I believe that many friends who have watched "Water Margin" know that Lin Chong, a good man in Liangshan, was originally an official in the capital, and his title sounded quite large: the head of the 800,000 forbidden army in Kyoto.
In the past, I always felt that the head of the Forbidden Army was a very big official position, as if all the Forbidden Army should listen to Lin Chong's words, and the imaginary character image was more like a mighty general. Therefore, at that time, I didn't quite understand why when Lin Chong's family was in trouble, his power looked like an ant in front of Lieutenant Gao, as if he was no longer the leader of the 800,000 Forbidden Army, but an ordinary soldier.
Later, I learned that the head of the Forbidden Army during the Northern Song Dynasty was not uncommon, it was not a big official position, and Lin Chong was not the chief head of the Forbidden Army, just a bishop's gun stick, which was more like a "teaching assistant" in today's words, and the official position was very small.
But was there really 800,000 forbidden troops in Kyoto during the Northern Song Dynasty? Then why couldn't they defeat the invading Jin people, and even the "Shame of Jingkang" occurred?
The Poor and Weak Northern Song Dynasty
I remember that when I studied history in the past, the teacher talked about the "three redundancies" and the problem of poverty and weakness in the Song Dynasty, that is, redundant soldiers, redundant officials, and redundant expenses. What does this mean?
"Redundant" means more, redundant soldiers refer to the expansion of the army, redundant officials refer to complex bureaucracies, and redundant fees refer to a large number of taxes, and these three phenomena actually complement each other. Because there are many soldiers, more money is needed to raise soldiers, resulting in complicated taxation, and at the same time, it is necessary to prevent one official from mastering too many troops, and there is a phenomenon like the division of feudal towns in the Tang Dynasty, so there are more officials who are decentralized. This seems to be a vicious circle, and the problems with the reaction are obvious.
In terms of finance, the implementation of the land policy of "no suppression and annexation" during the Northern Song Dynasty led to a very serious land merger phenomenon between some bureaucrats and landlords, concealing land resources, reducing taxes, and affecting fiscal revenues.
In terms of military recruitment, in order to maintain the order of the rule, the rulers began to recruit in large numbers every time they faced the famine caused by natural disasters. While increasing the number of troops, this increased the cost of military expenditure, increased the burden on taxes, and made such a recruited soldier uneven.
Coupled with the Fact that Kyoto of the Song Dynasty even in Kaifeng, without any natural barriers, a large number of soldiers were needed to defend the city, resulting in the forbidden army in the capital being mostly young and strong elite soldiers, but the other garrisons were mostly some relatively old and weak soldiers, making the Northern Song Dynasty "subject to internal and external". Coupled with the law of rotating foreign garrisons every three years, there is also the drawback of "soldiers who do not know the generals, and will not know the soldiers." This created favorable conditions for the attacks of the Western Xia, Liao, and Jin, which had been eyeing the tiger at that time.
What is even more burdensome is that the officers and soldiers of the Northern Song Dynasty are tenured, and even if they are old, they are raised by the state with money, which is a very huge financial expenditure.
In the selection of officials, the Northern Song Dynasty was famous for "emphasizing literature over military force", and a large number of readers became members of the imperial court through the imperial examination system, and financial expenses were further delayed. The military attaché was repeatedly suppressed, even if his merits were high, the final outcome would not be too good.
These are typical examples of the poverty and weakness of the Northern Song Dynasty, of course, the more fundamental reason is the ignorance of the rulers.
Shame on Jing Kang
With the above procrastination, it is very difficult for the Song country to become rich and strong, not to mention the "heavy central, light border defense" military arrangement, which is equivalent to putting the frontier area in front of the enemy's eyes, and telling him: You come, we promise not to resist.
Unlike the Song Dynasty, jin has always been based on agriculture since the founding of the people's republic of China, and has always had plans to resist the Liao. After the victory, Jin replaced the Liao regime and turned to confront the Song Dynasty, whose internal affairs were already quite corrupt at this time, and the peasant revolts were long and long. So the Song Dynasty took the initiative to promote the "Alliance of the Seas" and paid a million yuan to Jin every year.
In the seventh year of Xuanhe of the Northern Song Dynasty (1125 AD), the Jin people used the excuse that the Song was hiding the rebel general Zhang Jue as an excuse to move south and attack the Song Dynasty from the east and west. The east road went straight to Yanjing, crossed the Yellow River and went straight to Fenjing; the west road went straight to Taiyuan, Shanxi, and then also supported the army under the capital city. The whole process is only about a year old.
In an emergency, Emperor Huizong of Song did not worry about how to retreat from the enemy, but instead hurriedly ceded the throne to the crown prince Zhao Huan, that is, Song Qinzong. Later, when the forbidden army came to the city, the Song ceded the three towns of Zhongshan, Hejian and Taiyuan, and after adding huge indemnities, they were forced to negotiate peace, which was called "three towns to negotiate peace".
But such compromises didn't stop Kim. In August of the same year, the Jin army launched another attack, and Song Qinzong had no choice but to personally go to the Jin people to negotiate peace, but was detained. The Second Emperor of Houhui Qin, the Zhao royal family, the harem concubine Guiqing, and the Song courtiers all gathered up and down for more than 3,000 people, all of whom were taken north by the Jin army with weapons and performed a highly insulting "sheep-leading ceremony", and several imperial ministers and concubines died of self-purification. All the treasures in the capital were looted, and the Northern Song Dynasty perished.
Speaking of which, didn't the Northern Song Dynasty hoard a lot of soldiers? What about the legendary "800,000 Forbidden Army" in Beijing? The Jin people attacked the Song, where were they?
Eight hundred thousand forbidden troops?
According to the relevant historical records of the seven years of the Song Dynasty, the number of Jin troops in the Song Dynasty reached 800,000 at a certain period:
The total number of Kaibao's books is 378,000, and the forbidden army is 193,000; The total number of Celestial Jubilee is 912,000, while the Forbidden Army's horse step is 432,000; There are 1.29 million in the celebratory calendar, and 826,000 in the forbidden army.
However, this does not mean that all of them are forbidden troops in Kaifeng City. As mentioned earlier, the number of soldiers in the Song Dynasty was a lifelong system, so even if a soldier is old and retired, they are still in the military register, and the number will naturally only become larger and larger.
In the Song Dynasty, soldiers also had differences in military service and subordination. For example, the troops in the group are divided into forbidden troops (forbidden soldiers), van soldiers, township soldiers, and clan soldiers. The 800,000 forbidden army in Tokyo refers to the regular army under the direct jurisdiction of the central government, including the palace guards, the protection of the capital and other regular troops that change every three years, just like the feeling that the various armies are together, not ruled by one force. As a result, not all of these armies were stationed in the city.
In the "General Guide to the Continuation of Zizhi", there is also an overview of the number of troops in the Song Dynasty:
In the early years of the Northern Song Dynasty, the palace front and the guards Ma Busi were forbidden to travel more than 100,000 people, Gao Li had to be used, the military and government were slack, and at the end of Jing Kang (Song Qinzong's era name), there were only 30,000 guards. And the destruction of the city, there are few left.
It can be seen that the "800,000 Forbidden Army" in "Water Margin" contains very large water. In addition, these soldiers are basically recruited from the famine refugees, the value of force can be imagined, and it is far from enough to resist the strong and long-planned Jin people.