Zhao Kuangyin and Peace Through War; an Early Northern Song army

 

Zhao Kuangyin, aka Song Taizu reunified China at the end of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period founding the Song dynasty. However, the army of the Song has had a bad press, so why choose to do this army ...

Zhao Kuangyin was the senior general under the Later Zhou, the last of the Five Dynasties, the one that laid the foundations for the reunification of China for the first time since the fall of the Tang dynasty. This involved centralisation of power away from the regional governors, especially military power.

In 960 the Zhao Kuangyin seized the throne and inaugurated the Song dynasty. The new emperor completed the process of enforcing central control on the military by forcing senior generals to retire at a drinking party. This incident became known as "dissolving military power with a cup of wine". As emperor Zhao Kuangyin became known as Song Taizu. He conquered southern China and the Northern Han but failed in an attempt to retake the 16 Prefectures ceded by the Later Jin to the Liao in 936.

The failure to retake the 16 Prefectures, and thus reclaim all the lands rules by the Tang dynasty (seen as a golden age) has coloured the view of the Song ever since, with many seeing the Song as something of a failure because of this. This was especially true of the literary classes who used it as a way of denigrating the military and, thus, enhancing their own importance and power.

It has also led to a view that the Song were militarily weak, something that was not helped when they lost the northern half of China to the invading Jurchen Jin at the start of the C12th CE. However, the reality was that initially at least the Song were a strong and effective force who could engage in wars with the powerful and dangerous Liao fairly successfully. In 1005 CE after 25 years of war the Song and Liao agreed the Chanyuan Treaty which held for over 100 years, with the exception of 2 minor incidents - making it one of the most successful peace treaties of all time.

In the ensuing peace the effectiveness of the Song military declined due to lack of warfare and when fighting did break out it took time for them to get back up to speed, but when they did they remained reasonably effective.

For anyone interested in this early part of the Song I would recommend 2 books by Peter Lorge - "The Reunification of China: Peace through War under the Song Dynasty" and "War, Politics and Society in Early Modern China, 900-1795", especially the former (which you will have noted influenced the title of this blog piece).

So inspired by reading about this period, and having successfully argued for changes to the relevant list (amongst others for the post-Tang period), it only seemed right that I do the army. Inevitably I went through a number of iterations before I got a list I was comfortable with and that needed some tweaking following the 2021 update. So here is my current list:

The command structure is a fairly common 4 Competent generals, all Professional. This results in 7 PBS cards/discs and a Scouting of 2. The former is OK and gives the opportunity for holding back a good card/disc for the Scouting phase. The latter is not great, however, this is basically an infantry army and so a high scouting score is not going to happen - and the possibility of having a good card/disc mentioned does partly mitigate this.

The army will usually look to defend. Some terrain is useful but not absolutely necessary, although having a Secure Flank is desirable. With many Flexible and Loose infantry heavy terrain is not much of an issue, although any that restricts shooting is.

The Army Commander will almost certainly float and gift his cards.

The generals figures are from Outpost Wargames Services central Asian Turkish range. They are large 15mm figures. Flags are from the 'net.

The camp is Poor and Unfortified. No need to spend any points on it really, it is definitely an army where if the enemy is into the camp you've lost anyway.

The mules are from Essex Miniatures and the Buddha statue a cheap tourist thing I was given a long long time ago. Gets used as a generic "far east" camp and not just for this army.

Moving on to the actual fighting units we start with the Guard Cavalry. This has been made as tough as it can be, for hopefully obvious reasons. Previously I had downgraded the shooting to Unskilled as a bit of a points saving tactic, however, with Shoot & Charge now being mandatory I think that would be a false economy and so keep them as Experienced. Applied in the right place at the right time these can be an effective shock unit, and being Drilled are nice and manoeuvrable to get them there.

Again, figures from Outpost - I think the picture illustrates the size of these chunky chaps.

The rest of the heavy cavalry are lesser versions of the guard. In this list these units are best seen as "heavy skirmishers" and are very unlikely to be rushing into combat. Use their shooting to nibble away at the enemy and don't be afraid of using the Run Away option if charged instead of Skirmishing - they're more use in existence than being bogged down in combats. Obviously as 4 base cavalry units they can be useful for looking for flanks as well.

Outpost figures again, this time on unarmoured horses though.

There is also a unit of Skirmisher horse archers who add a bit extra firepower, and as they have Cantabrian have the possibility of shooting as Skilled shooters - used in conjunction with a heavy cavalry unit they can be quite disruptive. I don't as yet have really suitable figures for these and have tended to use some of my Turks as a morph - better figures are now in the "to paint" pile though.

The infantry are led by 2 units of Vanguard Swordsmen. Being Flexible, Short Spear and Melee Expert they are "go anywhere, fight anyone" sorts of units - well to some degree, they can't really take on anything but are pretty good against a lot of things.

They are going to be leading attacks a lot of the time, but you do need to be careful not to overcommit them in a burst of enthusiasm - something I have done before now. Combining them with the Guard Cavalry can be effective.

Outpost figures from their Sui & Tang range. Possibly not exactly right, but in my view look plausible and I am not sure anyone does a proper 5 Dynasties/Early Song range anyway.

The bulk of the infantry is made up of shooting units armed with crossbows. However, they have a hard crust as the front ranks also have Short Spear and Melee Expert.

As the front rank are Flexible I have some bases with 4 and some with 3 figures on to represent the Close and Loose formation. The rear rank Crossbowmen are all Loose.

With the front rank being effective fighters, and the crossbow shooting on "White +" if the unit is charged these units are strong all-rounders. You'll want to get as much shooting in as possible of course, and the fact they are Drilled makes this easier as they get to Fall Back on a Yellow unlike the Red for other (non Cv, Cm, Ch, Skirmisher) troops. Drilled also means Yellow for Double Moves and Switching Flexibles on a Green or better card - so the latter can be part of a Double Move, very handy.

The units are in 6's which does mean they can sometimes be overrun by good troops, but I find that in 6's you get to maximise your shooting better than if you take them in 8's.

Once again the figures are Outpost from the Sui & Tang range. I think that in truth the spearmen with the big shields, which are based on Sui/Early Tang images, are somewhat inaccurate - but as mentioned above I am not aware of an accurate range (the Khurasan Tang may be a candidate though) and I like the way they look.

The last unit in the army is a "filler" unit there to get the TuG count to 11 and thus a break of 6.

The do have Experienced shooting skill, however, and so in extremis could be used to finish off a heavily damaged enemy unit - although being Tribal getting them into position could be tricky.

More Outpost Sui & Tang range figures.