Military is a social activity centered on the preparation and implementation of war. Such as the organization, training and combat operations of weapons forces. The development, production and use of weapons and equipment, the research and application of strategies and tactics, the storage and supply of war materials, the planning and construction of national defense facilities, and the mobilization, organization and construction of reserve forces all belong to the military category. Military is not an isolated activity, it involves politics, economy, science and technology, culture and education, ideology and other aspects of the country. It is not only restricted by these factors, but also plays a role in them to varying degrees. War is an objective social phenomenon, which has a process of occurrence, development and extinction. In the practice of war, in order to guide the war, people constantly sum up the practical experience of war, explore the objective laws of war, and seek the means and methods to defeat the enemy, thus promoting the formation and development of military science.
Military science appeared in ancient society. Military science in slave society and feudal society has made many brilliant achievements in military theory and technology, but ancient military science has not yet formed a complete and rigorous scientific system. In capitalist society, bourgeois military science has developed rapidly and gradually formed a relatively complete scientific system, but it still contains elements of metaphysics and idealism. The emergence of Marxism applied dialectical materialism and historical materialism to the military field, and founded proletarian military science on the basis of criticizing and inheriting the achievements of predecessors' military science, thus making military science an objective and comprehensive science reflecting the laws of war. The fundamental task of military science is to explore the essence and laws of war through extremely complicated war phenomena from the objective reality. The nature of war mainly refers to its social and political nature, such as just and unjust war, or progressive and reactionary war. In addition, the nature of war also includes the scale, duration, weapons and equipment and methods of warfare. The law of war is the essential connection and inevitable trend of the development of various contradictions in war, including general laws and special laws.
The research object of military science is war, and war is a special form of social activity that is related to the whole social life in a certain time and space, so military science has a comprehensive and distinct class nature. Many achievements of natural science, especially science and technology, have been widely used in the military and become an important part of military scientific research. Military technology is the material basis and technical means of building the army and carrying out war, and it is an important factor that constitutes the combat effectiveness of the army. Including the development, production, use and maintenance of various weapons and equipment. Local wars in the world continue, and the danger of world war still exists. The power to stop the war is also growing, the struggle is long, and military science will continue to develop and improve. In the future, with the demise of classes and countries, the root causes of war will be eliminated, mankind will enter an era of permanent peace, and military science will eventually complete its historical mission.
Ancient military
In the ancient history of the world, China's military science was in a leading position in many aspects. Metal weapons and chariots appeared very early in China, and the Great Wall of Wan Li, an ancient defense engineering system known as the miracle of the world, was built. The invention of gunpowder, compass and firearms also had a far-reaching influence in the world military history; Many outstanding military strategists, military theorists and military technical experts have emerged in China. Besides, China established a systematic military theory for the first time. From the pre-Qin Dynasty to the early Qing Dynasty, more than 2,000 kinds of military books were published, some valuable works on military history and geography were left behind, and many military books were compiled. Some countries in ancient West Asia and the Mediterranean coast, such as ancient Egypt, Persian Empire, ancient Greece and Rome, have also made remarkable achievements in military science. The birth of ancient military science in China (Xia, Shang and Western Zhou Dynasties) The first war of mankind used hunting tools as weapons. With the development of production and war, production tools and combat weapons are gradually divided. At first, we mainly made and used stone (bone) weapons. According to legend, the production of metal weapons began about four or five thousand years ago. Over 2000 BC, although the Xia Dynasty in China was still dominated by stone weapons, there were bronze weapons such as knives, daggers, daggers and spears. Can be made. The Shang Dynasty began an era dominated by metal weapons. The bronze weapons of the Zhou Dynasty entered its heyday. The ancient army has become an important part of the state machine. The army of the Xia Dynasty was commanded by six "Qing". The largest military establishment unit in Shang Dynasty was the Division. The military system of the Western Zhou Dynasty was developed following the Shang Dynasty, and "China people" joined the army strictly. Chariots have appeared in the battle of Gansu in early summer. In the late Shang Dynasty, vehicle warfare has become the main mode of combat. The main force of the Western Zhou army was chariot soldiers, and the basic combat unit was chariot. Generally, chariot fighting is only carried out in plain areas. According to the terrain, the chariots are arranged in a square, and the battle is usually an attack. In operational command, by the middle and late Western Zhou Dynasty, golden drums and golden flags had been used. At the end of the clan society, there were many strategies in the war guidance. It is reported that when Xia Shaokang regained the throne by force, he paid attention to strategy and sent military spies before the war. To destroy the summer, we should seize the country of the summer first, and then wait for an opportunity to fight after changing the balance of power. Zhou destroyed the merchants by cutting off each other's wings from near to far, weakening first and then strengthening, and then took advantage of the internal chaos of the Shang royal family and the emptiness of the merchants to unite the princes to make a large-scale eastward expedition. Before the war, both Shang and Zhou dynasties paid attention to exploring each other's reality, obtaining information and successfully using it.
During this period, military documents began to appear. Ancient military theories are scattered in national laws and regulations and other documents. There are some contents in the hexagrams of Zhouyi that reflect the strategic thought of Shang and Zhou Dynasties. The earliest collections of documents in ancient China, Shangshu and Shijing, also recorded some military theories, sporadic strategic thoughts and war fragments in Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties. Before the Spring and Autumn Period, there were special military documents, Military Records and Military Affairs. This is an important symbol of the birth of ancient military science in China. Operational style and strategy and tactics have improved. Because the war of chariots was greatly restricted by the terrain, at the end of the Spring and Autumn Period, Shu Wei of the State of Jin "destroyed the car", changed the soldiers in the car to apprentices, and changed the war of chariots to foot battles, which improved the combat mobility. By the late Warring States period, step warfare had become the main combat style. The coordination of vehicles, walking and riding, and the use of water and land have increased the mobility of field operations. During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the rapid development of towns made the attack and defense of city walls an important combat style.
The changes in operational guidance are also remarkable. Strategically: gradually denying the use of force such as valuing trust and ignoring fraud, attaching importance to sizing up the situation and taking advantage of the situation. The war before the Spring and Autumn Period was mainly to defeat the other side, while the Warring States period was based on the enemy's strength. In the mid-Warring States period, Sun Bin's strategy of "encircling Wei to save Zhao" in the battle of Guiling and "reducing focus and showing weakness" in the battle of Maling had important academic value in ancient military history. Tactics: in the Spring and Autumn Period, various methods were used to fight, including two wings to break through and then smash the backbone (such as the battle of Yanling); Ambush to lure the enemy and take advantage of the situation to annihilate (such as the battle of chicken father); Strike after the enemy is exhausted, such as the battle of a long spoon. In the era of automobile war, field work is the most important. In the Warring States period, setting key points and using the city defense became an important means to defeat the enemy. There were various arrangements during the Warring States period. The array of 10 is mentioned in the bamboo slips of Yinqueshan Han Tomb, such as square, circle, sparse, number, zigzag, flying geese, hook, mystery and fire and water. During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, in order to meet the needs of war guidance, military theoretical works were published one after another, among which Sun Tzu's Art of War was an outstanding representative. Following Sun Tzu's The Art of War, the representative works in the Warring States Period include Woods, Sima Fa, Sun Bin's The Art of War, Wei Liaozi and Liu Tao. While inheriting Sun Tzu's military thoughts, they also developed and innovated. Generally speaking, the content, scope and discussion focus of these art books generally involve many aspects, such as the concept of war, strategy, tactics, array method, general literacy and military organization, training, discipline, reward and punishment system, command, reconnaissance, communication, as well as offensive and defensive combat equipment, marching equipment and so on.
The drastic social changes during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period brought unprecedented activity in the ideological field. Thinkers and politicians of various schools express their opinions on the war issue, which is a military reflection of "a hundred schools of thought contend". Among them, Confucianism, Mohism, France and Taoism have more contents and greater influence. The pre-Qin philosophers' discussion of soldiers initiated the tradition of non-strategists' discussion of soldiers in ancient times and became an important feature of China's ancient military science. China's ancient military history can be found everywhere in Zuo Zhuan, National History and Mandarin, Compilation of Laws and Regulations, Zhou Li, Collected Works of Military Strategists and pre-Qin classics, which laid the foundation of military history. Military geography also originated in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. For example, Sun Tzu's Topographic Map and Guan Tu all discuss military geography. The Qin dynasty unified the six countries, and the further development of feudal society in Han and Tang dynasties promoted the progress of military technology. After Qin dynasty, it entered the era of iron weapons, and iron weapons in the Eastern Han Dynasty completely replaced bronze weapons. The cavalry equipment has made great progress. During the Southern and Northern Dynasties, war horses were equipped with protective armor. Long-range weapon crossbows, in addition to manual crossbows, staggered crossbows appeared at the end of the Warring States Period, which were not popularized in the military until the Han Dynasty. The range of crossbows can reach more than a thousand steps, and steel arrowheads have been widely used. During this period, technical progress in military traffic, transportation and military engineering operations was also outstanding. Especially the invention and application of gunpowder caused great changes in ancient military technology. According to the test, China successfully developed gunpowder at least three years earlier than Tang Xianzong Yuanhe (808). At the end of the Tang Dynasty (904), gunpowder was first used in war, then it was called "Fei Huo".
During the Qin and Han dynasties, the national army was divided into capital soldiers, state and county soldiers and border guards, which had far-reaching influence. The military reclamation system, which began in the Western Han Dynasty and flourished in the Three Kingdoms, is a form for soldiers to participate in agriculture. The "officer-and-soldier system" established in the Southern and Northern Dynasties became a form of the combination of soldiers and farmers in the Tang Dynasty, but it didn't last long. During the Western Han Dynasty, chariots were eliminated, and cavalry once became the main arms. In several large-scale wars in Yi Tong during the Qin, Han, Jin, Sui, Tang dynasties, the strategies and tactics were successfully used, such as going from near to far, dividing one by one, avoiding the real and making the virtual, introducing the east to the west, advancing hand in hand with the land, converging attack, first exhausting and then attacking, and surprise attack. Long-distance raids by cavalry are more common in the battles between Han nationality and northern minorities. It is also a common tactic to control cavalry by combining hiking with surprise attack and car camp.
Qin Shihuang collected and destroyed weapons hidden by the people, and destroyed or banned military books. The Western Han Dynasty made great achievements in sorting out and classifying the military books twice. The Three Views, which appeared in the early Han Dynasty, and the later Brief Training of Huainan Soldiers are important works handed down from generation to generation. Only Cao Cao annotated Sun Tzu, which was the first time in the pre-Qin period, was contended by Han Confucianism for the annotation of Confucian classics but not for the art of war. Expressing one's views through the interpretation of Sun Tzu's Art of War became a form of ancient military works, which gradually prevailed in the Tang Dynasty. The bachelor zaichen inherited the tradition of non-militarists in the pre-Qin period. In many strategies and manuscripts to protect the environment and safeguard the country, he discussed the strength of border defense, the advantages and disadvantages of military system, the gains and losses of using troops, and the advantages and disadvantages of strategies, which are an integral part of ancient military theory. At the beginning of the Northern Song Dynasty, fireballs and rockets created by gunpowder were used in the war, and the period of using firearms and cold weapons in the history of war began. At the beginning of the Southern Song Dynasty, the world's earliest tubular firearm, the long bamboo musket, was created. Later, Shouchun Prefecture (now Shouxian County, Anhui Province) made a musket capable of firing bullets, which was a pioneer in the firing principle of modern European guns. The Yuan (Mongolian) army improved bamboo muskets into metal products, which laid the foundation for the birth of modern guns. /kloc-at the end of 0/3, the manufacturing technology of gunpowder and firearms spread to Europe via Arabia. 165438+ The compass invented by China in the 20th century has always been used by sailors for navigation. Zheng He built a fleet of more than 200 ships, including more than 60 treasure ships and more than 27,000 officers and men, which indicated that China was in a leading position in shipbuilding and military navigation technology at that time. The study of military fortification has also made great progress, and Nanjing was built in the early Ming Dynasty.
During the Hongwu period of the Ming Dynasty, 65,438+00% of the garrison troops were equipped with firearms in local health centers. In the early Yongle period, the world's earliest firearms army, Ji Shenying, was established. The widespread use of firearms has changed the way the army fights. Firearms are usually used to kill and destroy enemies from a long distance, while cold weapons are used in melee and hand-to-hand combat. The army's operational command has increased the use of organizational firepower, the coordination between guns and cold weapons, and the coordination between different battalions. Battle formation and battlefield management are also more complicated than before.
During the nearly 900 years from the early Northern Song Dynasty to the first Opium War, there were frequent wars, including dynasty unification war, domestic inter-ethnic war, peasant uprising war and foreign war, and strategies and tactics developed accordingly. Zhao Kuangyin, backed by its powerful military strength, first wiped out the two regimes of Jingnan and Xiangnan, and then unified the whole country according to the general plan of "south first, then north, divide and rule". At the end of the Yuan Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang established a base area centered on Jinling (now Nanjing, Jiangsu Province) to accumulate grain for training, expand his strength and destroy the Yuan Dynasty in the north. The Ming Dynasty implemented the national defense policy of good neighborliness and self-improvement, which consolidated and developed the security and unity of multi-ethnic countries. At the end of Ming Dynasty, Li Zicheng, the leader of the peasant uprising army, took the strategy of first taking Guanzhong and then attacking Shanxi, destroying the main force of the Ming army and then seizing the capital, thus destroying the Ming Dynasty. The leaders of northern ethnic minorities often adopt the strategy of far-reaching and near-attacking. After unifying his ministries and nearby ethnic groups, he concentrated his forces and chose favorable opportunities. dispatch troops broke the customs and plundered the land, or seized the central government by competing with the Central Plains, and established the Yuan Dynasty and the Qing Dynasty respectively. During this period, the tactics of combining firearms with cold weapons also developed continuously. At the same time, cavalry tactics have also developed greatly in the northern minority armies such as Qidan, Tangut, Jurchen and Mongolia.
In the fifth year of Song Xining (1072), martial arts was formally established, educating students to learn the art of war in past dynasties, learning military theory, and cultivating students' martial arts of bow and horse. Following this example, the Ming and Qing Dynasties successively established Wuwei School and Eight Banners Official School. In the early Northern Song Dynasty, China organized the compilation of the first new military book, General Theory of Military Classics. This book includes two parts: military theory and military technology, which has high academic value. Later, seven military books, including Sun Tzu's Art of War, were incorporated into Seven Books of Martial Arts as compulsory courses in martial arts. In the late Ming Dynasty, the threat of Japanese pirates, the frequent appearance of the northern border police and the provocation of European colonists prompted some people of insight to study the military and put forward many new ideas and effective measures to train the army and enrich the border and coastal defense through military means. Military works with their own characteristics have been published one after another, mainly including: the first "On Coastal Defence Strategy" and "Coastal Map Compilation" to defend coastal waters, stabilize the coast and strictly guard the city, and draw coastal maps and coastal defence maps; Masterpieces such as Ji Xiao Shu Xin, Training Actual Combat Discipline and Fighting Discipline are good at training, teaching war, using force and handling. Soldiers and soldiers who are good at gunpowder and firearms research; The content of military science is detailed, and the military encyclopedia book "Wu Beizhi" is a collection of valuable materials such as Zheng He's Navigation Chart and Shenhuo Flying Crow. Artifact spectrum, magic machines from the west and fire attack essentials. Spread the manufacturing and using technology of western firearms. In the early years of the Qing Dynasty, a masterpiece of military geography, Reading Historical Records, appeared, which summarized the risks of mountains and rivers and the gains and losses of using troops. Zheng Rongdian is a collection of ancient and modern books compiled during Kang Yong's reign, which collected all kinds of military data in past dynasties. On the eve of the Opium War, there appeared some military books summarizing actual combat experience or discussing defense and training, such as Outline of Foreign Defense and Collection of Preparing for the Sea.