However, there are always exceptions in history. The devastating blow of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty to the Huns led to the decline of the Huns and the collapse of the domestic economy in the Han Dynasty. Frequent harassment and aggression by ethnic minorities against the people of the Central Plains will not cause their primitive economic crisis. Therefore, economically and materially, the Central Plains people will bear a heavy economic burden for each other, while the northern minorities will not. Therefore, this cultural and material disadvantage of the Central Plains ethnic group against the northern ethnic group in ancient China led to the disadvantage of war. In the Song Dynasty, in addition to the above two factors, there were many unfavorable factors, both objective and subjective. These unfavorable factors are intertwined, forming half of the Song Dynasty and the military defensive.
Objective factors unfavorable to the Song Dynasty
First, strategic factors. There was always a powerful enemy in the north of Song Dynasty, Liao State. But since the Five Dynasties, Shi Jin gave sixteen states of Youyan to Liao. It led to the Central Plains opening the door to the Liao State. The defensive function of the first line of the Great Wall has completely lost, which has become the weakness of the central plains state power, but it has become a strategic buffer zone for Liao countries to guard against the attacks of the central plains countries.
Secondly, another negative effect brought by the fall of sixteen states of Youyan is the shortage of military forces. The demand for horses in ancient cold war was very urgent. Besides, there are many plains and few mountains in the north, so whoever has cavalry has an advantage.
Third, geographical factors. Kaifeng, the capital of song dynasty, is located in the plain, and there is no danger to defend under the attack of the northern nationalities, which is the direct factor of the demise of the northern song dynasty. Because since the Anshi Rebellion in the Tang Dynasty, economic wealth has mostly depended on the south, and the waterway from the south to Kaifeng is very convenient, but it should be the destruction of branch canals, which makes it difficult for food and materials to reach Luoyang, let alone Chang 'an.
Subjective factors unfavorable to the Song Dynasty
First, emphasize the text and suppress the martial arts. Song Taizu learned the lesson that five generations of soldiers were good at power. Decided to take literati as the world and belittle military commanders. The Privy Council and other military institutions are ruled by literati. At the same time, the Privy Council of Liao was full of military commanders. Therefore, the dispatch and command of war in Song Dynasty was not as good as that in Liao Dynasty.
Second, excessive centralization. In the Song Dynasty, centralization was strengthened, and the policy of "strengthening cadres and weakening branches" was implemented in military management. When most excellent local troops were placed under the central government, the strength of local troops was weakened and the strength of the central army was strengthened. At the same time, we try to be more defensive, so that soldiers don't know what to do, and they don't know what to do. These two factors are obviously unfavorable to Song Jun, which guards the border.
Third, the recruitment system. There was no military retirement system in Song Dynasty. Song Taizu intends to recruit ordinary hungry people to join the army, turn the forces that may form rebellion into repressive forces, and reduce civil resistance. But at the same time, Song Jun's internal quality is mixed, and a large part of the old, weak, sick and disabled can't fight. Only people aged 20 to 40 can really play.
Fourth, two major strategic mistakes. At the end of the Northern Song Dynasty and the Southern Song Dynasty, they joined forces with Jin Heyuan to fight against Liao and Jin respectively. It seems smart, but it is actually a move that leads the wolf into the room. If Song doesn't intervene, sit quietly and watch the tiger fight, both sides will lose, and the Liao and Jin countries added in the middle can also be used as a buffer zone. In contrast, the Song Dynasty was inferior to the Liao and Jin Dynasties. Emperor Liu Zhiyuan of the later Han Dynasty drove the Khitan forces out of the Central Plains, and there was enmity between Khitan and Liu Hanben. Later, Guo Wei, the general of the Northern Han Dynasty, established the Later Zhou Dynasty, and Liu Chong, Liu Zhiyuan's younger brother, continued to maintain Liu Han in Hedong, known as the Northern Han Dynasty in history. It is reasonable to say that Liao had a grudge against Northern Han, but when Zhou Shizong attacked Northern Han, Northern Han turned to Liao for help, and Liao supported Northern Han for the strategic purpose of containing the later Zhou Dynasty. Similarly, the false Chu and Qi fostered by the Jin State are also strategic intentions that play a buffering role.
On the Military Strategy of Song Dynasty
At present, the positive discussion on the military power of the Song Dynasty is mostly a running account of military victory. Today, I'm going to discuss the success or failure of the Song army, instead of keeping a running account. Because that's not objective enough. First, the victory of a battle does not mean the victory of the whole strategy. Besides, there is no running account of the victory of Liao and Jin dynasties, and it is only objective to look at the Song Dynasty.
The wars between Song and Liao, Jin and Yuan are very different in different historical books, and their records are not the same, even contradictory. For example, the battle of Gaolianghe is recorded in the long edition of "Continuing the History as a Mirror": "The soldiers have been in Youzhou for more than ten days, tired, and they are far away, fearing that the Khitan will come to save them, so they ordered the soldiers to move." However, in the Liao History, it is recorded in another way: "In July, Sha and others fought with the Gaoliang River, but with little effect. Brother Hugh, hit it sideways and beat it. Song Zhucai went to Zhuozhou penniless, down and out, and the donkey car fled. " It can be seen that the same time is recorded differently in different history books. So we take its strategic value and political influence as the standard to measure the success or failure of Song Dynasty and Liao, Jin and Yuan Dynasties.
The above-mentioned unfavorable factors for Song Jun, if Song Jun wins more and loses less, are not in line with conventional logic. Therefore, Song Jun's victory there is by no means fabricated. How to explain it? Let me analyze and classify it.
The military system established in Liao and Song Dynasties was the conscription system. Compared with the ambush system before the Song Dynasty, this is a reform that makes the army more professional and specialized. However, there was no retirement system in the Song Dynasty, which led to more troops but no better. The recruitment system is not suitable for all situations. Recruitment system is suitable for short-term elimination of fixed targets. It is very wrong to use the recruitment system for Liao, a long-term enemy.
Today, many people talk about the threat of nomadic agriculture in the objective unfavorable factors that the sixteen States in the Song Dynasty cannot recover. They think that nomads used to plunder, but after farming, they have land requirements, so they can resist the danger when the Central Plains people fight back, so the threat can't leave quickly.
While emphasizing the threat of this objective factor, these people forgot to use the same standard to measure the Song Dynasty. In the Song Dynasty, the government military system ended and the recruitment system began. The army fights full-time, not farming. And there is a more defensive way, changing stations every once in a while. Even in peacetime, military expenditure is not much different from that in wartime. Liao itself is a nomadic people, and all the people are soldiers. Land to the tiller, but also soldiers into the people, soldiers into agriculture. In fact, it is the government system. Economically self-sufficient. The Song army fought full-time and stationed in turn. The combination of soldiers and land is not as strong as that of Liao, because the army under the official system comes from the people. If they fall, their home will be gone, and even their family will be destroyed. The army of the Song Dynasty obviously didn't need to estimate family factors. Therefore, this government soldier system is more powerful in defense. This is also the main factor that many people emphasize the threat of nomadic agriculture. As for the Song Dynasty, with the establishment of the recruitment system in the army, there was no advantage at all.
Since the signing of Xiongzhou Peace Treaty with Liao in the seventh year of Kaibao, Song and Liao have been in a state of peaceful coexistence. It was not until the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom that Song Taizong launched a military attack on the Northern Han Dynasty that the military friction centered on the Northern Han Dynasty began between the Song and Liao Dynasties, which triggered a larger-scale Song and Liao War. However, Song Taizong was ambitious, and his misjudgment and misdirection of the war led to Song Jun's failure to achieve the expected results. After the Battle of Gaolianghe and the failure of the Northern Expedition in Luxi, Song Jun began to turn to strategic defense. The Battle of Mancheng and the Battle of Junziting are both defensive wars under the attack of Liao army, and they have no strategic advantage. Then the single-source alliance in the first year of Zhenzong Jingdezhen was to restore the peace of Xiongzhou until the Song Dynasty joined forces with Jin to destroy Liao.
Dui Xixia
Throughout the Song Dynasty's response to the Li issue, we found that the Song Dynasty made several fatal strategic mistakes:
First, Chunhua destroyed the city for four years, indicating that the court had no ambition to govern the northwest frontier and provided Li with strategic space for activities;
Secondly, the implementation of the ban on green and white salt not only failed to trap Li economically, but also drove the fish out of the cave, which made the Tangut who had surrendered to the Song Dynasty rebel against Li and greatly enhanced the national cohesion of the Tangut.
Third, the Song Dynasty always had unrealistic illusions about Li, hoping to attract and caress him. He was forced to participate in the war and remained in a passive position strategically.
Fourth, I didn't know enough about the importance of Lingzhou as a strategic location, and hesitated to give up and stick to it twice, wasting many opportunities;
5. Rejected the joint request of Li, the leader of Tubo, and failed to seize the opportunity that Tubo and Song Dynasty jointly attacked Xixia.
Moreover, the Song Dynasty repeatedly committed military taboos, such as the mistake of venturing forward, which was surprising in the history of the Song and Xia wars at this time and later.
The fundamental reason behind these strategic mistakes lies in the fact that Song Taizong lost interest in border management after the failure to recover sixteen states of Youyun in Song Dynasty. Abandoning those border towns that waste people's money and seem to have no economic benefits has become the common voice of the ruling and opposition parties, which eventually led to the appeasement policy becoming the purpose of dealing with border affairs in the Song Dynasty.
In addition, we should also pay attention to the support of Li in Liao Dynasty at this time. The Liao Dynasty strongly supported Li for the purpose of containing the Song Dynasty, which was Li's backer against the Song Dynasty. History has repeatedly proved such a rule: if a small country can successfully fight against a big country, there must be support from other big countries behind it. The history of the rise of Xixia once again proves this point.
Duijin
From the first year of Jingkang to the suggestion, Song Qinzong suppressed the hawks and compromised the Jin people.
It was a huge mistake in the golden strategy of the Song Dynasty. In the first year of Jingkang, the Song Dynasty did not take active defensive measures against the attack of the Jin people, which led to the loss of combat opportunities. Later, in Shaoxing, although the resistance of the Song Dynasty was greatly improved, the strategic mistake of appointing civilian officers to run the army, coupled with the repression of warring factions led by Yue Fei and Han Shizhong, and even the main battle, all aimed at survival and peace, and there was no strategic intention to further counterattack, which led to the strategic passivity of the Southern Song Dynasty and the signing of unequal treaties. Although Song Xiaozong Delong's Northern Expedition came later, there was a huge strategic mistake before, which made Longxing's Northern Expedition futile.
Moreover, the Southern Song Dynasty levied a lot of taxes on its military and annual currency supply, which led to frequent internal uprisings, and the Southern Song Dynasty also fell into a passive military situation with both internal and external considerations.
Du Yuan
During the Jiading period in Song Ningzong, the supply of coins for New Year pictures was stopped, which led to the deterioration of the relationship between Song and Jin. Later, the Song Dynasty did not make a clear statement about peace in Mongolia, but was vague, which made the relationship with Kim worse. Although the New Year's Coin is a symbol of humiliation, at the moment when Mongolia intervened in the Central Plains, the influence brought by the New Year's Coin was the Jin Dynasty's containment of Mongolia's military strategy. The Jin Dynasty's retaliatory military action against the Southern Song Dynasty led to an alliance between the Song Dynasty and Mongolia, thus making a bigger mistake in military strategy-uniting Mongolia to resist the gold. If the Southern Song Dynasty doesn't make friends with the Jin State, it will greatly reduce the opportunity for the Jin State to attack Mongolia in the Southern Song Dynasty, and the double-line attack will objectively greatly reduce the strength of the Jin State, thus reducing the buffer effect of the Jin State on the Southern Song Dynasty.
Ignoring Mongolia's prevention is another big mistake of Song Dynasty's strategy towards Mongolia. Mongolia attacked the state of Jin by force in the Southern Song Dynasty, and there was not much resistance in the Southern Song Dynasty. Moreover, after Song and Mongolia destroyed the gold, the Southern Song Dynasty felt good about itself, hesitated about Mongolia's strategy, failed to make preventive military deployment in time, and even more terrible was the lack of cooperation between leaders and commanders because of greed. After Kim's death, it was really taboo for military strategists to take over Luoyang alone without making unified arrangements.
The Song Dynasty was not without military victory, but a reluctant victory could not turn the situation around strategically.
First, take the initiative to attack local victories.
Song Jun took the initiative to attack the Liao Dynasty twice, one was the battle of Gaolianghe after the Northern Han Dynasty was razed, and the other was the three-year Northern Expedition. It is called "battle" because it is a strategic attack composed of many battles. These two kinds of active attacks have the same characteristics. At the beginning, we attacked the city and plundered the land, celebrating all the way, but the decisive battle was defeated and the whole army was wiped out. In the Song Dynasty's own words, the soldiers were "at a loss". Although we won some victories over Xixia and later Jin, we still can't change the strategic pattern. For example, in the battle of Guandu, Yuan Shao occupied all the advantages in the early stage, and the last battle was a fiasco. Can the war be judged by the outcome? Of course not.
Second, the victory of defensive counterattack.
Song Jun's other victory is defensive counterattack, which is the inevitable result of defensive strategy and defense under unfavorable conditions. Whether it is against Jin or Yuan, the battle of victory in Song Dynasty is mostly defensive counterattack. Most of these wars are life-and-death battles under strategic passivity, but they are still at a strategic disadvantage. These defensive counterattacks are very different from the battle of Gaolianghe in the early Song Dynasty and the active attack in Tunxi Northern Expedition. According to Ceng Rui Long's Jing Lu You Yan, after the failure of the Northern Expedition, Song Jun began to have a strategic offensive and changed to a strategic defense. Since then, Song Jun has never won strategically.
Judging from the foreign wars in the Song Dynasty, it is generally characterized by "barely winning and completely failing". There is a saying that "war is the continuation of politics", which means that political problems should be solved by war, and war should play a role in the whole strategic pattern. Historian Ceng Rui Long's conclusion in "A Quiet Talk on the Economy" has the same meaning that "political consequences should be considered when using troops". The Song Dynasty was basically at a disadvantage in foreign negotiations, which was the inevitable product of the passive strategy of the Song Dynasty.
In the Song-Liao War, with the support of the Song court, Song Jun still gained an encouraging local strategy under the coordinated operation. However, after the Jin people invaded south in the first year of Jingkang, Song Qinzong, the military resistance of military commanders in the Song Dynasty often risked resisting the support of the imperial court, which led to the dilemma of fighting alone and the inability of various armies to cooperate. In addition, when Mongolia invaded, it did not give any assistance to the anti-Mongolian forces in the Central Plains, resulting in a situation of inaction. In fact, for Liao and Xixia, there are still these problems. Yang Ye was defeated and captured, and refused to join the Tubo people's war against Xixia, which were all manifestations of the lack of overall strategic operations in the Song Dynasty. Behind the military victory in Song Dynasty were many factors, such as the mistakes of civil servants' command and the emperor's compromise strategy, while the whole military strategy in Song Dynasty was always in a passive situation. Even for Xixia, the war was deadlocked for many years. In "Northwest Pioneering", Long also thought that "the Privy Council was indecisive in the Xixia War and didn't know the military affairs under its jurisdiction". Therefore, most foreign wars in the Song Dynasty were "barely won, completely defeated, partially won, and lost the overall situation".
Song Jun's victory in the local war reflected Song Bing's tenacious resistance and heroic sacrifice spirit. However, due to the wrong command and judgment of the Song court and the later strategy of being soft on the outside and rigid on the inside, it was still unable to reverse the whole strategic passive situation in the Song Dynasty.
Although there were many objective unfavorable factors in Song Dynasty, his passive situation was mainly caused by his own strategic mistakes. Compared with the Three Kingdoms period, many advisers came from scholars who studied military strategy. Although the culture of the Song Dynasty flourished, under the policy of emphasizing literature and restraining martial arts, scholars rarely involved in the study of military strategy. Therefore, when someone opposes the maritime alliance and joint payment, the voice of the opponents has not been fully taken seriously. During the Warring States period, Qin adopted the strategy of "attacking from afar and defending near", but at that time, Qin's military strength was in absolute advantage, and the initiative was on Qin's side, while the military strategy of Song Dynasty was not active. Adopting the strategy of "attacking from afar and defending near" is tantamount to inviting wolves into the room and destroying the Great Wall.
What's more worth mentioning is that the recruitment system and the rotation of garrison troops in the Song Dynasty did not pose any threat to the nomadic people after farming, which was equivalent to turning their own army into a "nomadic army". Due to the disconnection between the army and the land in the recruitment system, it also brings difficulties to the supply of combat materials. In Song Dynasty, the shortage and lag of logistics supply became the key factor restricting Song Jun's operations. As I said before, the recruitment system is suitable for short-term active combat against fixed targets, while long-term defensive warfare against long-term stubborn enemies involves soldiers among the people, and the officer-soldier system is more powerful. Fan Zhongyan insisted on active defense in the battle with Xixia. Although it was attacked by others, it was proved that Fan Zhongyan's strategy was correct. In addition, the military reform in Fan Zhongyan's "Qingli New Deal" during the Song Renzong period was also a reflection of the government's military system. His reform content is to recruit 50,000 strong men in Gyeonggi and neighboring counties to serve as the guards in Gyeonggi to help the soldiers. Within a year, these brave men can "plow for three hours" and "teach for a while", which can not only save soldiers' expenses, but also strengthen their defense. From this point of view, Fan Zhongyan advocated the regime for the first time and the defensive war for the second time, which is a clear understanding of effectively using the regime and defensive war to resist foreign invasion. The Garbo Law in Wang An's Shi Xi-ning Reform also had this kind of reform on the military system of the government, and it also had the disadvantage of using the art of war to separate soldiers from generals in the garrison system. However, under the influence of the policy of emphasizing literature and restraining martial arts in the Song Dynasty, the new law was first abolished shortly after its promulgation. However, the military strategy of the Song Dynasty was the recruitment system plus the defensive strategy. These two contradictory strategies were tied together, which led to Song Jun's passivity.
Some people may ask, why didn't the Song Dynasty choose the strategy of active attack like Emperor Wu of Han Dynasty? That's because Kaifeng in the Song Dynasty has no danger to defend, and once it goes to war, it is impossible to fail. After two failed northern expeditions, Song Jun was not sure of winning. Therefore, the defense strategy is also out of Song Jun's helplessness.