When watching TV series or film and television works about history, we can often find that once the ancient army went out to conquer a certain place, it would always give priority to the passes on the road that must be passed, and basically would not choose to bypass them first, and first bypass the casualties under the many unnecessary strong passes. Or is this just the subjective assumption of the TV series editors - for the development of the plot?
If someone really thinks that it may be the ancient people who are stupid in fighting, if I can do it, I may underestimate the ancient people, as to whether it is the subjective assumption of the editor, it is also very obvious that it is absolutely impossible - because there are indeed many classic examples of warfare in Chinese military history, often first remove the passes before the place of attack, so that the next step can be completely carried out, that is, to march towards the target.
So why is this being done? Is there any useful value in doing so? Many people have strong doubts about such a problem, after all, the loss of troops required to fight a pass will be a very big gamble, this kind of gamble, not every time you can gamble to win, there are many times, there will be no return - the reason why it is called a pass, often because the terrain of this place is dangerous, and it is stationed with heavy troops. For example, Tiger Prison Pass was a place that had to be fought over by successive generations of soldiers, so Qin Shi set up a pass with its land danger.
Therefore, attacking such a heavy place, it is impossible to fight without losing a few layers of skin, and even if you lose several layers of skin and lose countless troops, you cannot guarantee that you can take this pass 100%. This is obviously a serious asymmetry of investment and return, but anyone with a normal IQ will feel seriously unequal. But they (the ancient warriors) were still happy to do so.
Let's get to the bottom of the matter, and it's clear that there must be a pain in this situation where investment is not proportional to returns. What is such a pain?
The answer is that once you bypass the enemy's pass, it means that you have completely surrendered your back to the pass.
As we have just mentioned above, in general, this kind of pass, in addition to the dangerous terrain, also has the characteristics of stationing heavy troops - that is, when you attack your target wholeheartedly, there is a heavy soldier hovering behind you, ready to insert a knife at any time, asking you if you are afraid or not?
The most important thing is that even if your army is strong enough, the division of troops refuses, and the knife is blocked by stabbing the knife in the back, does your army need to eat? As long as the army is still in the human physiological category, eating is indispensable, then the sharp knife behind this can choose to cut off your food.
In other words, we can say that the enemy in Guankou City has two choices: one option is to directly attack you from both sides and suffer from the enemy on your stomach and back; the other option is even more interesting, directly annihilating the convoy you have come to escort the grain and grass, and cutting off all logistical supplies of your large troops.
Let's look at the first option, suppose you lead a large army around a pass and directly to the place you want, and the defenders of this fortress only need to fight with the defenders of that stronghold in full swing, and suddenly come down like a tiger, kill from behind, and almost immediately turn into a large-scale rout.
Let's look at the second option, suppose you bring a super large army, you don't have to worry about the first situation just said, you believe that even if that first situation occurs, the reserves you leave behind in the rear will be enough to be able to repel the defenders, which is very good, then the generals who remain at the pass will choose a very clever means - cut off your food.
Because of the backward productivity of ancient times, grain and grass could only be transported by land or water, and it was impossible to transport by air, so this created an opportunity for the defenders of the pass left behind to cut off your grain and grass. Once the grain and grass are cut off, then your previous so-called super-large-scale army superiority will become your nightmare.
As the saying goes, there are more than 10,000 people, and the mountains are everywhere, you just need to imagine how terrible it will be for you to have a super-large army's daily food consumption, and you can calculate how far you are to collapse?
In fact, there is a choice missing above, and there is a third option, which is even more tragic, that is, the pass that you bypassed, and it is possible to attack you from the rear and cut off your food, so that in a two-pronged approach, your army will lose faster, and you later concluded that the reason for your failure was only because you did not attack the pass in front of you, but chose to bypass it in order to save the so-called loss.
In order to facilitate everyone's understanding, I will take an ancient city as an analogy, such as Yangzhou City in the Song Dynasty, since you plan to fight Yangzhou City, then, the fortresses of Yangzhou City, Gaoyou, Baoying, and Jiangdu, you all chose to give up and bypass it directly.
Then again, since you plan to attack Yangzhou City, then the army in your hands should not be less than 40,000 people, considering the people you need, then conservatively estimate that you will have 60,000 people, considering that since China's economic center of gravity has shifted south, there has been a situation in Yangzhou. Therefore, at this time, Yangzhou City must be a very strong city - what is Xiongcheng? That is to say, this city is high and deep, it is difficult to defend, and the soldiers, soldiers, food and grass are sufficient, and the morale of the army is strong, so we will break through such a city according to the most ideal situation, and you will need two months. Sixty thousand people eat, three meals a day, one meal is half a kilogram, a day of rice consumption of almost 100,000 kilograms, two months is nearly ten million kilograms. What do you think? Doesn't that sound exciting?
At this time, the local defenders from behind you, Jiangdu, and Gaoyou have gone out to cut off your grain, so that as an army leader, you have to continue the time of grain consumption by reducing the number of meals that soldiers eat, we estimate that your grain can still last for a month, in this month's time, you do not have a good chance to seize grain (because before ancient battles, you often have a strong wall and clear the field), you feel that in this situation of food shortage, Can your army still guarantee to break through yangzhou within two months?
What's more, in addition to the grain, there are also a large number of horse materials, weapons, armor, shoes and hats, siege equipment from the rear... Coupled with the horror to the staggering shipping costs, what do you think you're fighting this battle for? Is it just to drag your home country down? If not, if the battle is fought like this, is it time to withdraw?
Very well, now that you are finally planning to retreat, do you think that when you retreat, the defenders from Baoying Gaoyou Jiangdu and the defenders of Yangzhou will not react? Of course they have their own reaction, and this reaction is to hit you on both sides and make you fall apart.
Therefore, the ancient war was not as simple as we thought, and not going around the switch pass was purely for military reasons. If bypassed, the army battle will be doubly difficult, in order to fight better in the future, most of the managers are steady and steady.