Whether it is in time of war or peace, as long as there are armies, a large amount of grain and grass is needed to feed them.
Soldiers are also human beings, and they naturally have to eat when they are not fighting, so why did they consume more food and grass when they fought in ancient times, there are two main reasons for this.
Defend the city: The more food and grass you have, the better
For example, if 100,000 troops were used in a war in ancient times, then the country had to provide enough food and grass for 100,000 men and horses in order to ensure the smooth progress of the war, and the amount of grain and grass was very staggering.
Having enough to eat can do things, not to mention the physically demanding things like fighting, weapons and numbers may sometimes fail to keep up, but the supply of food and grass cannot be ambiguous, which is the most basic factor of victory.
As the saying goes, "the emperor is not bad for hungry soldiers", once the grain and grass are cut off when marching and fighting in ancient times, it is easy to lead to low morale, not to mention, and it will also cause soldiers to mutiny.
This is not the case with the problem of food and grass for the army in peacetime, like the army of the Qin Dynasty and the Tang Dynasty, when there was no war, a considerable number of soldiers needed to engage in agricultural production, and in this way to solve the problem of personal food, it was called the "tuntian system" in history, and the army was a self-sufficient state of half army and half agriculture.
In this case, the state did not allocate the full amount of grain and grass to the army according to the number of troops, and under normal circumstances, the imperial court needed to allocate much less grain and grass than in wartime.
Conquest battle: Soldiers and horses go ahead before the grain and grass are moved
In ancient wars, in addition to defending cities, many times they were fought with troops. In this case, the army needs to carry a large amount of grain and grass with the army for military needs.
An army of 100,000 horses and horses needs not a small amount of grain and grass every day, not to mention that the grain and grass carried by the army will not be just a few days.
And if the war lasts for a long time, it is often necessary to mobilize a large amount of grain and grass from afar.
It takes a lot of manpower and material resources to transport these huge quantities of grain and grass, and the loss and loss cannot be ruled out during the transportation process, and the people who transport the grain and grass themselves also have to eat.
At this time, the ratio of troops to grain and grass was 1:19.
What is the concept of this ratio?
If the grain and grass needed by 1 soldier are transported to the battlefield, the cost of at least 19 soldiers is equivalent to transporting 20 catties of grain, and 19 catties are all thrown on the road.
Therefore, this large-scale transportation of grain and grass during the war will undoubtedly increase the consumption of grain and grass, manpower, and material resources.
For example, although Liu Che, Emperor Wu of the Western Han Dynasty, established many immortal exploits in his life, expanding his territory, pacifying the Xiongnu, and stating the law, etc., later historians criticized Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty for his large-scale use of troops against the Xiongnu during his reign.
During the entire reign of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, there were several confrontations between the Han and the Huns, and the Han army suffered more than 80,000 casualties and more than 100,000 horses.
Such a huge military expenditure made the Western Han Dynasty's accumulated wealth from the rule of Wenjing finally squandered by Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, and Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty had to give up the strategy of conquering the Xiongnu for ten thousand years, and issued an edict to admit his mistake in using force in his early years.
The reason why the cost of war is high is mainly due to the high cost of war for agricultural civilization.
That's why, for a long time, the Chinese agrarian civilization preferred to lose money than try to avoid war.
The Han Dynasty and the Xiongnu, the Tang Dynasty and the Turks, the Song Dynasty and the Saibei Dynasties were all like this, the nomads lived in pursuit of water and grass, the production level was backward, but the production cost was also low, and the grasslands needed for grazing were natural.
The Han troops were different, with dry food and fried shredded pork with whole garlic sprouts.
Therefore, during the war, the state needs to allocate sufficient grain and grass to the army, and in peacetime, the army's grain and grass problem is partly solved by itself, and a large amount of grain and grass transportation costs are also required during the war.