A few years ago, the wolf totem of "big red and purple" once again brought the nomads to the screen, and the classic line in it: "Genghis Khan is the war to learn from wolves" is to show the wolf nature in the nomadic civilization to the world to the fullest.
So why are nomadic civilizations so "aggressive"? Which is the better military system under the agrarian civilization or the nomadic civilization? Why can the Qing Dynasty complete the great unification? This article will do a simple analysis.
Here's an important point: grain!
For all generations of kings, even in modern times, it is not enough to maintain stability by relying on political power alone. After all, "man is iron, rice is steel, and a meal is not eaten hungry and panicked." If the people want to work hard, they must first fill their stomachs. But what is the premise for filling your stomach? Of course it's going to be rich enough!
Therefore, a large number of people have taken the road of self-production and self-sale: I grow my own grain, not only eat it, I also sell it. This situation has greatly promoted the economic cycle of the agricultural industry and generated greater economic power.
With the economy, science and technology can be developed. Science and technology can also promote the development of military power, which will lead to changes in the military system. Therefore, grain = military strength, emmm, is not a big problem. After all, the amount of supplies directly determines the success or failure of a war.
But the same approach is less suitable for nomads. After all, as a tribe that travels all year round, cultivating land is simply a luxury. The norm that has evolved is: go to the mountains to eat the mountains, and meet the water to draft water.
Of course, during the journey, the Chubu clan will also meet some "local residents", so they have a bold idea in their hearts: rob! Anyway, not enough to eat is dead, grabbing is also dead, it is better to go directly. What's more, the robbery of "donkey friends", that is called the exploration of local precious resources, can it be called robbery?
Since you want to grab, you must grab out the style and grab the level. Therefore, most of the nomadic people are in a state of soldiers, and military units are often calculated as tribal units. In this way, more "united" robbery can also be achieved. Therefore, nomadic people often reflect the strength of combat effectiveness by the size of the tribe.
But for the military, the sharp tip of the spear is not enough. To be a constant victorious tribe, iron laws are essential. In the case of Genghis Khan, for example, his tribe achieved relatively sound institutions.
In the 12th century AD, tribes such as the Beggars, Zadarans, Taichi Ubu, Tatars, Yu'er Begs, and Ongjira appeared in the northern steppes of the desert, living in the Onn, Krullen, Tula River valleys and around Lake Baikal.
And their living area has only two things to do, "grab" and "be robbed", in addition to facing a larger, more systematic "grab" (subtraction policy) of the Jin Dynasty in the south.
Because the tribe practiced the primitive "slavery" within the tribe, only with the right can there be slaves, and more slaves can complete the logistical supply, so that there are more booty, and more loot can be exchanged for more living space.
This situation was not until 1206 AD, when Temujin unified Mongolia and established a vast territory from the Xing'an Mountains in the east to the Altai Mountains in the west, and the Yin Mountains in the south, which ended the chaotic situation in Mongolia, known as Genghis Khan, the name of the country "Great Mongolia", and promulgated the "Great Zarza" as a national code.
Considering the many staff members around Genghis Khan, someone should have told him the story of the "Shang Martingale Transformation Law" that allowed the Qin State to complete the centralized power, but even if he had not heard such a story, such a brilliant leader would not have been unaware of the importance of "centralization".
Therefore, Genghis Khan carried out the "transformation" of the steppe through the "Great Zasa", thus strengthening his own centralization. This change of law can also be said to have laid the foundation for the rule of law in the future Mongol Empire.
The first is the strengthening of administrative management: the people living on the steppes are divided among 95 thousand households. There are 100 households and 100 households under the 1,000 households. No one in each thousand households may be ordered or allowed to leave. Then muhuali and Borshu were used as about 10,000 households. The Expansion of the Timid Xue Army (Guards Army) was aimed at the sons of the Thousand Household Chiefs, The Hundred Household Chiefs, and the Ten Household Chiefs, thus controlling the entire territory of the grassland.
The purpose of implementing the thousand-household system is to manage the household registration population, and the purpose of managing the household registration population is to unite small tribes into a large "empire" and thus "grab" more effectively. Through the thousand-household system, the population of the steppe can be included in the centralized management of the state, which also means that the state can recruit and transfer the army according to the household, and all the registered households, as long as the men are old, must perform military service.
In this way, the state system of military and political integration has been preliminarily completed. The birth of this system has extraordinary significance for the stabilization of state power. Because the nomadic regime must have enough booty to protect it. In this way, the army has actually become the "barrel of the gun". However, how to make the "barrel of the gun" exert its strength on the battlefield is also a problem that needs to be considered.
The geographical characteristics of the grassland make the people living here have no land to cultivate, which naturally creates them to practice horseback riding and archery from an early age, which also lays the foundation for them to become "guns" in the future.
But also because everyone on the steppe is brave and fierce, the person who commands the "barrel of the gun" must also be binding on it. Therefore, the thousand-household system is actually a basic system in the military judicial system.
From the perspective of management form, from khan to chief of ten thousand, centurion, centurion and then to ten husbands is a vertical management system, the orders issued by the khan can be conveyed to every grass-roots soldier, and those who violate military orders will also be punished.
For example, before the unification of the grasslands, the steppe tribes "robbed" and "robbed" nothing more than to plunder property. But if you want to build a solid empire, it is not enough to rely on plunder, because when "robbing" others, you must ensure that you are not "robbed", and you must ensure that the loot you "grab" is evenly distributed.
Therefore, when the Tatar Army was requisitioned, a military order was issued: "Do not covet property in wartime, divide the spoils equally after the war, and if you need to retreat in wartime, you can only return to the original position, and if you return to the original front, you need to fight again, and those who do not fight will be cut." And these three military orders were written into the Great Zasa.
After these three military orders were issued, his relatives Altan, Kucha'er, and Dalitai violated military orders and robbed property during the war, and Genghis Khan severely punished the three when he learned of them.
In this way, through "robbery", more and more herders joined the big "tribe" of Mongolia, the "tribe" is larger, the territory and the number of tribes are naturally more, and the corresponding number of slaves is of course also increasing, and to manage the slaves who have been plundered, of course, it is necessary to pass the thousand-household system.
Therefore, according to the principle of equal distribution, slaves were distributed to different thousand households, and after the thousand households obtained slaves, they increased their attribution to Mongolia as the "suzerain", and thus enhanced the overall national strength of the "Great Mongolian State".
In fact, the thousand household system established by the nomadic empire in order to "grab" not only had a profound impact on the grassland but also on the two different civilizations of farming, fishing and hunting, and the later Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties established a thousand household system in the junction area of different civilizations, and added a number of military tuns on this basis.
Because the military tun can not only meet its own needs, but also reduce the burden on the imperial court. It can be said that the thousand-household system was a major contribution to future generations, and its influence on the Manchu Qing Dynasty was even more extraordinary. Nurhaci's Eight Flags system was modeled on the thousand-household system, because there was a unit like the "Niulu" in the Eight Banners.
However, in terms of management, compared to Genghis Khan managing 95 thousand households through about 10,000 households, Nurhaci only needs to manage eight banner owners, including himself. In other words, the Eight Banners are actually an upgraded version of a thousand households, which is also a key factor in the Qing Dynasty's ability to complete the great unification.
So since Mongolia was a Qing Dynasty, why was Mongolia eventually ruled by the Qing? The answer is actually very simple, because Mongolia has gone back to tribal times.
Originally, after entering the Han Dynasty, the Mongols finally enjoyed a rich farming life, and they could live without "grabbing", which also meant that the centralized model also switched from nomadic to farming, but after the Mongols at the end of the Yuan and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty returned to the north of the Great Wall, they also wanted to live a rich life of farming and centralization, so unless the production technology of agricultural civilization was brought back to the grassland, they could only continue to "grab".
However, if you want to go south to "grab" and meet the Ming army in the early Ming Dynasty, you will definitely be beaten to the ground to find teeth, I believe that the Mongols at that time would not be so stupid. Therefore, returning to the tribal era to "grab" each other is the right choice. Unfortunately, the "ancestral system" pioneered by Genghis Khan had lost its role in the steppe by this time.
After returning to the tribal era, the Great Khan of Mongolia could no longer control the steppe, and the original tribes did not care who was the Great Khan, in short, they snatched it first. Naturally, Mongolia began to have civil strife again, which lasted until the end of the Ming Dynasty.
Taking advantage of the fact that the Ming army had become a "Meng" army at this time, the Chahar department of Lin Dan Khan, a descendant of Genghis Khan, had become the largest force in the steppe. But Houjin, who rose up in the Liaohe Plain, became an even more formidable rival to the Mongol tribes.
Originally in Nurhaci's time, although the eight flags system was established. However, at that time, the flag owners were all hereditary, and the flag soldiers were all private soldiers who were only subordinate to the flag owners, which was not conducive to "unity". After Nurhaci's death, when Emperor Taiji first ascended the throne, everything needed to look at the faces of Daishan, Amin, Mang Gultai and other Baylor. The Belle masters were not happy, and the Emperor Taiji could not do anything.
Therefore, in the first few years of his reign, jin was basically in the "nest fighting". But within a few years, several of Baylor's forces were eliminated one by one. After that, no one inside Houjin called him out.
At this time, Mongolia was still divided, not to mention that the economic conditions of Houjin were far better than those of the Mongol ministries. Coupled with the fact that there were many craftsmen among the large number of people captured from the Ming Dynasty, this further strengthened the power of weapons (such as firearms), and the most tragic thing was "Da Meng", and Chongzhen at this time was even more to the point where the imperial power could not leave the Forbidden City. Therefore, it is not so surprising that the Qing Dynasty finally completed the great unification.
In the final analysis, whether it is farming, fishing and hunting or nomadic herding, if you want to obtain long-term "output" to improve combat effectiveness, you need not only the "barrel of the gun", but most importantly, the centralization of power, after all, the system has always determined everything.