Speaking of China's Song Dynasty, it is really a very magical dynasty, and people who like it praise its economy as the most of China's feudal dynasties, and those who do not like it say that its low force is the highest of China's feudal dynasties. However, why was the Song Dynasty rich and oily, but why was it always beaten by nearby countries on the ground?
Economy of the Song Dynasty
As the saying goes, the economic base determines the superstructure, how developed was the economy of the Song Dynasty? How rich was the Song Dynasty? First of all, during the Song Dynasty, the economy was very prosperous, agriculture, machinery, printing, papermaking,
The porcelain industry has made significant developments. Among them, the navigation industry is firmly at the top level in the world, which also led to the development of maritime trade in the Song Dynasty, such as the famous Maritime Silk Road, which connected the Song Dynasty and more than 50 countries in the South Pacific, the Middle East, Africa, Europe and other regions.
The development of maritime trade, coupled with the southern song dynasty, allowed the Song Dynasty to begin to develop the south on a large scale, such as Quanzhou and other places, so that China's economic center began to move south from the original Beijing. What did such an economy mean for the Song Dynasty? The highest financial income of the Song Dynasty was more than 60 million yuan
Commercial taxes account for about 70% of total fiscal revenue.
For example, the territory of the Ming Dynasty was several times that of the Song Dynasty, but the total economic income was
The highest income of the Northern Song Dynasty was one-twentieth, and the Southern Song Dynasty was one-fifth, but it was more than three hundred years later. Later, by the Qing Dynasty, China's population had been surveyed by 300 million people, two to three times that of the Song Dynasty, but the annual supply at the end of the Qing Dynasty was only the same as that of the Song Dynasty. According to common sense, a rich economy can often enhance national strength, so that the treatment of the army is good, naturally it can win the war, but why is the Song Dynasty still that way? There were even a dozen golden horses to destroy the Song soldiers?
Song Dynasty military
This is because the founding of the Song Dynasty was more awkward. As we all know, Zhao Kuangyin is a military general on the throne, according to the nature of the ancient Chinese dynasties, how the former dynasty destroyed the country, the later dynasty will guard against it, so Zhao Kuangyin is very afraid that his soldiers will appear another self, and then there is a famous cup of wine to release the military power incident. However, the release of military power by a glass of wine was not a simple event, it had a huge impact on the subsequent military development of the Song Dynasty.
Because, at that time, after the founding of the Song Dynasty, the impact of the chaos of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms had just ended, and the unified regime that had just been established was still unstable, although at the beginning of the founding of the Song Taizu Country, the military was still relatively strong, but soon with the release of the military power with a cup of wine, great changes occurred. In order to strengthen his own power and further strengthen the central authority, Song Taizu carried out a huge reform of the military system of the Song Dynasty.
First of all, it is
During the Northern Song Dynasty, the emperor directly controlled the construction, mobilization and command of the army. The remaining military power was then administered by three institutions, the Privy Council was the highest military leading body, in charge of military power and the issuance of military orders; the Three Yas, also known as the Dianqian Command Division, the Guards Horse Army Division, and the Guards Infantry Division, were the highest command organs in the central song dynasty, leading the Forbidden Army and the Van Army of the Song Dynasty respectively; and the leading ministers, the generals temporarily appointed when the Forbidden Army went out on expeditions or towns, and the Forbidden Army, which was divided into three departments, was abolished.
However, such a setup directly led to the fact that the generals of the three armies of the Song Dynasty did not have the power to send troops. For, as mentioned above, the Privy Council is the supreme military leading organ,
The mobilization of the army, the mobilization of the war, the command of the war, etc. are all the responsibilities of the Privy Council, and at the same time they also lead the work of the military department.
But what kind of people are the members of the Privy Council? It's a civilian, how does a civilian lead the military? After all, there are specializations in the art industry, not to mention that most civilian officials have never been to the battlefield, and a large part may have to talk on paper.
More importantly, the Privy Council is directly responsible to the Emperor himself, and no one else can interfere with the Privy Council. But the Privy Council can send troops, can not lead troops, the generals of the three armed forces can lead the troops, but they can not send troops, so what does this lead to? Directly caused
Separation of the right to unify the troops from the right to transfer troops,
The general sent troops to ask for instructions, and then the Privy Council agreed to issue them a military order, but is this a war? What does it take to fight a war? Relying on one step ahead of others, if there is nothing to ask for instructions, the fighter has long been delayed! Everyone has knocked on the door, and they still have to ask for instructions, so it is strange that they will not lose the war!
Even more outrageous, the Song Dynasty often changed the generals to prevent the emergence of individual forces in the army, and the commanders of the war zone during the war were civilian officials or eunuchs. If the tactics of war were to be changed, the general Bingming Emperor would need to change it with his consent, and then the civilian or eunuch would intervene when he was the commander of the theater. In this way, this one inserts a hand, that one inserts a hand, the fighter is delayed, the mobilization is troublesome, and the Song Dynasty's combat strength is not damaged.
What's more, even the best soldiers can't stand changing the general all the time. After all, soldiers also need to adapt to the general's combat style, this just adapted, finished, replaced, and then have to adapt again, adapt to adapt to go, people are blindfolded, when fighting a war, they want to make their own new deployment of the general, the combat effectiveness is not affected, it is strange. Moreover, the newly replaced generals do not know where their subordinates have advantages and where they have weaknesses, and they must also adapt to understand, and this adaptation of the two sides will take a lot of time, which is another kind of damage to combat effectiveness!
"Yuan Rong did not know whether his generals could do it, and the generals did not know the bravery and cowardice of the three armies, and each did not govern each other, so as to humble himself."
The arms of the Song Dynasty
In addition, the military branches of the Song Dynasty were also an important reason for the poor combat effectiveness of the Song Army. Song dynasty
What does it mean that the Song Dynasty implemented a voluntary conscription system? That is to say, the imperial court recruited displaced people and starving people as soldiers, which is also a traditional national policy, and it also has an important welfare role in solving the problem of displaced people. After recruiting soldiers, divide them into four types:
That is, the forbidden army, the van army, the township soldiers, and the clan soldiers. The Forbidden Army was the central army and the main force of the Song Dynasty army. The Van Army was a town soldier in each state, controlled by the local governor. The township soldiers are Zhuang Ding who are drawn according to the organs. The clan soldiers were non-Han ethnic armies defending the border, that is to say, the various forces had their own soldiers and horses, which also led to difficulties in transferring troops and trouble in changing generals.
Moreover, in the structure of the Song Dynasty's troops, infantry was the mainstay, and cavalry was also there, but there were very few, and the cavalry was basically in a state of rapid extinction. At the same time, coupled with the fact that the north was taken by the Jin people, there was no suitable climate, grain and grass to raise excellent war horses, so that it was impossible to develop cavalry, but the Liao state and the Jin state were famous for cavalry, so that the heavy armored cavalry, for the infantry, the Song Dynasty infantry would be frustrated no matter how strong, which was also the main reason for the demise of the Song Dynasty.
Therefore, although the economy of the Song Dynasty was rich and very rich, no matter how rich it was, no matter how willing it was to throw money, it could not fundamentally change the military system of the Song Dynasty, so it would be strange not to be pressed to the ground by nearby countries!