Study On The Southern Song Dynasty’s Northern Border National Defense Construction In The View Of Military And Agriculture

It is a long history of Chinese agricultural civilization. Throughout the regime change and military war of our ancient dynasties, the shift or back-and-forth of agriculture and husbandry is always around a balanced axis in the final analysis. Faced with the provocation of surrounding nomadic, the Central Plains Dynasties which relied on farming to settle down had applied the accumulated wisdom of farming into national defense and military activities for a long time, and it made a lot of worth-tasting experiences and achievements, such as the ‘Rich Country & Powerful Army’ thought of Gwan Zhong, the ‘agricultural-war strategy’ thought of Shang Yang etc. It is obvious to find that the combination of soldiers and farmers has been the main strategy in ancient dynasties’ national defense affairs.In A.D. 1127, Southern Song Dynasty was founded. Compared with Northern Song Dynasty, there was an obvious change of Southern Song Dynasty’s territory that its northern border had shrunk southward sharply and rapidly. Southern Song Dynasty lost the central plains and large areas of north land. So it made Southern Song Dynasty become a relative ‘pure-agriculture’ feudal dynasty, and then the phenomenon of soldiers and farmers combination had become typical and special on the northern border national defense construction. Through analyzing of historical documents and archaeological data, it helps us to built stereo dimensions of Southern Song Dynasty’s northern border defense construction in the view of military and agricultural. In addition, combining multi-disciplinary theories, discussing and interpreting the related phenomena, we can delve into the dialectical relationship of military and agricultural on national defense construction.Firstly, starting from the space dimension, to make clear the geographical changes of Southern Song Dynasty’s northern border, basing on the natural geographic conditions and the previous studies which divided the area into three sub regions(i.e. Tziang-huai, Jing-shiang and Chuan-shan), we can inspect the advantages and disadvantages of Southern Song Dynasty’s northern border defense construction macroscopically and summarize the historical background when the rulers made the national defense strategies. In the process of against the southward iron heels, the wars of Southern Song Dynasty and northern nomadic peoples all broke out in farming areas, so we can affirm that agricultural acted a very important role on Southern Song Dynasty’s northern border defense construction. In the hardware construction of the fortifications and the like, such as cities, villages etc., characteristics of farming areas could take in everything in a glance. In the soft power construction of the military thinking, military system and the like,it was also severely constrained by the security mindset of the farming area.Secondly, proceed from the industrial dimension, to correspond the specific elements of agricultural production into national defense construction, we can inspect Southern Song Dynasty’s northern border defense construction microcosmically. Fully tapping the existing historical records, it can explore the supporting effect on national defense construction of agricultural production. Overall, agriculture was the economic kernel of Southern Song Dynasty northern border national defense construction. In particular, during this period, the land system in the border(soldiers farming etc.) presented the obvious characteristics of the military, the evolution of crop structure was the direct results of the north immigration and the urgent mission of army provisions. What’s more, the impact of natural disasters on the agricultural and husbandry production further affected the direction of the wars as well as the adjustment of national defense deployment strategies.Finally, to combine two views of ‘soldiers’ and ‘farmers’ into a same clue, we would positively evaluate the achievements of Southern Song Dynasty’s northern border defense construction when two aspects combined perfectly and re-think the damages of Southern Song Dynasty’s northern border defense construction when two aspects unfitted, and then we could point out the importance of managing the relationship of military and agricultural correctly, explore the dialectical relationship of defense construction and agricultural production, summarize the historical significance and realistic significance. In a peaceful environment, the economic development should have priority over the national defense construction, because the rich of country is the sufficient condition for strong army. Strong economic strength is the material basis of the development of national defense. In addition, in the war environment, national defense construction must be carried out by the national power and the country managers must have a strategic view, all people must work together with a united mind for only to win a stable environment all normal or basic life can be carried out in an orderly manner. On the other hand, national defense construction must fit our capability and also highlight the national integrity, peacetime we should not be militaristic, however, in the war we should not be overcautious, in a word, it could follow the "peace & war" principle. If we cannot grasp of the degrees, our country will be in peril. After all, the defense mission is to provide a necessary guarantee for the country’s economic construction and the normal life of the people.If we want to describe the national defense construction in a simple and intuitive way, its image would be ‘copper walls and iron walls’ of a nation or state. Chiang Baili, a famous military strategist in modern China, wrote a word in his works <On National Defense>,’a nation is powerful when the living conditions and the combat conditions are consistent, however, it is weak when two aspects are detached, and if they are antithetical, the nation will be perished’. Throughout the whole defense history, war history and economic history of Southern Song Dynasty, the Chiang’s word could even be said a true portrayal. The results show that in the process of the iron heels of Jurchen or Mongolian invading southward again and again, the army and the people of the Southern Song Dynasty’s northern border used the good terrain of agricultural production conditions, to be able to counterattack. Although the Southern Song Dynasty still could not escape the fate at last, the northern border defense strategies and specific measures is worth researching and tasting.