Third, recruit their elite soldiers
The most typical of these are the two "release of military power over a glass of wine", which have been introduced in detail in the previous article and will not be repeated again.
1. Collect all the elite soldiers from all over the world
In May 960, Zhao Kuangyin issued an edict that the Palace Front Division and the Guard Division should strictly select the imperial army and promote the brave ones to the superior army, thus creating an elite of the elite; local counties and counties should divide the local army into The purpose of sending batches to the capital was nominally to replace the defenses and fill the vacancies in the Forbidden Army, but in reality it was to keep the elite forces in the local troops in the center, while sending the old, weak, sick, and pregnant women back to the local areas. Of course, the capital could not support such a large army, so Zhao Kuangyin asked the local troops to return to the local area for training, and then send them back to the capital after they were fully trained.
Therefore, historical records record that "all the brave and brave men were subject to the forbidden status", and all the brave men in the world were absorbed into the central forbidden army.
Subsequently, Zhao Kuangyin set up a "more garrison method", that is, the central forbidden army stationed in the place, and the local troops exchanged defenses with each other. In fact, this kind of operation already existed in the Tang Dynasty. This is not an original creation of Zhao Kuangyin, but an improvement, such as increasing the number of people who change defenses, adjusting the frequency and location of defense changes, etc. In this way, the local vassal town lost the so-called "direct troops", and the local army was no longer the private armed force of the vassal town warlord.
A year later, in May 961, Zhao Kuangyin once again issued an edict to carefully select the imperial army and local armies, select elite troops, and eliminate the old, weak, sick and disabled.
In November 962, Zhao Kuangyin held a military parade in the western suburbs. Looking at the boundless and powerful army, Zhao Kuangyin could not hide his joy and said to his surroundings with great joy: "Since the Later Jin Dynasty, the number of forbidden troops has always been maintained at more than 100,000. However, they are all just trying their best, and only a few of them are truly useful. I screened them one by one, removing the old, weak, sick and disabled, taking the best of them, and training them rigorously. Now they are the strongest elites in the world!"
2. Forbidden Tooth Soldier
In July of the fourth year of Qiande, Zhao Kuangyin issued an edict, "It is forbidden for generals to take the best soldiers in the army as tooth soldiers." The beginning of this book introduces the tooth soldier system since the Tang Dynasty. The most famous one is the Xuzhou tooth soldiers, who were the warm-up actors in the chaos of the Five Dynasties. Ya soldiers, also known as "yamen soldiers", are simply the private armed forces of local feudal towns. While recruiting elite soldiers from all over the world, Zhao Kuangyin also suppressed the private armed forces of generals in feudal towns through administrative orders, further widening the distance between the military strength of the central and local governments.
The emperor is only allowed to set up a forbidden army, and the feudal towns are not allowed to have tooth soldiers.
3. Ban "Archer"
As mentioned earlier, in order to transfer power from the vassal town to the local area, Zhao Kuangyin set up county captains and "archers".
Administrative units at the county level have "archers" who are an important part of the local armed forces. Their main job is to deal with "bandits" - large-scale organized crime groups, which are beyond the scope of ordinary patrols, and the use of The regular army is overqualified and has cumbersome procedures. Therefore, the "Archer" whose force value is higher than that of the police and lower than that of the regular army came into being. Simply put, the "Archer" is very much like our armed police.
In November 1968, Zhao Kuangyin issued an edict to reduce the number of "archers" in various counties. The reason was that the world was now clear and the evil forces had been effectively contained.
The edict clearly stipulates that if the county magistrate or county lieutenant dares to retain the "archer" establishment, he will be severely punished.
The local regular army must be reduced, the feudal army must be abolished, and even the police force must be weakened. Zhao Kuangyin's reduction of local military strength can be said to be all-round and three-dimensional, with no dead ends.
In short, the best people in the world are in the imperial court.
4. The "matryoshka" of the Forbidden Army
All the elites in the world are in the Forbidden Army, and the local vassals no longer have the strength to compete with the central government. So what should we do if the Forbidden Army rebels? Zhao Kuangyin was the emperor who came out of the Forbidden Army. Of course he was extremely vigilant about this, and of course it was urgent to reform the Forbidden Army.
Zhao Kuangyin's ideas for the reform of the Forbidden Army are also relatively simple and clear. To put it simply, he is to constantly "turn it into a matryoshka".
The first is to change the fight between left and right to a tripartite confrontation. Originally, the Forbidden Army consisted of two major systems with dual cards and dual standbys - the Guard Division and the Palace Front Division. Zhao Kuangyin split the Guard Division into the Guard Infantry Division and the Guard Horse Army Division. Together with the Palace Division, they were called the "Three Yamen" or "Three Yamen". manage". Under the command of the "Three Yamen", there are also the "Four Guards", and under them there are the "Four Chambers". The power is divided and restricted layer by layer.
The second is to separate the power to mobilize troops from the power to command troops. Zhao Kuangyin returned the power to mobilize troops to the Privy Council. The above-mentioned "Three Yamen" and "Four Guards" only had the power to command troops. In a word, those who mobilize the army cannot command the army, and those who command the army cannot mobilize the army.
After this combination of punches, the hands and feet of the generals were greatly restrained. Throughout the two and three hundred years of the Song Dynasty, there was no rebellion by local military generals or generals of the imperial army.
Some people also believe that it was Zhao Kuangyin's reforms that reduced the combat effectiveness of the Song Dynasty's army to the fifth scum, which led to the demise of the Song Dynasty, and then scorned Zhao Kuangyin's military reform.
This is definitely a serious misunderstanding, caused by a lack of understanding of history. In fact, the combat effectiveness of the Song Dynasty army was very strong.
First of all, the Song Dynasty lasted for 319 years and had 18 emperors, making it one of the longest-lived dynasties in Chinese history. Some scholars believe that "one" should be removed. The Song Dynasty is the longest, because the criterion is from the unification of the six kingdoms by Qin Shihuang to the abdication of Puyi, so the Zhou Dynasty in 800 years was removed first, and the two Han Dynasties in 406 years were separated by Wang Mang After 15 years, the Eastern and Western Han Dynasties should be regarded as two dynasties.
Seeking common ground while reserving differences, even counting the Zhou Dynasty and the Han Dynasty, the Song Dynasty is undisputedly ranked third, longer than the Tang Dynasty, which has the reputation of "the prosperous Tang Dynasty".
If the Song Dynasty really fought against the Five Scum, how could it survive for more than three hundred years?
Secondly, the cruel matching mechanism of the Central Plains region. Different from the excellent matching mechanism of the Tongliao Universe Africa Region, the Song Dynasty has been involved in high-end games from beginning to end. His opponents are the Liao of the Khitans, the Xixia of the Dangxiang people, the Jin of the Jurchens, and the terrifying Mongolian cavalry. .
The Khitan was the overlord of the grasslands and a great empire that flourished for a while. Today, there are records of tribute to the Liao Kingdom in Central Asia, West Asia, and Arabia, not to mention the Bangzi ancestors on the peninsula. The pronunciation of "China" in Russian today is still similar to "Khitan". Even the wooly bears of the fighting nation have unforgettable memories, which shows the ferocious strength of the Khitan people back then;
The Tangut people's Xixia is a very mysterious ancient regime. It is mysterious mainly because it was unfortunately annihilated by the Mongols. The Mongols carried out systematic cultural genocide and tried to erase the evidence of their existence. Think about it, why do the Mongols hate them so much? Xixia is obviously also a hard-core ruthless person who has made the Mongols suffer enough;
The Jurchens have basically no chance to show their prowess in this book, but we should have heard about their combat capabilities, such as Wanyan Zongbi who faced off against Yue Fei, and their descendants once again took over the Central Plains in the late Ming Dynasty and changed their country's name. for "clear";
Needless to say, the Mongolian cavalry swept across the Eurasian continent. The Song Dynasty was eventually destroyed by the Mongols, but it was not shameful to be defeated by the sword of the best swordsman in the world. Besides, the Song Dynasty was also killed in the Battle of Diaoyu City. Mengge Khan was the only emperor of the Mongol Empire who was killed in the war.
He endured the deaths of Liao, Jin, and Xixia, and even killed the emperor of the Mongolian Empire before his death. Think of Li Yunlong's quote, "Even if the Lord of Hell comes, I still have to hold his beard down."
This is the combat effectiveness of the Song Dynasty army.
Finally, why does the Song Dynasty still leave the stereotype of "weak Song" to people?
In addition to its opponents being too strong, it also has a lot to do with literary and artistic works. For example, in works such as , and so on, in order to highlight the heroic image of the protagonist and create a tragic atmosphere, the combat effectiveness of the Liao, Jin and other enemies was exaggerated. For another example, in order to reflect the wisdom and courage of the 108 heroes in Liangshan, the Song Dynasty officers and soldiers were always regarded as having the aura of the protagonist. The heroes rubbed against the floor. Even in Mr. Jin Yong's martial arts, in order to show the extraordinary martial arts skills of the protagonists, the regular armies of the Song, Liao, and Jin Dynasties all became passers-by, and they were knocked down as soon as they raised their hands. The TV series and movies adapted from martial arts have even played the Song Dynasty army as a background wall. Apart from fighting against the five scum, they are naturally stupid.
Lacking an understanding of official history and having been brainwashed by martial arts and martial arts since childhood, it is not surprising that we have preconceived stereotypes about the Song Dynasty army.
I won’t go into details here, but in short, remember that the Song Dynasty’s army was very powerful, and even rivaled the Tang Dynasty’s army in its heyday.
