Qian Mu 's "Political Gains and Losses in China" in "China's All Chronicles" probably evaluates Song Dynasty as a very successful civil governance, but its martial arts are relatively weak in all dynasties. On the one hand, recruitment system is unique to all dynasties. Strategically, since Youyun Sixteen Prefectures can only be defeated passively, it is necessary to defend greatly. In the end, huge funds are needed to support the soldiers, and the quality of the soldiers is low.
Under the above circumstances, the Song Dynasty was able to persist in national destiny for three hundred years. Except for Mongolia, the rest of the opponents were all killed by national destiny for the past three hundred years. So how do we understand the recruiting system of the Song Dynasty? For example, today we have developed a conscription system for . It is the obligation of everyone to serve in the country when they are in war, but the country must issue certain subsidies to such military personnel. It would be different if the recruitment system was implemented in the Song Dynasty.
The ancient soldiers were mostly people who were interested in war and were very interested in war, or those who were willing to serve the country with ideals, such as Xin Qiji , and those who wanted to change their destiny by joining the army, including some people from the upper class, also liked to join the army. So in general, the soldiers of the Song Dynasty were neither honest farmers nor patriotic ideals. After all, there were very few people like Yue Fei , Han Shizhong .
When Song Taizu was founding, he mainly recruited gangsters into the army. When it came to the famine, he began to recruit soldiers from the people, so the quality of soldiers was not good. Of course, this does not mean that the recruitment system of the Song Dynasty was not good. This is just like the imperial examination. We are not saying that the imperial examination was not good, but the contents of the Four Books and Five Classics that were tested in the ancient imperial examination were not good.
