In the enduring regional topics on the Internet, the combat effectiveness of old and young masters everywhere has always been the talk of the majority of netizens, but most of the lists are occupied by the northeast region. Interestingly, netizens look at whether they can fight a war, not to see the quality and scientific literacy of the military in various places, but to intuitively "whether they can fight", or whether they are willing to fight or not. Obviously, this can only be used as a manifestation of no quality, not a manifestation of combat effectiveness, and Americans who are recognized as the first in combat effectiveness in the world today are generally very polite in life, and they will not take a gun and a knife to fight with people for life and death. (Most of the shootings were out-of-control killings, or personality twisters who couldn't represent most Americans.)
Obviously, it is a small number of people who really died because of the shooting, and the good fighting of the US military does not mean that the Americans are violent, and the same is true of China. However, another reference factor has to be taken seriously - the historical factor, those areas where strong armies have appeared frequently in history can indeed be called "able to fight". Therefore, the northeast region has always been at the top of the list, not a complete waste of fame, so what exactly caused the northeast people, or the ancient army that originated in the northeast region, can fight?
Strong cohesion brought by blood clans
To understand this, we must first know an objective fact, that is, before the Ming and Qing dynasties, the northeast region was the same as Yunnan, which was dominated by ethnic minorities, and most of the strong armies from the northeast in history were also the armies of ethnic minorities. These "horse athletes" from the White Mountains and Black Water (in fact, the northeast also produces horses, but is close to the Mongolian plateau and other horse-producing areas, and it is easier to obtain high-quality war horses), which has a very distinct tribal characteristic, and this has become the source of their combat effectiveness.
The strength of the Khitan and Jurchens comes from the bond of the tribe
Due to the inconvenience of transportation in ancient times, tribal members often lived in the local area for several generations, and there was a strong geographical bond between the various clans, which was much more powerful than the children of the three eastern provinces today. Such an army is often very loyal to the chief, very willing to obey the command of their respective chiefs, and is not afraid of death in battle (the tribal system ensures that after the tribal soldiers die in battle, their fathers, wives and children have a basic survival guarantee), not to mention that compared with the civilian Song Dynasty forbidden army in the later period, the real standing army is also more defeated than less victorious.
The same situation also occurred to the Hakka people at the end of the Qing Dynasty, who used the clan as a link and were fierce in battle. Tens of thousands of "old brothers" of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom turned the entire southeast half of the wall upside down, if it were not for the infighting in the Later Taiping Army, and the "old brothers" gradually consumed over time, Zeng Guofan would not have been able to win steadily. It is worth mentioning that zeng guofan's army structure is also similar, although the Xiang army is not as capable of fighting as the Hakka, but it is also an army established with the clan as a link, and its combat effectiveness is completely abused by other Qing dynasty troops in the same period. It can be seen that before the formation of the real modern army, which was sustained by military discipline, the rank system, the promotion system, etc., the army with blood and clan as the link was often the most powerful.
So, what makes them so suitable for a place like the military?
The Eight Banners are also such an army linked by clan blood relatives. With the entry into the Central Plains, it became increasingly difficult for the Qing Dynasty to maintain tribal ties, which was the key to the decline of the Eight Banners
The harsh environment has prompted the development of a semi-militarized system
When we carefully observe the Jurchens in the northeast region and the Hakka people in Guangdong, it is not difficult to find that they have one of the biggest things in common - the living environment is very harsh. At that time, the Guangdong area belonged to the "land outside the country", because it was too far from the core area, it was selected by the central government as a treaty port, so that one day "change" in the future, and it would not threaten the rule of the central imperial court. Such a place obviously could not feed too many people, and as the population grew, the Hakka had to compete with other indigenous groups in the local area for limited survival resources, so it evolved into the famous "Tuke Weapon Fight".
One of the roots of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement was the Turk Gun Fighting
This living environment forced the Hakka to build tulou similar to the military building "Wubi" of the Southern and Northern Dynasties period, and surrounded themselves, in such a "bunker", the Hakka family group ate and lived together, and carried out a semi-militarized life. This makes it particularly easy for them to form formation and combat effectiveness once they go to war against a certain group.
Military laymen often like to say how many people there are in an army, but those who have military common sense know that the establishment is the foundation of an army, and a group of individual strong men who are temporarily pulled over, even who the commander is, whose unit is called, and whose name is, is likely to have a counterproductive effect on the battlefield. Therefore, one word in military terminology is called "annihilation of the formation", no matter how much the unit loses in battle, as long as the formation of the unit is still there, then it is a matter of time to recover.
The same is true of the Jurchens in the northeast region, as long as a tribe sends troops, each soldier can immediately know who his commander is and where his queue is, and each tribe is a natural military unit, without running in and training. Therefore, Nurhaci, the founder of the Later Jin, liked to compile the Jurchen tribes that had defected to him into a separate cattle record, even if their organization had actually exceeded 300 people, and did not disperse them, because he knew that it would weaken his combat effectiveness.
Some people think that the purpose of the Eight Banners in "apartheid" is to suppress the Han, but in fact, the greater reason is to preserve combat effectiveness
Like the Jin Dynasty, Nurhaci wanted to replenish his army by absorbing Han Chinese, so during his reign, the Manchu Han were not isolated. However, by the time of Emperor Taiji, the situation had changed completely, because he had ambitions to enter the Central Plains, and the increase in the number of Han people in the territory forced him to adopt the measures of Manchu and Han isolation. It turned out that he did have foresight, and because of the isolation, the flag people in mancheng could maintain the organizational structure of their northeastern hometown for a long time. After entering the customs, every time the front-line puppet army and the Southern Ming army fought unfavorably, they would ask the "true Manchuria" to suppress the field, and even during the Kangxi period, the figure of the Eight Banners frequently appeared in the battle with the Jungar people. Compared with the Jin people's predecessors, who also came from the White Mountains and Black Water and quickly degenerated as soon as they arrived in the Flower World of the Central Plains, their combat effectiveness was relatively maintained for a long time, persisting for a hundred years, until a more organized Hakka and Xiang army Huai Army appeared.
For the rulers of the Qing Dynasty, moving into Guannei meant losing the training of the harsh environment in the northeast, and the combat effectiveness of the Eight Banner Soldiers was inferior to that of a generation, which was also inevitable. The Qing Dynasty's countermeasure was to continuously transport Sauron and other ethnic groups from their hometown in the northeast to "transfuse blood". However, this is a drop in the bucket after all, the geographical environment of the northeast is relatively isolated, and the input and output channels are a total of two, one in the Central Plains and one in North Asia. This makes the northeast region, both technically and demographically, belong to the "floor" of East Asia, which can only be supported by the martial arts honed by the harsh environment. When the blood transfusion outside Guanwai could no longer maintain the military system inside Guanxi, the Eight Banners armed forces relied on by the Qing Dynasty actually disintegrated, and it also entered the countdown.
In addition to the depletion of the source of soldiers of their own clans, what is more important is that the changes of the times have made the old way of organizing the army a thing of the past
After that, the northeast entered the era of industrialization, a unit of people ate and lived together, and slowly the new unit community replaced the past blood community, so that the northeast people entered another era with the "tradition" of "fighting", but this is a later story.
The great community of variations
As mentioned above, this organization with geography as the link and blood as the hub is the most effective structure before modern times, which is very suitable for classical military government and colonial expansion.
However, under some special conditions, this model will also change, from a small community with blood as a unit to a large community with a state as a unit, and Qin is a typical example.
In the great northwest with a dry climate, the life of the Qin people is obviously not comparable to that of the six Kwantung countries. However, the survival pressure of the Qin state is much harsher than that of the Jurchens in the northeast region, because big countries such as the State of Wei have to go to the Qin state from time to time to fight a wave of autumn winds. And the kings of Qin were not the lords of Anfen, and from time to time they had to go to war with their neighbors in the east. Under strong military pressure, the State of Qin adopted a change of law, sweeping out the small clan communities in its territory (there was a similar change before the Shang Martingale), and integrating all the resources into a large community.
The purpose of the Qin Dynasty was to use the state apparatus to suppress small communities
This model can obtain great power in a very short period of time, and the Qin Dynasty relied on this power to destroy the six kingdoms of the Kwantung in a very short period of time. However, the shortcomings of this model are also very obvious, that is, the people in the original small community lack the most basic sense of identity, not to mention the conquered six countries of the Kanto Region, even the Qin Dynasty homeland does not identify with their own political power. When Liu Bang entered Guanzhong, not many so-called "old Qin people" spontaneously resisted Liu Bang, a Chu person, but after the "Three Chapters of the Law of Covenant", they were eager for Liu Bang to stay in Qin as king. In the later Chu-Han War, the Qin people also had the least sense of existence, and even the State of Qi, which was founded on commerce, appeared to be able to fight better than the Qin.
The reason is also very simple, because the laws of the Qin Dynasty are too strict, and more than three people who "drink together for no reason" will be questioned. Determined to turn the whole country into a war machine, to turn every citizen into a part of the machine, except for the King of Qin himself who is the one who controls the machine, the rest of the people can not even be counted, even if the courtiers write to themselves to call themselves "to be convicted".
The strength of the Qin army was destined to be short-lived
When the army built by the strength of the country was wiped out in battles such as Julu, the machine of the Qin State was like no oil, and it could no longer exert half a power.
epilogue
Now we know that the key to ancient warfare is whether a place can fight, and the key is to see whether its community is united enough and how the centripetal force of the regime is. Although the ancient dynasties were able to destroy the small communities with "natural centripetal forces" (blood relatives) in their territories and establish a large community by virtue of their own strength, this has also been proved by history to drink and quench thirst, doomed to be unable to last. In fact, the reason why the Han after the Qin Dynasty made such a big toss of "strike a hundred schools of Confucianism" was to inject artificial centripetal force into the huge "national community".
So, then again, which regional community in history has the greatest advantage, and where are the people who can really fight the most? Let's reveal it next time.