What stages did the formation and development of China's ancient military thought go through?

The formation and development of China's ancient military thought went through four stages.

The first stage: the initial formation period-2 1 century BC to the 8th century BC (Xia, Shang and Western Zhou).

The main characteristics of military thought:

1, the concept of war with the concept of destiny as the core.

2. Take "ceremony" and "punishment" as the foundation of running the army.

The second stage: the period of rapid development-from the eighth century BC to the end of the third century BC (Spring and Autumn Period and Warring States Period).

The main characteristics of military thought:

1, forming a relatively complete view of war.

2. Put forward some general guiding principles of war.

3. Military struggle should be combined with political struggle and diplomatic struggle.

The third stage: the period of rich development-from the end of 3rd century BC to13rd century (from Qin Dynasty to Five Dynasties).

The main characteristics of military thought:

1, from creativity to integrating the strengths of various factions, and sorting out military thoughts.

2. Some military thoughts put forward in the pre-Qin period have been developed.

3. Strategic thinking tends to be perfect and mature.

The fourth stage: the period of system perfection-14th century to11940s (Ming Dynasty to the end of Qing Dynasty).

The main characteristics of military thought:

1, martial arts began to be incorporated into the national education system, establishing the orthodox position of the art of war.

2. There are a large number of military books with complete categories, and the study of military thought is developing systematically.

3. The influence of firearms on military thinking has also changed in the way of organization and command and military training.

Extended data:

The hegemony during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period provided a broad practice field for China's ancient military thought.

Theory comes from practice and is used to guide practice. The princes in the Spring and Autumn Period wanted to dominate the world, while the kings in the Warring States Period wanted to unify the world. Whether it is to dominate the world or unify the world, we must let our opponents yield. It is impossible to make the opponent yield, just looking forward to "defeating the enemy without fighting."

Then, the next step is to conquer each other, that is, to have generals and counselors who can fight well, so as to provide a broad practical platform for various military ideas! From Sun Bin's plan to kill Pang Juan and Gou Jian to destroy Wu, to the death of 400,000 soldiers in the battle of Leitian and Changping, to the unification of Liuhe by Qin, any kind of military thought has the opportunity to try its hand on the battlefield of down archers and prove its correctness.

Of course, also like Zhao She, defeated and died! But in any case, the practice of war has really promoted the great development of war theory and war thought.

Baidu Encyclopedia-China's Ancient Military Thought