Text|Contains winter and summer
Edit|Contains winter and summer
In the first year of the Baoyuan Dynasty of Renzong of the Northern Song Dynasty, Li Yuanhao, the leader of the party regime in the northwest of the Northern Song Dynasty, was proclaimed emperor and went to the Song Dynasty to be crowned, and the founding name was "Great Xia", which was known as "Western Xia" in history. In the second year of the reign of Emperor Renzong of the Song Dynasty, Li Yuanhao tried to get the Northern Song Dynasty to recognize their independent status, but this request was rejected by the Northern Song Dynasty, so the First Song-Xia War broke out.
The Western Xia began to attack the Shaanxi region of the Song Dynasty, and defeated the Song army in succession in the Battle of Sanchuankou, the Battle of Haoshuichuan, and the Battle of Dingchuanzhai. In the first war of the Song and Xia dynasties, the problems of the Song army's weapons and equipment were reflected, and improvement measures were taken to address the problems existing in weapons and equipment. How did these improvements affect Song Jun?
The weapons and equipment of the Northern Song army in the Western Song Dynasty of Renzong of the Northern Song Dynasty
In the "General Essentials of the Martial Arts" compiled by Zeng Gongliang, Ding Du and others, and the preface of Renzong's pro-system, the weapons and equipment of the Song army of the Renzong Dynasty were recorded in detail, with pictures and texts. The "General Essentials of the Martial Arts" was first published after being approved by Renzong in the fourth year of Qingli. At this time, the Song-Xia War had just ended, and what was contained in the book was the mainstream equipment used by the Song army during the Song-Xia War. The following introduces the weapons and equipment of the Western Northern Song army during the period of Renzong of the Northern Song Dynasty.
Infantry melee weapons of the Song army of the Renzong Dynasty. Among them, the guns used by the infantry are mainly plain wood guns, crow guns, cone guns, and Taining pen guns. The plain wood gun and the crow gun are similar in shape and are the two most widely used spears in the infantry. There is also a cone gun commonly used in the border area, the blade has four edges, quite strong, and the enemy weapon collision will not be broken, because it is shaped like an ear of wheat, so the border people call it a wheat ear gun. The Taining pen gun was developed by the border ministers according to the battlefield feedback, and its characteristic is that a small iron plate with a blade is installed a few inches below the first edge, so that the enemy cannot catch the gun head with his hand during assassination. Because of its shape like a pen, it is called a pen gun. Similar in shape to the Jingrong pen gun, which was a common weapon of the infantry of the Northern and Western Song Dynasty.
There are three main types of knives used by the infantry of the Song army. One is a hand knife with a handle as short as a sword. One is a long-handled single-edged knife, including a bending knife, a phoenix mouth knife, a halberd knife, a glaive knife, an eyebrow tip knife, a pen knife, etc. One is the long-handled double-edged knife, that is, the knife, which is similar to the shape of a ship's oar, and has a two-edged knife and a mountain-shaped knife.
The guns used by the cavalry of the Song army were double-hook guns, single-hook guns, and ring guns. These guns have a hook on the head, which is suitable for immediate grappling, and the gun shaft is ringed to prevent the gun from getting out of hand when used on horseback. The swords used by the cavalry of the Song army were the same as those of the infantry, and they were more suitable for immediate combat.
The Song army was most equipped with bows and crossbows. There are four types of bows: yellow birch bow, black lacquer bow, white birch bow and hemp back bow. Crossbows mainly include stepping crossbows, and are divided into black lacquer crossbows, yellow birch crossbows, white birch crossbows and female yellow birch crossbows according to different decorations. The smaller ones are called stirrup crossbows, also known as small yellow crossbows. Wooden crossbows had a short service life and were rarely equipped in the border armies. There are also many types of arrows, among which steel arrows, rockets, wooden feather arrows, wind feather arrows, and three-stop arrows are widely used.
These arrows are so powerful that they are difficult to pull out once they are fired. In addition, the crossbowmen of the Song army would also be equipped with a sword for self-defense, and the sword body was too long and the spine was too thin in the early stage of the war, which was not suitable for the needs of the battlefield. Later, according to the advice of the border ministers, the sword was improved into a thick-ridged short-bodied sword with a short sword body and a thick sword spine, which received a good response in the army.
In addition to the above main equipment, some powerful generals and soldiers were equipped with blunt weapons such as iron whips, iron maces, iron chain clamps, large axes, and weighted large sticks with hooks. For example, Wang Qi, a brave general of Jingyuan who died in the battle of Haoshuichuan, is known as the "Wang Iron Whip", which is obviously a blunt weapon that he is good at. These blunt weapons can effectively inflict damage on armoured enemy soldiers, and some soldiers have also used them. Although these weapons are equipped in the army, they are not too many. Protective equipment: Infantry uses square side cards, which can cover the entire body in shape, and has excellent protective performance. The cavalry had round side tiles for easy use on horses, and they were all made of wooden skin.
In addition, there are armor that cavalry and infantry are equipped with, which is composed of armor, cape, hanging legs, scarf, and dungeon. There are three types of armor: iron, skin, and paper. The types of armor include gold-coated iron armor, plain armor, bronze armor, ink patent leather armor, and iron body leather secondary armor. The front-line army was dominated by iron and leather armor, and paper armor was equipped with defense archers. At the same time, the cavalry is also equipped with horse armor, which is called a horse armor, and there are types such as money vermilion patent leather horse harness, iron and steel vermilion patent leather horse harness.
Problems in the armament of the Song army
In all three major wars between the Song Dynasty and Western Xia, the Song army ended in defeat. There were many reasons for the defeat of the Song army, but for an army, the importance of weapons and equipment is self-evident. An important reason for the failure of the Song army to win was that there were many problems with its weapons and equipment. Scholars generally believe that the abolition of armaments in the Song Dynasty not only refers to weapons and equipment, but also includes the use of weapons and equipment, and the improper use of weapons and equipment is also a manifestation of the abolition of armaments. The imperial court despised the issue of armament in the long-term peaceful environment of the Renzong Dynasty, which was one of the important reasons for the defeat of the Song army.
The weapons equipped by the Song army at the front were of low quality. In the Song Dynasty, the institutions responsible for the manufacture of weapons were divided into central and local, with the north and south workshops and bow and crossbow courtyards in the center, and the local courtyards. Although a large number of bows, crossbows, knives and guns are produced by local institutes every year, most of them are used to make up the numbers, and there is no strict quality inspection and no accountability system. Completing the prescribed amount of manufacturing every year to cope with errands and then transporting these low-quality weapons to the front line is a complete waste of civilian power, and such weapons are only in vain, and the army cannot effectively kill the enemy by using such weapons, and how can it be undefeated?
The armor of the Song army on the front line was not as strong as that of the Western Xia. In contrast, the armor of the Western Xia was much stronger than that of the Song army. The Western Xia was equipped with a type of armor called the "Monkey Armor". Shen Kuo's record of the production method of the carapace is cold forging, that is, it is directly hammered without fire heating, and the thickness is reduced by two-thirds, and only a small part is not forged, which looks like a raised carapace, so it is called the carapace.
This armor is extremely tough, and it cannot be shot through with a strong crossbow at a distance of fifty paces, and the arrow will roll back when it hits the gap between the armor pieces. This kind of armor does not seem to be original to the Tangut people, but comes from the Qingtang Qiang. But no matter where it came from, the quality of this armor was far superior to that of the Song army, which surprised the Song people, who believed that their artifacts were far superior to those of the Waifan.
The defensive capability of the Song army's armor was not satisfactory, and the main reason for this was that the production process was conservative and lacked innovation. The production process of Song army armor follows the Tang Dynasty and the Five Dynasties period, and there are many types, but there is a lack of technological innovation. Over time, the armor-making process regressed. The institutions responsible for the manufacture of armor, such as the North and South Workshops, failed to perform their duties as producers, resulting in a continuous decline in the quality of the armor, and the armor, which should have strong characteristics, became brittle and soft.
The Qingtang Qizi armor used in Western Xia is visible, soft and tough, and is the product of continuous innovation and specialization. In the era of cold weapons, armor was more important in combat defense than offensive weapons. Therefore, successive dynasties have always forbidden the private possession of armor by the people, otherwise it will be regarded as a rebellion. The quality of the armor directly determines whether the wearer can survive the attack of swords, guns and arrows.
The equipment ratio of the weapons of the Song army on the front line was out of proportion. In addition to the quality of weapons, the imbalance in the ratio of weapons and equipment from near and far in the Song army was also an important factor restricting combat effectiveness. The Song army traditionally focused on bows and crossbows, and both horse and infantry armies were equipped with a large number of bows and crossbows.
More than eighty percent of the cavalry of the Song army were equipped with bows and arrows, and from the point of view of equipment, they should belong to the archers. The mode of combat should be mounted archery or mounted to the combat position and then dismounted and shot. Although these archers all carried a sword, they had no coaches, and their melee skills were worrying. Therefore, the cavalry of the Song army could not give full play to the advantages of the traditional cavalry charging and breaking the formation, that is, to disperse the enemy army, and make full use of the speed of the horse conflict to harvest the enemy army at close range, which was only suitable for killing with bows and arrows at a distance.
Infantry is also similar to cavalry, equipped with more powerful and more suitable crossbows for infantry use. This meant that the Song army was adept at using bows and crossbows to consume the enemy at a distance, and once they were in close contact with the enemy, the few swordsmen and spearmen of the horse infantry army could not defend themselves against the enemy forces at close range. The Song army was equipped with a large number of bows and crossbows, making it more suitable for defending the city, and mobile field battles out of the city were by no means the best strategy.
Because mobile field warfare is very likely to encounter ambushes, it is impossible to always maintain a certain distance from the enemy, and the enemy will take the opportunity to fight closely. The close-quarters combat style will make it difficult for the bow and crossbow to play a stable role like the garrison. The Song army suffered several major defeats in the battle against the Western Xia, all of which were out of the city and surrounded and ambushed by the Western Xia. The Song army could not deal with it effectively, including the main generals, who had to personally hold weapons to kill the enemy. It can be seen that the chaos of the battle and the fierceness of close combat.
The Northern Song Dynasty improved the weapons and equipment of the Song army
The painful military blow caused the Northern Song court to pay attention to the issue of army building, and they searched for the reasons for the defeat of the Song army from all sides, and proposed corresponding specific remedial measures. In the area of weaponry, a number of suggestions were put forward that went straight to the point. In order to improve the combat effectiveness of the Song army, the Northern Song Dynasty began to improve and remedy the problems existing in the above-mentioned weapons and equipment.
Improve the quality and power of your weapons. After several major defeats, the Song finally realized the importance of the quality of weapons for an army. In order to solve the problem of low quality and laborious transportation of some weapons of the Song army, in the second year of Qingli, "Zhaoyan Yan, Huanqing, Jingyuan, and Qinfeng Road were each set up as courtyards" to produce weapons. In addition to saving the civilian labor of transshipment, the manufacture of weapons on the front line of the war will also be of much better quality than that produced by other states and counties for errands, and the reserve of high-quality bows and crossbows will be transferred from the internal arsenal to replace the unqualified bows.
During the period of the Divine Sect, there was a powerful divine arm bow. Not only did the Divine Arm Bow have a long range, reaching more than 240 steps, but it was also far more powerful than the bow and crossbow equipped before, and the shaft of the arrow could shoot into as much as half of the hard elm. This new weapon was a good counterweight to the Tangut armies armed with the Monkey Armor, and could inflict effective damage at long distances.
Increases the armor's protective power. At the same time, the Song army set out to improve the quality of the armor and enhance the protection capacity. As early as the first year of Kangding, the imperial court made light and strong paper armor from the southern paper-producing land. In the Song Dynasty, paper armor was mostly equipped with archers, and this kind of paper armor had a strong ability to protect against arrows, and could well protect the archers who were mainly threatened by enemy arrows. Compared with iron armor, paper armor is not easy to rust due to humidity and is light and strong, making it suitable for equipping naval armies that often fight in the water and in the humid and rainy south.
It can be seen that paper armor is the iconic equipment of the Southern Song Army. Although paper armor has the characteristics of being more flexible when soaked in water, it will also rot and be unusable when soaked in water for a long time. There is relatively little rainfall in Shaanxi, which is one of the reasons why paper armor is installed in Shaanxi on a large scale. However, the limitations of paper armor are destined to not play a good protective role in close combat, and iron armor is the mainstream equipment urgently needed by the front-line army.
In view of the shortcomings of the soft and brittle iron armor of the Song army in the border area, Shaanxi Jingluo appeased the judge Tian Guo and proposed two remedial measures in the first year of Qingli: one is to transform the armor forging technology and set up a reward and punishment mechanism. The Song army learned from Western Xia and Xi also used the method of cold forging to create pure steel armor. The second is to transfer a large amount of armor left over from the Song Taizu period, and after repair, equip the Shaanxi troops.
When the Song-Xia War broke out, seventy or eighty years had passed since the Song Taizu period, but in addition to the leather rope used to connect the armor because of the age breakage, the armor piece was still usable, and it could be equipped immediately after penetration. This can also be seen in the five generations of legacy, five generations of warriors, wars are frequent, the quality of weapons and equipment has also improved, the army of the Song Taizu period is in such a high quality of armor blessing, the integration of five generations of troubled times.
At the same time, every year, the weapons and equipment in stock should be exposed to the sun in the summer, and the damaged armor should be repaired in a timely manner. Hold accountable officials who are negligent in inspecting weapons and equipment.
Increases ranged weapon hits. In view of the objective situation of large-scale installation of bows and crossbows, the Song army did not change the number of bows and crossbows, but tried to give full play to the maximum lethality of bows and crossbows. The Song army was already equipped with a large number of bows and crossbows, and it would be a waste if they were eliminated and replaced with other equipment. Moreover, long-distance combat can ensure the safety of the Song army's lives to the greatest extent. This is also in line with the Song army's tradition of being good at long-range shooting.
In the first year of Qingli, Han Qi, the deputy envoy of Shaanxi Jinglu, proposed the method of using hard training in the army in order to solve the problem of improper use of weapons and equipment in the Song army. Han Qi believes that no matter how strong the bow and crossbow are, not being able to shoot is no different from empty-handed. So he tried to emulate the Xiantang Dynasty, who was full of martial virtues, and abandoned the promotion of martial artists through flashy archery skills, and instead considered simple but reliable practical skills. The so-called real art, that is, there is no superfluous and gorgeous action, archery depends on the number of shots, swords, guns, swords and halberds look at the number of stabs, the more in it, the more exquisite the martial arts, the more martial arts are promoted, so as to form an atmosphere of hard training in the army, the combat effectiveness of the army will naturally be improved, and the effectiveness of weapons can play the greatest role.
Han Qi made detailed requirements and standards for this, no longer blindly worshipping the gorgeous movements and the great fighting power of the bow and crossbow, and began to pursue precision. Depending on the fighting power of each type of bow and crossbow, different shooting requirements are proposed, and rewards are given based on the accuracy of the shooting skills.
Weapons and equipment from near and far are used together. In order to cope with the possibility of close combat, soldiers equipped with crossbows and crossbows are also required to practice Xi use of melee weapons. Han Qi put forward higher requirements for the martial arts of full-time melee gunners and other soldiers, and pursued simplicity and effectiveness close to actual combat. Soldiers were encouraged to use powerful blunt weapons in order to better kill and injure enemy troops when facing a well-equipped Tangut army. Weapons and equipment must be used together to cope with the ever-changing battlefield situation and avoid defeat.
The problems exposed by the weapons and equipment of the Song army have all been improved by targeted measures, and these measures have basically been implemented under the proposal and supervision of the front-line officers, which have solved the problems of the weapons and equipment of the Song army on the front line to a certain extent and enhanced the combat effectiveness of the Song army.
epilogue
Through the war with the Western Xia, the Song army exposed its own problems. The poor quality of weapons made it impossible for the Song army to effectively kill and injure the enemy, the fragile protective equipment increased the risk to the Song army, the imbalance in the ratio of weapons and equipment from near and far made the Song army better at shooting from a distance and less able to fight in close combat, and the low level of martial arts made it impossible for the Song army to exert the power of its weapons. These issues need to be reasonably improved.
Under the advice of the front-line officials, the Northern Song Dynasty court implemented a series of improvement measures. Improve the quality and power of the weapons of the front-line Song army, increase the protection ability of the front-line Song army's armor, and maximize the advantages of the Song army's long-range shooting. In addition, the loading of melee weapons has been upgraded to prepare for melee combat. These measures were designed to enable the Song dynasty to build a strong armed force and better play its role in actual combat.
The problem of weapons and equipment is only the appearance of the cause of the defeat of the Song army, and the root of the problem lies in the fact that the nerves of the preparation for war were paralyzed by the long-term stability in the early stage of the Renzong Dynasty, which led to the neglect and perfunctory prevarication of the relevant institutions on the armament. Therefore, in addition to strengthening weapons and equipment, it is equally important to give full play to the role of these weapons and equipment. It is gratifying that the monarchs of the Northern Song Dynasty recognized this problem and tried to change it, which is one of the reasons why the Northern Song Dynasty was able to suppress the Western Xia in the later period.