If we open the history books, we will find that in history, any battle called a million troops is often easy to fail.
For example, Battle of Red Cliffs, the Battle of Feishui and the Battle of Kunyang. Before the start of this campaign, the losers claimed to have a population of one million, but the result was a big defeat, and some even died of extinction.
Then there is another problem here. What conditions did the ancient dynasty need to train the army? If the national strength is strong, how many soldiers and horses can you raise?
Among many ancient dynasties, if the army was the strongest, it was probably the Qin Dynasty.
Because before the Qin Dynasty, it was the most chaotic and complicated period in the history of China. Without strong power, it is impossible to unify the six countries. Moreover, ancient books also have a very profound description of Qin's combat effectiveness, calling it "the teacher of tigers and wolves."
Then, according to the records in the Warring States Policy, when Qin and Chu were at their strongest, there were millions of soldiers. After the reunification of Qin, the number of troops was even more than before, and there were as many as 500 thousand just to conquer South Vietnam.
According to Huainanzi, after the establishment of the Qin Dynasty, the number of standing armies began to increase gradually because the first emperor formulated the strategic policy of attacking from south to north.
It is clearly recorded that there are 300,000 troops attacking Xiongnu in the north and 500,000 troops conquering in South Vietnam. Together with the defenders and lieutenants in various regions, the total strength of the Qin Dynasty should be at least 6.5438+0.5 million, and may even reach 6.5438+0.5 million.
So what conditions did Qin Shihuang need to support these troops?
"Sun Tzu's Art of War, strategizing" records:
In other words, to raise an army of 654.38+10,000 people during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, it needs 2,000 vehicles, 654.38+10,000 sets of weapons and equipment, 654.38+10,000 sets of clothes, food and grass and some salaries.
In addition, there are material costs, maintenance costs and so on. So in total, the daily consumption is about 1000 yuan.
Only by reaching this standard can this army of 6.5438+10,000 people go to the battlefield in the future.
As we all know, The Art of War is the work of Sun Wu, a famous ancient strategist. Its content is rigorous and true, and it has high reference value.
So we can see that this condition is not generally harsh. If this country does not have strong economic and agricultural conditions as the foundation, it simply cannot support an army of 654.38+10,000 people.
Moreover, this is only the statistics of infantry, and the expenses of cavalry and other arms have not been counted, otherwise there will be many expenses such as horses.
So we can see that, according to Sun Wu, the army of the first emperor 1 tens of thousands consumed 1 tens of thousands of gold every day. During the Qin Dynasty, the population of the whole country was about 20 million, and the main sources of tax revenue were land, people, industry and commerce and corvee.
Even so, in the face of thousands of dollars of military spending every day, it seems a bit laborious. Therefore, the first emperor began to increase taxes. After his death, Qin Ershi continued to increase taxes, which eventually led to an uprising and overthrew the Qin Dynasty.
Therefore, if we look back, during the Three Kingdoms period, Cao Cao spared no expense to set up a captain named Mo Jin to dig graves everywhere, so as to finally support a powerful army.
Therefore, it is really very laborious to rely solely on the strength of the state to support a million-strong army. Therefore, in the Tang dynasty, the government began to implement the military system, reducing expenses from the system.
The so-called officer-soldier system means that when there is no war, soldiers act as farmers to farm. In case of war, the soldiers immediately took up arms and went out with the army.
Coupled with the relative stability of the Tang Dynasty, the demand for the army was not great, so the standing army at that time was about 300,000 people.
For example, in the "An Shi Rebellion", after the First World War in Tongguan, Tang Jun lost about 65,438+10,000 troops, which led to the shortage of troops in the Tang Dynasty, indicating that there were not many standing armies in the Tang Dynasty.
However, the military system in peacetime is really good, but it is meaningless if you fight often.
So in the Song Dynasty, especially in the Northern Song Dynasty, 70% of the state's fiscal revenue was spent on military expenditure, so the number of troops in the Northern Song Dynasty once reached about 6,543.8+0.25 million, which shows how difficult it was to support a large-scale army in ancient times.
References:
Sun Tzu's Art of War and Historical Records