2. Composition of the Shao Song Imperial Army
After years of fighting with the Jin army, the Song army gained a lot of experience in practice. Because the Jin army mostly used heavy armor and hard bows, the Song army reconfigured the various military branches in a targeted manner, and the settings are as follows:
Infantry, set up sword and shield, long spear, long axe, divine arm archer, archer (heavy arrow hard bow). No longer set up general archers and crossbowmen. Due to the repair and production restrictions of divine arm bow, the proportion of arms has been optimized (see below for details), and it is no longer the case that 60%-70% of the Song army in a city are archers. (During the reign of Emperor Renzong of Song, Yin Zhu said: "Each city of the cavalry has 13 spearmen and flag bearers, and the rest are archers; each city of the infantry has 8 sword (shield) men, 16 spearmen, and more than 70 of them are crossbowmen")
The cavalry consists of archers, assault cavalry, and armored cavalry. The focus is on strengthening the construction of armored cavalry. The main weapons have also been replaced from the unified standard long spear to cavalry hammers (bone flowers) and armor-piercing lances (long blades and heavier spears), etc. The secondary weapons have been replaced from swords to heavy weapons such as maces, whips, and short-handled hammers. The archer cavalry no longer uses bows as the main combat weapon, but is mainly composed of foreign cavalry, and is uniformly equipped with spears as combat weapons. The armored cavalry wears full body armor, including body armor, shoulder guards, arm guards, hanging edges, knee skirts, and hoods. The horse armor is mainly chest and neck protection, unlike the full body horse armor of the iron pagoda; only the body armor of the light cavalry is iron lamellar armor, and the rest are leather armor. The whole body of the foreign cavalry is basically leather armor (except for the heart cover and helmet). The cavalry in the infantry mostly serves as scouts. Generally, they wear half-body iron armor on the upper body, leather armor on the lower body, and the horse wears a neck guard and leather breast armor.
3. Basic military system and formation organization
The infantry set up arms in units of one large squad, such as the left squad for sword and shield soldiers, the right squad for divine arm archers, etc. There are 2 large squads in one city, 5 squads in one battalion, and 8 large squads in total, excluding the personal guards. Generally, there are 2 large squads of sword and shield soldiers, 1 large squad of long spearmen, 1 large squad of long axemen, 3 large squad archers, and 1 large squad of divine arm archers (their firing speed is slow and difficult to repair, so they cannot be deployed on a large scale). In addition, there are more than 100 cavalrymen in the personal guards and scouts. In combat, generally 2 rows of sword and shield soldiers are behind the chevaux de frise (if there is time to set up chevaux de frise), followed by 1 row of long spearmen, 1 row of long axemen, 3 rows of archers, and 1 row of divine arm archers at the end, and a 50*8 formation can be arranged for frontal combat.
When attacking, the spearmen are in front, followed by the long axemen, and then a row of sword and shield men. About 50 steps behind, a row of sword and shield men protect the archers and gradually advance forward.
When attacking a city, the main force is sword and shield soldiers, while spearmen are lined up under the city to protect the archers and provide cover for the catapults and other equipment behind the main formation.
The range of the Shenbi bow: Volume 19 of Mengxi Bitan says that this is "Li Ding presented a slanted crossbow, which is similar to a bow, but with a dry stirrup. It is stretched with the stirrup off the ground. It can shoot 300 steps and can penetrate heavy bullets. It is called the Shenbi bow, which is the most powerful weapon. Li Ding was originally the leader of the Dangxiang Qiang tribe, and he surrendered to the court." Another saying is that it was developed by the commoner Li Hong. The Shenbi bow is actually a crossbow, with a range of more than 240 steps, about 372 meters, "it can still penetrate elm wood and half of the fence", which shows its strength. "At the beginning of Xining, the Shenbi bow was made", and Song Shenzong "previewed it in Yanhe Hall, set up iron armor 70 steps away, and let the guards shoot, but no one hit it." The eunuch Zhang Ruoshui "requested to shoot and hit the bullets in succession". The Shenbi bow is not as heavy as the bed crossbow, and only one person can shoot it, which is easy to promote. "It has achieved remarkable results in military affairs."
The cavalry was organized into units of du, such as one du of armored cavalry and another du of archers. In a battalion of armored cavalry, there was still one du of cavalry (light cavalry) responsible for peripheral security and reconnaissance. One battalion had four du, or three du of armored cavalry and one du of light cavalry, or one du of armored cavalry (personal soldier du) and three du of light cavalry.
When attacking (cavalry can only attack, and cavalry standing still is worse than infantry), armored cavalry are usually the vanguard, archers are on the wings or the rear, and cavalry are in the center. The armored cavalry formation varies from 4 to 8 rows (thicker is meaningless). Fifty steps behind are light cavalry and cavalry to follow up and provide cover.
Appendix: The Song army infantry is organized as follows:
——Du (1 chief and 1 deputy, in charge of 2 dashi) totaling 105 people
—————Military judge (Jiang Yuhou) 1 person
—————Left Shi (the chief of the Shi is concurrently held by a senior Shi) 51 people
———————1 military judge
———————10 people
——————————Five people
———————————————1 soldier
—————Right Ten 51 people
Note: A large squad is commonly known as a team, and its chief is called a squad commander, who is usually a senior squad leader and has 5 squads of infantry under his command.
The Song army cavalry was organized as follows:
——Du (1 chief, 1 deputy, 1 flag bearer) totaling 65 people
—————Military judges (2 Yuhou) 2 people
—————Left team (1 captain and 1 vice captain) 30 people
—————————1 military judge
—————————The first group (1 group 3 groups) 9 people
————————————Five three people
—————————————————1 soldier
—————————The second 9 people
—————————The third 9 people
—————Right team 30 people
4. A Preliminary Study on the Class of Shao Song Imperial Army
The traditional military branches of the Song Dynasty, from non-commissioned officers to officers, often had three general levels.
The first is the officers, also called military schools, colonels, military personnel, and their range includes from the commander-in-chief of the wing to the deputy military commander and deputy captain of the capital; the second is the rank, which includes the military head of the capital, ten generals, generals, secretaries, and escorts; the third is the long-term soldiers.
The description of the officer rank is relatively clear and easy to infer:
The commanders-in-chief of each military division were basically given the title of Jiedushi.
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