What are the characteristics of China's ancient national defense?

First, the national defense in the pre-Qin period

As a historical phenomenon, national defense originated from primitive tribal struggle and developed with the emergence and development of the country. The establishment of the Xia Dynasty in the 2nd/Kloc-0th century BC marked the formation of private ownership of state machinery protection, which resulted in China's initial national defense. There is an epoch-making difference between the Xia Dynasty city wall of Chengziya site discovered by archaeology and the trench of matriarchal clan village of Xi 'an banpo village site. The Xia Dynasty also established a military service system of the people's army, in which "soldiers leave the countryside and the land is matched with the soldiers". During the nearly two thousand years from the establishment of Xia Dynasty to the Qin Dynasty's annexation of the Six Heroes and the unification of China, national defense was mainly manifested in the struggle for the throne among slave owners and the annexation war among vassal States. In the fierce war of the law of the jungle, there is no hegemony if the country is not rich, and there is no hegemony if the soldiers are not strong. Therefore, all countries advocate armament very much and adopt different methods to seek ways to enrich and strengthen their soldiers. The national defense in this period presents unique characteristics of the times. Its main manifestations are: first, improve politics and reform the country. In the fierce competition for hegemony and annexation, in order to avoid being annexed in the war of the law of the jungle, the vassal States actively reformed their politics in Qiang Bing, renovated their armaments, expanded their forces, expanded their territories overseas, and took the road of reforming their countries. Among them, the famous Jinbang, "Mo Qiang is in the world"; Qi Huangong's political reform in Qi Huan dominated the East; Qin Xiaogong's filial piety reform dominated the western regions; The king of Chu also appointed Wuqi to reform. In particular, Qin Xiaogong appointed Shang Yang to reform, abandon ore fields, open buildings, reward troops, establish county system, and reward farming and weaving. After Shang Yang's political reform, Qin successfully abolished the political privileges of the old nobles, which made the feudal economy of Qin develop rapidly and gradually became the most powerful country among the "Seven Heroes of the Warring States", laying a solid foundation for Qin Shihuang to finally unify China. The second is to reform the military system and practice martial arts. Mainly reflected in the expansion of the scope of war, cavalry and boat division came out one after another. During the Warring States period, the armies of various countries have developed from a single chariot to a multi-armed army with chariots, infantry, cavalry and boatmen, and an independent national defense leadership system of "military system of civil and military officials, generals and soldiers" has been implemented, so that generals and military institutions at all levels have their own rights and responsibilities and have more energy to manage the army, study wars and direct operations. Third, we attach importance to teaching war, and China people are martial. During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, all countries attached great importance to national defense education, and regarded advocating and cultivating the martial spirit of the Chinese nation as the primary condition for strengthening the country and winning the battle. The establishment of schools by the state and instilling martial arts ideas from childhood through school teaching are the main forms of national defense education for the people in various countries during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. School education attaches great importance to military training, which includes courses such as Liu De, Liu Xing and Liu Yi. Thus, the military training with shooting and defense as the main content occupies an extremely important social position in social life, and becomes the yardstick for judging the ability of male aristocrats and "China people" and the standard for the monarch to select talents. Taking martial arts as a career and being proud of it became a common social atmosphere at that time. It is an important strategy to strengthen national defense construction during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, and it is also an effective measure to educate the whole people on martial spirit. Accordingly, in the process of realizing colorful war practice, the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period became the golden age of the prosperity of ancient military science in China. For example, Sun Tzu's Art of War, Woods, Liu Tao, Sima Fa, Wei Liaozi and Sun Bin, which are still widely circulated today, established the basic ideas of China's ancient art of war and laid a solid foundation for the development of military theory in later generations. Among them, the world-famous Sun Tzu's Art of War has become a famous military classic at all times and all over the world.

The second is the external expansion since Qin and Han dynasties and the governance of the Ming and Qing frontiers.

In order to consolidate their rule and safeguard national unity, the rulers of all dynasties since Qin and Han dynasties have carried out activities to expand their territory and consolidate national defense to a certain extent. In 22 1 BC, Qin Shihuang established the first unified, multi-ethnic and centralized feudal country, and then national defense really took on the dual tasks of consolidating and developing the unified political power and resisting foreign invasion. In order to consolidate national defense, Qin Shihuang adopted a series of comprehensive measures: ① establishing a military system that is compatible with the centralized political system and commanding the national army. (2) build roads and postal services, and establish a nationwide transportation and communication network. (3) Beacon tower, timely grasp the border military intelligence, command and mobilize troops. (4) In 2 15 BC, General Meng Tian sent 300,000 troops to attack the Xiongnu in the north, guarding the northern frontier, relieving the Xiongnu threat and retaking the vast area around the Hetao. ⑤ Recruit 500,000 migrant workers, build the Great Wall on a large scale, and build the "Wan Li Great Wall", a protective barrier with a length of more than 65,438+10,000 miles from Lintao in the west to Liaodong in the east, which has created a miracle in the history of world military engineering and played an important role in national unity and national defense consolidation. ⑥ In 2 14 BC, Qin Shihuang sent troops to the south to unify the Yue nationality in the Pearl River valley, and set up four counties, namely Minzhong County, Nanhai County, Guilin County and Xiangxiang County, and moved farmers in the north to live with the Yue nationality to build a border defense. Qin Shihuang not only attached importance to the consolidation and expansion of land territory, but also attached great importance to the consolidation and development of coastal areas. In 2 15 BC, he went to Jieshi on the north bank of Bohai Sea, sailed along Shandong Peninsula for a week five years later, and erected a monument in Huijiling and Langya Mountain, which was named "fame, looking at Langya Mountain". As a result of the above measures, the territory of the Qin Dynasty extended to the sea in the east, Xiang Jun (now Chongzuo, Guangxi) in the south, Longxi (now Lintao County, Gansu Province) in the west and the Great Wall in the north. On this basis, the territory of China developed outward after Qin Dynasty.

After Liu Bang seized power and established the Han Dynasty, in order to stabilize the society and resume production, on the one hand, he adopted a policy of "pro-intimacy" with the Huns to temporarily maintain peace in the border areas; On the other hand, China has implemented the policy of recuperation and concentrated on economic development, resulting in unprecedented prosperity of "cultural landscape". By the time of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, the national strength of the Han Dynasty had been relatively rich and powerful. At this point, Emperor Wudi concentrated the strength of the whole country and began a big counterattack to eliminate border troubles. He successively launched a large-scale "Battle of the Desert South", "Battle of Hexi" and "Battle of the Desert North" against the Huns, and achieved decisive victory. In order to realize the final strategy of conquering the Huns, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty sent Zhang Qian and others to the Western Regions twice in BC 138 and BC 19, which helped unify all ethnic groups in the Western Regions, broke the left and right arms of the Huns and left them in an isolated position. In 5 1 year BC, Xiongnu was forced to land in Han Dynasty and became a vassal state of Western Han Dynasty. At the same time, the Han Dynasty sent troops to develop the southwest in 1 10 BC, which calmed the war in the south and made many tribes such as Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan submit to the Han Dynasty.

After the demise of the Han Dynasty, the history of China experienced a 300-year division between the Three Kingdoms, the Jin Dynasty and the Southern and Northern Dynasties. It was not until 589 AD that Emperor Wen of Sui Dynasty destroyed the Southern Dynasties that China was reunified. Emperor Wendi of Sui Dynasty, who started in troubled times, knew the importance of Qiang Bing as a rich country and took a series of rectification and reform measures, such as repairing and storing grain, preparing for famine, repairing and consolidating the Great Wall, and digging canals. In 6 10, Emperor Wendi of Sui sent more than 10,000 people, including Chen Ling and Jang Jin, to Ryukyu (now Taiwan Province Province). Emperor Wendi of Sui adopted the strategy of combining political alienation with military attack against Turks who invaded the northwest and the Central Plains repeatedly, and finally made them bow to their knees and pacify northern Xinjiang. At the peak of the Sui Dynasty, there were 190 counties, 1255 counties and 865,438+households in China. The border extends to the west (now Xinjiang), to Wuyuan in the north (now Hangjinhou Banner, Inner Mongolia), to the southeast, 9300 miles from east to west, and to the north and south 148 15 miles, making the country rich and powerful. Later, due to the debauchery and brutality, the wealth accumulated during the Wendi period was exhausted, and Sui eventually went to extinction. Emperor Taizong, who witnessed the storm of peasant uprising at the end of Sui Dynasty, broke with the old system of Sui Dynasty and formulated the general plan of enriching Qiang Bing, especially the policy of reforming politics, developing economy, strengthening national defense and being good-neighborly, which made the social economy, culture and science develop rapidly and successfully realized the strategic defense concept of "China is safe and four foreigners are obedient". During the 300-year rule of China in the Tang Dynasty, the territory was further expanded, reaching the sea in the east, Weihai in the west, Waixing 'anling and Sakhalin Island in the northeast and the South China Sea in the south, which was an era of strong national strength and vast territory in the history of China.

Song Taizu and Zhao Kuangyin, who rose in the melee between warlords, gradually eliminated the separatist forces in the south, and adopted a series of measures, such as "bullying the weak with the strong, defending the weak at home and defending the outside", and controlling the martial arts with literature, but they were far from comparable in the prosperous times of Han and Tang Dynasties. Due to the excessive concentration of political power, military power and financial power, the military strength was weakened, the national defense crisis deepened, and the ruling class was corrupt, making it a rare dynasty in China. Therefore, with the large-scale migration of nomadic people to the south, it is inevitable that the Northern Song Dynasty will have a well-off life, and the Southern Song Dynasty has to retreat to Lin 'an (now Hangzhou). In sharp contrast, the people's spontaneous anti-gold struggle is surging, and the feats of serving the country, represented by Li Gang, Zong Ze, Yue Fei and Han Shizhong, left a permanent farewell to future generations.

In A.D. 1279, the Yuan Dynasty destroyed the Southern Song Dynasty, and China was reunified, ending the separatist regime and separation of several regimes in China for more than 300 years since the Five Dynasties. The Yuan Dynasty took "innovation and reform, offering 10,000 square meters" as the general plan of governing the country. It set up the Privy Council in the central government to take charge of the national military, set up provinces in local areas, and put some areas traditionally ruled by local minority regimes, such as Yunnan and Tibet, under the central government's jurisdiction. A patrol inspection department has been set up in Penghu to administer Penghu and Taiwan Province Province. Xisha and Nansha Islands were included in Huguang Province, which brought about the unprecedented unification of China. Compared with the prosperous times of Han and Tang Dynasties, the territory of Yuan Dynasty is even wider, from the sea of Okhotsk in the northeast to Siberia in the north, Yunnan in Tibet in the southwest, to the sea in the east, and to India and the Indus Valley in the south. This is the territory of the Yuan Dynasty, which is recorded in the yuan dynasty history, with "Meat Mountain in the north, quicksand in the west, Liaozuo in the east and sea in the south".

In A.D. 1368, Zhu Yuanzhang, who came from a poor peasant family, led the Red Scarf Army to destroy the Yuan Dynasty and establish the Ming Dynasty. On the one hand, Zhu Yuanzhang set out to resume production and develop the economy, and carried out a series of policies to recuperate and enrich the country and strengthen the people; On the other hand, we should continue to accomplish the great cause of reunification, strengthen peripheral defense and control the frontier. For example, the headquarters of Uszangdu and the headquarters of Nuer Tuotu have been set up in Tibet and Northeast China respectively to station troops and set up post stations to implement effective management; From the Yalu River in the east to Jiayuguan in the west, it took nearly 200 years to build the Great Wall in the north. Set up a patrol bureau in Penghu to manage the military affairs of Taiwan Province Province and Penghu; Establish health stations and water forces on the long coastline to resist Japanese harassment. These measures have effectively maintained the vast territory that has been unified since the Five Dynasties.

At the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, due to the existence of separatist forces, Russian eastern criminals and western colonists invaded the coastal areas. The Qing Dynasty attached importance to armaments, reformed the military system, and successively pacified the "San Francisco" and unified Taiwan Province Province. 1683, the Qing army was stationed in Taiwan Province Province, and three counties of L Prefecture were established, which belonged to Fujian Province, thus unifying Taiwan Province Province, which had long been divided from the mainland. 1685, the Qing government sent troops to fight back against the Russian invaders who invaded the Heilongjiang River valley in China and recovered jaxa. From 1690 to 1697, Emperor Kangxi led troops to the northwest three times, defeated the separatist forces of Junggar nobles, effectively controlled Mobei Mongolia, stopped the separatist regime and defended the territorial sovereignty of the country. At the same time, the Qing government also sent troops to suppress the rebellion launched by the Hui aristocrats, and set up ministers stationed in Tibet to manage Tibet together with the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama. In the early Qing dynasty, coastal defense was also paid more attention. From Shunzhi to Qianlong, the coastal navy was established and appointed as the prefect. In short, a vast and unified multi-ethnic country was established in the early Qing Dynasty. Its territory spans the Green Ridge in the west, the northern shore of Dabakash Lake in the northwest, Siberia in the north and Hei in the northeast.

The outer Xing 'an Mountains and Sakhalin Island in the north of Longjiang, the Pacific Ocean in the east, Taiwan Province Province and its affiliated islands Diaoyu Island and chiwei yu in the southeast, and the South China Sea Islands in the south have basically laid the territory of China. The Chinese nation's struggle against aggression

The Chinese nation has always had a patriotic tradition of resisting foreign aggression and defending the country. It is with this precious spirit that the Chinese nation can survive in disasters and our country can survive in repeated aggression. In the nearly 2,000-year history from the unification of China by the Qin Dynasty to the first Opium War in A.D. 1840, the Chinese nation's anti-aggression struggle never stopped, and patriots such as Qi Jiguang, a famous Japanese fighter, and Zheng Chenggong, a national hero who recovered Taiwan Province Province, emerged. Their heroic deeds for the country and the people are epic and immortal.

Since ancient times, the frontier has been turbulent, and the Chinese nation's anti-aggression struggle is mostly carried out in the frontier. The southeast coast is an important waterway for China to communicate with other countries in the world, and it is also an important battlefield to resist foreign invasion. At the end of Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of Ming Dynasty, Japanese pirates robbed merchant ships along the coast of China, killed coastal residents and carried out armed separatist regime. By the middle of16th century, Japanese aggression was more rampant. Thousands of soldiers and civilians were killed in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Fujian provinces. The atrocities of the Japanese army aroused the heroic resistance of China's soldiers and civilians. In the anti-Japanese struggle, it was the Qi Jiajun led by the national hero Qi Jiguang who dealt a devastating blow to the Japanese army. 156 1 in April, Qi Jiguang commanded the well-trained Qigujun to win nine wars, adowa invaded the enemy in Taizhou, Zhejiang, and was promoted to commander in chief. 1542 In August, Qi Jiguang entered Fujian to suppress the Japanese pirates, and wiped out the three major enemy forces of Yuheng, Tian Niu and Xinghua. After 10 years of struggle, the Japanese plague in the southeast coastal areas was basically quelled in about 200 years, and the coastal people lived and worked in peace and contentment. Industry and commerce continue to develop and trade is increasingly prosperous.

/kloc-At the beginning of the 0/7th century, Dutch colonists dominated the sea with their powerful military strength and plundered by pirates. Dutch colonialists have been harassing the southeast coast of China since 1604, and occupied the island of Taiwan Province province in China in 1624. 166 1 April, the Ming dynasty did not prohibit the imperial army from encircling Zheng with a success rate of 25,000 troops and hundreds of warships. Starting from Kinmen, the feat of recovering Taiwan Province Province began. After annihilating foreign enemies, conquering the imperial city (now Tainan), carrying out military encirclement and diplomatic offensive against Taiwan Province, the Dutch colonialists were finally forced to surrender, and Taiwan Province Province, which was occupied by the Netherlands for 38 years, successfully returned to the embrace of the motherland. After recovering Taiwan Province Province, Zheng Chenggong set about rectifying and building Taiwan Province Province, rectifying military discipline and reclaiming wasteland, which promoted the economic development of Taiwan Province Province.

"What is the benefit of opening up a quiet town to drive, and recovering the first base area in ten years; Tianheng still has three dry customers and is reluctant to leave. " The impassioned poem in Zheng Chenggong's seven-character quatrain "Return to Taiwan" vividly expresses his patriotic enthusiasm and reproduces this magnificent struggle more than 300 years ago.

At the beginning of Qing Dynasty, China's soldiers and civilians also fought back against Russian bandits' invasion of Heilongjiang River Basin in China. Has repelled the invasion of Boyakov and Khabalov gangs, and wiped out stepanov gangs. 1685 and 1687, the Qing army captured jaxa twice, and finally won the jaxa war, which increased the ambition of China people. The Treaty of Nebuchadnezzar Chu, signed by China and Russia through negotiation, legally confirmed that the vast areas of Heilongjiang and Wusuli River basins are Russian territory, stopped further Russian aggression and brought peace to the northeast frontier for a century and a half.