Editor's note: Since September last year, the Australian mountain forest has been in flames for more than 4 months, burning 52,500 square kilometers and causing about 500 million animal deaths. There are also photos of kangaroo carcasses trapped in barbed wire burned into coke. As the saying goes, water and fire are merciless, fire often causes huge losses to the ecological environment and human civilization, and ancient armies have also noticed the power of fire, and the number of times fire has been used in wars in history, and its forms and tools are complex. ???? According to statistics, in China's successive wars from the Spring and Autumn Period to the end of the Qing Dynasty, as many as 370 fire attacks have been recorded in the annals of history (Liu Siqi's "On The Fire Attack in Ancient China"), which can definitely be described as "a big household with fire". "Afang Gongfu" is said to be "a torch for the Chu people, poor scorched earth", when Xiang Yu burned the capital of the Qin Dynasty, Xianyang, the fire was burned in March before it was extinguished; at the Battle of Chibi, Cao Cao's army was forced to return due to heavy losses from the fire attack. Historical examples abound.
Sun Tzu's Art of War and Fire Attack once recorded five types of fire attacks, except for the "burning man" who burned the enemy's men and horses, the rest all pointed to the enemy's logistics. At this time, gunpowder, oil and other substances had not yet been widely used in war, so Sun Tzu stressed that the implementation of fire attacks must rely on strong winds and dry weather. The earliest record of the use of fire in China appears in the seventh year of the Duke of Lu Huan (705 BC), when the State of Lu attacked the State of Lou and burned the State of Lou with firewood. However, in the Spring and Autumn Period, the ignition material was mainly firewood, and it was difficult to quickly ignite enemy materials, so fire attacks were not widespread in the Spring and Autumn Period, and only seven times were recorded.
▲ Wildfires in Australia
By the Warring States period, people began to use plant, animal and mineral ointments for ignition, which also popularized the fire attack method. The soldier attaches a fireball to the connection between the shaft and the arrow and shoots it out after it is ignited. This method of warfare was based on the development of crossbows and the improvement of arrows, in which soldiers fired incendiary rockets at walls and chariots to ignite wooden structures. In 299 BC, Tian Dan used the "Fire Bull Array" in the Battle of Jimo, saying that it was only to tie firewood to the tail of the ox and pour ointment on it to ignite, and then let the cattle charge on their own to threaten the enemy.
▲ The fire bull in "Only Wolf" is more chic
By the time of the Three Kingdoms of Qin and Han Dynasties, fire attacks were used in field warfare. For example, in the second year of emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty (99 BC), the Han general Li Ling accompanied Li Guangli on his expedition against the Xiongnu. Li Ling was the grandson of the Fei general Li Guang, who undertook the family revival after the death of his father Li Gan, but at this time Emperor Wu of Han put Li Ling in charge of logistics. In order to make meritorious contributions, Li Ling asked himself to send troops to kill the enemy, saying: "The subject is willing to attack the crowd with less, and the infantry is 5,000 people involved in the court." "Trying to exchange this extreme condition for the opportunity to make a contribution."
▲ Li Ling's film and television image
Li Ling was ordered to set off from Juyan to Junji Mountain, where he immediately encountered the Xiongnu Shan Yu. Shan Yu initially threw 30,000 horses to besiege Li Ling, and Li Ling quickly counterattacked with a crossbow, knocking Shan Yu away. But then, the Xiongnu gathered 80,000 troops to kill again, Li Ling fought and retreated, to the Great Zee reeds, the Xiongnu set fire from the upper hand, and Li Ling ordered to form a separation zone in situ to save himself, and the response was timely and appropriate. However, Li Ling's army was only 5,000 men, and under the continuous attack of the Xiongnu, they suffered heavy losses, and "many soldiers died" and surrendered. (The Book of Han and the Biography of Li Ling)
However, most of the generals of the army at that time did not have the determination of Li Ling. In the sixteenth year of Yongping (73 AD), Ban Chao sent a fire to the Western Regions, he set fire to the Xiongnu emissaries, and ambushed them with crossbowmen to avoid their escape, and the Xiongnu people "clamored back and forth... People are burned to death" (Later Han Shu Ban Chao Biography). Another example is that when Emperor Fusong suppressed the Yellow Turban Rebellion, the Yellow Turban Army "formed camps according to the grass, and it was easy to become wind and fire", and Emperor Fusong decided on a fire attack plan, and the Yellow Turban Army collapsed under the fire, while the Han army took advantage of the situation to annihilate it and "beheaded tens of thousands of levels" ("Later Han Shu Huang Fu Song Biography").
However, the battle of Chibi, which occurred in the thirteenth year of Jian'an (208), should be more well known at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, but the battle of Chibi in history is slightly different from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Most of Cao Cao's army was not used to water warfare for the northerners, and the epidemic broke out in the army at this time, in order to quickly break the Wu and Shu alliance forces to connect the large ships with chains, but this strategy was cao Cao himself came up with. And the history books also do not carry grass boats to borrow arrows, at that time it was "taking dozens of Mongolian chong fighting ships, actually using grass, anointing oil into them, wrapping them in curtains, and building tooth flags", which ignited them when the yellow cover fell and sailed to the lianzhou together, which led to the story of burning Chibi. This method of warfare was later called "fire ship" or "fire boat", and "train" appeared on land. Generally speaking, before the Tang Dynasty, fire attacks generally used salary oil to ignite fires, and the tactics and combat tools used in fire attacks were constantly improved. Until the Tang Dynasty, gunpowder and fierce oil (oil) were put into use, and there was a new development in fire attack, and more efficient incendiary firearms appeared. In the last years of the Tang Dynasty, there was a "flying fire" propelled by gunpowder to burn the city gates, and then the Tang Dynasty's fierce oil was already used to burn the enemy's ladder. Since then, the use of gunpowder and fierce oil in wars has become more and more frequent.
Although the effect of fire is not small, it may cause fires throughout the mountains and cause great damage to the ecological and human environment. For example, the city of Carthage has been hit by fire 4 times in history, and it is ultimately difficult to continue to repair and abandoned; luoyang ancient capital has suffered many city ruins in history, and local vegetation and buildings have been destroyed on a large scale due to fire attacks. In the first year of Baoying (762), He returned to Luoyang to plunder, "the fire is not extinguished" (Zizhi Tongjian, vol. 222), "the palace is burned, and ten do not exist one" (Old Book of Tang, vol. 120). The Luoyang area alone suffered 11 fire attacks during the Tang Dynasty I. After being tired of the military disaster, the Luoyang area "its pond bamboo trees, military vehicles trampled, abandoned as hills and ruins." The pavilion was high, the fireworks burned and turned into ashes" (Shao's Smell of the Afterword, Vol. 3), and the environment was greatly damaged. (Wu Jiazhou, "Study on Forest Transformation in Luoyang Area of the Tang Dynasty")
Even if it is separated from the fire attack, the war itself will cause great damage to the vegetation, and even cause widespread fires. The Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms, The Biography of Xun Yu, says: "Now that wheat has been harvested in the East, it will be cleared of walls to wait for the enemy." "Jianbi Qingye is composed of two parts, Jianbi and Qingye, the latter of which is to hinder the enemy army by destroying all kinds of supplies that may exist in the field of the city, and this measure is mostly in the northern and northwestern regions of China, and has caused a considerable impact on the local ecological environment, and to a certain extent, aggravated the local desertification process." To this end, during the Song Dynasty, both the Song and Xia dynasties explicitly ordered that as far as possible, they should avoid the action of clearing the wilderness, so as to avoid causing devastating damage to the fragile vegetation in the area.
▲ Song Renzong's fire attack will cause great damage to the environment, and the spreading fire may not be controlled. Although successive dynasties have tried to control the environmental damage caused by man-made and natural fires through the formulation of corresponding laws, they have not been able to prevent fires when wars occur, so they often cause huge damage.
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