Just how formidable were bows and crossbows in the Song Dynasty wars?

Bow and crossbow power in the Song Dynasty war on how tough?

Introduction

Bow and crossbow are the oldest long-range weapons in the history of mankind, and the killing power is very strong, in the history of weapons has an extremely important position. China is one of the first countries in human history to use the bow and crossbow. In China, the bow, crossbow was born in the pre-Qin period, and in the subsequent time of continuous development to be to the Song Dynasty when the bow, crossbow has reached a very high level.

The Song Dynasty was an important period in the development of weapons, in the war against the northern ethnic minorities, the Song Dynasty army will bow, crossbow power to play to the extreme, but also for the Song Dynasty can resist the north of one or two hundred years of sustained blows set up an indelible credit.

The Song Dynasty was an important period in the development of weaponry, and in the war against the northern minorities, the Song army brought the power of the bow and crossbow into full play, and also made indelible contributions to the Song Dynasty's ability to resist the sustained blows of the north for one or two hundred years.

Bows and crossbows were valued in the Song Dynasty

The Song Dynasty was in a turbulent time, and since its founding, it was often threatened by foreign peoples, such as the Liao, the Xixia, and the later Jin and Mongols, most of whom belonged to nomadic herdsmen, whose cavalry's high maneuverability and strong impact were the nemesis of the infantry of the Chinese army.

The strong bow and crossbow is undoubtedly the best weapon to control the cavalry by foot. In the Cold War era, the superiority of cavalry over infantry was inevitable.

This disparity was especially evident in the overall flat terrain of northern China. But if you can make good use of the terrain to limit the cavalry's ability to function, or even force them to give up their horses and fight on foot, you can turn a disadvantage into an advantage. The "strong bow and crossbow to control the cavalry from danger" is an excellent tactic for the Song to utilize their strengths.

The bow and crossbow was widely used in the Song army, not only with the defense of the northern swordsmen of the minority cavalry, but also with the "passive defense" of the traditional strategic thinking is inextricably linked.

It is well known that Emperor Taizong of the Song Dynasty took the initiative to launch an attack on the Khitan after his accession to the throne in an attempt to recover the sixteen states of Yanyun, but was defeated in the battles of Gaoliang River and Qigou Pass. A little later in the battle of Junziguan, the Song army in a defensive position is still a big defeat.

After the heavy blow, Song Taizong had to change the military strategy, change the attack to defense, ordered the army to set up a defense, the battlefield is not allowed to kill each other.

This passive defense strategy has kept the Songs in a passive-aggressive situation.

But there is also a certain reason: the Song army cavalry is generally backward, do not have the ability to raid, in the case of infantry accounted for the majority of the situation can only be "baby city self-fixed".

And although the Song Dynasty was in the era of alternating cold and hot weapons, hot weapons have not yet been popularized, the Song Dynasty's crossbows and bows have become the cold weapons era of the AK-47.

Particularly in the battle of the city, the crossbow's role is irreplaceable.

Combined with the Song people's strategic and tactical choices and cultural orientation of Chinese bows and crossbows after a long period of development, and finally made the ultimate in the Zhao-Song era.

Types of bows and crossbows and their wide application in combat

In the perception of the ancients, the sky was a vault, and this was used to describe the shape of the bow, which, when opened, was transformed into the vault of the sky due to the tension. This deformation is the process of elastic potential energy accumulation of the bow body, spreading the string, the potential energy of the elasticity of the accumulation is released, the role of the string, to promote the arrow on the string, the arrow was shot, relying on the inertia of the accumulation of flight.

The crossbow is a bow with arms. It is a long-range weapon in the shape, production process, the materials used are more complex than the bow, the era of the emergence of the bow is also much later.

The difference between the crossbow and the bow is that the back of the bow is equipped with an important component - crossbow machine. The crossbow has a longer range and greater power than the bow. The bow was used by infantrymen while the crossbow was used by infantrymen.

Song bows and crossbows are quite a lot of names, from the form, the Song bow to the sinewy angle in line with the recurve bow is mainly, the crossbow to the main crossbow, while the bed crossbow is the shape of the difference. In the Northern Song Renzong dynasty when the book of official military works, "Wujing General Summary" in *** recorded four kinds of bow, respectively: black lacquer bow, yellow birch bow, birch bow, hemp back bow.

After the establishment of the Song Dynasty, the importance of the crossbow greatly exceeded that of the previous dynasty, almost to the extent that no crossbow without war. To summarize, the development and use of crossbows in the Song Dynasty had the following significant features: first, the emergence of a large number of new crossbows; second, the increase in the number and quality of crossbow soldiers; third, crossbow soldiers as the core of the tactical play; fourth, the Song Dynasty rulers and ministers attached more importance to crossbows than in previous dynasties.

The crossbows of the Song Dynasty can be categorized into the following three types: ordinary crossbows, sacred arm crossbows, and bed crossbows.

Song dynasty in the army equipped with ordinary crossbow has black lacquer crossbow, yellow birch crossbow, white birch crossbow, esthetic birch tipped crossbow, jumping orange crossbow, mahogany crossbow, horn crossbow, within the horse locust crossbow and other names. These crossbows, some of the crossbow is stronger, must use the feet to open the leaping crossbow, some of the crossbow is weaker, is available to the arm to pull the crossbow.

The arrows fired by the wooden feather arrows, phoenix feather arrows, point steel arrows, three-stop arrows and so on.

In the early years of Xining, the eunuch Zhang Ruoshui presented the bow of the God's arm this bow is developed by the people of cloth Li Hong fine weapon, in fact, is also a crossbow. The Song History - Military Records recorded that "the divine arm bow three feet two inches, the string length of two feet five inches" However, at 522 meters away, half of the arrow shot into the elm tree, so powerful that only the rifle can have.

In order to protect this unique skill, the Song Dynasty also specially formulated the special law about the sacred arm bow is not allowed to privately made, private practice level of the sergeant destroyed and abandoned, lost in battle. Due to the secret production process, the bow was gradually lost and became an unsolved mystery.

God arm bow in the Song army for a long time, to the beginning of the Southern Song Dynasty is still make the Jin army fear of weapons. During the Shaoxing period of the Southern Song Dynasty, general Han Shizhong improved on the original Divine Arm Bow and made the Ke enemy bow. The K'ei bow had a longer shooting distance of 553 meters and was powerful enough to penetrate through heavy armor in terms of power.

Song Dynasty craftsmen in the previous generation of crossbows, based on the crossbow as a prototype, made a very large size of the bed, crossbow it is a heavy weapon, is in the Tang Dynasty on the basis of the development of the winch crossbow. It is a major invention of the Cold War period, is the nightmare of the cavalry, absolutely called the death of the battlefield.

It is said that in the early years of the Northern Song Dynasty, Emperor Taizu of Song once ordered his army to put the bed crossbow on the outskirts of the countryside for testing, and at that time the range of the bed crossbow had already reached 1,075 meters, however, Emperor Taizu of Song was not satisfied with this, and ordered to continue to upgrade and improve the bed crossbow.

The largest bed crossbow at the time was called the "Three Bows and Eight Oxen Bed Crossbow", which required more than seventy people to fire in unison. There were three arrows, one shot and three sword arrows, and the range was up to 300 paces, equivalent to about 465 meters today, which was a long-range weapon at that time.

The most famous battle was the Battle of Stillwater in 1004, in which Zhang Huan, a defender of the Song Dynasty, struck a Xiao general in the head with a bed crossbow, killing him instantly.

The Liao, in fear and shock, signed the "Stillwater Alliance" with the Song, and the two countries would not fight again for a century.

Maintaining combat power required not only strong bows and crossbows, but also a constant supply and production of arrows. In the early years of the Northern Song Dynasty, the establishment of the "bow and crossbow archery hospital" this government-run arsenal at least 16.5 million arrows per year, which does not include the number of arrows made by the official and private workshops belonging to the states 1117 AD, the year the Song Dynasty did not break out of the war, but the Song Dynasty army still consumed 50 million arrows.

So what were the requirements and standards for a qualified crossbowman in the Song Dynasty? According to legend, in the first year of Emperor Xining, the Song Dynasty army test divided the bow into three classes, nine buckets as the first, eight buckets as the second and seven buckets as the third; and the crossbow was also divided into three classes, two stones and seven buckets as the first, two stones and four buckets as the second and two stones and one bucket as the third.

Song dynasty a bucket is equal to about 6.4 kilograms, a stone is equal to about 60 kilograms, then the mid-North Song dynasty third-rate archer's arm strength should be 44.8 kilograms crossbowmen's requirements are even higher.

The crossbow is powerful and has a long range, but the interval is long. For the shortcomings of the crossbow, the Song army mainly adopted three tactics: wheel shooting, specialized shooting and stacking formation.

There were roughly two types of crossbow tactics in the Song Dynasty: one was to have a strong crossbow at the front and a light crossbow at the back; or a light crossbow at the front and a strong crossbow at the back. This kind of tactic relies on the coordination of many kinds of soldiers to fight, the officer's ability to wield on the spot and the level of training of soldiers have high requirements.

In the fourth year of Emperor Shenzong's reign (1081), the battle sequence of the Song army was: the card player was in the front, the sacred arm bow was in the second, followed by the crossbow, and the selective front horse was in the last. This tactical arrangement took into account the long-distance shooting advantage of the strong crossbow.

The Decline of the Song Crossbow

However, it is strange that after the fall of the Southern Song, the Song crossbow, which had a long range, high lethality, and great achievements in battle, faded out from the military stage again. Why is this? The reason behind it is not complicated.

The Yuan Dynasty army is to cavalry as the main combat force Mongol conquest of Asia and Europe, relying on the rapid marching speed and the Mongolian army their own knives and the frequency of shooting fast "composite recurve bow" the establishment of the Ming Dynasty relies on the infantry force. The Ming Dynasty coincided with a period of unprecedented development of firearms, as the world began to shift from the cold weapon period to the hot weapon era. In the late Ming Dynasty, a large number of European artillery pieces were introduced into the Central Plains. The power and range of the artillery far exceeded that of the "three-bowed crossbow".

Conclusion

From the above analysis, it is not difficult to see that during the Song Dynasty, the reason why the "three-bow crossbow" with a long range and high lethality was commonly used was that it could effectively fight against the nomads in the north.

The Song Dynasty did not have a supply of good horses from the north and northwest, and the number and quality of horses in service could not compete with Liao, Jurchen, Mongols, Danghang and other peoples. From the point of view of production, training and use, only the bow and crossbow and other equipment can do the best of the Yi and Xia arts.

The defense strategy of the Song dynasty also promoted the role of the bow and crossbow in the war. As a matter of fact, bows and crossbows proved to be very effective for the Song army in actual combat, and created a brilliant war record.

Of course, the powerful bows and crossbows made the Song Dynasty's national defense overly dependent on them, and once the bows and crossbows were unable to play their proper roles, the Song army would also suffer a defeat.

Only the emergence of hot firearms can truly restrain the cavalry raid. Unfortunately, the Song Dynasty did not wait for that day.