There is a famous saying called "power comes out of the barrel of a gun"; a weapon is a double-edged sword that can consolidate the power of the ruler, can suppress popular resistance, and eliminate hostile forces; but it can also liberate the oppressed people and overthrow a regime.
In ancient China, dynastic succession was achieved through violence, and there was rarely a peaceful transition.
And none of the rulers of the past did not want their rule to last forever. Therefore, if a ruler wants to achieve long-term peace and stability in the country and maintain the stability of social order, he must build a powerful army to deter the people from rebelling against the emperor's rule.
At the same time, the emperor also tried to prevent the people from possessing, carrying and manufacturing weapons, so as to prevent them from using weapons to provoke trouble, challenge the authority of the government, and pull the flag to rebel and subvert the legitimate regime.
Successive Chinese dynasties attached great importance to weapons control and spared no effort to issue a series of strict laws.
In particular, a dynasty has just been established after a war, and a large number of weapons have been lost to the people; and because the war-torn people will hide weapons at home for self-defense, it is even more necessary to legislate to collect weapons.
Even for weapons owned by the army, the government must strictly manage them; hence the idiom "knives and guns are in storage, and horses are put on the south mountain."
Legend has it that after the establishment of the Qin Dynasty, one day, Qin Shi Huang, accompanied by a group of courtiers, watched various performances. In addition to arranging theatrical performances, there are also military technical and tactical performances.
The various juggling performances on the stage were very exciting, and Qin Shi Huang was very engaged in watching it; then it was the turn of the military performance, and a team of samurai armed with swords and swords appeared on the stage.
Qin Shi Huang saw the creepy bones, so he tossed and turned, and it was difficult to sleep and eat.
So, what was Qin Shi Huang afraid of?
Although the Six Kingdoms perished, the nobles of the Six Kingdoms could not be killed, and their dreams of sleeping and dreaming came back; and the people of the Six Kingdoms would also rebel against the tyranny of the Qin Dynasty; how could Qin Shi Huang not be afraid?
At this time, the following official reported that a nursery rhyme was popular in a certain place: "Drain one, manifest in gold, hundred evils, bai ruisheng." ”
The big character goes to one, that is, the herringbone appears in gold: attaching to the gold can be prominent, and the last two sentences are the avoidance of evil, the meaning of Fury.
After Qin Shi Huang listened, he came to be inspired. So he pretended to be a sign, saying that it was providence, and ordered the local governments to confiscate all the weapons owned by the people, transport them to the capital Xianyang, and cast 12 bronze people.
Sima Qian made a special record of this in the "Records of History": the Government of the Qin Dynasty "collected the soldiers of the world, gathered in Xianyang, and sold them as bells, twelve golden people, weighing thousands of stones, and placing them in the palace." ”
Jia Yi also wrote in the "Treatise on Passing the Qin" that Qin Shi Huang "collected the weapons of the world, gathered the Xianyang, and thought that the Golden People were twelve, and the soldiers of the weak world were weak." ”
The Tang Dynasty also had stricter control of weapons and introduced relevant laws.
Article 243 of the Sixteenth Volume of the Tang Laws and Regulations stipulates that any private person who is not allowed to possess a prohibited weapon shall be sentenced to one and a half years' imprisonment; except for bows, arrows, knives, wooden shields, and short spears, they are all contraband.
In the Tang Dynasty, the government divided weapons into two categories, one for private individuals to legally own, and one for resolutely not allowing the people to manufacture and possess them at will.
Legally possessed weapons of one type, including bows, arrows, knives, rafters, short spears and other five kinds of short and small light weapons.
This kind of weapon is widely used in the civilian sector, the lethality is relatively small, the manufacturing threshold is low, and it can be used as a weapon for the people to defend themselves and protect private property.
Another type of weapon has become a "forbidden weapon", such as armor, crossbow, spear, armor, and other weapons, with a long manufacturing cycle, a high threshold, and a strong lethality, and it is forbidden for the people to store and manufacture them privately.
The Song Dynasty was achieved by mutiny, so Zhao Kuangyin, the grandfather of the Song Dynasty, was well aware of the dangers of the gun barrel and spared no effort in weapon control.
After the establishment of the Northern Song Dynasty, the Promulgation of the Song Penal System clearly stipulated that any household that possessed forbidden weapons was punished by "one and a half years' imprisonment" according to the law.
Bows, arrows, knives, guns and other weapons that were not banned in the Tang Dynasty were also strictly supervised by governments at all levels in the process of manufacturing and trading in the Song Dynasty. Whoever "sells bows and arrows, horizontal knives and saddles, and according to the official style, orders the inscription to be chiseled by name".
In other words, the name of the manufacturer needs to be engraved when such weapons are manufactured;
In this way, once a criminal case has occurred, it can be traced.
The Yuan Dynasty, as a political power established by an ethnic minority, had an unprecedented degree of strictness in weapons control, reaching the pinnacle of perfection.
According to the laws of the Yuan Dynasty, local governments at all levels have no right to manufacture weapons; if weapons are needed for religious and stage performances, all of them are replaced by clay and wood or even paper paste, and iron is resolutely prohibited; residents of major cities are not allowed to hold even slingshots, otherwise they will be punished with seventy-seven rods and confiscate half of their property;
Han Chinese are not allowed to possess any weapons except military personnel and servants.
Even folklore says that the Yuan Dynasty imposed strict control on kitchen knives, requiring every ten households to share a kitchen knife.
It can be seen that the control of weapons by various dynasties is in the same vein and very strict.
Among all kinds of weapons, the control of the bow and crossbow is the most stringent; because the range of the crossbow is very long, it can reach 80 to 150 meters, and the farthest can reach about 300 meters.
The crossbow is also very lethal, and can crush the skull of an elephant within 100 meters.
If you attack a city strategically, attack a city, the bow and crossbow is indispensable; in ancient times, the bow and crossbow was a weapon of mass destruction.
Therefore, successive dynasties have listed bows and crossbows as prohibited weapons, strictly prohibiting their manufacture and possession, and the control is very strict, and the punishment measures are relatively severe.
The Tang Dynasty law stipulates that those who secretly store spears and swords shall be sentenced to one and a half years' imprisonment; those who secretly conceal one crossbow shall be punished by hanging for the second degree (that is, two and a half years' imprisonment); those who secretly possess three crossbows shall be sentenced to two thousand miles of exile; and those who secretly conceal five crossbows shall be sentenced to hanging.
In other words, the crossbow has become a problem for the ruler's confidant because of its lethality.
As early as the Spring and Autumn Period, there was a saying that "the family does not hide armor"; the Western Han Dynasty clearly stipulated that "the people shall not carry crossbows and armor".
During the Western Han Dynasty, the key place of "one collar and three crossbows" was exiled for two thousand miles; the heads of those who secretly hid "three collars and five crossbows" were moved and sent to the guillotine.
The Tang Dynasty law stipulates that those who secretly store spears or swords shall be sentenced to one and a half years' imprisonment; those who secretly conceal one crossbow shall be punished by hanging for the second degree (that is, two and a half years' imprisonment); those who secretly conceal three crossbows or one piece of armor shall be sentenced to exile for two thousand miles; and those who secretly conceal five crossbows or three pieces of armor shall be sentenced to hanging.
That is, people often say, "one armor top three crossbows, three armor into the earth house."
Armor is armor, which is the instrument worn by soldiers in combat for self-defense, made of cowhide and crocodile skin, and also made of metal, which can effectively resist the piercing of swords, guns and swords and bows and arrows, which is equivalent to the body armor worn by modern soldiers.
In war, with armor, you can not enter the knife and gun, greatly reduce casualties, and greatly improve the combat effectiveness of the army.
For example, in the Warring States period, Wei Wuzun was standardly equipped with "the armor of the three genera", that is, wearing three layers of protective clothing.
Therefore, their combat effectiveness is bursting, invincible, invincible, and invincible ("the world is not dang").
Taking the Battle of Hugaoguan as an example, although Li Shimin, the King of Qin, only had 3,000 troops, he defeated Wang Shichong and Dou Jiande's 100,000 troops. The reason for this is because Li Shimin equipped them with heavy armor.
Heavy armor can make soldiers one to ten, so whoever rebels must make armor.
Therefore, the rulers are very afraid of those who have armor.
At the same time, the production process of armor is complex, the production cost is extremely high, and non-skilled people can do it, even if they are barely made, the quality is greatly reduced.
Generally speaking, the manufacture of armor is an assembly line production, which requires a lot of manpower and material resources and a large scale.
Therefore, once the armor is discovered, the number is very large, most of them have a profound background, behind which are either generals, powerful ministers, or chaotic parties and local tycoons, they must have ulterior motives and plots to build the armor.
From this point of view, the emperor's ban on armor is by no means aimed at private collections, but at large-scale purchases, manufactures, and private collections.
Such cases are very sensitive, and once discovered, they are major and important cases of a rebellious nature, and they must be strictly investigated; there are many such examples in history.
For example, Zhou Yafu, the son of Zhou Bo, the founding minister of the Western Han Dynasty, was the famous general, who suffered the loss of privately hiding armor.
At that time, Zhou Yafu had retired from the post of minister of state, and when he was nearly a year old, his son secretly ordered to see five hundred armor shields, preparing to accompany his funeral after his father's death.
However, because Zhou Yafu's son was in arrears with the wages of the domestic workers, he was reported to the government and was valued by the Han Jing Emperor and sent someone to investigate.
The results of the investigation soon came out, and the report was true; Emperor Jingdi of Han was furious and arrested Zhou Yafu according to law.
The interrogating officer questioned him: "The emperor is so good to you, why are you plotting a rebellion?" ”
Zhou Yafu defended: "This is what my son brought to the Yin Cao Mansion for my funeral. ”
The interrogating officer said: "Even so, you are guilty, indicating that you intend to rebel underground." ”
Zhou Yafu was so angry that he vomited blood in the first place, and within a few days he died.
Li Xian, the sixth son of Emperor Gaozong of Tang and the second son of Wu Zetian, was also planted on the armor.
In the fourth year of Crown Prince Yifeng (679), Ming Chongyu was killed by bandits, but the murderer was never found. Empress Wu therefore suspected that the crown prince Li Xian was responsible, so she sent someone to investigate him, and as a result, hundreds of armor were found in the eastern palace stable, which became ironclad evidence of his rebellion, and Li Xian was forced to commit suicide.
In the Qing Dynasty, there were also stories about armor, but not rebellion, but rebellion stories.
After his father was killed by the Ming dynasty general Li Chengliang, Nurhaci relied on the thirteen pairs of armor left by his father to rebel against the Ming and avenge his father.
This fully illustrates the role of armor from one side, and also shows that it is not unreasonable for successive rulers to classify privately stored armor as a felony.