As the saying goes, the general trend of the world must be united after a long period of separation and divided after a long period of combination. In fact, in the ancient history of thousands of years, the years of war were no less than the years of peace. Either at home or abroad, the civilization of the Central Plains and the nomadic people are fighting. No longer is the regime fighting each other. The spring and Autumn period and Warring States period lasted more than 300 years, the Chu and Han Dynasties fought for hegemony for four years, the two Han Dynasties fought with Xiongnu for hundreds of years, the Three Kingdoms, the two Jin Dynasties and the southern and Northern Dynasties were fighting all the time, the peasant uprising in the late Sui Dynasty, the long-term war between the Sui and Tang Dynasties and Koguryo and Turk, the war between the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms continued, the fighting among song, Liao, Jin, Xia and Mongolia, the Mongols swept half of the world, and the late Ming Dynasty competed with the rebel forces and Manchu and Qing forces, The war between Qing Dynasty and Zhungeer and Russia, and the war between Qing Dynasty and the Allied forces of eight countries. It can be said that from the three emperors and five emperors to the present, history has been moving forward slowly in wars of different scales.
So, how did ancient wars convey military orders without modern and modern advanced communication equipment such as telephone, telegraph, mobile phone and radar?
The facts reflected by "Warlords"
There is an allusion called "beacon fire drama Princes". It says that the last king of the Western Zhou Dynasty, king you of Zhou, loved Baosi, but Baosi didn't like to laugh. So he thought of a way to make Baosi laugh, that is, pretending that there was an enemy invasion and ordering to light the beacon fire. After hearing the news, the princes rushed to rescue him, but found that it was a fraud of the king of Zhou. Baosi looked at the noisy princes and laughed, but the king of Zhou you lost the credibility of the beacon tower, and finally led to the subjugation of the country.
In ancient times, there were no modern communication tools, and beacon towers were the means of transmitting information. During the day to smoke as the number, the night fire as the number, can achieve the role of warning. During the Three Kingdoms period, before Guan Yu attacked Cao Wei, he used beacon towers to guard against the attack of Dongwu. Unfortunately, Soochow did not choose a frontal attack. Instead, he crossed the river in white and pretended to be a businessman. As a result, the soldiers who were responsible for guarding the beacon towers were disarmed before they could light the beacon.
From the Zhou Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty, beacon towers played an important role in transmitting military information. Many beacon towers were built on the great wall and were guarded by soldiers for 3000 years. Now the Great Wall is only an ornamental function, but in ancient times, it was a barrier to guard the country and heavily guarded.
The mission of the station messenger
Since the Shang and Zhou dynasties, the state has set up a special post station to deliver information. There is no telephone, telephone or mobile phone, so we can only rely on manual transmission of information. The postman in China has a history of about 3000 years. If you catch up with a special emergency, it's the "800 Li urgent" mail, which needs to be delivered one by one. If the horse is tired, change the horse. Before the uprising, Li Zicheng, the king of Chuang, was a courier. Because he was laid off and unemployed, he rebelled.
The ancient post station shouldered the most important mission, without them, information could not be uploaded. "A ride red dust concubine smile, nobody knows is litchi." That is to say, in order to deliver fresh lychees to Princess Yang, the postmen were tired of several horses and postmen, which made her smile. The rebellion in Anlu mountain brought news to the court in six days. In the Song Dynasty, Yue Fei received twelve gold medals in one day, which was also conveyed by the courier from the imperial court through the courier station. In order to intercept intelligence, the enemy usually takes the post station as an idea, and gets the needed intelligence by killing the post soldiers. Compared with other means of communication, the courier is the safest, safest and fastest way to transmit information.
The assistant function of pigeon's transmitting letters, etc
In addition to the station Messenger, there are also some other information transmission tools in history, such as the most famous "Flying Pigeon messenger". Flying pigeons have super flight ability and memory ability, and they can fly high. If they don't meet a marksman like Li Guang, they are relatively safer than the station messenger. Carrier pigeons fly much faster than horses. If the message is delivered smoothly, it will have an unexpected effect of transmitting information.
Besides carrier pigeons, dogs are also used to transmit information. In the Jin Dynasty, Lu Ji had a dog named "Huang Er", who once sent a message to Lu Ji for thousands of miles. Different from other dogs, this dog is human and can understand human language, just like a military dog trained in modern times. Dog's running speed is very fast, lucky to meet a human dog, it is a good communication tool.
In addition to using animals, there are other ways to use water to transmit information. Shi Wansui, a general in the early Sui Dynasty, put the war report in a bamboo tube and put it into the river. The bamboo tube went down the river and was picked up by the dirty peasants. When he found the content, he handed it to General Yang Su, who reported the news to the emperor.
However, no matter carrier pigeons, dogs or rivers, these can only be used as auxiliary tools to transmit information under the conditions of war. To put it bluntly, these are not reliable and have great contingency. What is reliable is the transmission of information, but also depends on beacon towers and heralds.
On site command of command flag, war drum, etc
How does the commander deal with the on-the-spot command? In Xunzi Yibing, it is said that "he advances when he hears the sound of drums, and retreats when he hears the sound of gold." It's about directing war with drums and gongs. In fact, in ancient military command, it was not only limited to drums and gongs, but also many supporting measures to help commanders command on the spot.
First, set up a special messenger, the commander issued orders, sometimes layer upon layer to convey, sometimes on the battlefield, through the messenger riding back and forth in the army, shouting out repeated instructions from the commander, so as to achieve the effect of uploading and issuing.
The second is the order flag and the military flag, which are equipped with special order flag soldiers. We can see that in the period of the Three Kingdoms, Huang Zhong's killing of Xia Houyuan was based on Fazheng's command of the flag to seize the opportunity. In the Song Dynasty, Mu Guiying broke the Tianmen array. In the end, he ordered the flag soldiers to kill him. According to the commander's instructions, the flag soldiers command with flag language, which has been used from ancient times to modern times. In addition, the differences of various units are also distinguished by uniform and flag. The flag is marked with the surname of the general, or the number of the country, or the number of the army, or with color marks.
The third is what we mean by beating drums and gongs. Beating drums means marching forward to kill the enemy. "Beating drums and cheering drums" means that. When the army retreats, it will "call the golden bell to stop the army". A gong means that it will not fight and the whole army will retreat.
The fourth commander used "scouts" to collect intelligence, which was called "Chihou" in ancient times. The scout and the messenger are the commander's right arm, one is responsible for collecting intelligence, the other is responsible for giving instructions and cooperating with each other to achieve the strategic intention given by the commander.
The fifth is the bugle. China first invented gunpowder in the world. The earliest application of the bugle in war is the bugle. It's like putting a "two kicks" in the sky now, playing the role of signal cannon. We often hear in Pingshu that "three guns" represent the dispatch of troops. In fact, the signal gun has many meanings, one is what, two is what, three is what. The soldiers acted by bugles.
The sixth is the horn. It's also called the charge. It has a role to do with drumming. But the horn is more portable than the drum. The bugler blows with the bugle, which can encourage the soldiers to move forward bravely.
The seventh is yelling. If thousands of people shout one word together, it can be overwhelming. We often see in movies and TV plays that thousands of soldiers shout "kill" in unison, which is enough to frighten the enemy. The commander in charge of the team took the lead in shouting a word, and thousands of soldiers followed suit. This is also one of the ways of on-site command.
Without modern communication tools in ancient times, the generals conquered the enemy by various means. The famous Cao GUI polemics were the result of Cao GUI's on-the-spot analysis and command according to the flag, drum and the enemy's formation. With the progress of the times and the invention of communication tools, commanders have more assistance in analyzing the enemy's situation and giving instructions, and the war has entered a new stage.
