The so-called military service refers to the state's system of citizens participating in armed groups or undertaking military tasks and receiving military training outside armed organizations. China's modern military service system stipulates that adult male citizens who have reached the age of 18 should be registered for military service, and those who meet the conditions can then go to service. In the popular name, there is a popular name for military service or joining the army, which is "enlistment".
So why is joining the army called "enlistment"?
According to records, it is written in the Zhou Li that China's ancient army was "five people in the army", and when the word "Wu" was first, in fact, it appeared as the smallest "army formation unit". At the same time, in the ancient household registration system, "five families were organized into one army", so when the state conscripted, each of the five families sent a male ding, which just formed the "one army" in the army. The use of this "Wu" has been used to this day, so today's army is also called "team".
The conscription systems of china's ancient dynasties and dynasties are different, and the conscription systems of each dynasty are also different.
In the "conscription system" of the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, the "Book of Poetry, Qin Feng, And No Clothes", there is such a sentence as "Wang Yuxingshi, repair my armored soldiers, and go with my son." It depicts a scene of young people from the Qin state enthusiastically joining the army: "Our king is about to dispatch troops, let us repair our armor and weapons together, and go to the battlefield together." The background of the poem "No Clothes" is in the Western Zhou Year.
The social structure of the last years of the Zhou Dynasty was the "national wilderness system", in which "guo" and "ye" belonged to different administrative regions, and only those in the city were eligible to serve as soldiers. This similar system of "Nationals" enlisting in the army existed as early as the Shang Dynasty. The hierarchical system of "nationals" has also led to people from different families, and the types of soldiers they can become after joining the army are different.
For example, people from aristocratic origins are often "armored soldiers", and their troops are in chariots, while people born in ordinary people can only be infantry. By the time of the Zhou Dynasty, being a soldier was not only a profession, but also a privilege. At that time, the size of the army was not large, so not all young people of the right age at all levels of the country had the opportunity to become soldiers with a formation.
At that time, it was stipulated that only one person in each household could become a "regular pawn", that is, a formal soldier with a formation, and the other young people of the right age were "envious pawns", that is, the current "reserves". At that time, the national army practiced a kind of "military organization", five people for "one army", five troops for "one line", so the army also has the name of "line" is derived from here.
The "conscription system" of the Sui, Tang and Song dynasties - during the Sui and Tang dynasties, the system of recruiting soldiers began to appear. This recruitment system should be more demanding and better paid for recruits. Successfully recruited soldiers were paid, basically equivalent to today's "mercenaries". After these soldiers entered the barracks, they were different from ordinary conscripts.
They were often organized into assault teams, vanguard teams, which were special classes in ancient military camps. Before the Tang Dynasty and the early Tang Dynasty, the "conscription system" was the mainstay, and in the late Tang Dynasty, the "conscription system" became one of the main sources of soldiers, and the "Divine Strategy Army" in this period was a team composed of recruited soldiers.
In the Song Dynasty, the "conscription system" was further promoted and strengthened. At that time, being able to become a soldier with a national organization, so that he could eat a mixed meal, was often a big way out for the children of poor families. During the Reign of Emperor Zhenzong of the Song Dynasty, there was a famine in tanzhou, Hunan, and the state posted a recruitment order, and whether it was a tramp or a small, they could be naturalized as a formal national team.
As a result, this move instantly attracted tens of thousands of people, which shows the fiery degree of the "conscription system" at that time.
In addition to the two mainstream enlistment methods of "conscription system" and "conscription system", the channels for ancient people to join the army were actually diverse. Just as during the Three Kingdoms period, Cao Cao of the Wei state also advocated the implementation of the "world army system". This kind of "world military system" first appeared in the Warring States period, and there is a saying called "fighting brothers in battle, father and son soldiers in battle".
This system was further developed in the Yuan and Ming dynasties. Zhu Yuanzhang also established a more rigorous system of military registration and military households to this end. A person who has entered the military may not change his household registration or shirk his or her household registration unless he is exempted from military service without the grace of the imperial court. If all the families of this family are dead or no one can enlist in the army, then a person from the local family's clan relatives will be selected to take the place of enlistment, also known as the "hook army".
During the Ming Dynasty, there was also a form of army called "Enjun". That is, a prisoner who has committed a felony or has been sentenced to death can be exempted from the death penalty if he can enlist in the army in the form of a "benevolent army". After prisoners avoid death and become military households, their children and grandchildren must enter the "Enjun" service for generations and cannot be broken, so the Enjun is also known as the "Immortal Army".
Ancient conscription standards - Although there was no hard standard for ancient conscription, there were also conditional restrictions. The age of conscripted soldiers fluctuates around the age of 20, from the oldest to thirty and the youngest fifteen. In terms of height, the Han Dynasty stipulated a minimum height of six feet two, about 150cm, and the Song Dynasty required soldiers to be between five feet two and five feet eight, that is, 162cm-181cm.
In ancient times, there were different requirements for soldiers for different purposes. Soldiers armed with heavy weapons are often required to be larger. For example, in the Jin Dynasty, the requirement for heavy crossbowmen was to be greater than six feet tall, that is, 187 cm. The Northern Song Dynasty Forbidden Army also required soldiers who were more than six feet tall and could not meet this standard, and could only be "van soldiers" who were specifically responsible for miscellaneous service in the army.
When conscripts measure height, there is a group of soldiers of standard height who are "soldier-like" and use them as a reference standard. Later, this standard evolved into a long wooden stick engraved with a height dimension scale "wooden pole", also known as "equal long staff", and measured height in this way. Ancient conscription required not only height, but also special requirements for body shape.
The history books record that when Song Taizu was recruiting soldiers, he did not blindly require a tall man, but also required "pipa legs, axle body", saying that such a figure could exert greater strength. Of course, just like the current conscription system, in ancient times, physical fitness and vision tests were also carried out on the conscripted soldiers, and these detailed test items were generally carried out at the conscription site.
The popular "military system" of the Song Dynasty - ancient rulers have also been troubled, what if someone can't stand the hardships in the military camp and escapes? In this regard, they later thought of a way: All those who had enlisted in the army at home would be uniformly taken to the capital for centralized accommodation and unified management. It is called "solving the worries of his wife, children, old and young who have no one to take care of them".
In fact, the imperial court took care of its family as a hostage, and if you did not serve the country well, then your family may not be able to do anything. Even after using this method, there were more and more deserters later, so a system of "yellow noodles" was derived, and here, the so-called "yellow noodles" were tattooed on the face.
Although this method was originally used to humiliate and identify felons, it gradually became popular in the military. When recruiting soldiers in the Song Dynasty, they had to first tattoo the soldiers' faces before completing the enlistment process, and the soldiers could take away the property promised to them by the imperial court, also known as "stabbing and sharp goods".
The general content of the words tattooed by the soldiers is to indicate their attribution, that is, to engrave "so-and-so command", and if the formation is changed during the service period, the words must be re-tattooed. If you are caught as a deserter, you must add the word "escape" to the original tattoo. It can be seen that the tattoo system was very popular in the Song Dynasty.
Otherwise, the mother-in-law would not have thought of carving "Jing Zhongguo" on the back of her own son, and there would not have been "Hundreds of Wu'er Shanhuan people, all wearing tattoos" in the "Past Affairs of Wulin" at the end of the Song Dynasty. The ancient conscription system was complex and difficult to implement, and in the era of war, it was also very cruel to often enter the famous households at night to rob people in order to recruit soldiers.
However, in order to maintain their position from being shaken and the country from being invaded by foreign enemies, the rulers were forced to think of it.
Resources:
["Book of Poetry, Qin Feng", "Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Book of Wei", "Old Book of Tang", "New Book of Tang", "History of Song bingzhi", "Jiataihui Jizhi", "Zizhi Tongjian"]