Vast, flat sand is boundless, and no one is seen. The river is haunting, the mountains are disputed. The gloom is miserable, and the wind is sad. The grass is dry and frosty. Birds can't fly, beasts are dead. The pavilion chief told Yu Yue: "This ancient battlefield also often covers the three armies. Often ghosts cry, and the sky is cloudy and smells. ”
The above fragment is excerpted from the Tang Dynasty Li Hua's "Hanging Ancient Battlefield Text", which is very famous because it truly depicts the desolation and misery of the ancient battlefield and the cruelty and bloodshed of war. In ancient times, wars often broke out, and wars were cruel, and people looked forward to the end of the war. After the end of the war, there is still an important task to be done, that is, to clean up the battlefield.
So, who usually cleans it?
If it is a protracted war, after each battle, the two sides will send a small number of soldiers to clean up, otherwise, the position is full of corpses, how to continue to fight. And these soldiers who clean up the battlefield cannot be attacked, which is the customary rule of the two sides, which is equivalent to "the two sides fight, do not cut it to make it".
If it is an encounter or the war is officially over, the losing side, it is too late to escape, and it is certainly not in the heart to clean up the battlefield. Therefore, the battlefield can only be cleaned by the victorious side. In the army, there are also soldiers who are specially responsible for cleaning the battlefield.
So, what is generally to be done to clean up the battlefield?
First, check life and death
First of all, the soldiers have to check whether there are any of their own personnel on the battlefield who are still alive. When they were discovered, they were immediately transported to the barracks for treatment. Of course, you must also pay close attention to dense jungles or mountains, which are easy to hide, pay attention to whether there are enemy soldiers who are not dead, and if you encounter them, just kill them.
It should also be noted that the dead bodies on the battlefield have different clothing from ordinary soldiers, which may be high-ranking generals. At that time, you can report to the imperial court and receive more rewards.
2. Captured materials
The soldiers and horses did not move, and the grain and grass went first, which shows that grain and grass are particularly important for war. After the end of a general war, the losing side often only cares about fleeing for its life, and does not care about the weight of grain and grass. At this time, the victorious side can use these as spoils of war and use them in their own barracks.
The official documents and letters that are counted need to be handed in, because the general can understand the enemy's combat intentions according to this information and make the next operational arrangements.
At the beginning of the Battle of Guandu during the Three Kingdoms period, Cao Cao's army was short of food, and Cao Cao had planned to retreat, but fortunately he finally persevered and won the final victory, harvesting a large amount of grain and solving the problem.
Moreover, Cao Cao was still in Yuan Shao's military camp and found that many people in his team had written letters to Yuan Shao, which was suspected of collaborating with the enemy, which was important intelligence. But the clever Cao Cao burned all these letters.
3. Recover weapons
War, very much need money. In ancient times, productivity was low, and it not only took money but also time to build weapons. In the face of discarded weapons on the battlefield, they need to be picked up and transported back. So, if the weapon breaks down, will it still be? Also needed. Because these weapons can also be handed over to the blacksmith and rebuilt, which can save a lot of materials.
4. Dispose of corpses
Disposing of corpses also needs to be an important part of cleaning up the battlefield. Because over time, the body will decay, not only does it smell bad, but it may also produce plague and other diseases to spread, causing large-scale casualties. For corpses on the battlefield, there are generally the following methods of disposal:
bury
This is the most common method, and Chinese also pay attention to the safety of the ground. However, because of the war, the method is also very simple. Dig a big pit, throw all the bodies into it, and fill it with soil.
In ancient history books, there are many records of "pit killing". Many people mistakenly think that they are buried alive. In fact, this is not right, and what it means will be mentioned below.
cremate
The method of cremation and disposal of corpses also appeared relatively early in China, and it existed in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. "Mozi" records: "Those who have a country of yiqu in the west of Qin, whose relatives die, gather firewood and burn it, and smoke it, which is called ascending."
Cremation disposes of the body, which is more convenient than burial, and does not require too much effort, and a fire is burned. When Nurhaci attacked ningyuan city, the war was very fierce. The defender of the city was the famous general Yuan Chenghuan, and there were Hongyi cannons on the city wall. After several attacks by the Houjin army, the casualties were huge, and the corpses were all over the field, and the Houjin army was advancing on the corpses of their companions. Later, the soldiers were reluctant to attack the city, and Nurhaci had no choice but to set up a crematorium next to it and burn the recovered corpses.
, the corpse in the wild
Although not disposing of the body, it can create a lot of problems. But sometimes, the bodies are exposed directly to the wilderness, left to be bitten by wild beasts, or the corpses are decomposing. Because after the war, as the victorious side, you may have to hurry to the next battlefield. Of course, there are also some generals who want to save trouble and ignore the corpse.
Like the Three Kingdoms period, when wars were frequent, Cao Cao's poem "White bones are exposed in the wild, and there is no chicken chirping for thousands of miles", which truly reflects the situation of corpses strewn across the field at that time. Similarly, there are related sentences in the "Hanging Ancient Battlefield Text": "Corpses are on the shore of Palembang, and blood is full of caves on the Great Wall." Nobility, no low, the same dry bones. ”
, Chikukyo-kan
War is a cruel and bloody game. The victorious side naturally wants to show off its battle achievements. At the end of the Ming Dynasty, Zhang Dai said in the "Night Sailing Ship": "Jing, called Gao Qiuye; View, que type also. The ancients killed thieves and fought against the corpses, and they would build the Beijing Temple, thinking that they were the places where the corpses were hidden. Ancient battle sites are there. ”
The construction of the Jingguan, that is, the accumulation of the corpses of the enemy troops, the compaction of the soil, and the construction of mounds, also originated in the Spring and Autumn Period. According to the "Left Biography," when King Zhuang of Chu led his troops to fight, someone advised him: "Jun yan built a military army, and collected the corpses of Jin as Jingguan." It can be seen that at that time, the victor chikuged the Capital Temple was a very normal thing.
The pit killing recorded in the history books is also the meaning of Chikugyokan. Many people understand it as being buried alive, which is not true. In fact, the "History" is written as "阬殺", "阬" is the meaning of the tall gatehouse, and "Guan" also has the meaning of the gatehouse, which is connected with "Que", and "阬" and "坑" are the same, so later generations often write "pit killing".
For example, in the Battle of Changping, Bai Qi "pit killed" 400,000 troops. If it is understood to be buried alive, so many soldiers will certainly resist, and even if they do not resist, they will need to dig very large pits, which is very laborious.
There are still many people on the Internet who believe that in ancient times, when cleaning the battlefield, sometimes corpses were used as military food, this view is not correct. War is cruel, there are many records in the history books, when defending the city, if the grain is eaten, it will often kill people and eat, but cleaning the battlefield will not. Because the war is won, if there is a shortage of grain and grass, there will be many ways to solve it.
Text: Ink feathers
References: "History", "Zuo Zhuan", "Night Sailing Ship", "Hanging Ancient Battlefield Text"
The text was created by the History University Hall team, and the picture originated from the Internet and the copyright belongs to the original author