In ancient times, when there was a war, how could we know how many people the enemy had?

The most important thing in marching and fighting is to know the strength of the other side and oneself. In ancient times, the most important manifestation of strength was the number of people on the march.

But how did the ancient scouts know the number of opposing armies? If you just rely on scouts to count, how can an army of hundreds of thousands be counted?

However, if you calculate according to the length of the team during the march, the number of people will naturally be different depending on the formation and arrangement. It would also be troublesome to use this method to calculate the number of troops. Obviously, this is not a good calculation either.

So is there really no good way to calculate the number of troops? In ancient times, wars were huge, with millions of troops at every turn, but were there really so many of them? How do you know how many people are on the other side?

In ancient times, warfare was about mutual deception. A qualified general will not reveal his true strength. At this time, an effective method of calculating the number of troops is very necessary.

Ancient China was vast and sparsely populated, and street fighting rarely occurred. The confrontation between the two armies basically appeared in the great wilderness. In this case, it is difficult to judge the true situation of the other party.

The veteran can judge the strength of the opposing army according to some situations that arise. Moreover, the population of ancient China was not very large, and it was impossible for the situation of a million troops at every turn. If you think about it, hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of people walk in formation.

How long does the army have to spread?

So there are generally four ways to judge the number of the opposing army:

The first is to look at the traces and footprints of the stove pit.

In ancient times, people used a stove to divide the squad, from which the word partner comes from, and the number of people can be roughly estimated according to the number of fires that appear at this stop. It can also be roughly estimated based on the number of horseshoe prints and human footprints.

2. Look at the smoke and dust raised by the team as they walk.

In ancient times, when marching, a lot of smoke and dust would be raised, and experienced generals would judge the number of opponents according to the size of the smoke, but this was more confusing, and Zhang Fei in the Three Kingdoms period used a horse's tail to tie a branch to raise sand and dust on the ground, successfully confusing the enemy and winning without a fight.

3. Look at the number of military flags and the number of drummers.

China was the first country to use the language of flags and drums, and in order to enforce orders and prohibitions, so that all people could obey the command, it was necessary to have a considerable number of military flags and drummers in a certain place. Only in this way can we achieve the effect of fully deploying the army in the event of a war. Therefore, according to the number of flags and the number of drummers in an army, it is also effective to judge how many people there are in this army.

4. Look at the quantity of grain and grass and the scale of supply.

Generally, the army is supplied for a maximum of one month to two months during the war. If we look at the amount of grain and grass and the amount of supplies at this time, we can roughly estimate the number of people stationed at this station.

However, whether ancient or modern, the army could not have camped and rested in a single location. They would divide their armies according to the fortifications they defended, with more numbers in flat areas and fewer in places where dangerous conditions and supplies could not be delivered.

The above four methods are effective and practical ways to know the opponent's army in ancient wars, do you understand?

The first is that there is a beacon tower, which can not only observe the enemy's situation, but also guard to prevent the enemy from attacking, and then you can penetrate your own fine work into the enemy's interior, you can understand the enemy's situation more accurately, and finally you can also use some ancient instruments to judge the local troops.

After the Qin State Shang Yang changed the law, an important reference for assessing a soldier's military merits was the number of enemies killed, and the more people killed on the battlefield, the higher the military merits obtained. But the situation on the battlefield is so complicated, how can we determine the true number of kills of a soldier, and will there be no false reporting?

During the Warring States period, the main way to calculate the number of enemies killed was to count the number of heads or ears, which sounds a bit cruel, but at the time it was the most direct evidence. But if some soldiers are greedy for merit, it is also possible to get the head or ears from other channels. In this case, what institutional guarantee is there so that the soldiers will not have the idea of lying about their military exploits?

Let's take the Qin State as an example, the reason why the Qin State was able to rise rapidly was that the military merit system was a very important guarantee. Of course, Shang Ying advocated the rule of law, and the review of military merits was also very strict. First of all, when cleaning the battlefield at the end of the battle, the number of enemy corpses will be carefully counted, and then compared with the number of military merits reported by the soldiers, only the same number of the two can be counted.

In addition, the Qin army also adopted the method of squad-sitting among the soldiers, and the number of enemies you killed needs to be proved by other people, if there is a problem with the number of military merits you report, not only will you receive severe punishment, but the entire squad will also be sit-down.

It was with such a system that the Qin State ensured that the number of soldiers' military exploits was correct, and everyone fought bravely to kill the enemy.

Of course, there are two special cases.

One is when the same enemy is killed by multiple people. In this case, there is the emergence of collective merit, which is shared by several soldiers. Later, there was a division of labor and cooperation among the soldiers, some people were responsible for killing the enemy in the front, and some people were responsible for statistics in the back, and military merits were shared, which increased the strength of team cooperation.

The second scenario is when an enemy is killed by another class.

We know that there was a type of soldier on the battlefield in ancient times who did not come into direct contact with the enemy, and they were archers. Archers rely on bows and arrows to attack the enemy from a distance, in this case, how to count the number of heads?

The way to count the military exploits of archers is also very simple, that is, to use arrows. Each bow and arrow used by an archer has its own unique mark. When cleaning the battlefield, the enemies who were knocked down by the bow and arrow will be counted, and the mark on the bow and arrow will be used to determine which archer's record is to count the battle achievements.

A good institutional guarantee is quite important for maintaining the fighting spirit and unity of the ancient army.

After the battle, the remaining side can clean up the battlefield, and the defeated side will hastily withdraw and wait and see from a distance to make sure.

In ancient times, the number of beheadings prevailed, and the military merit system at that time was a progressive system, and the number of enemies killed reached a certain amount, and officials could be added to the knighthood, but people were very keen on beheading.

At first, it was to look at the head of the soldier to kill the enemy, and later there was a special person to record how many people the soldier killed, and then according to the situation, the reward was made, and then because it was really difficult to record, that is, after the overall victory, the reward would be awarded according to the team.

After the war is over, there will be a special person to clean the battlefield and count the number of enemies killed.

Because the ancient means of communication were not developed, and the battlefield as a whole was relatively chaotic. Therefore, the soldiers are generally commanded through the military flag, and if more complex instructions need to be conveyed, the heralds need to notify the generals one by one, and then the generals will command the subordinates.

01, military flag

In fact, the military flag order is the most common way of command, like the army we usually watch in TV dramas go out to fight with a large number of military flags. In fact, there are many kinds of military flags, such as liaison flags, trumpet flags, tooth flags, general flags, etc., and different military flags will naturally have different commands and functions.

For example, the tooth flag,The tooth flag is the core of the entire combat team, and generally speaking, where the tooth flag is located is where the boss is, so the order issued by the tooth flag is the highest order. The rest of the generals need to further command their unified subordinates after seeing the instructions of the tooth banner. Therefore, many times the two sides like to shoot each other's tooth flags before the war, and once they are broken, it is easy to hit morale, after all, the destruction of the tooth flag in the war generally means the sacrifice of the boss.

Another example is the flag, the role of the flag is to allow the coach to see the situation clearly, the more the flag is damaged, the stronger the offensive, and then the other camps need to help in time to avoid one side being forced.

Therefore, the military flag is definitely the most important thing for command on the battlefieldIt will give different commands by color, type, swinging method, etc., so that it can make a timely adjustment to the soldiers.

02, herald

When the command flag is no longer able to give accurate orders, the herald needs to appear. They need to accurately find the generals of each battalion to convey the commander's intentions, and if the herald appears, it also means that the battle situation has changed dramatically, and there are many adjustments to be made.

So in general, in fact, in most cases, there are still relatively few battlefields that need to be temporarily mobilized, and the deployment is basically planned before the war. The commander on the battlefield is generally realized through military flags, gongs and drums, and heralds.

It mainly relied on some orders from the commander, and controlled it through fireworks, drumming, etc.

In ancient times, many battles were fought, and many of them were fought in hundreds of thousands of people, and the command mainly relied on gongs, ancient times, and layer by layer management, until ten people and one army, to achieve the effect of controlling the whole army.

It belongs to hierarchical command, that is, the grassroots officers only order the grassroots soldiers. Therefore, in ancient times, as long as the general died, under the pursuit of the enemy, his soldiers had no combat effectiveness.

First of all, war is not a gang fight, and the situation you are talking about will only occur in urban street fighting. In field battles, even if it is a sneak attack at night, the soldiers are gathered in small teams to fight in a large phalanx, not fighting alone, so that the army can collect the troops and beat the drums. Otherwise, what is the use of General Qi Jiguang's mandarin duck array?

You can distinguish friend from foe by the style and color of your military uniform, and at night you can distinguish between you and your voice when you speak. When fighting with foreigners, you can directly identify them by looking at the hairstyle and clothing, and the Han people basically tie their hair, and their clothes are on the left side, and the foreigners wear their hair or braids, and their clothes are on the right.

There are also special ways to distinguish them, such as the Red Eyebrow Army at the end of the Western Han Dynasty, which was named after dyeing their eyebrows red to distinguish friend from foe.

In ancient times, there were also scout classes. Use them to find out the enemy's intelligence. Then there is the dust and movement raised by the enemy during their movements.

In ancient times, it was not possible as it is in modern times. See far away to determine how many troops the opponent has. In ancient times, the enemy could only be distinguished by the number of the enemy's footprints, or by the amount of smoke and dust that came during the march, according to his size.

There is also the number of military flags, you can also judge the number of opponents, and finally, you can judge how much grain and grass the opponent has by how much grain and grass the opponent escorts.

The first is based on the number of footprints and fires. The second is to judge by looking at the dust rolled up by the procession as it marches. The third is to judge by the number of enemy drummers and the number of flags. The fourth is to judge by looking at the quantity of grain and grass of the enemy's army.

In ancient times, if you wanted to know how many people the opponent was, you would often scout the section of the road that the opponent passedFootprints, soot, grain and grass to judge.

The ancients had no better way, they could only choose to send people to check, that is, the scouts in the modern arms, to reconnoiter the enemy's military situation with manpower, for many ancient people, this is a helpless thing, because they do not have the same scientific and technological conditions as us, in most cases they can only send scouts to spy on the enemy, but the enemy's military intelligence is not so easy to spy on, there is a lot of information that the enemy deliberately leaked to you, under the reality of the truth, if there is no wise commander, I'm afraid that there will be a big loss in terms of military intelligence.

The ancient scouts they reconnoitred the enemy's military situation, but not a head slowly counted, the way they adopted was that the ancient soldiers marched basically by walking, camped, generally there will be four or five people in a tent, these scouts only need to count the tent can clearly know how many people on the other side, an experienced scout, it is possible to know the approximate number of the enemy just by a glance. They also usually look at the logistics to see how many pots the enemy soldiers use to cook and how many stoves they use to cook. If there were a lot of them, they would have known that the enemy was menacing and the troops were huge, and if an experienced scout went to investigate, they would even go to see how many grain convoys there were.

Scouts will also scout where the enemy is staying, and look at the number of fires to get a good estimate of the number of opponents. Sometimes it is judged by the number of horseshoe prints and human footprints.

In ancient times, the technology was relatively backward, but they were very smart.

In the field encounters of the army, it is impossible to accurately calculate how many men and horses the opponent has, even now. Only an approximate estimate.

So generally look at these 4 types:

1.Look at the stove pits and footprints. The ancients fought wars, marched and ate, and dug pits in the ground as stove pits. So counting the number of craters gives you a rough estimate of the number of enemies. After that, there is also the amount of horse manure and footprints.

2.Look at the smoke. Needless to say, if you don't look at the smoke and dust, how can the sand and dust raised by Zhang Feima's tail tied to a tree branch running on the ground confuse the enemy haha.

3.Look at the military flag and drummer. Before the start of the battle, the two sides face each other, the flag bearer spreads the flag and passes the military order, and the number of enemies on the opposing side can be estimated.

4.The scale of grain and supplies. At the beginning of the war, it can be estimated, generally 30 or 60 days to replenish The size of the enemy's grain and grass battalion can be estimated by detecting the size of the enemy's grain and grass battalion.