If I remember correctly, the important historical event of the Warring States period of "Zhao Wuling King Hufu Riding and Shooting" has been mentioned in many popular things, even textbooks (of course, this is only the author's recollection of the previous learning experience, this important historical event may have been mentioned in junior high school, may be in high school, may also be in college, of course, it may also be that I remembered wrong) but in any case, the description of this historical event actually highlights a theme, that is, to praise King Wuling of Zhao" Learn from the Hu people the innovative spirit of riding horses and archery in Hu costumes.
cavalry.
And why did King Wuling of Zhao learn from the Hu people? It was because King Wuling of Zhao found that the generous clothes and chariots of the Central Plains were not conducive to combat under certain geographical conditions, and it was even possible that they would be suppressed, so in order to enrich the country and strengthen the army, he insisted on carrying out this innovation under the strong opposition of the conservative nobles. This caliber will actually create a misunderstanding, that is, "Zhao Guo could not defeat the Hu people before the reform, but after accepting the Hu people's way of fighting, the national strength increased by leaps and bounds." In fact, this kind of thinking completely distorts the original appearance of "Hufu Riding and Shooting".
Bronze Ge of the Shang Dynasty.
Not to mention that the cavalry unit had become part of the armies of the Central Plains countries before the Hufu riding and shooting, taking the Subsequent Qin-Zhao War as an example, could the Zhao cavalry with "advanced" combat methods completely suppress the Qin army? Forget it, let's look directly at the military posture of the Zhao State after that. Let's start from the nineteenth year of King Wuling of Zhao (304 BC) until the Battle of Changping, when the Zhao kingdom completely declined.
bow and arrow.
(Zhao Wuling Wang Zhao Yong) twenty years, Wang Luozhong mountain, to Ningye; West Luohudi, to Yuzhong. King Lin Hu offers horses. Gui, The Qin of Lou Slow, the Han of QiuLiu, the Chu of Wang Ben, the Wei of Fuding, and the Qi of Zhao Jue. Acting Chancellor Zhao Gu lord Hu, to his soldiers. Twenty-one years, attacked Zhongshan. Zhao Yuan was the right army, Xu Jun was the left army, Gongzi Zhang was the middle army, and wang would make it. Niu Qi will ride the car, Zhao Xi will and Hu and Dai. Zhao joined forces with Him to attack Quyang and capture Danqiu, Huayang, and The Fortress of the Owl. Wang Jun took Yan, Shiyi, Fenglong, and Dongyuan. Zhongshan offered Siyihe, Wang Xuzhi, and dismissed the soldiers. Twenty-three years, attacked Zhongshan. Twenty-five years later, Huihou died. Make Zhou Yuan hu obey Prince Fu He. In the 26th year, he re-attacked Zhongshan, and the land was as far north as Yan and Dai, and as far west as Yunzhong and Jiuyuan. "History of the Zhao Family"
From the 20th year of King Wuling of Zhao to the 26th year of a series of violent attacks on Hu and Zhongshan (Sinicized Baidi State).
King Huiwen of Zhao completely destroyed Zhongshan in three years (by this time King Wuling of Zhao had already zen himself as the main father).
In the past 30 years, the biggest military achievement of the Zhao state was the complete destruction of the Zhongshan state and the conquest of a large area of "Hu land", in addition to participating in the five kingdoms to attack qi and using troops against Wei.
In the eighth year of King Huiwen of Zhao, he traveled south of the city to Tang. In the ninth year, General Zhao Liang, together with the Qi army, attacked Korea and went to Luguanxia (Korea was beaten daily)
In the eleventh year of King Huiwen of Zhao, Uncle Dong and the Wei clan fought the Song Dynasty, and Heyang was given to Wei.
In the twelfth year of King Huiwen of Zhao, Zhao Liang would attack Qi. For thirteen years, Han Xu was a general and attacked Qi.
In the fourteenth year of King Huiwen of Zhao, Xiangguo Leyi attacked Zhao, Qin, Han, Wei, and Yan, and took Lingqiu (a famous historical event in the middle and late Warring States period, the Five Kingdoms of Qi, and king Min of Qi escaped from Linzi and was killed by the Chu general who came to "rescue" Chu) and Qin Hui Zhongyang.
Fifteen years after King Huiwen of Zhao, King Yan Zhao came to see him. Zhao and Han, Wei, and Qin attacked Qi together, the King of Qi was defeated, and Yan Du went deep and took Linzi.
In the sixteenth year of King Huiwen of Zhao, Qin Fu and Zhao Shu attacked Qi, and the Qi people suffered (since then, the State of Qi has completely declined, so that finally Qin destroyed the Six Kingdoms, and the Qi people actually surrendered without a fight).
In the seventeenth year of King Huiwen of Zhao, Le Yi attacked Wei Boyang with Zhao Shi.
(King Huiwen of Zhao nineteen years) Zhao Hao, attacking Qi Maiqiu, took it.
King Huiwen of Zhao for twenty-three years, Lou Chang general, attacked Wei Ji, could not take. In December, Lian Po will attack a few and take it.
King Huiwen of Zhao was twenty-four years old, and Lian Po was a general who attacked Wei's house, pulled it out, and returned it because of the city. He attacked Anyang again and took it.
However, for the State of Qin, the State of Zhao could not take advantage of anything, except for the representative work of the famous general Zhao Hao, fu and the battle has always remained on the defensive.
spear.
Ten years after King Huiwen of Zhao, Qin (King Zhaoxiang) proclaimed himself Emperor Of the West.
King Huiwen of Zhao was seventeen years old and Qin complained that Zhao did not strike with himself, cut down Zhao, and pulled out the two cities of china.
In the eighteenth year of King Huiwen of Zhao, Qin pulled up my stone city.
In the nineteenth year of King Huiwen of Zhao, Qin took my second city.
King Huiwen of Zhao, in the twenty-fifth year, was a general of Yan Zhou, attacking Changcheng and Gao Tang, and taking it. Fight Qin with Wei. Qin will break through huayang in vain and get a general.
In the twenty-ninth year of King Huiwen of Zhao, Qin and Han attacked each other, while Besieging Fu and Fu. Zhao made Zhao Hao a general, attacked Qin, and greatly broke the Qin army and gave him the title of Ma Fujun.
In the first year of King Zhao Xiaocheng,Qin cut me down and uprooted the three cities. King Xinli of Zhao, empress dowager, Qin rushed to attack. Zhao shi asked for help from Qi. (Actually forced to ask the State of Qi for help)
Bronze sword.
In the Battle of Changping, the strength and weakness of the Qin and Zhao sides were even more obvious, and the Zhao army led by the veteran general Lian Po, under the premise of occupying the terrain advantage, was actually beaten back by Wang Gong's army, and within two months, six lieutenants of the Zhao army were killed by the Qin army. However, it was obvious that although there was no way to suppress the State of Qin, judging from the battle of the State of Zhao against the State of Wei, after the reform of the Zhao Wuling King Hufu Riding and Shooting, the strength of the State of Zhao was still significantly improved. It should be known that in the twenty-first year of Zhao Chenghou before this, the Wei people directly surrounded Handan, and if it were not for the intervention of the State of Qi, the State of Zhao would have perished.
The heroic and warlike Qin army.
Qin Jun.
So the reason is obvious, this Hufu riding and shooting movement did not make the military strength of the Zhao state far above the countries, more extravagant to talk about suppressing the powerful Qin army, and the war against the Wei state and the Qi state was only in the case of the extreme weakness of the two countries, so in fact, it can be concluded that the reform movement of the Hufu riding and shooting is actually not only the military aspect, and his military aspect is mainly aimed at the Zhongshan State and some Hu countries, just like Zhao Yong and Fei Yi said when they talked about it. I'm afraid the world will laugh. The joy of the madman, the mourning of the knower, the laughter of the fool, the affection of the sage. If there are those who obey me in the world, then the merits of Hu Obedience are not known. Although the world will laugh at me, I will have it in the middle of the mountain. At the same time, the cavalry shooting unit was formed to "prepare its side of Samhu, Lou Fu, Qin, and Han." Although, the State of Qin still maintained a military superiority over Zhao.
As I said before, in the pre-Qin period, and later the Qin and Han dynasties, the advantages of the northern nomads in the Central Plains were limited to speed, for the simple reason, but their smelting technology was very backward, and the horses at that time were not horse pedals, and the backward smelting technology must not be able to provide good armor and metal weapons to the nomads at that time, and the lack of horse pedals determined that the cavalry at this time could not impact at all, and although the Central Plains people were wearing wide clothes, However, the shock of the terror of the four-horse chariot was also incomparable to that of the nomads, but the speed of the cavalry was enough for the nomads at that time, because their military offensive to the Central Plains was only for plunder, but this kind of fly-style harassment attack was intolerable to the Central Plains countries, so it was imperative to form a huge cavalry and shooting force, of course, this was not the whole of this reform.
Pre-Qin chariots.
The Qin state also had a large cavalry force.
King Wuling of Zhao ordered the whole country to "change the vulgar Hu costume and learn to ride and shoot", he said, "Imago will ride and shoot Hu fu to teach the people." Obviously, if this reform is only to deal with the Hu people, it does not need to be implemented throughout the country, and this decree is actually engaged in "military training for the whole people" to turn the vast majority of Zhao people who have the ability to fight into high-quality reserve soldiers of the Zhao army.
Bronze crossbow machine.
Bronze Gordon.
In fact, this reform does not only exist in the military aspect, in the "Warring States Policy", in order to implement the reform, King Zhao Wuling inevitably has to carry out a series of struggles with the old nobles, and the process of implementing Hufu at the upper level is actually a process of suppressing the nobles of the Zhao State And strengthening the absolute monarchy. Strengthening the power of the monarch and promoting the militarization of the whole people is the only way for the great powers of the Warring States to go.
Warring States strong army.
However, judging from the results of the subsequent Qin-Zhao War, this reform was undoubtedly a failure relative to the Shang martingale transformation method of the Qin State, although king Wuling of Zhao trained the mounted archery unit of the Zhao State and advocated the whole people to practice riding and shooting, but it failed to mark the name of the battle merits like the Qin State and stimulate the army's enthusiasm for fighting, so its comprehensive combat effectiveness was far inferior to that of the Qin Army, so from this point of view, hufu riding and shooting had certain failures.