Castles

My recent bedtime reading was Castles, Battles & Bombs by Jurgen Brauer and Hubert van Tuyll.

The book is about how economic principles explain military history.

I bought it some months ago as a bargain item. The title appeared attractive because both economy and history are my favorite subjects. Unfortunately it turned out a good hypnotic in some rare evenings when I got insomnia.

Nonetheless, the first few chapters do bring up a good idea: When looked at as a question of cost, the building of castles in Europe in the middle ages was inevitable. Although the construction was expensive, a good castle was way cheaper to maintain than a standing army.

For that reason, castle was never an important element of the military history of ancient China. Army was not that expensive to maintain; many soldiers were half-time and needed to work in the farm when the daily training finished. There was also always a surplus of manpower. For example, Zhao (趙) lost 400,000 soldiers during the Battle of Changping (長平之戰) in 260 BC – possibly more than the entire European population at that moment.