What were the military systems of ancient China?

The military system of ancient China can be traced back to the last three generations. From the Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties to the Spring and Autumn Period, there was no separation between military and government, and the military system was based on vehicle warfare, with the "division" as the combat unit. In the Warring States period, as the mode of warfare changed from vehicular warfare to foot warfare, the military leadership system changed accordingly, and a system of separation of powers between generals and ministers was generally implemented, with the officers in charge of the army being called generals, generals, generals, and great generals. In Qin, it was called Da Liang Zao, and when King Ying Zheng set up the state captain as the head of the military officials, and the head of the military officials in Chu was called Zhu Guo and Shang Zhu Guo.

During the Warring States period, the military officials below the generals were also more complete, with Zhao setting up a left secretary and a lieutenant, and Qi setting up a secretary. Qin, Qi, and Chu set up Langzhong, and all the vassal states generally set up a lieutenant in charge of garrison duty, and Qin has a lieutenant position, responsible for guarding the state capital.

During the Warring States period, the basic feature of the military leadership system is that all the vassal states have established a unified army, and the ruler has become the supreme commander of the army. Military power was highly centralized, and the monarch had sole authority over the formation of the army, mobilization, and conquest. The "tiger symbol" system was the main manifestation of the centralization of military power. Conscription was commonly practiced in all countries, with counties as the unit for recruiting soldiers, and the age for men to serve in the army ranged from about 15 to 60 years old. Some vassal states adopted the method of recruiting and selecting warriors as a way to form an army, such as the "Wu Pawns" of Wei, the "Technicians" of Qi, and the "Sharpshooters" of Qin. This method of recruiting soldiers can be regarded as the beginning of the conscription system.

During the Warring States period, the status of the car soldiers was greatly reduced compared to the Spring and Autumn period, but still an important part of the army, the infantry replaced the car soldiers to become the main force of the army of each country at that time. Cavalry began to develop into an independent type of military, since Zhao Wuling Wang "Hu suit riding and shooting" to establish a strong cavalry, all the vassal states attach importance to the construction of cavalry, cavalry has become an important type of military.

During the Warring States period, the vassal states generally established a standing army. In order to make the army have a strong fighting force, all countries generally emphasized on the strict training of the army and the implementation of serious military discipline. To this end, all countries established a system of rewards and punishments in their armies. For example, the State of Qin established 20 levels of military honors, stipulating that rewards were to be given according to the size of military achievements, regardless of rank. According to the Book of Shang Junshu (商君书-境内), "If you can attack a city and surround an area, and behead more than 8,000 people, you will be rewarded with a surplus; if you can fight in the field and behead 3,000 people, you will be rewarded with a surplus. Officials and generals above the rank of colonel were rewarded." The basic method of rewarding the "surplus" was to increase the number of titles by 20. Soldiers who retreated in fear of battle were sentenced to tattoo and wakes. In short, the military regulations of the Warring States period, has been quite perfect, in the maintenance of the battlefield discipline, the army internal security system, the barracks of the internal security, the authority of the officers at all levels, the battle group and the use of military flags, badges, command orders, etc., have specific and strict regulations, indicating that the military system has been quite complete.

The Qin Dynasty was the first unified authoritarian state in Chinese history, and the centralized military leadership system created at this time had a great impact on later generations.

After the unification of the Qin Dynasty, the first emperor system was created, and the emperor was in charge of the highest military power in the country. The emperor was in charge of the highest military power in the country. The deployment of the army throughout the country and the granting of military power to the commander-in-chief had to be based on the tiger symbols issued by the emperor as tokens. The military symbol cast in bronze in the shape of a tiger, engraved with an inscription on the back, divided into two halves, half of which remained in the hands of the emperor, half of which was issued to the commander-in-chief of the army. Any deployment of the army, must be sent by the emperor's ambassadors to hold the charm check together, can be effective.

The highest military official at the center was called the lieutenant. Before the unification, the lieutenant was also called the captain or the state captain, and his status was second to that of Dara-zuk. After the abolition of the Dairyangzao, the lieutenant was promoted to be the head of the military officials and ranked as one of the "three dukes". The lieutenants had the right to control the army, but not the right to mobilize the army. When the state sent out troops, the emperor assigned generals to lead the troops. The centralized military leadership system was compatible with the county administrative system. In the county, county, townships are in charge of military officials, the county set up county lieutenant, responsible for military recruitment, deployment and weaponry manufacturing, storage and local security; county set up county lieutenant, in charge of a county's military; townships set up go around, the management of the military and public security.

The Qin Dynasty car soldiers are still in the battle to assume an important task. When attacking, the car soldiers charged into battle, destroy the enemy battle formation; defense, the chariot into a formation of barricades, blocking the enemy's impact. The compilation of car soldiers basically follows the system of the Warring States period, generally can be divided into the royal hand, ride the car warriors and car infantry three parts.

Infantry is the main type of Qin army, called "material officer". There were light infantry and heavy infantry. Light infantry did not wear armor, flexible, and killed the enemy at a distance with bows and crossbows. Heavily armored infantry wearing armor, to be close to the enemy, to go, spear, battle-axe, Shu and other weapons and enemy fighting. This distinction is determined by the weaponry and combat needs, in the history of the military system is a big step forward.

The Qin army in combat, more car, foot, horsemen of all types of mixed formation, coordinated fighting, can play a variety of weapons strengths, but also to make up for the shortcomings of the various types of soldiers. From the terracotta warriors and horses unearthed in the mausoleum of the first emperor of Qin, in a military formation of thousands of people, there are holding spears and battle-axes of infantry, there are driving a chariot car soldiers, there are also horseback and standing cavalry. The various types of soldiers each in their own way, tacit cooperation.

The Qin Dynasty implemented a universal conscription system, where all men of the right age had to register on a special roster, and began to serve in the corvée, which was called "Fu Ji". Fu Ji" age from 17 years old, up to 60 years old (with a title stops at 56 years old)." Fu registration" all serve two years of military service, one year in the county, one year to go to the capital or the border, collectively known as "pawn"; each adult male, in addition to two years of military service, but also in the county service for a month, to undertake the task of repairing the city walls, roads and transportation, etc., due to be replaced, so it is known as the "more pawns". This nationwide universal conscription system by age has a great influence on future generations.

The military system of the Western Han Dynasty inherited the system of the Qin Dynasty and had innovations. The emperor was still the supreme military commander, and he controlled the entire army through two central military leadership organizations that he directly manipulated. These two institutions are: the central guard institution composed of Langzhong order, Weiwei, lieutenant, etc.; by the lieutenant, generals, generals, lieutenants, etc. composed of the country's highest military administrative institutions.

The central guard force can be divided into palace guards and capital guards. Palace guards called the South Army, by the Langzhong order (Guangluxun) is responsible for, the Weiwei lieutenant; capital guards called the North Army, by the lieutenant (Dejinwu) is responsible for, as the palace outside the capital within the daily security. In order to effectively control the whole army, the emperor set up a military leadership organization headed by the lieutenant in the center. The lieutenant was nominally the highest military officer, but in reality he was only responsible for military administration, and had no power to send out troops or command them. When Emperor Wu of Han Dynasty, the post of general was set up, gradually replacing the lieutenant and taking charge of the military power, even beyond the authority of the prime minister. However, the actual status of the generals varied from person to person.

The local administrative system of the Western Han Dynasty was the county system. The chief was called the governor, and the second governor was called the lieutenant. The governor was in charge of the military and civil affairs, and the lieutenant was in charge of the military. The latter was specifically responsible for all military operations in the county, directly leading the local forces, and had a lot of power. County military leadership organization and county level is similar, the county magistrate in charge of all military and political affairs, the county lieutenant in charge of the military, the duty is mainly to catch thieves, responsible for the territory of the police, for the county magistrate has a certain degree of independence. The townships set up by the mere, the townships below the pavilion, set up pavilion chief, is the local military grass-roots organizations.

Starting from the Han Dynasty, the central government set up a vassal state to deal with the minorities who surrendered or belonged to the state. The lieutenant of the vassal state was the highest officer of the vassal state, and he took care of civil affairs with his military position, which was another feature of the military system in the Han Dynasty. In order to strengthen the military control of the vassal state and the border areas, the central government also sent some temporary military officials, called "hold the section of all protectors", such as the western region of all protectors, protection of Qiang lieutenant, etc., the status is equivalent to the mainland of the governor, constituting the Han Dynasty, a unique local military leadership institutions, but also is the central government of the control of the border areas of the special measures.

In the Western Han Dynasty, there was no distinction between military service and labor, which was collectively called "corvée service". Adult men were required to serve in the corvée, first in the county as a year of "car riding material officer pawns", that is, the county soldiers, military training, to obtain the necessary military skills, and then return to their hometowns to work in the farms, the country's reserve soldiers; and then according to the actual needs, or as a year of "garrison pawns", that is, one year in the border guards, or a year as a year of "guards", that is, the police in the capital to serve in the army. After the end of the annual local service in January, called "more pawns", the task is to repair barracks, do beacon flints, build palaces, tombs, repair embankments, transportation and so on.

Before Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, the carriage and the cavalry were equal in importance, and after that, the cavalry replaced the carriage soldiers and became the main force of the Han army. Several major battles of the Han-Hungarian War, the cavalry played an important role, so that the ancient Chinese cavalry completed the transformation to a strategic military service, and became the main force of the war.

The establishment of the Han army was a system of ministries and quarters, with an organizational system of ministries, quarters, cantons, squads, shi, and wugs under the general who led the army. The ministry was the highest level of the Han army, and the officer in charge of the ministry was called the lieutenant, whose rank was the same as that of the governor, and who was under the command of the general in charge of the army when he went out to fight. The Qu was subordinate to the ministry, and its chief was called Junhou, whose status was equivalent to that of a county magistrate. Tuen set Tuen Chang, team set team rate, shiwu is the most grassroots organization in the army. This system of military organization is set up all year round, and in times of war, the court appoints a general to command it and go on a crusade.

The military system of the Sui and Tang dynasties is the most characteristic. The military might of the Tang Dynasty was largely due to the perfect and well-functioning military system. Tang Dynasty military power centralized in the central, by the emperor personally. The Ministry of War, under the jurisdiction of Shangshu Province, was the state's day-to-day military affairs organization, and its chief was the Minister of War. In the 10th year of the Zhenguan Dynasty (636), a major adjustment was made to the military system of the government since the Northern Dynasty: the government soldiers were the basic standing army of the country, usually subordinate to the twelve guards and the six rates of the Eastern Palace of the Crown Prince, of which the left and right guards led 60 military mansions, the guards led 40-50 military mansions, and the rest of them were subordinate to the six rates of the Eastern Palace. Each guard has one general and two generals, and each rate has one rate and two deputy rates. In normal times, they are responsible for managing the affairs of the government soldiers in turn, and in times of war, upon the Emperor's appointment, they lead the government soldiers mobilized from all the provinces to go out to war." If something happened in the four directions, the generals would be ordered to go out, and the matter would be dismissed at any time. The soldiers were scattered in the government, and the generals returned to the court." ("New Tang Book - military records") major military affairs by the political affairs hall held by the prime ministers meeting to assist the emperor, the Ministry of War is responsible for the assessment of military officers, appointment and dismissal, the army's establishment and rotation, armor, stables and pastoral, charts and other matters.

The government, also known as the military government, is the basic military unit before the middle of the Tang Dynasty, its military in agriculture, military and agricultural concept has always been praised. When Emperor Taizong, the military government is also known as the folding of the government, the soldiers up to 1,200 people in the government, 1,000 people in the government, 800 people in the lower government. Each government had a governor, a Zuichong captain, and vice-governors, a left and a right Goiyi captain each. The country's most **** set up 634 provinces, soldiers amounted to 600,000 people, mainly distributed in the political center of Guanzhong, Longyou, Central Plains and other places.

The source of government soldiers was mainly selected from homesteaders and landlords, but also from the poor. According to the regulations, three years a simple, where 20 years of age and above adult men, are simple selection object. Simplified selection criteria based on wealth, material power, population of three, property equivalent to take the rich, power equivalent to take the strong, wealth, power are equivalent to take the population of the more. Once they joined the government soldiers, they would not be released from military service until they were 60 years old. The government soldiers themselves free of rent, but their families did not reduce or waive preferential treatment. After the Tang Dynasty, the war, the reward is not honored, the soldier's social status declined, the property people hate to serve, especially the land annexation is serious, the destruction of equalization of land system, the military funds do not rely on, the government military system gradually for the recruitment of the military system replaced. Xuanzong Kaiyuan ten years (722 years), began large-scale recruitment. Recruitment of soldiers already has the nature of mercenaries, soldiers of low quality, wartime a touch of collapse, usually rampant in the city. The military expenditure was transferred to the civil society due to the implementation of the conscription system, which made the burden on the society heavier day by day. The military recruitment system is one of the reasons why the Tang Dynasty went from strength to strength, and is also the root cause of the loss of the spirit of traditional Chinese society in the late martial co?o.

During the Shengtang period, a system of provincial governors was established in the border areas to govern the border field armies. Its soldiers have been professionalized, and mainly cavalry, military strength. However, it was extremely easy to be utilized by the generals who held the army for a long time, and finally triggered the An Shi Rebellion.

In the Song Dynasty, the emperor directly mastered the army's construction, mobilization and command power, under which the military power of three: Privy Council for the highest military and political organs, responsible for strategic decision-making, dealing with day-to-day affairs, recruitment, deployment of the army, the chief called the Privy Councilor. The three Yamas are in charge of the highest command power of the national army, its full name is the temple before the commander-in-chief of the Department, the guards of the army horse army commander-in-chief of the Department, the guards of the army infantry commander-in-chief of the Department. Each of them had a commander-in-chief as the chief, whose status was lower than that of the Privy Council. The Privy Council and the three offices held the right to issue troops and the right to control troops, keeping each other in check. Despite the fact that the commander-in-chief had troops under his control, he was temporarily dispatched by the emperor in wartime to lead his troops to the battlefield, and the troops were returned to the three magistracies after the matter was settled. Song people themselves said: "the ancestor of the system of military law, the world's military, this is in the Privy Council, the right to send troops, but not hold the weight of the military; the capital of the military total in the three marshals, hold the weight of the military, but not the right to send the military. Upper and lower phase dimension, shall not be autocratic, this is why more than one hundred and thirty years without mutiny also." ("History of Song" - official two) this system to weaken the Tang clan since the scourge of war, to protect the social stability of the contribution, but at the same time also caused mutual constraints, inefficiency of the shortcomings.

There were three kinds of armies in the Song Dynasty: the forbidden army, the compartment army, and the countryside army, and in the border areas there were the tomato army. The forbidden soldier is the state's regular army, the task is to guard the capital, the task of conquest and garrison border counties and local. The van army is the local army, in fact, is a full-time labor force, it belongs to the states and some central institutions, take on the task of city building, road construction, transportation and other tasks, more than not training. The township soldiers, i.e. militia, were irregular local armies, but the township soldiers in some regions had a stronger fighting force because of the protection of the territory and the defense of the land.

The Song dynasty's forbidden soldiers and box soldiers all practiced the recruitment system, with the "strong and healthy" selected for the forbidden soldiers and the "short and weak" selected for the box soldiers. After recruitment, family members can accompany the camp, I must branding face and arm as a sign, not to be discharged in the middle of the service, in fact, life-long service. If there were vacancies in the army, they would be filled from among the sons and daughters of the soldiers, and if they fled or committed crimes, the punishment would be very heavy. In the event of famine, a large number of bankrupt farmers recruited, thus forming the situation of redundant soldiers and redundant costs in the Song Dynasty, and often incorporated thieves as soldiers, in the lack of soldiers and even criminals have become one of the sources, the quality of the army greatly reduced.

The military system of the Ming Dynasty was quite original. The army was organized on the basis of the guard system. On the basis of the emperor's monopoly on military and political power, the country's key places to set up guards. A state set up, several states set up guard, a guard about 5600 people. The guardhouses were divided into thousand-households and hundred-households, each with more than a thousand men and more than a hundred men attached to it. The whole country's army is organized into guards according to this system, and each guard is subordinate to the local commanding general's department, and the commanding general's department is subordinate to the central five armies (the center, the left, the right, the front, and the back) of the Governor's Office. The Governor's Office is the highest military authority, in charge of the national military registration of the guards. But the expedition, garrison, training, etc. are under the command of the Ministry of War. In case of war, the Ministry of Military Affairs, at the behest of the emperor, appointed the military officer to lead the army from the guardhouse to go to war. At the end of the war, the officer returned to the court to report his duties, and the army was dispersed to the guardhouses. This system ensures the separation of the right to unify the army and the right to mobilize the army, prevents the generals from being authoritarian, and ensures the control of the emperor and the court (the central government) over the whole country's army.

The Ming army was divided into three major parts: the Beijing army, the local army, and the border army. The Beijing army is the elite of the national army, usually guarding the capital, the main force of the war for the conquest. When the Ming Dynasty, the Beijing army had 72 guards, and formally established the five army, three thousand, Shenji three camps. In normal times, the Five Armies battalion specialized in formation, the Three Thousand battalion was the main patrol, and the Shenji battalion was in charge of firearms (Figure 13). The local army was the guards of each place, and was deployed in the military towns in the hinterland. Border troops were deployed in nine military towns from the Yalu River in the east to the Jiayuguan Pass in the west, known as the "Nine Borders", each of which was under the jurisdiction of a general officer. In addition, there are militia, for the military outside the maintenance of local security forces.

The source of guards from the system of soldiers, guards and military officers are hereditary, a military registration, known as the military household, under the jurisdiction of the Governor's Office, not subject to the constraints of the local administrator, the father died and the son succeeded, generations from the military. They had a low social status, were often associated with criminals, were of low quality, and were constantly on the run. As a result, after the middle of the Ming Dynasty and the implementation of conscription system, the call for soldiers gradually become the main force of the army, but the conscription system to raise soldiers cost a lot of money, the state treasury is in short supply, and ultimately lead to the depletion of national strength.

In the early Qing Dynasty, the central set up the Office of Military Affairs, in charge of military and political affairs, to be handled by the emperor's will. The army consists of eight banners and green soldiers. Eight banners in yellow, yellow, white, white, white, red, red, red, blue, blue, eight flags for the sign." Flag" for the Manchu "soldiers and people of one" social organization, both military, political, economic and other functions. The eight banners have their own flag masters, all hereditary. Emperor Taizong of the Qing Dynasty added eight banners of Mongolia and eight banners of the Han army. After the unification of the country, the eight banners became completely unproductive military and political organizations, directly belonging to the state and no longer belong to the flag lord, and is divided into eight banners of the capital camp (by the yellow, white, and yellow three banners as the) and eight banners of the garrison, the latter are stationed in the country's key points as a deterrent to the force of the local. The Green Battalion is a reference to the Ming Dynasty Guards system of recruitment of Han soldiers, to the green flag as a symbol of the battalion as the basis of the establishment of units, cavalry, infantry, guards of the division. Generals selected by the Ministry of War, each province has a number of towns of green battalions, the main general said that the general, the general above the governor, control of a province or a number of provinces in the town of the generals, the governor, the governor has the power of the rate of the governor.

The Manchurian eight banners to riding and shooting for the long, in the plains of the wilderness to charge into battle this their strengths; and the eight banners of the Han army to make good use of firearms, in the siege of the city and the water combat has repeatedly built a miraculous success. However, because of the eight banners soldiers for the establishment and consolidation of the Qing dynasty, so the Qing dynasty took the policy of preferential treatment of Manchurian eight banners, in all aspects are given special care. Eight banners soldiers gradually demoralized, since the Kangxi Ping Sanfan rebellion began, the eight banners on the green battalion's dependence on the increasingly serious, the main position of its strategy for the green battalion to replace.