Why didn't Qin Shihuang, who unified the world, directly destroy the Xiongnu, but built the Great Wall to stop it?

In 2 15 BC, in today's Hetao area of Inner Mongolia, Qin Jun, under the leadership of Meng Tian, a general of the Qin Dynasty, launched a life-and-death battle with the brave tarquin. Qin Jun, which has just unified the world, is in full swing, winning the Hetao area in one fell swoop. The remnants of Xiongnu fled at the wind and fled far away from the desert.

However, the victorious Qin Jun was ordered not to make persistent efforts to seize Mobei, but to turn to the defensive. On the basis of Beiyan, Zhao and Qin Changcheng during the Warring States Period, 300,000 troops built the Great Wall on the spot, extending from Lintao in the northwest to Liaodong, and the Great Wall of Wan Li, which ran across the east and west, appeared in front of people for the first time.

Great Wall Ruins of Qin Dynasty

What caused Qin Shihuang to stop the Northern Expedition, but exhausted the national financial resources and manpower to build the Great Wall? Because Qin Shihuang is not only an outstanding politician in China, but also an outstanding economist, he must have calculated an economic account.

Let's think about dealing with the Huns from the perspective of Qin Shihuang. First of all, the people ruled by Qin Shihuang were basically farmers. If we want to fight Xiongnu in the desert, we need a considerable number of cavalry. It takes a lot of time and money to train farmers who basically don't ride horses into powerful cavalry. At the same time, because these farmers become soldiers, they can no longer engage in farming and suffer labor losses in production.

Moreover, even if there are powerful cavalry, it is a terrible expense to send them to fight in the depths of the northern grassland. In ancient times, there were no highways and railways, and there were no big trucks. It is very difficult to transport grain only by manpower and animal power. According to Records of the Historian, from the transportation of 1 stone grain in the Central Plains to the northern front, the grain consumed by the transportation team on the road actually reached 192 stone!

But the cost of fighting in tarquin is very low. Nomadic people grew up on horseback, both herders and soldiers. Their roles can be easily changed, and they can even fight while grazing, and their logistical support is much better than that of farmers.

The cost of fighting is higher than that of nomadic people, but the income from fighting is very poor. Even if it occupies a vast grassland, it can't be cultivated. The tax revenue of the Central Plains Dynasty was obtained from farmers. What's the use of such a large grassland without farmers? Even if we win the war against nomads, we will be overwhelmed by the high cost of war.

Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty was brilliant and won brilliant victories in the war against Xiongnu, but he wasted people and money, greatly weakened the country's economic strength and directly led to the decline of the Han Dynasty. The army of Judy, the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty, went out of Mobei five times and struggled for many years, driving all the Mongolian ministries to flee everywhere, but in the end, the Ming Dynasty was the first to stand it.

On the other hand, nomadic people on horseback come and go like the wind, plundering the wealth accumulated by agricultural people is easy and the income is amazing. With low cost and high income, how can nomadic people not love looting?

We must find a way to change the huge contrast between costs and benefits. Qin Shihuang learned from the strategy of the Warring States period and thought of building the Great Wall. With fortifications like the Great Wall, the mobile battlefield becomes a fixed front. Nomads can't repeat the farce of grabbing and running when they come. They must first fight the defenders on the front line of the Great Wall.

As a result, costs and benefits have changed. Defensive farming people can get food from nearby farmland, while aggressive nomadic people stay away from grazing grasslands. Moreover, there are many mountains on the first line of the Great Wall, and strong passes have been built on important roads. As long as the infantry of the farming people stick to the defense line, the cavalry of the nomadic people are useless, and they are often beaten before they grab anything.

Relying on the Great Wall to fight the defensive war, farming people do not need to train cavalry troops, so the training cost can be reduced. Because soldiers are farmers, with a fixed base area, soldiers who are familiar with farm work can settle down in their spare time, and the burden of logistics is much less.

To tell the truth, Qin Shihuang, an outstanding representative of the farming nation, has not read modern works such as Principles of Economics, but his large-scale construction of the Great Wall really conforms to the most basic cost-benefit law of economics. It takes a lot of manpower and material resources to build the Great Wall, and the economic pressure is great in the short term, but in the long run, Qin Shihuang's account is very clever.

Since then, successive dynasties have tried to build the Great Wall to defend the nomadic people in the north, as long as there are conditions and needs. For example, during the Chenghua period of the Ming Dynasty, the Mongolian Tatar Department often invaded northern Shaanxi and Gansu, and the emperor called ministers to discuss defense matters. Ministers calculated that if 50,000 laborers are recruited and it takes two months to repair the Great Wall, only 1 20,000 silver is needed. And sending 80 thousand troops to conquer the Tatar invaders, the annual grain, grass and freight are equivalent to silver, and the total consumption of silver is nearly10.2 million. The cost is clear at a glance. Moreover, soldiers can cultivate land in the Great Wall and get a certain amount of food, which saves the huge cost of transporting food from the mainland to the front. Therefore, the Ming emperors chose to build the Great Wall. The magnificent Great Wall that we see today was built in that period. Kyle Polo, who came to China in the early Yuan Dynasty, naturally could not see the Great Wall of the Ming Dynasty.

What do we know about the Great Wall? Qin Shihuang enslaved all the people to build the Great Wall in Wan Li in order to resist foreign invasion and better protect the people in the Central Plains. But in fact, has the Great Wall ever played such a role in the thousand-year history? The answer is no, the Great Wall has never successfully protected the people, nor has it resisted an enemy invasion.

Why do you say that? Take the Ming Great Wall with the best architectural quality in the past dynasties as an example. The 88,565,438+0.8km Great Wall was built in the Ming Dynasty. And the quality is the strongest in history. How many troops do you need to guard such a long front? Hundreds of thousands of troops are scattered, with less than 1000 people in each place.

As long as the enemy strikes the troops and attacks them slightly, the defense of the Great Wall will collapse in an instant. At that time, the Mongolian army jumped over the Great Wall many times and went south. Bo Yan Timur, Anda and others did not stop because of the Great Wall. Later, Huang Taiji's army also went south from the Great Wall, and Yuan Chonghuan was caught off guard.

In fact, Qin Shihuang's original purpose of building the Great Wall was not to resist the Huns. Not to mention Qin Shihuang's army in those days, none of the six armies were afraid of Huns before. During the Qin Shihuang period, Meng Tian did not dare to go south to herd horses when he beat Xiongnu, and scholars did not dare to bow down. The army of the Central Plains is not afraid of Huns.

The real purpose of Qin Shihuang's building the Great Wall is to call the police, just like Trump is building a wall now. Why did Trump build the wall, as he himself said, is to stop Mexicans from smuggling, reduce the pressure on the southern patrol, and allow illegal immigrants to be repatriated in time. This, like the Great Wall, is used to call the police. The beacon tower on the Great Wall is the best proof.

Although the enemy can easily cross the Great Wall, it also alarmed the main force. Know which area is at war, so that we can arrive accurately.

So the Great Wall was built not to resist the enemy, but to warn the police. Otherwise, the enemy invades, and he doesn't even know where the enemy is.

The Great Wall is not a barrier to protect people. What can really resist the Huns is the brave army behind the Great Wall.