The unified Central Plains dynasties, except the Song Dynasty, were never afraid of foreign enemies, but the Song Dynasty faced Liao, Jin, Xia, Mongolia, etc., and never had an advantage. You have to say that you are really poor. , But regardless of the Northern Song Dynasty and the Southern Song Dynasty, it is a peaceful scene.
Chang’an, Luoyang, Kaifeng, and Nanjing are all world-class metropolises, but no one can beat them. In the face of other countries, they are tributes and relatives. It is really lost. face. Look at Daqin, Dahan, Datang, and Daming. Regardless of whether the rich or the poor win or lose, whether there is a civil war or not, the attitude towards foreign wars is very tough. Why did the Song Dynasty never take advantage of foreign enemies?
Contextual Factors
In the process of releasing military power with a cup of wine, the Song Dynasty changed its national development strategy from military to commercial. The status of military generals was obviously inferior to that of civilian officials, which was unimaginable in other dynasties. In fact, after the early years of the Northern Song Dynasty, the Song Dynasty could not defeat the Liao Dynasty. Especially after Zhao Kuangyin’s death, the Song Dynasty had no chance of victory.
Because the Song Dynasty abandoned military construction and turned to commercial development, the different development paths of the two countries determined the different military strengths of the two countries. Therefore, it is impossible for the Song Dynasty to defeat the Liao Kingdom.
Environmental Factor
The founding of the Song Dynasty had serious congenital deficiencies in the military. When the Song Dynasty established the country, the Khitan in the north had already established the country for decades. It snatched the sixteen states of Youyun in the hands of Shi Jingtang of the Later Jin Dynasty, which opened the northern gate of the Central Plains. Therefore, the Northern Song Dynasty has always had few horses, and it is difficult to fight against the minority cavalry in the north, so the establishment of the Song Dynasty is quite stretched.
Moreover, the Song Dynasty encountered a number of unprecedentedly powerful enemies. During the Song Dynasty, there were as many as four opponents: Khitan, Dangxiang, Jurchen, and Mongolia. Moreover, these powerful opponents have been on the stage since the founding of the Song Dynasty, leaving the Song Dynasty no room to breathe.
Thought Factor
The Song Dynasty was a period when my country’s military legal thought was very rich, but the basic characteristics of its military legal thought were introversion and conservatism, and its most concentrated expression was the high concentration of military power. In the deployment of troops, the local elite soldiers were assigned to the forbidden army, and the troops stationed outside the capital and those stationed inside and outside the Kaifeng Mansion were balanced.
The entire military layout reflects the idea of ”internal and external control” and a high degree of centralization. In this way, the central government directly controls the military forces, and no matter where something happens, the central government can calmly deploy troops.
At the same time, in order to further limit the power of generals and ensure that military power can be held in the hands of the emperor, the Song Dynasty formulated the “reformation law” of the army. That is to say, the guards guarding other places have to change their defenses every one or two years, and their generals must be replaced regularly. This has formed a situation in which “the generals are impermanent soldiers, and the soldiers are impermanent generals”, and “the generals do not know the soldiers, and the soldiers do not know the generals”.
This result Although it is conducive to the conspiracy of placing soldiers as generals, it also directly affects the consolidation of the troops and the formation of combat effectiveness, making the generals, especially the main general, unfamiliar with the characteristics and combat effectiveness of the troops they lead, and have nothing to do with the subordinate troops. Its majesty is credible, and this situation is bound to affect its combat effectiveness.
Selection Factor
The selection system of military generals in the Song Dynasty did not follow a purely imperial examination route. To a large extent, the training and selection system for military generals in the Song Dynasty obviously lags behind the selection system for civil officials, because it basically follows the old traditional practice. According to its regulations, all imperial relatives, descendants and relatives of middle and senior civil and military officials, children of lower-level officials who died in the king’s affairs, and even the servants and servants of high-ranking officials and nobles, can make up for office.
Among them, military officials, clans, foreign relatives and technical The relatives of officials can be filled as military rank officials. This system does not consider the quality and ability of the selected object, but mainly depends on the family background. Naturally, there is no need to talk about the requirements and training of generals. Although there are many famous generals, it also makes many good seedlings of generals buried. .
Throughout the Song Dynasty, suppressing martial arts and emphasizing literature became its focus, and it also became the weakness of the Song Dynasty. Under the thought of advocating Wen and suppressing martial arts, the Song Dynasty embarked on a deformed road of military development.
Therefore, although the economic strength of the Song Dynasty was strong, it could not be transformed into a strong military force for a long time, and there was a serious regression in combat effectiveness, so that one of the sixteen states of Youyun could not be defeated by the remnants of the Liao Dynasty. It was jaw-dropping. For the above reasons, the economic and military strength of the Song Dynasty was seriously unbalanced, and it became the most bullied dynasty in Chinese history.
