I believe that many friends are very interested in ancient wars, rather than saying that war is a part of history, it is better to say that human history is inseparable from the construction of war. Especially in ancient times, when the productive forces were not developed, once a war occurred, it must be a matter that the whole family and the country put into it, and the war will bring huge resource consumption to the country, but war is something that mankind cannot avoid.
In China's ancient feudal society, a large part of the agricultural production of each country was reserved for war. In the event of war, rations are the first resource to be rapidly depleted. This is actually very easy to understand, after all, "people are iron, rice is steel", soldiers are also physical warriors, if you want to participate in a cruel war, maintaining good physical fitness and physical strength is a necessary part, and at this time, the importance of rations is highlighted.
In the "Pipe", it is recorded that once a war occurs, the resources of a country and an entire national treasury will be exhausted; even if it is only once a soldier, the grain and grass that the country has stored for more than ten years will be consumed to maintain the efficiency of the army; not to mention that in the event of a protracted war, then whether it is manpower or material consumption, it will be a vacancy that is difficult to fill by the hard work of generations.
Then many people may ask, even if it is an army, when these soldiers do not fight in peacetime, do not they still need to eat rations? So why is it that when it comes to the battlefield, the country's resources and grain and grass will be insufficient?
As mentioned earlier, grain and grass were a vital strategic material for an ancient country, so the country would also store grain in peacetime. But the key question is not here, the key is that once there is a war, the materials lost in the war are not as simple as we think.
First of all, even if every soldier needs to consume rations in peacetime, in the event of war, the rations consumed by soldiers will be multiplied. This is mainly because of the intense physical exertion experienced by soldiers on the battlefield, whether it is killing the enemy, ambushing, or marching, once the human body "moves", it will need additional energy, and these additional energies add up to enough consumption of a national treasury.
In addition, the ancient soldiers must have been trained in the local military camp, but once they encountered war, they were not sure where they would be transferred to the front-line battlefield. In addition, the transportation capacity in ancient times was not as developed as it is today, and the soldiers did not have any complicated means of transportation when marching, some only had feet and livestock, and how long these soldiers walked on the road had to consume as much physical strength, and these physical strengths also needed grain and grass to make up.
Not only do soldiers need to march, but the food and grass that follow them must also be in place, otherwise without rations, no matter how powerful the army is, it will be an empty shell. Therefore, in ancient times, there was also a saying that it was grain, grass and resources that fought in a war, and this sentence was completely false. Therefore, in ancient times, some rulers with discerning eyesight were very good at the transportation of grain and grass, such as the Qin State in the Warring States period, which built the "Qin Straight Road" to make the road for transporting grain and grass smooth, so that the grain and grass could reach the front line of the battlefield faster.
Once a troop is transferred, tens of thousands of soldiers need to eat more food, and in the face of real war, the transfer of troops can end more than once or twice, usually a very long range of expeditions, so that the army needs rations to consume naturally more.
Therefore, it is not that soldiers do not eat food in peacetime, but only because once there is a war, the consumption of military food will inevitably increase. In addition to the original soldier formation of the army, once there is a war, the supply of grain and grass in the rear will become uncertain. Because sometimes, the army will encounter a shortage of manpower, in this case, the army has to draw a part of the labor force from the civilian population, let them join the army, serve the country.
Some of the civilians who later joined the army were peasants who usually cultivated the land and fields, and some were laborers. Once these young and middle-aged laborers are removed, the resource reserves in the rear of the country will become unstable, the land will not be cultivated, the grain will not be harvested, and the output of grain and grass will naturally decrease.
Therefore, once war breaks out, the consumption of the front line will increase, and the reserves of the rear will be drastically reduced.