What's the use of prisoners caught on the battlefield?

You know, in ancient battlefields, if those troops captured some enemy soldiers, they could get some information from them. Regarding how to treat prisoners, people influenced by eastern culture and those influenced by western culture will have different performances, and of course these people will also show very contrasting attitudes. It can be said that because of their different cultures, their cognition has different meanings to prisoners.

For example, in the cognition of oriental culture, everyone has dignity. If you surrender to the enemy in the war, it is actually a very shameful thing and a sign of cowardice. Even if the prisoner had survived, he would still be spurned by people in his own country and even looked down upon by the enemy. Even if these prisoners of war are released to their countries of origin after the war, they will be discriminated against by others when they return to their own countries. Therefore, these eastern armies have a strong sense of war honor, and it is difficult to catch prisoners in the war. Compared with the number of prisoners in the western army, the number of prisoners in the eastern army is very small.

But the western armies have different performances. You know, when these soldiers lack food security and obviously can't win the war, the soldiers in these troops will easily surrender to the enemy. And these soldiers take surrender for granted, and they have no psychological burden. These soldiers think that they have done their best on the battlefield, and even if they lose the war, they are still not ashamed of being prisoners. The other army is willing to exchange the lives of these surrendered soldiers through negotiation and exchange.

Because of the continuous development of society, it is also clearly stipulated in those war conventions that prisoners cannot be abused. It can be found that in the war, if the enemy forces come to surrender and become prisoners of their own army, then the soldiers of the army can continue to maintain their lives and give them certain living conditions without abusing them. The more prisoners, the greater the pressure on the life of these victorious troops. These prisoners are a great burden to these western troops.