It is well known that the Northern Song regular army [chinchun] was based on an enlistment system [mupingchih], but the lives of people in military society, the very foundation of mupingchih, remains vague. In addition, the fact that the Song dynasty was a great military power has not been fully recognized. The subject 'where soldiers come from' has been examined to some extent, but the only study on 'where soldiers go' is my thesis on reserve duty and other enlistment classifications [shengyuan taichiashengyuan] and public cemeteries [loutseyuan]. In this report, I study the security system for the chinchun soldiers who died in battle, were injured, or became ill. A generous system existed, although not for all soldiers, for the Northern Song chinchun in which provisions were made for the military recruitment of the children and nephews of the war dead, burial and memorial services, and pensions for the injured, dead, and sick soldiers. In other words, the Northern Song dynasty provided lifetime employment for soldiers, at least for high-ranking chinchun. Thus a lifetime employment system actually existed and was maintained much as a modern standing army, far beyond the level of employment of mercenaries.
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