76 replies to this topic

[RollingWave]

Song, it is very badly discredieted by most traditional historians due to it's fall to the barbarians, but it's economic and technological achievement was far far greater than any other dynasty.

[Fushida]

Song, it is very badly discredieted by most traditional historians due to it's fall to the barbarians, but it's economic and technological achievement was far far greater than any other dynasty.

Also there weren't any extraordinary Emperors who stood out. Corruption was quite a problem in those times, and many "han jian" sold out to the northern empires.

[RollingWave]

Also there weren't any extraordinary Emperors who stood out. Corruption was quite a problem in those times, and many "han jian" sold out to the northern empires.

There weren't extrodinary Emperors because there were little (successful) war against other kingdoms, which is what the public general judge as successful (Just like FDR will forever be remembered more for ww2 than the fact that he saved the US economy), Han Wu Di is widly regarded as an "extraordinary" emperor but he sent the empire's finacial and economic status into ruins and in the long run ruined the Kingdom (he also set a political problem that was a huge factor for the dynasty's end) but he is rememberd as great? I think looking at history with such a narrow view is very shallow.. you need to see the bigger picture, outside of war and appearence, see what it meant in the long run and what it meant for the common people.

Corruption is a huge problem in every long dynasty , if you think it was bad in Song, it was about 100 times worse after early Ming and 100 times more during late Ching.

Song had a every difficulat time defending it's northernd borders due to the fact that they started without the very crucial sixteen states of Yian Yun, which was the key between north and north eastern China, and it was also their bad luck that the Liao kingdom (and later the Jing) were very powerful throughout their times.. many blame the policy of the Song for their military failure, but given the natural circustances it wouldn't have been much better even if they did have a strong army like the Tang... though yes, the northernd dynasty did end due to the stupidity of a few, but so did many many other dynasty (Qing/Han/Tang? how is losing a dynasty to inside rebellion anymore honorable than losing it to outside force? espically when it's the most powerful army ever to set foot on the world like the mongols? while the Qing basically fell against peasents?)

In terms of culture/economic/technology the Song was a huge huge breakthrough era, even in the somewhat failed political scheme it was one of the very rare dynasty that experienmented with possible different systems, although it didn't turn out well it was also somethign extremely special in Chinese history.

[Chinaconqueror]

The Song had a strong economy despite the fact that their military was weak. For this reason, they were able to buy peace by negotiating with Liao and Jin to pay tributes to them in return for not invading Song. Despite of this, the Song technology was still the most advanced among the world.

For me, I prefer Song Emperor Zhao Kuang Yin. He was a former general, but later unified the 10 states into one.

[RollingWave]

Many modern hisotrians conclude also that the Song's peace buying strategy for the most part acturally costed LESS money than the other option, full scale war.. that's not even considering the extra cost of war on the economy... while the peace treaty with the Liao acturally generated some decent trade income .

THe Song adopted a weak military strategy because it saw what it was like to have a strong one, the strong military of the Tang eventrually back fired when emperors no longer has as much control over their powerful military, and the country just break into warlord fiefdoms.... obviously they also did other stupid things (like recruiting mass refugee from natrual diastors as a way of relief..... only to weaken the military even more and overburden the government finance)

And One must also realize that the Song dynasty had very limited access to large quantity of horses... the tanks of the medieval world... the north/northwest where the best horses are bread are controlling by hostile regimes that shut off access to them... limiting them for the most part to use home bred horses that are usually not as good in quality and quantity.

[General_Zhaoyun]

And One must also realize that the Song dynasty had very limited access to large quantity of horses... the tanks of medieval worlds... the north/northwest where the best horses are bread are controlling by hostile regimnes that shut off access to them... limiting them for the most part to use home bread horses that are usually not as good in quality and quantity a like.

I guess, you're right..but didn't the Song had the most advanced military technology in the world ? I thought they invented the rockets and missiles. Why didn't they put them into good use during their war against Liao?

[thirdgumi]

I guess the rockeds weren't very effective, just like how early fire arms were unaccurate and slow.

[Shadowfax]

While being one of the most technologically and culturally advanced people in the world at the time, the Song were not militarily powerful. Part of the reason for this may be because Confucianism held military in very low regard. Confucianism did not recognize the military as being part of the four official classes of occupations; therefore, the military consisted of either the poor, uneducated peasants, mercenaries or allies. Diplomacy was the favored form of dealing with enemies.

Source: The Northern and Southern Song dynasties

I read it from somewhere that the Song troops were good at useing missles in sea battles. Thus, the Jin and Liao avoided fighting sea battles with Song.

[thirdgumi]

Source: The Northern and Southern Song dynasties

On that map, it's Northern Song instead of Southern Song.

[RollingWave]

The Song's military unsucessfulness against the northern tribes can be attributed to many factors....

1.leaders: this is probably by far the worst problem... in fact this was a huge problem for almost all dynasty after the Tang, due to what was observed during the Tang, almost all dynasty afterwards (espically after the initial conquest stages) were quiet paranoid of talented generals leading revolts against them, thus starting from the Song (was true for most of MIng too and I belive part of Qing ) training, leading, commanding, planning amoung troops were almost all split up amoung different persons, suffice to say that the trainer doesn't lead the army and the army commander doesn't do the fighting (since they were often court officals or even eunichs and not career soliders) and the field commander doesn't get their say in the plannings very often.... Yue Fei was a real exception due to the desperate times but in general this was the case...

A few example... Fan Zhongyan is one of the greatest politition of northern Song dynasty (or in fact... the entire Song dynasty) he was basically prime ministor for a long while and held many other important positions and was highly influencal in many ways (he was the first to seriously propose the Song reform their politics, he also had some serious social legacy that would endure into even modern day), but he was also very famous for commading a campign against Shi Xia, the Song's second greatest enemy, but it was obvious he wasn't a solider and couldn't possibily have known that much about fighting.... another is the legendary character Lin Chong (one of the heroes of the novel Shuihu Zhuan) was the "head trainer of the imperial army"

A great distrust for military commanders was one of the key policy of the Song... although it did make sure that almost no military commander rebelled during their entire reign (see.... it is true that since Song rebellions lead by military man decreased dramatically with the exception of the three fan rebellion during Qing...) it also seriously hampered their effectiveness... but it was one of those things that really hard to improve.... give them more power... risk rebellion.... give them less.... risk sucky army.

2.Horses: there's just no dening that until musket tactics were prefected horses were the single most important military asset possible, and as mentioned the Song had a serious lack of it while their enemy had plenty of them.... and almost all the Northern Song's fighting were done in the north where terrain were extremely favorable to calvary. you can also see this situation as to why a. the Song reintroduced super heavy calvary (cause they lacked quantity... where as the Tang acturally for the most part abandoned heavy calvary and went with medium/light cav because they did not lack horses) and b. why so many new polearms and hand to hand weapon were developed. (cause they needed more variety of infantry weapon to make up for the lack of pure calvary might)

3. Moral and Quality of training and the army system in general: the Song not only distrusted military commanders... but they made a serious efferot to lower the status of soliders in general, (while not usually in a direct way... ) that can't be really good for the Song, IIRC the Song's miltiary system was professional solider but for life, once you get in you can't leave, which is obviously another problem as many joined out of desperation during famine times.... but tries to escape afterwards.... the Song also reserve the most (quantity and quality) troops for their own imperial army around Kei Fung (one of the reason though was due to it's horribly undefendable terrain) while only stationing small amount of old and unfit troops locally... as been said the Song government often let refugee from natrual disastor into army as a way of relive... which create massive problem for their military and financial system in the long run.... all these said can be seen why the Song army often don't work out as well as they were design to.

4.Position of Capital and defensable postion in general, as been said the Song capital of Kaifeng was on the bank of the Yellow River in a completely open plain... there is absolutely zero natural defensable possition within its area, (while the traditional capital such as Chang An was highly defensible) which forced the Song to station a HUGE army in Kaifeng (highest was around 1-2 million I think in its immediate area.), the Song is also famously without the 16 provinces of Yan Yun during their reign which is the key between north and north eastern China, thus giving the Liao very easy access to attack while the Song had serious trouble counter attacking, right after they reunited China, their second emperor lead a expedition himself (he was a real hardened general not some pansy royal and lead a troop that had spent decades fighting... in a divided China) but wasn't able to retake the Yan Yun area (in fact... he was horribly defeated and suffered arrow wounds) ... note that this was when the Song still had really competent generals that they trusted and had a seriously battle harden army.... while a while later by the time of the 3rd emperor the Liao easily rushed down and marched against the capital in under a week or so, it was only due to the determination of a few that the emperor (who was not a real solider...) stepped onto the battle field and boosted moral tremendously that forced the Liao into a treaty....

Jesus I really shouldn't read these forums near the end of semester lol!!!!

[thirdgumi]

One of the reason for the success of Yue Fei was because he had his own army, the so called Yue Jia Jun, but that was also the reason he died. The emperors of Song distrusted generals with an absolute command over his army. Qin Hui was just a pawn, while the real excutioner was the emperor himself.
The military technology advancement of Song was due to desperat attempts to hold agaisnt its adversaries who had an upperhand.

[RollingWave]

The military technology advancement of Song was due to desperat attempts to hold agaisnt its adversaries who had an upperhand.

that's not an incrediablly good way to put it.... suffice to say that China had competition so they had to advance..... which was basically true for Europe's very rapid technological advance during the late mideval and on.... they were constantly getting at each other's throat and once the economy improved slightly they tried to advance their tech as much as possible

[General_Zhaoyun]

One of the reason for the success of Yue Fei was because he had his own army, the so called Yue Jia Jun, but that was also the reason he died. The emperors of Song distrusted generals with an absolute command over his army. Qin Hui was just a pawn, while the real excutioner was the emperor himself.
The military technology advancement of Song was due to desperat attempts to hold agaisnt its adversaries who had an upperhand.

I'm just wondering why Song has a weak military despite the fact that its military technology is more advanced than Liao, Jin and other dynasties in the north. Can anyone explain?

[RollingWave]

Poor leadership poor moral and a government that doesn't put much confidence in their troops certainly didn't help....

The government factor was probably the biggest... and this was basically true for most of the following dynasty in China too after the initial conquest stages... the central government puts a great deal of restriction on their generals or over complicate the whole leadership process in attempt to make sure their army don't rebel on them.......

But looking through it all.... perhaps they were mostly right ...... if you look at the Qing dynasty..... they had to give the military leaders free reign after the Taiping rebellion started.... wonder why the end of Qing to most of the early republic was a warlord mess? same for the Tang........

Though the Song probably took it way over the top.... suffice to say the general who trained the men isn't the one that commands them in battle... the once commanding them in battle isn't the once that make up the battle plans... then there is a whole seperate system for logistics...... and overall the government sends court officals (who are no mlitary man in any sense) to take overall command... -_-...... that's not exactly a system brewed for military success.....

If you look at the End of the Song dynasty you can really see this too... Xiangyang fell greatly due to a real lack of logistical support and reinforcement from the government too cought up in their own political struggle AND fearing to give more control to the commander Lu.... then the massive showdown at Ding Jia Zhou was lead by the premier Jia Sidao himself which is obviously not incrediablly helpful as it was him that lied about him "Beating the Mongols badly" when they retreated due to the Khan's death.... that got the Song into so much trouble in the first place....

[thirdgumi]

I'm just wondering why Song has a weak military despite the fact that its military technology is more advanced than Liao, Jin and other dynasties in the north. Can anyone explain?

It's an interesting topic to study.

suffice to say the general who trained the men isn't the one that commands them in battle... the once commanding them in battle isn't the once that make up the battle plans...

I think today's military institution is the same (correct me if I'm wrong), so why Song was so weak? An interesting topic to study.

and overall the government sends court officals (who are no mlitary man in any sense) to take overall command

Romans in the early stages also used consuls to be military commanders, they had some success. Why not Song? An interesting topic to study.

If you look at the End of the Song dynasty you can really see this too... ShianYang fell greatly due to a real lack of logistical support and reinforcement from the government too cought up in their own political struggle AND fearing to give more control to the commander Lu....

During the early campaigns, the Song were well organized and well prepared, still they lost their northern campaign, why was that? An interesting topic to study.