Throughout history, we have often been puzzled by the question: why is China, so large, unable to effectively resist the invasion of the northern barbarians? Why is it so difficult for the agrarian people to defeat the nomadic barbarians on the battlefield? Are there any other reasons other than the traditional explanation?
The reading of history makes people gradually realize that all historical problems can actually be traced back to economic problems, and that all economic problems originate from practical problems. History is not a pile of old papers, but depends on whether we observe it attentively.
In the history of the country, the invasion of the northern barbarians often makes people wonder: why is China, so vast, unable to fight against these barbarians? Are there any other reasons other than the traditional interpretation? In the era of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, China still had a considerable scale of animal husbandry, which could organize the cavalry of the Central Plains to effectively fight the Xiongnu. However, during the Tang Taizong period, they could only rely on the cavalry with the barbarians as the main body to deal with the barbarians, showing that the agrarian peoples did not always achieve victory.
*"Prairie Empire" These days, I was writing down my thoughts next to the pages of the book, and at the same time doing the math problems of the MBA, I suddenly had some ideas. It is fairly easy to explain this from the point of view of economics.
Let's start with some data. The Song Dynasty said that it would take 100 farmers to feed a soldier, i.e., the base value of labor cost was set to PC1. And the steppe barbarians, a man in the prime of life is a soldier, and the labor cost is PC2. In terms of productivity (people), there is PC1=100 and PC2=0.
The agrarian peoples were mainly infantry, while the steppe barbarians were light cavalry. From the point of view of combat effectiveness, the area of confrontation between the agrarian peoples and the barbarians in the Central Plains is the Great Plain of North China. If we assume that one cavalry can fight eight infantry, then the combat effectiveness is 8f1 = f2. Combat effectiveness e depends on combat effectiveness f and combat frequency f, there is e = f * f. The combat effectiveness of cavalry units E2 is sixteen times greater than that of infantry units E1. The cost of training is not precisely calculated here, but the barbarian cavalry is an inherently good warrior, while the infantry of the agrarian peoples requires long-term training.
Build a model: how much will the grassland barbarians who mobilized 100,000 troops have to pay to contain the farming peoples of the Central Plains? The total barbarian population p, half male and half female, and 2 3 males in the prime of life, get p = 300000. The agrarian peoples needed 160 million people to concentrate sixteen times more infantry to fight against them. This is not only a matter of population, but also requires organizational and managerial capacity, which has been difficult to achieve for purely agrarian peoples in history.
Take the war between the Jin Dynasty and the Mongols as an example, 100,000 Mongol cavalry annihilated 670,000 infantry, demonstrating the advantage of the barbarians in labor costs. This difference in cost determines behavior, strategy and tactics, and also determines the ultimate winner or loser.
From the point of view of financial costs, although the agrarian economy is developed, it cannot support a war. Song Taizu wanted to buy the head of a Liao man with 25 horses of silk, and calculated that his elite soldiers were no more than 100,000, and the total cost was about 2.5 million horses, which was enough to solve the problem of the Liao State. However, this kind of plan ignores the opponent's game opportunities, and the cost is constantly in the game. In contrast, the cost of barbarians is lower, and there is a clear leverage effect.
From a monetary point of view, the chieftains of the barbarians did not need to spend money to raise soldiers, while the emperors of the Central Plains had to spend huge sums of money. The barbarian cavalry did not need to carry food, as long as there was grass, they could go on expeditions, and the cost of feeding and using it was almost zero. In contrast, the cost of the army of the Emperor of the Central Plains was higher, and the average monthly cost of infantry was.
Between the three and four taels of silver, there was a general phenomenon of arrears in the late Ming Dynasty.
Barbarians with low technology and lower costs stand out from the competition. Therefore, cost determines not only behavior, but also strategy, tactics, and ultimately victory or defeat.