The economy and culture of the Song Dynasty were very prosperous, but the martial arts were relatively weak. Many people attribute the weakness of the Song Dynasty to the loss of sixteen states. Sixteen States are located in the north of Beijing and Tianjin, as well as in the north of Hebei and the north of Shanxi. Sixteen states have superior geographical conditions. Sixteen states are located in the northern branch of Taihang Mountain and Yanshan Mountain, and are adjacent to the North China Plain in the south. This area is just guarding the north gate of the Central Plains, and its geographical position is very important.
Sixteen counties also happen to guard the eastern section of the main defense line of the Great Wall. The Great Wall-Yinshan Line is the dividing line between farming and nomadic peoples. If the central plains dynasty can firmly hold this front, it will be difficult for northern nomads to enter the central plains, and the security of the central plains dynasty will be guaranteed. In the early years of the Han dynasty, this front was not completely in the hands of the Han dynasty, and Liu Bang had to adopt a policy of being close to the people. After recovering Henan, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty completely mastered this front, so he was in an advantage in the war with Xiongnu.
After Shi Jingtang offered sixteen states to Liao, the eastern section of the Great Wall-Yinshan Line was completely lost. After losing the eastern section of this front, the Song Dynasty was unable to hold this front and blocked the elite cavalry of the minority regime north of the Great Wall. There were no Great Wall and important mountains as strongholds in the north of Song Dynasty, which was equivalent to opening its own door, and the cavalry of Liao country could enter and leave at any time. In the Song Dynasty, the confrontation with ethnic minority regimes could only be fought in the plains.
At this time, the cavalry of northern ethnic minorities can give full play to their advantages on the plain. In ancient times, cavalry was equivalent to the armored force in World War II. No country can build a strong national defense without a strong armored force. It was difficult to establish a strong cavalry after the Song Dynasty lost the origin of good horses in the northwest. In the Song Dynasty, only infantry could be used against the northern minority cavalry. On the plain, cavalry are killing infantry. This is also an important factor that the Song Dynasty was at a disadvantage in the confrontation with minority regimes.
Many people think that the loss of the Sixteen States is the reason why the Song regime was not strong enough. So as long as the sixteen states are in the hands of the Song Dynasty, the Song regime may become a powerful empire similar to the Han and Tang Dynasties. But this is not the case. Sixteen counties are not so magical. Even if the Song Dynasty mastered sixteen states, it would be difficult to build an empire as powerful as the Han Dynasty. To become a powerful empire like Han and Tang Dynasties, it is not enough to have a strong economic foundation. A strong empire needs a common framework of military, political and diplomatic factors, especially a strong army.
The greatest significance of the Sixteen States is not to attack but to defend, and the role of the Sixteen States is a door rather than a spear. The loss of sixteen states in the Northern Song Dynasty, of course, is the loss of an important defensive fortress, which is not conducive to defense in the confrontation with the northern national regime. Even if the Song Dynasty mastered sixteen states, it was only beneficial to defense. The Northern Song Dynasty may be in a favorable position when defending the northern national regime, and it can "keep the enemy out of the country".
But it can't add value to the attack of the Song Dynasty, and the Song Dynasty may not be able to defeat the northern national regime. The two empires of Han and Tang dynasties were not established by defense, but by attack. If Song Dynasty wants to become a powerful empire, it must build a powerful offensive army. Sixteen States is a region, which can't make the army of Song Dynasty strong, and it is difficult to support a powerful empire.
A strong empire needs to rely on a strong military force, and the establishment of a strong military force needs the strong support of the state. However, since the founding of the People's Republic of China, the Song Dynasty has adopted the national policy of "emphasizing literature over martial arts". Since Song Taizu, in order to prevent the disorder of military commanders, the status of military commanders has been deliberately lowered, while the status of literati has been improved. During the Northern Song Dynasty, the imperial examination system selected a large number of civil servants, who served as officials at all levels and even took charge of military and political affairs.
During the Song Dynasty, almost all Privy Council officials and deputies in charge of military affairs were held by civil servants to contain military commanders. In order to seriously implement the basic national policy of "valuing literature over martial arts", the rulers of the Song Dynasty even wrote not to kill civil servants into their ancestral teachings. Civil servants were all over the country in Song Dynasty. Due to the basic national policy of "valuing literature over martial arts", the status of military commanders and soldiers in the Song Dynasty was relatively low, which directly caused the low combat effectiveness of the Song army.
In society, "Chongwen" became the social fashion at that time. Song people were proud of being an official in the imperial examination and ashamed of being a soldier. The sentence "My hero is not a soldier, and his iron is not nailed" is more appropriate in the Song Dynasty. At that time, a member of the Song Dynasty practiced archery in his spare time, which was considered unprofessional by his mother and was scolded. In the Song Dynasty, it was also difficult to see the story of "joining the army with a pen". In the Song Dynasty, people's worship of literature prevailed, but martial arts gradually declined. The strong social foundation in the Han and Tang Dynasties was the prevalence of Wushu. During the Qin and Han Dynasties, martial arts prevailed in China, and most people hoped to gain the title by military achievements, so as to build a powerful army.
After Wei and Jin Dynasties, the martial arts of Chinese people gradually weakened. The rulers of Sui and Tang Dynasties were all Xianbei Huaxia people, and the martial arts in Sui and Tang Dynasties prevailed again. When people in the Tang Dynasty realized their own life value, they first thought of military achievements, followed by imperial examinations. So there are so many frontier poems in Tang poetry. In Song Ci, there are relatively few chapters about frontier fortress's meritorious service. The whole society is not combative, so people naturally don't want to be soldiers, and they don't want to realize the value of life by military achievements. The danger of nailing your head to your belt to make a living is naturally much more difficult than the examination paper. Trapped in the battlefield, rushing to the forefront is not necessarily more famous than a paper, and ordinary people will naturally weigh it.
Song Taizu won the world by force and military power. After he won the world, he naturally worried that his military commanders would "deal with a man as he deals with you." So after Song Taizu won the world, he tried to remove the military power of the imperial generals and took various measures to weaken the power of military commanders. For example, the Privy Council was established to divide the military power in Sanya.
The Privy Council has the right to transfer troops, while Sanya has only the right to control troops, and the power of military commanders has been greatly weakened. In case of war, the Privy Council is responsible for transferring soldiers, and the emperor temporarily appoints generals. General is not familiar with the army, and soldiers are not familiar with the general, which leads to low combat effectiveness of the army. Song Taizu also implemented the "multi-garrison law", and the Song army was deployed regularly, but the generals were not attached to the army. The method of crossing the defense has caused a situation in which soldiers do not know what to do and will not know what to do. In the battle of Song Dynasty, the army often appeared uncoordinated cooperation, which directly led to the low combat effectiveness of the army.
At the end of the Tang Dynasty, the separatist regime of the buffer region was serious, and the final demise of the Tang Dynasty also originated from the buffer region. During the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, the buffer region was also an important factor endangering national stability and unity. After the establishment of the Song Dynasty, it not only weakened the power of military commanders, but also weakened local forces. In the Song Dynasty, the basic strategy of "defending the interior and weakening the exterior" and "strengthening the cadres and weakening the branches" was adopted in military deployment.
In the Song Dynasty, local elite soldiers were elected to the imperial army, and the local government left only the old and the weak as Xiang and Xiang soldiers. The Song regime stationed more than half of the national imperial army near Tokyo, and the number of local troops was very limited, and the number and combat effectiveness of troops in border areas were also very limited. When the Han Dynasty attacked the neighboring political power, except for the troops sent by the central government, most of them were composed of troops stationed in the frontier or soldiers recruited locally. The basic strategy of "defending from the inside and defending from the outside" in the Song Dynasty led to the low combat effectiveness of the troops in the border areas, which made it difficult not only to resist the invasion of nomadic regime, but also to expand the territory.
The rulers of the Song Dynasty believed very much that when a disaster happened, there would be mutinous soldiers without them. Therefore, the way of disaster relief in Song Dynasty is slightly different from other dynasties. In the Song Dynasty, if there was a famine, there would be a large-scale conscription in the wasteland. As a result, the Song Dynasty raised an army with a huge number of troops. By the time of Song Renzong, the number of imperial soldiers raised by the Song Dynasty had reached millions. And Song Jun recruited soldiers, many of them are soldiers of fortune and scoundrels who eat and drink, and they are usually neglected in training, so although there are many people, their fighting capacity is extremely low. In the Song Dynasty, in most cases, the number of troops was dominant, but it often ended in fiasco.
In ancient times, if you want to build a strong army, you must have a strong cavalry unit to build an army that can go north and south. In the early years of the Han Dynasty, there were no powerful cavalry in the Han Dynasty, because the Huns were often at a disadvantage in the battle. During the Wenjing period, the policy of raising horses was adopted to encourage the people to raise horses and improve their varieties. By the time of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, horses were everywhere in the fields. Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty was able to build a powerful cavalry force, which became the basis for Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty to counterattack the Huns.
Horses are relatively cold animals, so good horses are generally produced in the north. The Song Dynasty did not occupy sixteen states. With the rise of Xixia, the Song Dynasty lost its important horse producing area. Because there was no good horse producing area in Song Dynasty, the northern minorities controlled the export of good horses, so it was difficult to establish a strong cavalry force in Song Dynasty. There were no cavalry in Song Dynasty, so it was difficult to expand the territory only by infantry, and it was also difficult to compete with nomadic people. The Song Dynasty attached great importance to the development of firearms, but at that time, the advantages of hot weapons over cold weapons were not so great, and it was cold weapons that decided the outcome of the battlefield. The advantage of firearms in Song Dynasty was not enough to make up for the shortage of cavalry.
During the Han and Tang dynasties, there were also many minority regimes in the north. Huns in the north of Han Dynasty and Turks in the north of Tang Dynasty were nomadic empires in their heyday. The political power of these countries is only strong for a while, not for a lifetime. When it is strong, it will be strong, when it is weak, it will decline, and even the regime will fall apart. At that time, there was a great gap between the Central Plains Dynasty and the ethnic regimes in northern Xinjiang, and many ethnic regimes declined before they completed feudalism. After the Tang Dynasty, this situation changed.
After the Tang Dynasty, many ethnic minority regimes completed feudalism and established a relatively strict state system. Liao established a reasonable official system in the north and south, and the state power was already relatively strict. Xixia established a relatively complete feudal state system by imitating the Central Plains dynasty system. The Jin Dynasty also established a relatively perfect feudal political system according to the political system of the Central Plains Dynasty. During the Song Dynasty, the gap between the Huaxia nationality and the surrounding ethnic minorities has been greatly narrowed. It is more difficult for Song Dynasty to build a powerful empire, and it needs more powerful military strength.
The Song Dynasty had the economic foundation to build a powerful empire, and its economy was extremely prosperous, which was the highest in ancient society. However, the Song Dynasty did not establish a relatively strong military foundation. Song Dynasty cultivated itself into a fat sheep, but no matter how fat the sheep is, it is just a good meal for wolves. In the Song Dynasty, all the policies of valuing literature over martial arts pulled out their paws one by one. As soon as the enemy came in, the Song Dynasty could only face the fate of extinction.