It is important to note that the larger the organization, the more difficult it is to manage and drive, and the military is the most important representative of it.
If you open the historical texts, you will find that in history, battles with a million troops are often easily defeated.
For example, the Battle of Chibi, the Battle of Shuishui, and the Battle of Kunyang. Before the start of this kind of battle, the losing side claimed to have millions of people, but the result was a big defeat, and some even destroyed the country.
So here comes another question, what kind of conditions did the ancient dynasty need to train an army, and if it was a strong country, how many soldiers and horses could it raise?
Among the many ancient dynasties, if the strongest military force is said, it is probably the Qin Dynasty.
Because the Qin Dynasty faced the most chaotic and complex period in Chinese history, it was impossible to unify the six kingdoms without a strong military force. Moreover, the ancient books also have a very profound description of the combat effectiveness of the Qin State, called "the master of tigers and wolves".
Then, according to the records of the "Warring States Policy", when the Qin and Chu states were at their strongest, there were millions of soldiers, and after the unification of the Qin state, the number of troops was even greater than before, and the number of troops in South Vietnam alone was as many as 500,000.
According to the "Huainanzi" record, after the establishment of the Qin Dynasty, because the First Emperor formulated the strategic policy of attacking from the south to the north, the number of standing troops began to increase gradually.
There are clear records of the 300,000 troops who attacked the Xiongnu in the north, and the 500,000 troops who conquered South Vietnam, plus the defenders and lieutenant armies in various regions, etc., the total strength of the Qin Dynasty was at least 1 million, and may even reach 1.5 million.
So what kind of conditions did Qin Shi Huang need to feed these armies?
The "Art of War and Combat of Sun Tzu" records:
Whoever uses the method of soldiers, gallops a thousand horses, leather cars a thousand times, carries a hundred thousand armor, and feeds grain for thousands of miles. Then the internal and external expenses, the use of guests, the material of glue paint, the service of car armor, the daily fee of thousands of gold, and then the master of 100,000.
Translated to say, in the Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States period, if you want to raise an army of 100,000 people, you need 2,000 vehicles, 100,000 sets of weapons and equipment, 100,000 sets of clothing, grain and grass, and a number of feng lu.
In addition, there are material costs, maintenance and repair costs, etc., so in total, the daily consumption is about one thousand gold.
Only after this standard is met can this army of 100,000 people be able to go to war afterwards.
As we all know, "Sun Tzu's Art of War" is the work of the famous ancient military expert Sun Wu, whose content is rigorous and true, and has high reference value.
So we see that this condition is indeed not generally harsh, if the country does not have a strong economy and agricultural conditions as the basis, it is impossible to feed an army of 100,000 people.
Moreover, this is only the statistics of the infantry, and the cost of cavalry and other branches of the army has not been calculated, otherwise there will be many more costs such as horses.
So we see that if we follow Sun Wu's words, then the First Emperor's more than 1 million troops need to consume ten thousand gold every day. During the Qin Dynasty, the population of the country was about 20 million people, and the main sources of tax revenue were four parts: fields, people, industry and commerce, and servitude.
But even so, in the face of daily military expenditure, it seems to be a bit laborious. For this reason, the First Emperor began to increase taxes, and after his death, Qin II continued to increase, eventually triggering an uprising and overthrowing the Qin Dynasty.
Therefore, if we look back, in the Three Kingdoms period, Cao Cao, for the sake of military expenditure, did not hesitate to leave a curse to set up a special lieutenant to touch the gold, dig graves everywhere, and finally let him raise a strong army.
So if you rely solely on the strength of the state to feed an army of a million, it is indeed very laborious. Therefore, in the Tang Dynasty, the prefectural military system began to be implemented to reduce expenditure from the system.
The so-called prefectural military system means that when there is no war, soldiers act as peasants to cultivate land. In the unlikely event of a war, the soldiers immediately took up arms and followed the army.
Coupled with the relative stability of the Tang Dynasty, the demand for the army was not large, so the standing army at that time was about 300,000 people.
For example, during the "Anshi Rebellion", after the Battle of Tongguan between the two armies, the Tang army lost about 100,000 troops, which led to the shortage of Tang troops, which showed from the side that there were not many Standing Troops of the Tang Dynasty.
However, the prefectural military system is really good if it is placed in peacetime, but it loses its meaning if it is often fought.
Therefore, by the time of the Song Dynasty, especially the Northern Song Dynasty, 70% of the state's financial revenue was spent on military expenses, so the number of troops in the Northern Song Dynasty once reached about 1.25 million people, which shows how difficult it was to provide a large-scale army in ancient times.
References: Sun Tzu's Art of War, History