiers was almost negligible. These Hu people have far more freedom than ours. In order to win them over, the marshal gave them gold and silver treasures that we Han soldiers could not get, which was really eccentric. He also specially selected elite people who dared to fight from among the captured and recruited Hu people to form the "Eight Thousand Trailing Falling River".
However, it is true that in good conscience, their combat effectiveness is far stronger than ours, especially the riding skills of the Turks are not comparable to ordinary Han people, and only Han people who are also from the same origin in the north of The Sai are likely to match them. They defeated the Khitans several times during their reign and paid tribute to the Khitan prisoners of war to the central government for several years. It is precisely because Marshal An can fight that the imperial court will give him such a high treatment.
[The cavalry of the Tang army was usually composed of Han People from outside Sai or Hu people who were attached to the inside]
It is precisely because he is deeply trusted by the emperor that we unanimously decided that no matter what outsiders say, we will follow him to kill Yang Guozhong, a traitor. Of course, with the treatment given to us by the marshal, even if he is really rebellious, we are willing to follow.
Guards of the Ming Dynasty
I am a guard in the Liaodong region. Speaking of the suffering of the Wei Suo Army, it is really three days and three nights that cannot be said. It is reasonable to say that the integration of cultivation and warfare is the tradition of the Han people. But the previous dynasty at least had enough military salaries and settlement fees. In my dynasty, it was not, and Taizu was determined to have an army that did not cost money. This can make us miserable. My family was originally from Jiangnan, but because they were selected, they had to come to Liaodong at their own expense. It is also necessary to buy all kinds of daily necessities and even some weapons and equipment from their own pockets.
[Soldiers of the Ming Dynasty were actually very hard]
As a soldier, he belonged to the "military household" in the household registration of the imperial court, and not only could he not be separated from it for life, but even his descendants were restricted. Originally, Emperor Zhu gave us some land to live in, but Emperor Shangao was far from being outdated. Not long after, my family's fields were occupied by the officers, and the original solid family foundation was gradually hollowed out, and it was completely reduced to the serfs of the officers.
I was born into such a family. A few days ago, Xiong Tingbi (the highest commander at this time) came to inspect, and the chief specially selected a group of the most effective people in the Liaodong region to go to the school grounds for exercises, including me.
[The tradition of guardhouses in the Liaodong region is stronger than in other regions, and the infantry is completely slave to officers]
The results of the drill stunned The Bear. Of the thirty carefully selected bird wrenches, only one person was able to "hit the target", and the rest of them did not even hit the target. The drill of the bow and arrow is also incomprehensible, the musket is good as long as it is ignited, and the bow and arrow must have some strength. As a result, many people could not even open their bows, and some people reluctantly pulled out their bows and arrows, but the arrows shot out were fluttering, even if the target was only twenty steps, they could not hit.
Lord Xiong was angry this time, and His Majesty wrote a letter to scold us Liao people for not being useful, and also claimed that only 3,000 of the 90,000 Liaodong Ming army could fight a battle. However, later, Lord Bear still understood our difficulties. He personally went to the warehouse to see it, and found that the noodles had eroded and could not be eaten at all. Many soldiers had to eat food mixed with sand, which was not enough to ensure that they could manage enough, of course, they did not have the strength to learn martial arts.
[The Ming army's misery in the face of Jurchen is directly related to the Ming army's completely eroded logistics system]
For this reason, Lord Xiong specially wrote to the imperial court, requesting funds for the Liaodong region, reorganizing logistics and compensating the soldiers for their salaries. After so many years of being a soldier, I finally met a kind official, which is really not easy!
epilogue
This article interprets the living conditions of the soldiers at the lowest level from the perspective of the three soldiers of the three dynasties of Qin, Tang and Ming. The Qin army is by no means the highest level that some people intend to achieve by beheading. Bai Qi, whom they regarded as a benchmark, was a descendant of an authentic aristocracy, far from being comparable to the general public. Moreover, the object of the beheading was not ordinary soldiers, but noble officers, that is, "knights". More importantly, the bureaucracy of the Qin state is not linked to titles, and you can get titles and land, but you can't get power. Therefore, the military merit system does not help those at the bottom to take power.
[Qin and Han are still the world of blood aristocrats, and Bai Qi, who is regarded as an idol by many people, and Chen Sheng, who "the emperor will xiangning have a kind of hu", are both descendants of nobles]
Speaking of the Tang Dynasty, although it was brilliant, the life of the low-level soldiers was still very difficult, firmly bound to their own fields, unable to move freely, and their descendants were also restricted. There is no difference between this and the Ming Dynasty, but Li Tang is much more generous than Zhu Ming, at least willing to pay soldiers, rather than always thinking about an army that does not cost money. The power of the Tang Dynasty's emissaries was also far greater than that of the Ming Dynasty's military generals, and they were basically princes of one side. They still take great care of their foundation, the soldiers, so the overall situation is much better than that of the Ming Dynasty.
[The day of the big head soldier has never been good]
The last Ming Dynasty was miserable. The national policy set at the beginning of the Ming Dynasty was to make soldiers and his families pay, but they were unwilling to let them get it. Therefore, the phenomenon of desertion in the Ariake generation is very serious, and many passes are not even half of them. The Xiong Tingbi spot check mentioned in the article is also a real thing, which shows how much the Liaodong Army at the end of the Ming Dynasty has decayed.
The summary is that the status and material status of the low-level soldiers in the past are actually not high, after all, the status of the general and the status of the soldiers cannot be equated.