Study On The System Of Reward And Punishment For The Arm In Song Dynasty

Reward and punishment system has played a pivotal role in the appeasing the soldiers of the armedforces, boosting morale and punishing illegal activities, maintaining the order within the armed forces, andimproving the combat effectiveness of the armed forces. It also occupies very important position in themanagement of the armed forces. Today, for the modern military management, the reward and punishmentsystem is still an indispensable management tool. It regards as one of the most important task in the army.Reward and punishment system applying for the Military force, can be traced back to the Shang andZhou Dynasty. During the Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States period, the school of thinkershave noticed the importance of reward and punishment system in the political and military role, and wrotemany biography to explain its importance. Especially the school of military strategists and Legalismconcerned the important role of reward and punishment system in the military and political management.Eventually it was changed systematically and theoretically and applied into practice, having a profoundeffect on the latter dynasty. Both rulers and military commanders give enough attention to it, and regard itas given tasks for the National stability. So we can see reward and punishment system have an importantrole in ancient China’s political, military and many other aspects.As for the Song Dynasty, the military punishment and reward system presented with characteristicsdifferent from the past. As we all known, after "An and Shi’ Rebellion", Fanzhen have squads of separatismby military forces and they acctack each other attack not only in order to achieve victory in the war, butalso to ensure that the position. So they generally adopted a "Houshang support person" initiatives, andthen neglect to discipline their lawless acts, and thus develop swordsman a arrogant, domineering habits.After the founding of the Song Dynasty, though the emperor Suppresses the Generals, but only for thatthreat to the imperial power of senior generals. As for the lower-level generals and ordinary soldiers, theystill use “heavy rewarded light punishment” policy, which not only does not solve the military arrogancebut also increased this habits. Especially the "variety of measures" as the main strategy of managing thecountry, in order to further split the power of the generals in the central and local governments, thegovernment set a number of military agency, which results many drawbacks of the Song Dynasty.Meanwhile, the disharmony among the officials in conducting of public affairs results in retention of government, in addition, the Song government declares a set of strict procedures of application to preventthe favoritism phenomenon during reported Process, but the result is time-consuming, cumbersome, in suchcircumstances, leading to a reward and punishment over time, unable to excitemen. Therefore, the Song’sreward and punishment system is to reward excessively and punishment lightly, reward and punishmenttimeout.Rulers would like to purge gradually exposed drawbacks, so starting from Zhenzong emperor issued avariety of punishment, but the punishment is too low, and also in the implementation process, the rulerSlackened the crimer, it is impossible for the wrongful act has been curbed. the main reason for thisphenomenon is due to the illegal military is a common phenomenon, if a thorough renovation, then, isbound to break the current political structures. The existing military and political system has been damaged,and may lead to more unrest within the armed forces, and this is the Song rulers do not want to see. Song ofthe mutiny occurred, mostly due to dissatisfaction with the government soldiers caused by the reward thing,so the punishment of the military criminal the cost is much higher than the current implementation ofreward and punishment system. Therefore, In order to ensure that the current rule of order and stability,Song rulers are not very keen to purge the evils of reward and punishment, and just the final only toHoushang this way to appease the military. Therefore, the Song Dynasty military punishment and rewardsystem not only failed to play its due role, but encouraged his soldiers’ arrogant habits, breeding corruption,but it became to maintain political order and stability, control of the military tool.