The northeastern area of Big-headed Ant controlled by the old-fashioned king is a relatively remote and barren area.
Different from the other side of the river, in the territory of Pavilion Ant Barbarian Kingdom on the other side of the river, there is fertile land along the river with rich products. The south bank of the river is dominated by rocky tidal flats, overgrown with weeds and less productive. Only the vicinity of "Linshui City" is slightly more fertile, so every year when the ant barbarian country launches its southern expedition, it must first conquer "Linshui City" as a base.
Because of the barrenness, most of the 17 sub-nests in the Northeast are small and medium-sized sub-nests. The total number of ant colonies is only about 60,000 to 70,000. Now the 40,000 strongest ants have been drawn into the army of the old-fashioned king. This military-civilian ratio is about 2:3. In the human world, it is no longer just fishing in the lake. It is simply unheard of.
In comparison, the ratio of military to civilians in the human world is much lower, often less than 1:100, with an upper limit of 1:6, and in extreme cases no more than 1:3.
In terms of standing army alone, China's Ming Dynasty had about 1:200; during the Qing Dynasty's founding period, there were about 100 million people, and the military strength was 200,000 Eight Banner Army and 600,000 Green Camp soldiers, and the military-civilian ratio was about 1:100; At the end of the Qing Dynasty, not counting temporary recruitment, the regular army was still about this number, but the population was already 400 million, and the military-civilian ratio was 1:400.
Generally speaking, in a country with a feudal system, the more developed the economy, the smaller the ratio of military to civilians. This is because the development of social systems will promote social division of labor and the non-agricultural population will continue to grow. In ancient times, army recruitment not only required a large supply of resources, but also affected economic production and thus taxation.
A simple calculation shows that a regular soldier must be equipped with at least one support staff, and at least one civilian must work to provide food and clothing for these two people, which is considered three strong men, so 1:3 is the limit of the military-civilian ratio. Taking into account the country's other tax needs, 1:6 is a practical limit.
However, the classical communist countries and nomadic peoples can approach the extreme ratio of 1:3 because "all the people are soldiers".
The ancient Greek city-state of Athens was able to mobilize all its citizens because the main source of tax revenue for the Athenians was maritime trade and silver mining, and tax revenue was much higher than agriculture. The Athenians did not have much of a standing army, and their citizens were all professional soldiers in a sense. The fundamental guarantee of Athens' independence was that all citizens defended the country. But this does not mean that the military-civilian ratio is 1:1. If we simply include all citizens in the army without considering the fact that citizens are not out of work at ordinary times, we will also find that ancient Athens had a large number of non-citizen slaves and foreigners. , they were engaged in production but could not serve as soldiers, so the wartime ratio of soldiers to civilians in ancient Athens would not be higher than 1:3.
This kind of citizen soldier system in ancient Athens was not only unique to ancient Greece. It was also implemented by the Qin Dynasty, China's earliest unified feudal dynasty. During the Warring States Period, almost all vassal states also adopted this policy of combining farming with war.
Therefore, the pre-Qin period created the limit of long-term high military-civilian ratio. With the population of several million in each of the vassal states at that time, decisive battles between hundreds of thousands of armies could easily take place, and the ratio between the army and the civilians could be imagined.
But this high ratio could not last forever. The demise of the Qin Dynasty was also related to the fact that all the children of Guanzhong became soldiers and the national tax revenue dried up.
Eventually, in both Eastern and Western history, this classical "all people as soldiers" was eventually replaced by a small number of standing armies. Archer Jones analyzed this in his book "The Art of Western War":
"The size of a country's (national) armed forces is determined by the size of its population and productivity. In ancient times, most of the population was engaged in agricultural production to support themselves and produce some surplus supplies, which accounted for only a small part of the population. Merchants, craftsmen, monks and officials. Such a low-productivity society can only maintain an armed force that accounts for a small proportion of the population. Even when the country has developed a currency economy that has made great progress, the primitive taxation, finance and banking systems still It is difficult to make money grow rapidly. Only in the era of relative modernization did the government have taxation, a tiny reserve bank, and currency minting, and it was able to transfer a large proportion of the national output to support war. In ancient times, even these institutions could not raise funds How much financial resources, because so many people can only maintain a subsistence level, there is no surplus for war. Even the Roman Empire, which was politically and economically developed, could only maintain an armed force of less than 1% of its population.
Lacking both physical and financial resources, militias became the universal manning system. Under the militia system, some or all free men were obliged to serve in the armed forces for a certain period of time. Usually, they have to arm themselves with their own expenses, and with this in mind, the government may exempt them from certain taxes. Some militiamen are trained and usually spend most of their time practicing basic skills; while other militiamen lack combat skills or even specialized weapons. For example, some militiamen use agricultural tools as weapons. Although sometimes militias supplemented professional soldiers, often they constituted the entire armed force of the government.
The militia (under the system of universal soldiers) has an obvious advantage: it is very cheap in peacetime; but its low cost is offset by its low efficiency. The Greeks had long relied on militias because only in this way could they have the same number of professional armies as their powerful rivals, the Persians. The Romans initially relied on militias, but like the Greeks, they found that continuous warfare made professional armies not only more effective but also more important. Furthermore, militiamen could not engage in prolonged warfare, or even a longer campaign, since they had to return to civilian occupations. In other words, a government can provide a large militia, but only for a short period of time. When a war lasts for a long time, a professional army that can remain armed for a long period of time has obvious advantages. Even governments that do not engage in continuous war may prefer professional armies because they allow their citizens to bear only taxes and not the expense, inconvenience, and potential dangers of military service. An army composed of professional soldiers, although small, has the advantage that the soldiers have a higher level of combat skills than amateur soldiers such as militiamen.
There is nothing particularly difficult about maintaining an army in peacetime. An army composed of a militia supports itself through the normal occupations of its civilian population such as agriculture, commerce, or industry. The government could also meet the needs of professional soldiers relatively easily, since they were usually able to contribute to the country and had stable access to most of the basic foods they needed through established civilian market organizations.
Whether it is a militia army or a professional army, as long as it is concentrated, it will bring about food supply problems. An army gathered to fight a battle is equivalent to a city: it is densely populated and does not produce the food it uses. However, the army is different from the city. There is neither a pre-existing transportation network nor any existing mode of supplying various needs locally. "
