Battlefield First Level Calculation Analysis of the phenomenon of head-grabbing on the ancient battlefield
In order to encourage soldiers to kill the enemy bravely, a system of military merit medals was developed in ancient times, the most famous of which is:"Head work"System. So-called"Head work"The original intention of the system was to determine the level of military merit according to the number of heads cut off by the enemy. However, this has led to the phenomenon that when an enemy is killed, it is usually a large number of people who are beheaded. In fact, this phenomenon is very common on the battlefield in ancient times, but it can easily cause chaos in the army.
In previous battlefields, headbutting was more common, but this did not bode well.
Before Shang Ying changed the honor system of the army, ordinary soldiers were mostly peasants, and they inevitably had to participate in battles, and no matter how many enemies they killed on the battlefield and how heroic they fought in battle, their peasant status would not change. Therefore, no matter how many enemies they killed on the battlefield and how valiant they fought, their peasant status did not change, which is why their exploits are often attributed to generals. It was not until the Shang Dynasty reformed the military system that this injustice was changed, and ordinary peasants and soldiers could change their status through military service.
Shang Ying wrote in the "Military Merit Treaty":"Titles are awarded based on the number of beheadings"。This method of gaining military merit by killing the enemy made the officers and soldiers extremely excited every time they heard about the battle, so it was called"The Army of Tigers and Wolves"。The earliest"First class"The military merit system is to tie the head of the captured enemy to the waist or return it to the army by horse or vehicle.
Whether it exists on the battlefield"Headhunters"phenomenon to ensure that soldiers have the honor of fighting? This phenomenon not only existed, but was once widespread. After all, on the battlefield it is difficult to find out who killed the enemy, while"Headhunters"It is also often confused, with dozens of people reporting"Headhunters"The merits and demerits of the demerits. In such a situation, the soldiers could easily find themselves covered'Human heads'Surrounded by battles.
Qi Jiguang's "Self-cultivation" said"Since the Northern Army fought a special battle, those who are good at fighting, in order to kill the thief, thirty or fifty people fight, and the thief chases after him for defeat, each with several people as bait, luring you to fight for the thief, and its crowd gathers to kill, and the song is nothing, I don't know how many people were killed by him"。That is, the two armies are at war, the enemy has already been killed, and there will usually be.
Thirty or fifty soldiers are competing with each other for the enemy's head, and no one cares about the enemy's escape, so the enemy usually uses a few people as bait to lure you to fight for merit, and then kill back under the command of the army, and not only get the enemy's head, but also be killed by the enemy.
In ancient times, marching and fighting were not like what we usually see in film and television dramas, everyone rushed up to fight each other, in fact, they paid attention to the order of the march, and the changeable and disorderly rules and regulations"Grab heads"Although it will increase one's own military merits, it is easy to distract the order of the army, which will lead to defeat. Sometimes, on the battlefield, in order to fight for heads, their own soldiers will even kill each other, and even worse, they will kill the bearers to snatch credit.
At the same time, this method of calculating combat merits by relying on the first order has certain advantages and disadvantages, such as the archer kills the enemy but does not get the first order, the cavalry hits and passes the first order and cannot be decapitated at all, the first order affects the soldier's skills too much, and the decapitation is easy to cause the enemy to counterattack and so on.
How to solve specialized"Decapitation squad"of"Headhunters"Phenomenon?
For example, when Xu Xi, a Song dynasty minister, led an army against Western Xia, he came up with the unusual idea of abolishing the military honor system based on the age of officers. As a result, the soldiers lacked fighting spirit, and Xu Xi was defeated and died. As a result, the soldiers lacked fighting spirit, and Xu Xi died on the battlefield.
But how to solve the soldiers"Grab heads"How to balance the distribution of military merit among different branches of the military? In fact, the solution to this problem is to have soldiers who specialize in stealing heads, so that the military credit goes to the team rather than the individual.
In Qi Jiguang's "Chronicles of Military Training", he said:"Its long cards, spears, and wolves are coming, and the shilling number of long soldiers are not allowed to take the knife first, but they will be killed first, and Gu Lian is not solid. After killing the thief, let the short soldiers in the team cut off the head, everyone stood behind the formation to lift people, after killing the gathering of troops, the order to get up for the test, and then allowed to go out of the battle for the test"，"Today is different from the past, if you kill his head or horse, he does not have to worry about him, the killer only kills him"。I've arranged with another team of people to decapitate the horses"。That is to say, soldiers armed with spears are not allowed to unsheath their heads with knives, they are only allowed to unsheath their heads before the battle, and they are not allowed to kill the enemy in the first place, and they are all picked up by a group of people holding short spears, and each head is only allowed to be carried by one person behind the formation, and it is only allowed to be checked from the front of the battle until the end of the battle and the general orders the inspection.
And in Qi Jiguang's "New Book of Discipline and Effectiveness", the distribution of combat effectiveness,"Each person's head is divided into thirty-two, the weapon brush head is divided into twenty-two, the soldier's head is two taels, and the rest of the soldiers are not divided into one or two. Each team is also divided into two pairs. ""The main is to kill the thief, that is, the reward for the first road is ten taels of silver, the first road is ten for the rate, the fee is six, the cannon is two, the intersection of the first road and the camp is one, and the whole line returns to the camp for a part. "This means that the merits of the war no longer belong to the individual, but are calculated in the squad, the whole class is responsible for hand-to-hand combat, beheading, and long-range shooting, and rewards are distributed in different proportions according to the degree of danger, which not only ensures the combat effectiveness of the army, but also avoids the soldiers competing for heads, which can make the army more united, everyone performs their duties, each has its own responsibility, and destroys the enemy, as long as the war is won, there will be merit! As long as the war is won, of course, there will be less military merit.
So before Qi Jiguang, some people thought there was a problem? I haven't seen any record of it yet, but almost every dynasty had a law that beheaded people were often killed on the battlefield and severely punished if they were discovered. In short, decapitation on the battlefield is an extremely dangerous thing, not only is it easy to kill, but it is also easy to be dealt with by military law once it is discovered.