Rebirth of Wu Ba Spring and Autumn

Chapter 645 The Essence of the Military Merit System

"Your Majesty, I don't know how these [-] soldiers are treated?"

Sun Wu frowned and asked.

"The remuneration remains the same, and the twentieth-level military title system is still the same, but military soldiers are good at charging and have more opportunities to make meritorious service."

"..."

Isn't Qingji too stingy?
Not also!

He is purely thinking about Wu Guo's interests and the future of this "Warrior Pawn"!

Not bad.

Qingji asked Sun Wu, Wu Zixu and others to create "Warrior pawns", which is completely imitating the historical Wei Wuzu.

However, we will not imitate the whole thing, if we do the same, we will definitely have to make some changes.

Wei Wuzu was an elite heavy infantry trained by Wu Qi during the Warring States Period.

Wu Qi led the soldiers of Wei to fight in the south and in the north, and achieved the great feat of "72 battles, 64 total victories, and the rest are evenly divided (no winner or loser)".

In the past 30 years, Wu Qi led the soldiers of Wei to attack Hangu Pass. After 64 battles, they captured more than 500 miles of land on the west bank of the Yellow River from Qin State, and compressed Qin State to Mount Hua.

In the Battle of Yin and Jin, Wu Qi even defeated the Qin army ten times larger than himself with 5 Wei troops, created 50 infantry, hundreds of chariots, and [-] cavalry. Shengduo's famous battle made Wei Wuzu famous all over the world.

During the heyday of Wei Wuzu, there were as many as [-] soldiers, and they were also the most elite and sturdy representatives of the army at that time.

The soldiers selected for military training in the State of Wei are all heavy infantry, wearing heavy armor, holding spears and swords, carrying bows and crossbows, and crossing arrow bags. It can be said that they are well-equipped.

The use of iron weapons had a huge impact on the birth of Wei soldiers. Without the support of a strong metallurgical industry and weapon manufacturing industry, it would be unimaginable to arm an individual soldier with such equipment.

But now, due to Qing Ji's praise, Wu's iron smelting industry has flourished, and a large number of iron weapons and agricultural tools have long been popular, and even evolved to the level of iron smelting technology in the Han Dynasty...

How could Wu's "Warrior Soldiers" troops emerge out of nowhere?

It is worth mentioning that the establishment of Wei Wuzu made it almost impossible for the vassal states to imitate.

Because apart from Wei Wuzu, there is no other place, and no other vassal state uses a corps composed entirely of infantry.

It's not that there are no conditions, it's not that there are capable people, the main reason is that in the era when chariots are king, no one has the courage!
"Your Majesty, you are only giving more opportunities to kill the enemy and make meritorious deeds. This 3-strong army is probably no different from ordinary soldiers."

Sun Wu smiled awkwardly.

"Guowei, do you think the widow is too stingy?"

Qingji took a meaningful look at Sun Wu.

"Don't dare."

Sun Wu shook his head and said: "I just think that since you are an elite soldier, why don't you treat them favorably? It's like being trapped in a camp?"

Before Qingji could speak, Wu Zixu, Tian Rangju and others standing behind them all looked at Sun Wu in surprise.

Trapped camp?
You must know that as one of the three elites of the Wu Kingdom, the treatment of elites in the camp is very enviable.

Soldiers who were selected into the camp had a good life and high treatment. The state not only exempted their families from corvee, rent and tax, but also rewarded land and real estate.

Of course, the cannibalism is soft, the manpower is short, and the discipline of being trapped in the camp is also very strict. All actions must be resolutely obey the command, otherwise there will be severe punishment.

Although the training of Wei military soldiers is very difficult and the selection criteria are very picky, once they become military soldiers, they can enjoy preferential treatment.

First of all, we must ensure that they get a hundred acres of land, obtain higher titles with military merit, and enjoy better treatment...

If these [-] military soldiers all became sharp soldiers who were trapped in the camp, the financial burden on Wu would be too great.

"There is a twentieth-level military title system, and too many military pawns are given. At this stage, Wu State can afford it. Once Wu State loses the opportunity to expand its territory, the peace will last for a long time, or it will be defeated, and it will not be able to obtain enough wealth and land. ..."

Qingji said meaningfully: "Then, this soldier is no longer a sharp knife for my country of Wu to conquer the world, but a cumbersome existence instead."

"Your Majesty Yingming."

Sun Wu already understood Qing Ji's intention.

In fact, it is.

It's not that Qingji was too stingy, but that he couldn't give the military pawns too much preferential treatment on a material basis.

Why did the military soldiers of Wei in history disappear into the long river of history after a moment of glory?

At the beginning of its establishment, Wei Wuzu relied on the support of the country's national strength and was a major burden for the country, which was different from Qin Ruishi.

The military pawn system belongs to the recruitment system. The biggest problem is that as soldiers age, their combat effectiveness will drop sharply.

Moreover, because the veterans have houses and land in their families, they are all landlords. They fear death even more when they fight, because once they die, they will not receive their salary. When scrambling to escape.

Over time, military officers will also fill their pockets and deduct military pay, which will lead to mutiny in the army.

No elite force can exist independently of the country.

Due to Wei's strategic mistakes and the high cost of Wei military soldiers, the loss of national power and material resources was huge, and the vitality was greatly injured, especially the loss of elite Wei military soldiers, which was difficult to recover in the short term.

More importantly, the real souls of Wei Wuzu who formed combat effectiveness are those veterans with rich combat experience.

Their rich combat experience and combat skills are very valuable wealth, which can only be accumulated through real battles, and cannot be made up for rigidly.

In addition, the cycle of retraining and training is long and difficult.

Therefore, it is basically impossible for the state of Wei to rebuild a Wei military pawn. The loss of elite Wei military pawns is difficult to recover in the short term.

War requires strength, not force can determine completeness, so it is impossible to restore strength...

In the Spring and Autumn and Warring States Periods, the infantry soldiers of the Wei State were the most elite, and the world called them "Wei Military Soldiers".

In terms of cavalry, Zhao's "sword knights" and Qi's "knights of martial arts" are both elite.

After the reform of the Qin State, the new army turned out in the battle to recover Hexi, and was exclaimed by the world as "sharp warriors".

Xunzi said: The martial arts of Qi should not meet the soldiers of the Wei family, and the soldiers of the Wei family should not meet the sharp fighters of Qin... Those who meet them will be as if they were burnt and thrown into a stone.

This shows that the soldiers of Wei can defeat the martial arts fighters of Qi, but they cannot beat the sharp fighters of Qin.

When Qingji was carrying out the reform, he also introduced the "twenty-level military merit title system" in Shang Yang's reform, which greatly increased the combat power of the Wu army.

Wu Guo also has Ruishi, but they have not been gathered.

Now that Qingji is building such a "martial pawn" army, he is just gathering the best fighters from Wu to build a strong army in the world.

The current state of Wu can support so many professional soldiers, but what about in the future?

What is the reason why Qin Ruishi in history was stronger than Wei Wuzu?
Qingji believes that there are still problems with the military system of this army.

Because as soon as the soldiers of this army entered the army of Wei Wuzu, they would leave their slave status and obtain the same land use rights as the common people.

That is to say, the general practice of the well field system is still adopted to give the right to use the land, and at the same time, it can be exempted from taxes.

However, this method makes Wei Wuzu update slower, and at the same time the cost is extremely high, and it is difficult for the country to support it for a long time.

Qin Ruishi is different.

The twentieth-level military title system gives soldiers a chance to stand out. Although other countries also have this point, their changes are not thorough enough.

Soldiers at most changed from slavery to common people, and very few people could become nobles.

However, Qin's military merits are the most thorough. If there is no military merit, even the Qin clan will not be able to confer titles.

And if soldiers of the Qin Army continue to gain military merits, they can obtain official positions and titles.

This effectively stimulated ordinary soldiers' desire for official position, power and status, and effectively transformed it into the strong fighting will of Qin soldiers.

Although the military merit system has a system that allows military merit titles to be hereditary, in general, without new military merits, these families will decline.

Therefore, they can only continue to join the Qin army and go to the battlefield to continuously gain military merits in order to continuously improve the status and power of the family.

It can be seen that Qin's military merit system effectively stimulated the Qin people from two aspects, making them bloodthirsty and tenacious in order to obtain more rewards, thus making Qin's army truly become the army of tigers and wolves!
(End of this chapter)