How did the ancients fight wars? How do they distinguish between the enemy and me? In ancient times, there was no modern militarized high-tech and high-speed information dissemination technology, and if the fight was particularly anxious, it was impossible to distinguish whether it was an enemy or a friend, and what if it hit its own people?
Usually, the ancients distinguished between enemies and enemies in the following ways.
1. Direction
When the two sides are fighting, the opposite side with weapons rushing over must be the enemy, because under normal circumstances, soldiers can only rush forward, if they are timid and retreat as deserters, then what awaits them behind them is the big knife of the overseer team, they can only have a way to survive if they are brave enough to rush forward, win, become famous, die in battle, and their families will be compensated; when deserters only have a dead end. Therefore, it is a very important basis to judge the enemy and us by using the direction.
2. Flag
In ancient times, when fighting wars, there were some communication tools used to issue instructions, such as drums and gongs, to distinguish between the enemy and us, and to take timely measures to change tactics, so that soldiers would not be in chaos in battle. The so-called "drumming march" and "ringing gold to collect troops" mean that the general gives orders to the soldiers.
At the same time, the flag of one side also plays a great role, which can be said to be the faith of the soldiers, which has a very important significance. The flag is there, the main general is there, the soldiers will also have a high morale to fight, the flag is down, indicating that the main general is dead or the general situation has gone, this battle is hopeless, and the soldiers will not have the courage to continue fighting. This is something we can often see in TV series. There is a historical event related to the flag, saying that Zhu Di and Li Jinglong were in the Battle of Baihegou, Zhu Di was in the inferior position, seeing that he was about to lose the battle, suddenly a strange gale blew off Li Jinglong's flag, and as a result, the Li Jinglong team that had the upper hand suddenly broke up, and Zhu Di won in a confused way. This is enough to show how important the military flag is in battle.
3. Equipment
Whether in ancient times or in modern times, the uniforms of different countries and different armies will also be different, so that people can immediately distinguish which side is the other side. Like Wei Shu Wu in the Three Kingdoms period, their military armor was black, green, and yellow, and they were all specially manufactured by the state. At that time, there were more than ten kinds of armor alone, but high-level and strong armor could only be used by senior generals, and ordinary soldiers could only wear leather armor and wooden armor with poor defense.
Like the soldiers of the Song Dynasty, they would not only wear armor, but also wear a simple robe or embroidered shirt outside, likewise, the senior soldiers would wear more exquisite clothes; the soldiers of the Ming Dynasty would wear Mandarin duck battle robes. The only constant is that successive dynasties and dynasties will strictly control military equipment and equipment, so in the battlefield, it is easy to distinguish between enemy and enemy by means of equipment and clothing.
There is also a kind of rebel army, they are not like the regular army, there is no formal clothing, generally use wearing turbans, dyeing eyebrows to distinguish between the enemy and us, such as the Red Turban Army, the Yellow Turban Army, the Red Brow Army.
In fact, the truly well-trained soldiers do not have to distinguish between the enemy and us, as long as they obey the command of the soldiers, they only obey the orders of the soldiers, when to charge, when to retreat, it seems simple, but in fact it is very difficult, because when the soldiers give orders, no matter what you are facing, you must follow the orders and cannot act without authorization, so that you can have the certainty of victory. A strong army like the Qi Family Army's Mandarin Duck Formation, strictly obeying instructions and being meticulous, can be distinguished at once on the battlefield, and all individual bravery and martial arts are vulnerable in front of him.
But in fact, in most battles, there are very few people with strict military discipline like qi jiajun, basically in actual combat, as long as they stop themselves, they are all enemies, just rush forward, and there is no time to think too much.
Comparatively speaking, when Japan fights, it is relatively simple and rude to take the way of distinguishing between the enemy and us, directly inserting a white flag on the back of the samurai or soldier participating in the battle and painting the pattern of each family on it, which is not conducive to combat, but it can be seen whether it is an enemy or a friend from a few hundred meters away.
Later, the pattern of each family was not only used on the flag of the battle, but also in weapons, shelter, clothing, armor, and even daily necessities, so that when they met, they did not have to ask each other to see where the pattern was from.
It is worth saying that in Japan, there is a kind of combat clothing, very eye-catching and unique, made of bamboo into a ball, and used the wind to support the clothes when riding, so eye-catching, so that they are always used as living targets on the battlefield, they are "mother-clothed people", and their main duty is to convey the orders of the main generals to the various military generals.
It can be said that Japan's way of distinguishing between enemy and enemy is really simple and clear, but at the same time it also has great drawbacks.