Earlier Song Dynasty’s Frontier Archer

The Complex border situation and the idea of governing the country based on historical experience make the earlier Song Dynasty army’s combat effectiveness is very low, Although it wasted a large number of military spending to support. In order to save the military spending and enhance the combat effectiveness of the armed forces, a large-scale Village Soldier system was revived, which became an important part of the military system. The Village Soldiers system includes many species, Archers is one of the more common representatives of, Archer is one of the more common types. Because of the long-term and large-scale implementation in the Northwest Frontier, it had a significant impact. We should analysis it Comprehensively, so that it can help us to study the border situation, ethnic relations and the military system in earlier Song Dynasty. Former scholars who study the Frontier Archers always focus on its land issues, or it is conducive to the development of frontier and racial integration, there is few comprehensive analysis and interpretation about the Frontier Archers itself.This article start from discussing the reasons of recruiting archers, on this basis, it points out that the Earlier Song Dynasty recruited Archers is to reduce military spending, improve the combat effectiveness. On these basis, it is pointed out that the the archers management is commanding as a unit, which In the late, that mode changed slowly. Subsequently, I analyzed the Archer’s Land, including the five sources of land granted to the archer, how Archer’s land flow when flee, promotion and other situations happened. Later, I described the relationship between the problems of archers, horses and castles with archers. Then this article discusses the several types of duties of the archers and their living conditions, how to the government to relief them. Finally, the writer pointed out the four main reasons for the decline of the archers are loss of land and so on.