In most historical strategy games, war is the eternal main theme.
For games that often use war as a means of ultimate victory, the function of other subsystems (such as internal affairs) is usually manifested in providing a variety of numerical values at the military level. What the player has to do is to press a combination of different buttons between different panels.
The influence of the player's characters on internal affairs is generally reflected in the numerical value. That is, some buttons work a little, and some buttons may be a side effect of shooting down - such as the famous master book Lü Bu. The identity of this "confidential secretary" is more often proof given by Ding Yuan to his cronies, if he really wants Lü Bu to do clerical work...
via B station UP observer Bu observation of "Human High Quality Righteous Son"
But in fact, not all military generals can't do a good job of civilian work. In reality, the ruler also does not have the player's god perspective, and all "operations" are actually done through the knowledge and ability to govern the country's civilian officials and bureaucratic systems at all levels.
Without the existence of bureaucracies at all levels, even the "buttons" themselves might have disappeared — and the matter of internal affairs may be much more complicated than you might think.
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Friends who are familiar with the history of war may know more or less about Clausewitz's "Theory of War."
This is arguably the most important theoretical work in Western military history, and its most significant feature is that, unlike previous military works, which focused on specific logistical, tactical, strategic and other "technical issues", it discusses the fundamental issues of war.
One of the most important points is the idea of "absolute war", that is, the idea of war as part of the activity of society as a whole. This also gave birth to the concept of "total war", that is, in order to achieve victory at any cost, a country needs to mobilize in multiple dimensions at the same time - not only military wrestling, but diplomatic, political, economic and other comprehensive levels of competition.
The English name of the well-known RTS game Total War series is actually "Total War"
The concept of total war is also relative to the concept of limited war in the medieval European countries of "point to point, see good and receive". However, in the history of our country, it is more common for this kind of war to be a war that determines the life and death of the country.
The Qin state of "everything that serves the war" and classical militarism may be called the prototype of the "total war". According to the Book of Shang Jun, the three armies of the Qin State were "one army for strong men, one army for strong women, and one army for the old and weak of men and women." In addition to recruiting prime-age men to join the army, non-combatants are also heavily used for logistics such as transportation, horse breeding, and cooking.
This practice of all the people being soldiers and participating in wars at different levels of society was also reflected in the Three Kingdoms period of the Han and Wei Dynasties. The cornerstone of the existence of this political entity of the Shu Han Dynasty was that "the former emperor was worried that the Han and the thieves were not separated, and the king was not biased", so since Zhuge Liang's Northern Expedition, he has been implementing the policy of "no age and no conquest" similar to the overall war.
Although the focus of military history in literary and artistic works is generally on the level of war, it does not mean that other dimensions do not exist. Zhuge Liang, who was able to bow down to the national strength of the Shu Han Dynasty to exhaust the Northern Expedition, the efforts made at the internal political level can be said to be immeasurable. As the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Zhuge Liang's Biography" records:
"Zhuge Liangzhi is a xiangguo, caressing the people, showing etiquette, covenanting official positions, obeying the power system, being open-minded, and preaching justice."
In this short paragraph, it is clear from the three levels of economy, politics and society what "internal affairs" really are. Therefore, after that, there was "Three years of spring, Liang led the people to march south, and its autumn was peaceful." When military funds are given, the country is rich, and it is the rule of the army that teaches the use of force, so as to make a big move. ”
In the "three years", that is, in 225 AD, Zhuge Liang began his journey to the south to prepare materials for the first Northern Expedition. The export of Shu Jin and the tribute of the Southern Barbarians also provided an indispensable boost to the military expenditure of the Northern Expedition.
However, judging from the historical results, "the country is rich" may be just an inspiring slogan, just as the "Table of Teachers" says "Yizhou is tired", and several Northern Expeditions have been interrupted due to the difficulty of material resources.
This is not to blame future generations of netizens to Zhuge Liang out of ideas, will fantasize "if Zhuge Liang unlimited supply of instant noodles will not be successful."
In addition to economic construction, appraisal officials, indoctrination of the people, agricultural production, diplomatic skills... These large and small details all form part of the "total war".
However, regarding whether a person's internal affairs are done well or not, some details are not different from traditional impressions, such as Pang Tong's benevolent brother.
In the fifty-seventh time in the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", there is a "Fengchi Director", saying that Pang Tongtian finished the work that had accumulated a hundred days of backlog in Leiyang County, so as to show the ability of Fengchi.
But Pang Tong in the canonical history is probably not a technocrat who is familiar with internal affairs. Befriending many famous eastern Wu scholars, he was more like the hub of Shu Han diplomacy and interpersonal relations, for example, the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Pang Tong Biography" records that after Zhou Yu's death, Pang Tong went to Eastern Wu on behalf of the Shu state to mourn, and talked freely with a man named Sun Wu official Gu Shao.
Gu Shao was the son of the famous minister Gu Yong, the son-in-law of Sun Ce, and an important cultural official in Eastern Wu. In the chat, Pang Tong said:
"Cultivating the world, refining the characters, I am not as good as the Qing; on the secret strategy of the emperor, I seem to have a long day."
It means that in the worldly officialdom, which person can do which person can't, I am not as good as you. But I'm probably a little better than you at giving your boss ideas and ideas.
As for whether this little bit is real or polite, we don't know. However, from the historical data, Pang Tong not only failed to turn right when he took charge of the Yang Order, but also was dismissed by the old leader Zhuge Liang, probably not very good at political affairs.
"The first lord leads Jingzhou, and the whole is engaged in the shouyang order, and the county is not ruled, and the official is dismissed."
However, due to the lack of basic historical materials studied, the "other dimensions of war" in the Three Kingdoms period are still in a situation of insufficient details - after all, due to the lack of historians and the inability to repair history, the Shu Han Dynasty did not even record the most basic official system completely. If it were not for the excavation of Wu Jian in the Ma Lou, the economic history of Sun Wu's regime may also become a permanent blank.
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This lack of historical materials and research not only makes it difficult for us to see the governance logic behind the conquests of many regimes in the Three Kingdoms period, but also has a somewhat one-sided subjective impression of the historical figures of the Three Kingdoms.
In fact, some of the characters who are portrayed as civilian officials in the rendition actually hold military positions. Some military generals who have gone down in history are qualified to lead soldiers because they have done a good job in civilian work.
The first thing to mention is Zhang Zhao. This famous eastern Wu minister, who in the hearts of many people is the image of a white-bearded old man, is actually a big figure in the military and government of the Wu state who "grasps it in one hand". During the period when Sun Ce was in power, Zhang Zhao was already a general in the Fu Army, and finally when it came time to return the military power to the old man, he was also worshipped as the auxiliary Wu general, which was the "Three Divisions of Banya", that is, a position second only to Taiwei, Sikong and Situ.
As a major minister who had long held the military and political power of Sun Wu, in terms of functions alone, Zhang Zhao actually did the same things as Zhuge Liang and Sima Yi. However, perhaps because of the lack of military talent and the difference in strategic guidelines, Zhang Zhao, who did not have a record of achievements, did not leave his name in military history.
Similarly, there are also some fierce generals who are "brave and brave" in our impression, and may also do quite well in clerical or internal affairs.
For example, Huang Gai, a fierce general who was remembered for his bitter meat, was first remembered by the leaders, in fact, because of the outstanding government work.
The image of Huang Gai in The New Three Kingdoms
Nearly two-thirds of the pages of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms and The Biography of Huang Gai are devoted to Huang Gai's political exploits as a local governor. "Initially as a county official, Cha Xiaolian, and Gongfu", Huang Gai did all civilian work in his early years, and then he was sent to Shanyue to be a magistrate - in fact, which county had a problem, he went there to make a touring county order.
When he was in Shicheng County, Huang Gai was also polite, saying that he did not understand civilian work, and handed over the power to the officials, and as a result...
"At the beginning of the buwe, the night is a tribute." For a long time, the officials ignored the documents and gradually tolerated personnel. ”
That is, after too long, his subordinates thought that Huang Gai really did not read the documents and did not understand the business, and began to neglect official business and frantically touch the fish. In fact, Huang Gai quietly recorded all his mistakes in a small book, picked a day to give his subordinates a feast at the gate, and asked the officials one by one for doing something wrong here and there, and pinching the bureaucrats at all levels to death.
Huang Gai successively served as a county commander in nine counties, and finally was promoted to Danyang Du Lieutenant and began to command the battle. However, looking at the existing historical data, in addition to offering a fire meter to Zhou Yu, Huang Gai's greatest battle achievement recorded is only to command a small battle of several hundred people in Wuling County, which can be said to be a down-to-earth "technocrat".
Compared with Huang Gai, it should be Deng Ai who has made more tricks in the internal affairs work. Although the most widely known battle record was "smuggling Yin Ping and taking the Shu Han directly", Deng Ai, who was born as a peasant official, was actually entrusted with the most important task of building agricultural water conservancy in the southeast region of the Wei state.
Compared with the More Political (mainly punitive) Shubian Tuntian system of the Han Dynasty, Cao Wei's Tuntian system can be said to be the cornerstone of the country's "overall war", aimed at protecting the country's agricultural resources, actively encouraging production, and laying a good economic foundation for future protracted wars.
As the official who implemented this policy in the most orderly manner, Deng Ai also wrote a "Treatise on the Jihe River" that expounded the detailed policy of controlling water in Tuntian and provided a detailed operational guide for the government.
Deng Ai's skill in "Three Kingdoms Killing" is "Tun Tian"
Tuntian not only found an outlet for the reform of Cao Wei's tax system, but also helped resettled displaced people, ensuring self-sufficiency on the border and undisturbed military and civilians, so that the "overall war" gained a supreme advantage in the economy:
"Shui Feng often collects three times as much as the west, calculates the crowd fee, and at the end of the year, five million Hu is considered to be military funds." In six or seven years, 30 million can be accumulated on Huaishang, and this is a five-year food for 100,000 people. ”
The outstanding internal political ability of "military generals" such as Deng Ai in government work also became the key to the Cao Wei regime's accumulation of economic advantages and repeated victories in foreign wars.
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Therefore, although the distinction between "civil and military" officials in later literary and artistic works is obvious, in actual history, many famous military generals did not have such a specific functional distinction.
Professor Fang Zhenhua's "Power Structure and Cultural Identity: The Relationship between Culture and Martial Arts in the Tang and Song Dynasties" wrote that the early Tang Dynasty civil and military officials seemed to have distinguished their functions, but in fact inherited the tradition of "unity of culture and martial arts" since the Six Dynasties of Han and Wei.
It was not until the time when Wu Zetian was in power and after the abolition of the prefectural military system that the civil and military officials began to divide violently, and there was tension between the military attachés and the imperial court officials in later generations.
Unfortunately, in the game, we rarely see the martial arts general's diligent demeanor in political affairs.
However, there are also historical strategy games that want to reflect the "other side of the samurai". In the sixth anniversary version of the season-based geostrategy game "The Coast of the Land", a new "internal policy system" was introduced.
Under this system, many historical characters who used to show their faces as fierce generals have been given new civilian forms and acquired their own exclusive civilian policy skills.
In addition to leading soldiers to fight, they can also influence the war situation in places other than frontal battlefields such as "soldiers, farmers, industry, and commerce." For example, Deng Ai, who wrote the "Theory of The Jihe River" and perfected Cao Wei Juntun Thought, Wenchen's skills can help the forces to better accumulate grain and reclaim famine and obtain more Tuntian resources; while Hao Zhao, who built a city to defend the country, guarded Chen Cang, and resisted Zhuge Liang's Northern Expedition, after becoming a Wenchen, was able to effectively increase the length of time for the forces to "hold on", thus delaying the war situation and waiting for the fighter plane on the battlefield of racing against the clock.
This new design of characters in line with historical facts also enriches the image of characters in historical games to a greater extent from the side - after all, in the real history of the Three Kingdoms, many heroes have both literary and martial styles.
Although many literary and artistic works remember Zhuge Liang's battlefield exploits in burning Bowang, and also remember his political vision of three points in the world, more characters are inadvertently "one-sided". In fact, whether it was the Cao Wei Wu people who laid the military tun system, or the Jiangdong Shi clan who revitalized the economy of Jiangnan for the Eastern Wu regime, they all made indelible contributions to the war.
These effects outside of war cannot be determined by a purely "political" or "intellectual" value. In "The Coast of the Land", players also need to decide how to use these re-specialized characters according to the needs of the battle situation, so that their eyes will rise from the gains and losses of one city and one pool of war to the overall situation of the entire season of the campaign.
The civil policy of each military general varies from person to person, and it is necessary to judge the selection of talents according to the timing
Therefore, the sixth anniversary version of "The Coast of the Land" is named "Total War", which aims to expand the direct confrontation between the military forces of the two sides into a tit-for-tat confrontation in various fields. In the past, these "dimensions of various fields" became a cookie-cutter process, and eventually the frontal battlefield confrontation became the only core experience of the game.
In the "total war," internal affairs ceased to be a numerical contest in the service of the military, but became a core system that complemented the battle. Players no longer just have to invest more generals with military combat capabilities on the front line to "increase their efforts", and the personnel planning and configuration strategy in the rear has also become an important protracted battle chip. When the outcome of a campaign is no longer limited to the part responsible for the "conquest", even players who like to operate, "farm" and maintain team logistics can find their own exclusive gameplay in the chaotic world.
Perhaps, when the military generals who used to show only the faces of fierce men took off their masks, we knew what they would bring to the rapidly changing battlefield if they could break the enemy on the horse and get off the horse like rafters.