Xiongnu are a powerful nomadic people living in the grasslands of northern China, the Xiongnu have been practicing horseback archery since childhood, everyone is a soldier, and they grew up in the extremely harsh environment of natural conditions in the north, fighting with nature every day, according to the reason, whether it is stature, or technical tactics, they will be stronger than the Han army, why in the battle with the cavalry led by Huo Zhiyi, they will be beaten up and flee everywhere?
Leaving aside the genius military talents of Huo's disease, here is a discussion of the reasons behind The victory of Huo's disease in the war.
Chen Tang of the Western Han Dynasty once said a sentence that compared the Han soldiers with the Xiongnu, which was like this:
Those who commit crimes against the strong will be punished from afar
Tang Yue: Fu Hu Bing five and Han Bing one, which? The blades are blunt, and the crossbows are unfavorable. Now I smell quite clever, but I am three and one.
The meaning of this is: Chen Tang said: Five Hu soldiers can be worthy of a Han Dynasty soldier, why? Because the Hu people's weapons are not sharp, the bows and arrows are not sharp. Now I heard that they have learned a lot of Han chinese skills, but they still need three Hu soldiers to be worth one Han soldier.
Chen Tang is the Western Han general who said the famous saying throughout the ages, "Those who commit crimes against the strong Han, although they will be punished from afar", are also the generals of the Han army who killed the Xiongnu Zhi Shan Yu, and Chen Tang has a lot of say in fighting the Xiongnu, he said that this has two meanings.
First, referring to the backwardness of the Weapons of the Xiongnu, Chen Tang clearly stated that the original weapons of the Xiongnu were relatively primitive, and the bows and arrows were not sharp. The second is that the physical quality of the Xiongnu soldiers is backward, even if the Xiongnu weapons are the same as the Han army, the Han army can still block three with one.
Huns
Although Chen Tang's era was about 110 years away from the era of Huo's disease, it can still explain two problems: the quality of weapons and soldiers of the Xiongnu is actually inferior to that of the Han Dynasty, and these two key reasons have always left the Xiongnu in the confrontation with the Han Dynasty.
I. Comparison of the strength of the Han Dynasty and the Xiongnu
In the era of cold weapons, the Chinese civilization located on the East Asian continent as one of the four major civilizations in the world, in the entire East Asian continent, its scientific and technological civilization is far ahead of the surrounding ethnic groups, more importantly, the Chinese civilization also has a huge population and the most fertile land in East Asia, and the Chinese regime that meets these conditions has thus become the hegemon of the East Asian continent, whether it is from the Xia, Shang, Zhou to the Spring and Autumn Warring States, or from the Qin Dynasty that unified the six kingdoms to the Han Dynasty that inherited the Qin system, all of which were hanging the surrounding ethnic minorities.
Hodge disease
But the general trend of historical development has never been eternal, the Chinese regime is not lasting and strong, there are also periods of weakness, in the last years of the Qin Dynasty, due to qin shi huang's forced conquest and tyranny, poor military force, resulting in a serious injury to national strength, coupled with the turmoil that lasted for more than ten years at the end of Qin, so that the strength of the newly established Western Han Dynasty was weaker, the siege of Baideng was the first large-scale frontal conflict between Han and Hungary, not representing that the strength of the Xiongnu was stronger than the strength of the Han Dynasty, but that Liu Bang was not stable internally, the problem of kings with different surnames had not been solved, and he did not want to fight with the Xiongnu to exhaust his national strength. And let the nascent regime be destroyed.
1. Population
There is always an illusion that the xiongnu are stronger than the Han Dynasty, especially in the siege of Baideng, the 400,000 Xiongnu cavalry besieging Liu Bang were divided into four directions of east, south, west and north, and the horses in each direction were uniform in color, whether the Xiongnu had 400,000 cavalry is doubtful, even if the Xiongnu 5 armed a soldier, the total population of the Xiongnu was 2 million, and the population of the Han Dynasty at that time was at least 15 million to 18 million, which was 7.5 to 9 times that of the Xiongnu.
There, the population represents the productive forces, can provide all the soldiers and production personnel, in the early years of the Han Dynasty carried out the Xiongnu and pro-pro policy, after more than 70 years of recuperation, has been recuperated for three to four generations, the total population of the Western Han Dynasty at least 30 million people, to the time of the Han Wudi and the Xiongnu war, the Han Dynasty's national strength has been even stronger, the Xiongnu population due to poor natural conditions, backward science and technology, the population growth rate is significantly inferior to the Han Dynasty, the population gap between the two sides further widened.
The Han army was mighty
It is not that a large population will definitely be able to win the battle, but it is said that a large population is strong, this is no problem, in the battle between Huo Ande and the Xiongnu, Emperor Wudi of Han was able to recruit the most elite soldiers and the best horses in the country to huo to go to the disease, in fact, Emperor Wudi of Han did the same, and the personnel who provided logistical services for Huo went to disease far exceeded the soldiers on the battlefield by several times, and this kind of strength was not possessed by the Xiongnu.
Even if it is to fight for the head, the Han Dynasty can also spell out the Xiongnu population, in the battle with the Xiongnu, its own losses are also very large, such as the Battle of Mobei, Huo Andui and Wei Qing each led 100,000 cavalry, a total of more than 90,000 Xiongnu soldiers were annihilated, the Han Dynasty lost about 50,000 or 60,000 soldiers, and 100,000 horses, basically killing the enemy 10,000, self-inflicted loss ratio of 8,000, the Han Dynasty population is large, the Xiongnu population is small, the Han Dynasty can hold up, but can the Xiongnu hold up? This is the victory of national strength.
2. Territory
The wars between the Han Dynasty and the Xiongnu mostly occurred on the border at first, and although the Xiongnu were mainly cavalry, they were never able to invade the hinterland of the Han Dynasty, but the Han Dynasty continued to invade the hinterland of the Xiongnu, why? Or because of the strong national strength, the Han Dynasty has a vast territory, we all know that the war is a comprehensive national strength, the Han Dynasty can control the war on the border, and then go deep into the hinterland of the Xiongnu, especially Huo Fu disease to beat the entire Xiongnu desert south and desert north without a royal court, which makes the Xiongnu lose a huge loss.
Han Bing
But the territory of the Han Dynasty was not lost, because the Xiongnu did not have the strength to invade the hinterland of the Han Dynasty, nor did they have that ability, at the same time the Xiongnu were nomadic people, the survival of the nomadic people was different from the Han Dynasty, it was dependent on the sky to eat, the nomadic land was difficult to carry a large population, and a stable life, the main property of the Xiongnu was horses, cattle, sheep and other livestock, these were alive, sick and died, killed in the war, it would affect the strength of the Xiongnu, but the Han Dynasty was different, the Han Dynasty was an agricultural nation, it was a farming land, can you destroy the land? No, farming is less affected by natural conditions than nomadic and can carry more people.
3. Weapons and equipment
Chen Tang said that the weapons and equipment of the Han Dynasty were much stronger than those of the Xiongnu, for example, Li Ling of the Western Han Dynasty, that is, Li Guang's Sun Quan, the era in which he lived was only more than 20 years away from the time when Huo went to live with illness, Li Ling led 5,000 infantry at that time, and was attacked by the Xiongnu's 30,000 cavalry, Li Ling formed a formation with chariots, formed an arrow array, killed tens of thousands of Xiongnu cavalry with bows and arrows, and later the Xiongnu increased their troops to 80,000 people, and Li Ling's arrows ran out before the whole army was destroyed and surrendered.
What if Li Ling's arrow didn't run out? Is it tens of thousands of Xiongnu cavalry can not attack the infantry of the five thousand Han army, there is really this possibility, this is the difference in weapons and equipment, at that time the Huns armor was very poor, just leather armor, bows and arrows are not as far as the Han army, the Han army also has crossbow arrows, just by virtue of this, the Huns can not win, if it is the Han army cavalry, one-on-one, the Huns really do not necessarily win, this is the victory of weapons and equipment.
4. Bloody
Han inherited the Qin system, inherited not only the official system and titles, but also inherited the blood, the Qin army to the first rank of military merit, the Han army is the same, only to achieve battle merit can be rewarded, all say that the Qin army is the division of tigers and wolves, in fact, the Han army is not bad, it is very bloody, compared to the Xiongnu, not bad at all, you look at Huo to go to the disease to fight, Huo to the disease of the first battle led 800 people, dared to attack the rear of the Xiongnu, but also captured more than three times the number of their own army of the Xiongnu, it is completely a desperate Sanlang do not want to die, The most important person to go to the disease is only 17 years old, this is blood.
summary
The Xiongnu were good at archery on horseback, and they were nomadic people, so why couldn't they beat huo's sick cavalry?
In addition to Huo's genius military ability, because the strength of the Xiongnu was not as good as that of the Han Dynasty, and the bloodiness was not as good as that of the Han Dynasty, it was impossible to defeat Huo Qiyi.