Chinas best dynastic military?

[Liberator]

Which Chinese dynasty do you think has the most glorious military?

[Liberator]

Rommel, you voted for Qin right? 100 percent.

[IDonT]

I voted for Qing....

Why, under the Qing China reached its zenith. Under emperor Kanxi, China conquered Tibet, Xinjiang, and defeated Russia. Kanxi's grandson, the Emperor Qian Long further consolidated it hold. In short, under the Qing, China reached its largest terrotorial expansion.

Unfortunately, after the reign of Qianlong, Europe over took China and the rest is history.

[MIGleader]

they had an awsome navy aswell.

there hundreds of ships sailed as far as north america

[rommel]

well, I choose Qin because of the Reunification, and I found this admirable that the Qin beat every country one after each other

[Liberator]

Warring states is when the 7 countries fought, Qin was one of em, after Qin won. Den its called Qin dynasty

[rommel]

Warring states is when the 7 countries fought, Qin was one of em, after Qin won. Den its called Qin dynasty

well, i'm sorry, i'm confused...

[Liberator]

No prob. (IT also granted me an extra post point) :D

[Gollevainen]

No prob. (IT also granted me an extra post point) :D

havent you heard what the webmaster said? Theres no post race and if he sees someone making pointless threads just to become a "senior member" he will ban that person. I'm not kidding go and read his topic in the annouchment forum...

[T-U-P]

i chose the Ming because it had the largest navy in the history of china. also there was an extensive use and development of firearms during that time in china, Qing just abandoned the firearms that Ming made and went back to the trusty swords.

and also my last name is Zhu, if anyone have noticed. :cool:

[IDonT]

i chose the Ming because it had the largest navy in the history of china. also there was an extensive use and development of firearms during that time in china, Qing just abandoned the firearms that Ming made and went back to the trusty swords.

and also my last name is Zhu, if anyone have noticed. :cool:


The Qing certainly did not abandon fire arms!! They just did not advance it further than the match lock.

[Liberator]

The Qing certainly did not abandon fire arms!! They just did not advance it further than the match lock.

They did abandon. The Qing lost to the Europeans in the opium war cuz all Qing troops uses are old cannons and swords. The Europeans had muskets.

And another word. Europeans are getting advantage, they got fire arms, they got 8 allies, Qing China was poor, not enough food for the soldiers, and some Qing soldiers smoked opium, made em weak. British that time are Evil cuz they sell opium in China.

[Dongfeng]

They did abandon. The Qing lost to the Europeans in the opium war cuz all Qing troops uses are old cannons and swords. The Europeans had muskets.

And another word. Europeans are getting advantage, they got fire arms, they got 8 allies, Qing China was poor, not enough food for the soldiers, and some Qing soldiers smoked opium, made em weak. British that time are Evil cuz they sell opium in China.

Interestingly, Japan was similar to Ming/Qing China initially but they quickly adopted fire arms and established western-style army, directly trained by Americans/Europeans. I was watching "The Last Samurai" last night and I was amazed the ability of Japanese to accpet knowledge and technology from the west. The transition was very painful and bloody, and the old tradition (the Samurais) did not give up easily. By the 19th century Japan was almsot as strong as other Western powers.

[IDonT]

They did abandon. The Qing lost to the Europeans in the opium war cuz all Qing troops uses are old cannons and swords. The Europeans had muskets.

And another word. Europeans are getting advantage, they got fire arms, they got 8 allies, Qing China was poor, not enough food for the soldiers, and some Qing soldiers smoked opium, made em weak. British that time are Evil cuz they sell opium in China.


You are wrong.

The Qing never improved on the cannons and match lock that it used to subjugate the west. In fact it was a combination of bad tactics, obsolete equipment, and bad policy that lead to defeat in the Opium wars.

First, the cannons and guns used were the same type used during the reign of Qian Long. Match lock and flint lock guns were no match for percussion cap rifles of the British. Furthermore, their forts and cannons were set up without regard to fields of fire.

Second, the Qing militia were an undiscipline mob and could not even form a proper firing line. They have never seen the type of discipline and firepower that the british push on them.

Third, the Qing dynasty was so paranoid of rebellion that they made the militia fight the british, not its 8 Banner armies that were used so effectively by Qian Long and Kanxi.

Could China win the Opium war, no. Could they stalemate the British definately.

[Liberator]

Interestingly, Japan was similar to Ming/Qing China initially but they quickly adopted fire arms and established western-style army, directly trained by Americans/Europeans. I was watching "The Last Samurai" last night and I was amazed the ability of Japanese to accpet knowledge and technology from the west. The transition was very painful and bloody, and the old tradition (the Samurais) did not give up easily. By the 19th century Japan was almsot as strong as other Western powers.

Remember. the Qing troops did not get enough food, therefore they are slow, weak, fragile on the battlefield. Most of the money from the goverment had been stolen by lots of bad goverment officials's pockets.

[Liberator]

The opium war happend after KanXi died, and that time QING is soooo corrupt. The goverment cannot even afford a cannon in every city. Most money had been inflated by bad goverment officials, and the emperor is not doing any thing about it. All the emperor asks is IS CHINA THE BEST and has LOTS LOTS OF FOOD AND WEAPONS? ANd then bad officials say YUP. Then the emperor goes to sleep or get some luxiry.

[Liberator]

If the STUPID QIng emperor at late Qing cared about the country, then China would be as strong as the Europeans...
The Qing emperors in late Qing did nothing but eat, laugh, play.

Are u sure THE LAST SAMURAI is not a propagonda film? Maybe the director loved Japan so much that they made the film. At that time, the Japs feared so much that the US will go and invade Japan.

[IDonT]

The opium war happend after KanXi died, and that time QING is soooo corrupt. The goverment cannot even afford a cannon in every city. Most money had been inflated by bad goverment officials, and the emperor is not doing any thing about it. All the emperor asks is IS CHINA THE BEST and has LOTS LOTS OF FOOD AND WEAPONS? ANd then bad officials say YUP. Then the emperor goes to sleep or get some luxiry.


Kanxi died in 1722, opium war in 1840. It took Qingless 120 years to go from peak its to decline.

The Banner armies at this time too was very inept. They were relegated to garrison duties and have not seen actual combat since Qianlong's days.

[IDonT]

If the STUPID QIng emperor at late Qing cared about the country, then China would be as strong as the Europeans...
The Qing emperors in late Qing did nothing but eat, laugh, play.

Are u sure THE LAST SAMURAI is not a propagonda film? Maybe the director loved Japan so much that they made the film. At that time, the Japs feared so much that the US will go and invade Japan.


Actually, it was the corrupt Empress Dowager Cixi that was preventing reforms. The emperors at this time were just her puppets. I remember reading that she used to money to build up the navy to buy her Jade Boat.

Qing was still viewed by the native HAN as an outsider.

[FriedRiceNSpice]

Why was Han dynasty not included in poll? It was certainly stronger than Tang and Song.

In my opinion, it was the Ming. Why? Because only during the Ming dynasty did China have to capabilities to project power across the world. Even today, the PLAN does not have that degree of power projection. The Ming, if they had wanted to, could've landed navies in Europe and conquered all of Europe. Think of how history would be different then. The Ming were a superpower in every sense of that word. They led the world economically, militarily, scientifically and culturally. They had superior technology to any other people on Earth.

If I had a second choice, it would be the Qing. Under the Qing, the Chinese empire became larger than it ever was. In terms of landmass, the Qing was the greatest dynasty. They controlled all of the modern-day PRC, Taiwan, Mongolia, Outter Manchuria, Korea, Vietnam, Okinawa, and stretches of land in Central Asia and the Russian Far East. For the first hundred years, the Qing could also be classified a superpower, before the European nations surpassed it.

While the Ming was a oceanic power, the Qing was a continental one.

[Liberator]

Looks like more people chosen the Tang, why not you explain why you voted on that.

[Liberator]

If I had a second choice, it would be the Qing. Under the Qing, the Chinese empire became larger than it ever was. In terms of landmass, the Qing was the greatest dynasty. They controlled all of the modern-day PRC, Taiwan, Mongolia, Outter Manchuria, Korea, Vietnam, Okinawa, and stretches of land in Central Asia and the Russian Far East. For the first hundred years, the Qing could also be classified a superpower, before the European nations surpassed it.

After Kanxi's death. Qing is leaping backword, probally to Shang dynasty's form, not enough food for soldiers and the goverment is poor. QianLong did good but after that, Empress Dowager CiXi's fault.

[FriedRiceNSpice]

Looks like more people chosen the Tang, why not you explain why you voted on that.

I do not understand why anyone voted for Tang. The Tang did little to expand China's borders. Furthermore, the Tang didn't vastly improve China's wealth or improve China intellectually or scientifically. The Song which followed the Tang was a much stronger dynasty, and did much to defeat barbarian tribes and expand Chinese territory before being overwhelmed by the Turks themselves.

[redarmy2004]

I do not understand why anyone voted for Tang. The Tang did little to expand China's borders. Furthermore, the Tang didn't vastly improve China's wealth or improve China intellectually or scientifically. The Song which followed the Tang was a much stronger dynasty, and did much to defeat barbarian tribes and expand Chinese territory before being overwhelmed by the Turks themselves.

The Tang by far was the strongest miltary in the history of China (in the world at that time even) this includes the Qing,Ming etc. The Tang expanded China borders alot example during Tangs height it borders reached mondern Iran. Also another example is that the Persian empire recongised Tang authority, when a new Persian king came on the throne it sort to be recongised by Tang first. so the people who voted for Tang knows there Chinese history. :)

[chinawhite]

By the 19th century Japan was almsot as strong as other Western powers.

china should have taken that path and embraced everything thing western.

china had very old traditions that needed t get rid of. mainly the emperor and establish a communist government :p

[Obcession]

"Furthermore, the Tang didn't vastly improve China's wealth or improve China intellectually or scientifically. "

Tang can be said to be the second richest dynasty in Chinese history, the first being Qing's glorious days. Why were they wealthy? Simple, they built the silk road. We traded with many peoples. We also at that time brought many buddhist writings from India back to China and translated to Chinese. There were many explorations to the Western Regions, India, and Middle East. Tang was a great empire.

[President]

why there is no Yuan mongoloa empire?

[Liberator]

why there is no Yuan mongoloa empire? O yeah sorry.

[camo]

Yeah, Yuan by far had the largest territory in the history of China; more than the Qing.

[T-U-P]

but during yuan there wasn't much military advancement. they basically used superior cavalries to conquer everything, and that's why the mongols were truly amazing.

[Liberator]

but during yuan there wasn't much military advancement. they basically used superior cavalries to conquer everything, and that's why the mongols were truly amazing.

In the Yuan dynasty of China. Chinese generals and soldiers were on conquests and attacked Persia, and European countries. But did not kept the lands.

[FriedRiceNSpice]

The Yuan dynasty shouldn't count because they were Mongol invaders. The Qing dynasty should count because the Manchus are considered Chinese. Also, the Manchus were accepted by the Chinese as rulers while the Mongols were not. That is why the Yuan fell after only 80 years.

[J T Z]

Tang was never a military power house. it is known for its culture and science. Song was small and weak beacuse of all the boarder confilct with other chinese ethnic groups. and none of those nations during Song era was really big and well funded. thats why mongols just rolled through them all. Of course the mongols were amazing too.

It basicly should boils down to: Han, Ming, Qing. Han is 3rd largest dynasty ever at its peak if you count in yuan. and during its time Kao Tsu, wudi and other empreors have expanded the boarder and opened up trade routes.(the silkroad) For its time it was no doubt one of the great powers. Even the Romans at the time couldnt match them.(206 b.c. - 220 A.D.) At that time the Romans were involved in Macedonian Wars. And these wars for the most of time were at a small scale thats fought between Greek city-states, and Syria. Kao Tsu also pushed out the Huns that was in western china and beyond, which enabled the silkroad to be open. Huns later dominated most of europe and the Romans couldnt really stop them. So in terms of territory size and amry size and technology Han at its time was far greater than any nation.

As Ming and Qing, I think FriedRiceNSpice explained pretty well on why it was a great military power.

The problem with most Chinese dyansty is that none of the rulers were ambitious enough. Han, Tang, Ming even part of Qing could easily conqure every other nation near by. And project its power over europe and even find america. But due to that they never got anywhere. and even for the ones that did explore, and seeked out others. because of china's technology were so much more advenced compare to other powers at the time. The explorers comes back with nothing new, and the king/empreor would assume that every other nation around the world are nothing compare to him therefore compeletly ignore other nations, unless they come to him. Over the time this settles in and became the close door policy. And China became more and more isolated and shortsighted that it stop most of technological and civil advencements. Until rest of the world caught up and surpassed them.

[Liberator]

Song was small and weak beacuse of all the boarder confilct with other chinese ethnic groups.

Northern Song or Southern Song???

[Obcession]

The Yuan dynasty shouldn't count because they were Mongol invaders. The Qing dynasty should count because the Manchus are considered Chinese. Also, the Manchus were accepted by the Chinese as rulers while the Mongols were not. That is why the Yuan fell after only 80 years.

Just like to point out, Manchus weren't accepted by Chinese either. "Rebel against Qing, Reinstall Ming" (返清扶明(not sure if I spelled the third character right) ) was a common thing to be said by Chinese rebels that wants the Ming back and get rid of Qing.

[Liberator]

返清扶明

It says "Against the Qing, serve the Ming".

Well, I think rebels who say that wants to go backword.

At that time, Taiwan is wearing Ming uniforms and not Qing, no pigtails. They also wanted independence. But later was reunified by Qing China.

[T-U-P]

Just like to point out, Manchus weren't accepted by Chinese either. "Rebel against Qing, Reinstall Ming" (返清扶明(not sure if I spelled the third character right) ) was a common thing to be said by Chinese rebels that wants the Ming back and get rid of Qing.
but that was only in the early stages of Qing, later (after Kang Xi) everyone pretty much accepted Qing as their government.

[President]

The Yuan dynasty shouldn't count because they were Mongol invaders. The Qing dynasty should count because the Manchus are considered Chinese. Also, the Manchus were accepted by the Chinese as rulers while the Mongols were not. That is why the Yuan fell after only 80 years.
but after long time blood-mixed, there is no pure Hans any more. i heard, some chinese experts say every people in china has percentage on mongolia blood. :eek:

[FriedRiceNSpice]

At that time, Taiwan is wearing Ming uniforms and not Qing, no pigtails. They also wanted independence. But later was reunified by Qing China.

Wow, looks like history is on the verge of repeating itself. Taiwan still wears KMT uniform, not CCP uniform. But CCP China will reunify Taiwan.

[Liberator]

The Yuan dynasty shouldn't count because they were Mongol invaders.

They do count mate. The emperor is not Chinese but the generals, troops and money used, siege weapons, equipments and supplies anre mostly Chinese.

[muyang523]

I liked the Yuan dynasty at one point they had the largest empire of all time. I think Qing was strong in the beginning , but they got weaker and weaker. This is the same with all the dynastys.

[FriedRiceNSpice]

I liked the Yuan dynasty at one point they had the largest empire of all time. I think Qing was strong in the beginning , but they got weaker and weaker. This is the same with all the dynastys.

It won't be the case for the People's Republic of China!

[Obcession]

Every great nation/empire/dynasty has its rise, maturity, and fall. The main reason many dynasties fell previously in China was because of corruption. The emperor wanted everything to himself and built big projects using slave labourers. Or the emperor's subordinates were very corrupted and started taxing the people like crazy. This resulted in many peasant uprisings which overthrew the old government and installed a new one that thinks for the people. But over time this government will become corrupt as well and history repeats itself. That's why the CCP either needs to crack down on corruption more, or have multi party elections.

[patriot]

I voted for the Warring State because there's a lot of famous battles involved. I don't think the voting instruction is quite clear whether it's asking for the best/famous military time or a good army

I was wondering why the Han dynasty wasn't involve in this poll. I would definitely vote for it if it's there.

[Tassadar]

Tang was never a military power house. it is known for its culture and science. Song was small and weak beacuse of all the boarder confilct with other chinese ethnic groups. and none of those nations during Song era was really big and well funded. thats why mongols just rolled through them all. Of course the mongols were amazing too.

It basicly should boils down to: Han, Ming, Qing. Han is 3rd largest dynasty ever at its peak if you count in yuan. and during its time Kao Tsu, wudi and other empreors have expanded the boarder and opened up trade routes.(the silkroad) For its time it was no doubt one of the great powers. Even the Romans at the time couldnt match them.(206 b.c. - 220 A.D.) At that time the Romans were involved in Macedonian Wars. And these wars for the most of time were at a small scale thats fought between Greek city-states, and Syria. Kao Tsu also pushed out the Huns that was in western china and beyond, which enabled the silkroad to be open. Huns later dominated most of europe and the Romans couldnt really stop them. So in terms of territory size and amry size and technology Han at its time was far greater than any nation.

As Ming and Qing, I think FriedRiceNSpice explained pretty well on why it was a great military power.

The problem with most Chinese dyansty is that none of the rulers were ambitious enough. Han, Tang, Ming even part of Qing could easily conqure every other nation near by. And project its power over europe and even find america. But due to that they never got anywhere. and even for the ones that did explore, and seeked out others. because of china's technology were so much more advenced compare to other powers at the time. The explorers comes back with nothing new, and the king/empreor would assume that every other nation around the world are nothing compare to him therefore compeletly ignore other nations, unless they come to him. Over the time this settles in and became the close door policy. And China became more and more isolated and shortsighted that it stop most of technological and civil advencements. Until rest of the world caught up and surpassed them.


With all due respect, I beg to differ. In terms of military power, there is only one time in Han(under Han Wu Di) that china is strong. Also, the military organization in Han is obsolete and ineffective. On the paper it works fine: with every peasant in china as a soldier, china will have millions. However, as Qian Mu(钱穆）and many other notorious historians pointed out: that everyone is a solider effectively equates none is a soldier. The poor training, poor equipment and poor morale is inevitable given the organization method of military of Han.


On the other hand, Tang has a different approach. By organizing militaries as self-supplied production units(府兵制), the training and the equipement of military improved with no burden on goverment. Although the organizaiton method rotten and deterorated latter on due to human failures, the first half of Tang(初唐-盛唐) was arguably the strongest period of chinese military.

As a chinese myself, I do admire the conquer of Han and other dynasties. However, a more clear look at the history reveals that Tang is the zenith of Chinese civilization for almost all aspects with no exception of military.

[mindreader]

I do not understand why anyone voted for Tang. The Tang did little to expand China's borders. Furthermore, the Tang didn't vastly improve China's wealth or improve China intellectually or scientifically. The Song which followed the Tang was a much stronger dynasty, and did much to defeat barbarian tribes and expand Chinese territory before being overwhelmed by the Turks themselves.

I am sure you are joking. Too see how far the Tang Dynasty expanded, look up the Battle of Talas. The Song Dynasty can't hold the Li family's collective jockstraps. And no, the Tang armies were far from weak. Just ask the Japanese for the "lessons" they learnt.

Then there are other people saying that "power projection" through the Ming fleets is a sign of the greatest dynasty. That is also a ridiculous qualifier. When comparing history, one needs to look at things relative to other powers of the time. It is asinine to say the Ming Dynasty could conquor the world where the Qin couldn't. Put simply, there is a 1600 year technology gap. If one day people in giant space ships are fighting on Mars, is the Ming Dynasty less impressive then?

Also, I can't believe how anybody in their right mind could vote the Qing Dynasty as the best, especially to do so based simply on looking at maps. There is a reason the Qing Dynasty is considered in China, almost without question, as the worst dynasty ever.

Huang Taji was OK. Kangxi was great. It was all downhill from there. If not for the so called Ten Great Campaigns, Qianlong would be looked upon as a moron (as he should be).

For those that says corruption got especially bad during Cixi, they've obviously never heard of He Shen, who's wealth is mentioned as a percentage of the world's total wealth. When he was finally forced to suicide and his property seized, his wealth exceeded 10 to 15 years worth of the Qing Dynasty's total income. And he is just the tip of the iceberg. If we are to include other corrupt officials, well...

But by far the greatest setback they did to China was technologically. By the way, yes they did abandon firearms. As I've said in another thread, if not for Kangxi's obsession with cannons, the Opium War would have been even uglier than it was.

[Edinburgher]

Remember. the Qing troops did not get enough food, therefore they are slow, weak, fragile on the battlefield. Most of the money from the goverment had been stolen by lots of bad goverment officials's pockets.

Actually, i hate Qing, cos the rulers and kings of Qing are originally from other countries,(close to Russia and North China). they are very cruel *******, they ruined the China and dragged China into darkness, before Qing, China's military are advanced, technical, economic and agriculcure are ranged top 3 in the world, during Qing's ruling, China became very weak... the most shame for Qing;s rulers are they forced Chinese to change their hair style and cloth style. so Chinese in Qing 's dressing are ugly...

[sumdud]

First, welcome to The Forum. :china:
I see that you are from Edinburgh. Go ahead and enjoy yourself in the Club room.

But I hope you understand that this is a strict forum and we do not allow bashing of any kind, including the Manchus. We do have Manchu members onboard. It does not help either when the information is biased/connected with only one kind.

[kunmingren]

Actually, i hate Qing, cos the rulers and kings of Qing are originally from other countries,(close to Russia and North China). they are very cruel *******, they ruined the China and dragged China into darkness, before Qing, China's military are advanced, technical, economic and agriculcure are ranged top 3 in the world, during Qing's ruling, China became very weak... the most shame for Qing;s rulers are they forced Chinese to change their hair style and cloth style. so Chinese in Qing 's dressing are ugly...

i would completely disagree with your thinking, Qing werent any worse than any other dynasty, they didn't 'ruin' china, its just that the rest of the world caught up with China because there wasnt any inovation since Song Dynasty ended. If anything, the Ming dynasty was the most abysmal ruling family in Chinese history. Most notoriously decadent or sadistic or even illiterate emperors are from that dynasty.

[Spike]

The Tang period was one of the most glorious in Chinese history; it was a marvel of culture, diplomacy, and military conquest. The early Tang emperors built strong relationships with certain nomadic tribes and cleverly exploited divisions among their enemies from without. Using their technological superiority, the Tang armies expanded into Vietnam, Manchuria, and the Tarim Basin up to the Pamirs and the Talas River (Remarkably Korea stalemated the Tang but accepted tributary status). Culturally the Tang knew no rivals, porcelain was perfected during the Tang, and printing was invented. Some of the greatest poets in Chinese history were from the Tang, ie. Du Fu and Li Bai. Chang'an boasted 2 million inhabitants from all over the world: Arabs, Jews, Persians, Koreans, Japanese, etc. Korea, Japan, and Vietnam were heavily influenced by Tang China and began to borrow heavily from Chinese culture.

The Song Dynasty is often seen as 'weak' by Chinese because it fell to the Mongols, resulting in the poorly run and discriminatory Yuan dynasty. However, the Song managed to hold out for 40 years against the Mongols who were aided by Chinese engineers and military technicians. In fact, Genghis Khan first sent his Golden Horde west, overrunning all of Russia before they turned back in Hungary with the Great Khan's death. Despite being the closest in proximity to the Mongolian homelands the Song were probably one of the more successful holdouts to Mongol dominance, not able to exploit bad sea weather like the Japanese and Javanese, or extreme distances like the Mamluks.

[Ryz05]

I choose the PRC because of their destructive potential (they have nukes). Also, China has never been so secure along its borders, as opposed to the early days when there were threats from the North (Mongols and Huns). Otherwise I would've chosen Qin because of the unification and the impact the period had on military ideology.

[Kilo636]

The Yuan dynasty shouldn't count because they were Mongol invaders. The Qing dynasty should count because the Manchus are considered Chinese. Also, the Manchus were accepted by the Chinese as rulers while the Mongols were not. That is why the Yuan fell after only 80 years.


So u are saying those mongols in Inner mongolia of China considered as invader and foreigner? They are too the citizen of PRC. We shall consider Yuan dynasty as an official dynasty of China.. Mongol too is still part of the history of China.. Mongolia was even until Qing rule.

Yuan by my point is the most powerful and devastating army force at that time. Conquer the most vast amount of land.

[kunmingren]

So u are saying those mongols in Inner mongolia of China considered as invader and foreigner? They are too the citizen of PRC. We shall consider Yuan dynasty as an official dynasty of China.. Mongol too is still part of the history of China.. Mongolia was even until Qing rule.

Yuan by my point is the most powerful and devastating army force at that time. Conquer the most vast amount of land.

I dont agree with Yuan dynasty being Chinese, i mean they only established for barely 80 years, and they were never party of Chinese culture. Right now in China, they are included as Chinese, this is done for political reason of trying to dissuade sepretism (though, i dont think there are very much sepretism talk in Mongolia).

if we follow your logic, Korea was also ruled by Kublai, doesnt that say the most power period of Korean history was during the Mongol Rule? And this can be said about Russia, Iran, and Vietnam.

[crobato]

For me I like the Ming because of the costumes, armor, and their ingenious use of gunpowder. They managed to beat the Mongols in their own game---beat cavalry with gunpowder-- and destroyed them in their homeland. And they certainly meant business, with 3400 cannons just along the Great Wall.

I also like the Three Kingdoms period, partly because of the literature, myth, heroes, characters, legends, and of course, the video games behind it. But this is probably the golden age of Chinese cavalry. Mass production of the stirrup shortly began before the fall of the Han, conveniently in time to be used in the Three Kingdom wars. Heavy cavalry would be developed, and they would last until the Tang, whose Turkish/Middle Eastern influences reverted cavalry back to being light.

[han jade sword]

well, I choose Qin because of the Reunification, and I found this admirable that the Qin beat every country one after each other

you don not know china. qing dynastry is not chinese history.qing is built by tungus.tungus is not chinese native nations.our china have many nations .but mongolia nation or manchu nation are not chinese native nations.so it is nonsensical to take about qing dynastry.our china is broken up inqing dynastory.that history is very grieved.if you want to know .you can read a great book<south ming history>《南明史》。

***MOD EDIT: no advertizement of other forums, exscpesially not ones with controversial material*********

[kunmingren]

you don not know china. qing dynastry is not chinese history.qing is built by tungus.tungus is not chinese native nations.our china have many nations .but mongolia nation or manchu nation are not chinese native nations.so it is nonsensical to take about qing dynastry.our china is broken up inqing dynastory.that history is very grieved.if you want to know .you can read a great book<south ming history>《南明史》。or enter this forum :www.hanminzu.com 汉网han nation web.

rommel said qin, not qing. Qin was between 221 and 206 BC, its 1800 years before the qing dynasty which you dont think are chinese.

and about the hanminzu.com, i paid a visit to the site, some of its content is border line racist. such as a post about the inminent danger of minority taking power from han people and some how persecute the han.

[A Pirate]

BTW,Where's Han Dyansty?

[goldenpanda]

If the STUPID QIng emperor at late Qing cared about the country, then China would be as strong as the Europeans...
The Qing emperors in late Qing did nothing but eat, laugh, play.


Man when will Chinese advance from naive view of our own history? We just blame everything on bad people. Does that solve any problems? All the bad people came from our population. Are we going to keep producing bad people then blame them forever?

It's not just this or that emperor. Chinese military thinking stopped evolving at "let's unify the country keep everyone from revolts". We didn't have a systematic way to describe knowledge and then to accumulate progress. It was mentioned Qing forts were not designed to maximize fields of fire. Did we have even *the concept* so we could *think* about maximizing it? All the centuries of intellectual work, what have they given us, besides nice poems about wine and women? Chinese talk about the need to learn science, but I wonder if we really know what is science.

When will Chinese value the need to see the world, then *try to describe it*?


***

yeah, I was actually going to vote for Han. Besides inventing the imperial system, the Han were the last time that Chinese could mobilize just about every man in the country on a foreign campaign.

[goldenpanda]

In my opinion, it was the Ming. Why? Because only during the Ming dynasty did China have to capabilities to project power across the world.

Ming navy...hugely overrated. They didn't have reliable navigation. Didn't have a colonial mentality. Just went around parading to natives. Did not even survive as an institution within the Ming military system.

Go with the Han, who created an imperial system never seen in the world, which lasted two thousands years.

[zachjeli]

Ming navy...hugely overrated. They didn't have reliable navigation. Didn't have a colonial mentality. Just went around parading to natives. Did not even survive as an institution within the Ming military system.

Go with the Han, who created an imperial system never seen in the world, which lasted two thousands years.

how come it is not the PRC, since they are going to be a superpower. :china:

[whsie]

the Tang. I couldn't believe my eyes when someone earlier said that the Tang was military wise weak. I believe they confused the Tang Dynasty with the Song Dynasty or they just didn't read their books. The Tang at its peak even surpassed the Han Dynasty in terms of expansion.
If someone wants a rough idea of Tang's peak including vassals, here it is- http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/99/Tang_dynasty1.PNG
This is around 668, 669. The Western Turks were subdued and completly vassalized in 657 after being defeated by Su Ding Fang 苏定方. Earlier in 648, half of Western Turkish land were already vassalized. The Eastern Turks were defeated by Li Jing 李靖 and Li Shiji 李世勣 in 630. Korea was conquered by Li Shiji 李世勣 and Xue Ren Gui 薛仁貴 in 668. Tibet (qinghai area) was defeated a few times before the marriage by Li Jing 李靖 and Hou Jun Ji 侯君集 in 635. Then a lot of the Tarim Basin and Central Asia was took down by Huo Jun Ji 侯君集, most noticeably GaoChang. Vietnam was also taken down. Obviously, this proves that the Tang was a military might. Furthermore, the Tang was probably the peak of the Han ethnic calavary based army. Part of the reason why they're so successful early on was because their army was a calvary based army. When Li Jing made the turning point against the Xieli Khan of the Eastern Turks, Li Jing used 3000 light calvary to raid Dingxiang and caught Xieli by suprise. Of course, he was suprised how fast Li Jing got to him.
Later, after Tang Taizong and Gaozong, Wu Zetian took over a made a huge mess with the empire seen in the photo. The Khitans rebelled, Tibet rebelled, the Turks rebelled, Korea rebelled. Practically the whole country came crashing down in terms of land. It wouldn't be until Tang Xuanzong that we see him expand to Persia's border again, which is already noticeably smaller than the first great expansion under Tang Taizong.

[A Pirate]

The mighty military power of Tang was relying on its superior economic strength. From the performance of the army alone, I think Qin was better.

[Ernst]

Qin army is the strongest

[sunchips]

i chose the Ming because it had the largest navy in the history of china. also there was an extensive use and development of firearms during that time in china, Qing just abandoned the firearms that Ming made and went back to the trusty swords.

and also my last name is Zhu, if anyone have noticed. :cool:


How extensive was the use of firearms, and how advanced were they compared to the firearms of Europe? (i.e. approx. what European time period)?

[sunchips]

the Tang. I couldn't believe my eyes when someone earlier said that the Tang was military wise weak. I believe they confused the Tang Dynasty with the Song Dynasty or they just didn't read their books. The Tang at its peak even surpassed the Han Dynasty in terms of expansion.
If someone wants a rough idea of Tang's peak including vassals, here it is- http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/99/Tang_dynasty1.PNG
This is around 668, 669. The Western Turks were subdued and completly vassalized in 657 after being defeated by Su Ding Fang 苏定方. Earlier in 648, half of Western Turkish land were already vassalized. The Eastern Turks were defeated by Li Jing 李靖 and Li Shiji 李世勣 in 630. Korea was conquered by Li Shiji 李世勣 and Xue Ren Gui 薛仁貴 in 668. Tibet (qinghai area) was defeated a few times before the marriage by Li Jing 李靖 and Hou Jun Ji 侯君集 in 635. Then a lot of the Tarim Basin and Central Asia was took down by Huo Jun Ji 侯君集, most noticeably GaoChang. Vietnam was also taken down. Obviously, this proves that the Tang was a military might. Furthermore, the Tang was probably the peak of the Han ethnic calavary based army. Part of the reason why they're so successful early on was because their army was a calvary based army. When Li Jing made the turning point against the Xieli Khan of the Eastern Turks, Li Jing used 3000 light calvary to raid Dingxiang and caught Xieli by suprise. Of course, he was suprised how fast Li Jing got to him.
Later, after Tang Taizong and Gaozong, Wu Zetian took over a made a huge mess with the empire seen in the photo. The Khitans rebelled, Tibet rebelled, the Turks rebelled, Korea rebelled. Practically the whole country came crashing down in terms of land. It wouldn't be until Tang Xuanzong that we see him expand to Persia's border again, which is already noticeably smaller than the first great expansion under Tang Taizong.


In the map shown, is the dark color also part of Tang empire, or is it "allies" of china, or something? Also, I remember reading about some "battle of talas" somewhere...that was in Kasakstan right? How did China shrink so much in 100 years, if the wikipedia map above was in ~669?

[sunchips]

Tang was never a military power house. it is known for its culture and science. Song was small and weak beacuse of all the boarder confilct with other chinese ethnic groups. and none of those nations during Song era was really big and well funded. thats why mongols just rolled through them all. Of course the mongols were amazing too.

It basicly should boils down to: Han, Ming, Qing. Han is 3rd largest dynasty ever at its peak if you count in yuan. and during its time Kao Tsu, wudi and other empreors have expanded the boarder and opened up trade routes.(the silkroad) For its time it was no doubt one of the great powers. Even the Romans at the time couldnt match them.(206 b.c. - 220 A.D.) At that time the Romans were involved in Macedonian Wars. And these wars for the most of time were at a small scale thats fought between Greek city-states, and Syria. Kao Tsu also pushed out the Huns that was in western china and beyond, which enabled the silkroad to be open. Huns later dominated most of europe and the Romans couldnt really stop them. So in terms of territory size and amry size and technology Han at its time was far greater than any nation.

As Ming and Qing, I think FriedRiceNSpice explained pretty well on why it was a great military power.

The problem with most Chinese dyansty is that none of the rulers were ambitious enough. Han, Tang, Ming even part of Qing could easily conqure every other nation near by. And project its power over europe and even find america. But due to that they never got anywhere. and even for the ones that did explore, and seeked out others. because of china's technology were so much more advenced compare to other powers at the time. The explorers comes back with nothing new, and the king/empreor would assume that every other nation around the world are nothing compare to him therefore compeletly ignore other nations, unless they come to him. Over the time this settles in and became the close door policy. And China became more and more isolated and shortsighted that it stop most of technological and civil advencements. Until rest of the world caught up and surpassed them.


Isn't it national chinese culture, and identity to be non-warring? That when we were strong, we jsut wanted security for our own peoples? I mean, that's why we installed the tributary system is it not, so that we wouldn't have to "conquer" anyone, only to "control" them?

[fishhead]

Isn't it national chinese culture, and identity to be non-warring? That when we were strong, we jsut wanted security for our own peoples? I mean, that's why we installed the tributary system is it not, so that we wouldn't have to "conquer" anyone, only to "control" them?

No, it's just the mentality developed after the Tang. Before Tang Chinese were pretty much war-loving stock, so Tang is the turning point.

Since Qing and Han, Chinese had been expanding their empire quickly. But at the Sui time, the war with Gaogouli went badly, led to the uprising and fall of Sui. Tang was a pretty military mind dynasty, all local governors were local military commands as well, with the great power. This administrative structure made Tang exetremely powerful toward the outside, but unfortunately also led to the military rebellions by those commands, exactly like Roman Empire.

Song changed everything, they set up the first civilian administration structure in the world - civilian leading military, and followed by Ming. That made Chinese losing the military competency since then.

[NelsonChu]

Hello! i am a Chinese from Hong Kong.Although this website seems not the place i suppose to be, i hope i can provide useful information in the view of a Chinese.
From this vote, it seems that most guys are familiar with China's history.Yes,
from the text books i learnt, the strongest was Tang.

[FriedRiceNSpice]

Also, I remember reading about some "battle of talas" somewhere...that was in Kasakstan right

The Battle of Talas was a relatively small battle fought between the Arab Abbasid Caliphate and the Tang Dynasty for control of Central Asia. The Arabs defeated the Chinese, who's commander managed to escape the battle with the majority of the Tang regular army soldiers. Following the battle, many Turkic tribes in the area switched their allegiance from the Chinese to the Arabs. This also started the conversion of the Turkic tribes in the area to Islam. After the battle, the Chinese made no further attempts to expand into Centra Asia. However, their influence in the region remained strong, and in future conflicts, such as the An Lushan Rebellion, they were still able to call on auxiliary troops from Central Asia. It wasn't until the collapse of the Tang dynasty did China begin to lose influence in Central Asia. Some claim that the Arabs learned the secret of making paper from Chinese POWs captured during the battle.

[T-U-P]

How extensive was the use of firearms, and how advanced were they compared to the firearms of Europe? (i.e. approx. what European time period)?
well, firearms were developed in Song Dynasty and by the time of Zhu Yuan Zhang (the first emperor of Ming) the Chinese already had canons and various small arms, and he did use them in his army to conquer the Yuan Dynasty.

Some time period comparison:
Ming Dynasty: 1368~1644
Fall of Constantinople to the Turks: 1453 (where bombards were used extensively by the Turks)
Development of Matchlock in the West: mid-1400's

[crobato]

During the Imjin war, Chinese and Korean artillery was definitely superior to the artillery the Portugese supplied to the Japanese. During the Qing, advisers to the Kangxi Emperor told him that the artillery that they made were superior to the barbarians. The monstrous "General" cannons used by the Ming in the Great Wall, has ballistics comparable to WWI artillery. As many as 3,400 cannons were located in all parts of the Great Wall, making it the Chinese Maginot line, only much longer.

However, by the Opium War, British steam driven warships were definitely outranging the Qing warjunks in gunfire. So sometime between the Opium War, and the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, the Europeans overtook the Chinese in the quality and technology of gunpowder making. My estimate would be sometime around the late 1700s.

[goldenpanda]

It's interesting that Chinese knew about Japan for more than one thousand years, but except for the Mongol time, never wanted to conquer it. We have a historical distaste for the oceans. Ming had good cannons, but did not maintain a navy to project that power.

[潇潇清雨]

I 'm a chinese. I think that Han dynasty is the best .As well known ,sino's language is chinese(han-yu,汉语)；china's character: chinese(han-zi,汉字)；chinese called their hers: han-zi(汉子).Form Han dynasty, china defeated Hun(xiong-nu) and become the most powerful country in far-east until 1895.

[cliveersknell]

I think the Yuan:
1. It defined China's present borders as a subset of it's immense borders.
2. It started globalization
3. It made Beijing (Khaanbalik or Dadu) the center of the world.
4. It brought together ALL of China's nationalities for the first time under
one central govt.
5. China's military might was the strongest in the whole medieval world.
6. It had great plans like cross canal systems, which the PRC is currently
revisiting (ie. the north south link with the yellow and yangze rivers)
7. It's legacies are the Qing and the present day PRC.

r's
Clive

[crobato]

I think the Yuan:
1. It defined China's present borders as a subset of it's immense borders.
2. It started globalization
3. It made Beijing (Khaanbalik or Dadu) the center of the world.
4. It brought together ALL of China's nationalities for the first time under
one central govt.
5. China's military might was the strongest in the whole medieval world.
6. It had great plans like cross canal systems, which the PRC is currently
revisiting (ie. the north south link with the yellow and yangze rivers)
7. It's legacies are the Qing and the present day PRC.


The truth is.

1. China had its greatest extent under rhe Qianlong Emperor. This is sometime around Bonaparte's time, and it is in that reference why Napoleon called China a sleeping giant. The borders crossed into Siberia right up to Lake Baikal, the Amur river, owned much of Mongolia, and even Port Arthur. The area that was under Russian control north of Korea, yes, was even under the Manchu China.

2. Globalization started in the Tang Dynasty. Chang'an is the first true international capital since Rome and later Constantinople. Here there are even districts for Jews, Christians, Japanese, Arabs, and so on.

3. True. Not to mention the Yuan also established the Beijing dialect as the lingua standard for Chinese which holds even up today. Our current spoken Chinese is from Beijing. Prior to that, the standard tongue is based on a dialect spoken in Xian/Chang'an, and whose sounds are still preserved in Cantonese and Fujienese dialects and to a large extent, Japanese Kanji Kunyomi readings.

4. True, if you wish to include Mongolians, Turkish and Manchurians.

5. True. But Ming is apparently even stronger because the Ming is able to combine a new element---gunpowder into their arsenal. Ming China was the first country in the world to be openly using true gunpowder cannons as we know it. Not ballista or catapaults but true, wham bang set to ignite cannons.

6. Not true. Great Canal network started a millenia before in the Han and all to later to the Sui dynasties.

7. I think Yuan is the turn point in Chinese history because how it consolidated the present borders, how it established Beijing as the capital, and the Beijing tongue as the Chinese tongue. It made China more "East" centric towards Korea, Japan and Southeast Asia, when previous dynasties, starting from the Qin, made China more western centric, with its capital in present day Xian, where it looks more to the Mongols, Turkish, Afghans, proto-Russians, and even Indians and Persians as the line of culture and trade.

[cliveersknell]

Hi Crobato
Thanks for your input . Couple of things I have to disagree though:
1. The Yuan or Mongol army did indeed used gunpowder, particularly so in
the invasion of Japan. Now german and czech historians are not discounting
the fact that artillery might have been used in the Battle of Liegnitz.

2. The Ming army particularly the cavalry had a lot of Mongol recruits, however, their leadership was weak. The Ming tried more than 3x to conquer the northern Yuan in Inner and Outer Mongolia, but failed . The climax of
which is the battle of Tumu wherein the Oirads defeated a Ming army
of 500,000 men taking emperor Ying Zong hostage and prisoner.

3. The Ming eventually lost control of southern Manchuria , Northern
Manchuria , from Jilin up to Vladivostok was beyond their reach. Nurgachi
defeated heavily in Liaosi. A Ming army of 200,000 was destroyed by the
manchus.

4. The Yuan was more west centric since it had links with the Ilkhanate
of Hulegu in Persia and the golden horde of Batu in Russia. Road and postal
systems were set up from Beijing , Kharakhorin all the way to Moscow, Kiev
Sarai(Saratov today), and parts of Persia , Chinese art became predominant
in Persia, during the 13-17th century . Persian metalwork and astronomy
also benefited China greatly.

5. The so called Ming fleet was actually built during the Yuan, Admiral
Zheng He was a Hui in former service with the Yuan.

6. The Ming, in my opinion, did not move China forward, it moved it backward.
It's failure to incorporate the Northern Yuan as well as it's failed policies
in Manchuria led to it's eventual demise.

r's
Clive

[crobato]

Hi Crobato
Thanks for your input . Couple of things I have to disagree though:
1. The Yuan or Mongol army did indeed used gunpowder, particularly so in
the invasion of Japan. Now german and czech historians are not discounting
the fact that artillery might have been used in the Battle of Liegnitz.


But they were not to the same extent as the Ming did, which built the General cannonsm and laid as many as 3,400 cannons along the Great Wall. The General cannon when its ballistic properites are computed by modern simulations, has a range and energy similar to cannons used during the American Civil War.


2. The Ming army particularly the cavalry had a lot of Mongol recruits, however, their leadership was weak. The Ming tried more than 3x to conquer the northern Yuan in Inner and Outer Mongolia, but failed . The climax of
which is the battle of Tumu wherein the Oirads defeated a Ming army
of 500,000 men taking emperor Ying Zong hostage and prisoner.


That is not correct.

Ming Dynasty was weakened by fighting too many wars and by corruption that betrayed its own generals. For example, General Yu Quan defeated the Mongols when the Mongols reached 80km of Beijing. When the Zhentong Emperor regained the throne, he had Yu Quan executed.

Another excellent general was Qi Jiquang, who cleaned up Japanese pirates (well more like Chinese pirates using hired Japanese ronin) along the Chinese coast. Later, he was in charge of a major segment of the Great Wall and defeated every Mongol attempt to pass through it during his lifetime. His elite troops used something called a Chang Dao (Long Dao) which looked like they were copied from Japanese Nodachi, which is a very long sword. A frigate of the ROC Navy is named after him.

Yuan Chonghuan defeated both Nurhachi and his son Huang Taiji in seperate battles, both when being vastly outnumbered. But Yuan himself became a victim of eunuch backstabbing and as a result got executed unjustly. The death of Yuan Chonghuan was a major cause of the Ming Dynasty's fall since Huang Taiji even feared him.

The Ming also fought in the Imjin wars with their Korean allies, and managed to fight the Japanese into a bloody standstill and that eventually led to the Japanese withdrawal.

The Ming also had to fight numerous rebellions, one of which was successful enough to take Beijing. Manchus used this to their advantage.


4. The Yuan was more west centric since it had links with the Ilkhanate
of Hulegu in Persia and the golden horde of Batu in Russia. Road and postal
systems were set up from Beijing , Kharakhorin all the way to Moscow, Kiev
Sarai(Saratov today), and parts of Persia , Chinese art became predominant
in Persia, during the 13-17th century . Persian metalwork and astronomy
also benefited China greatly.

True, but nothing like the Han to Tang period where Greek arts left by Alexander the Great in the Hindu Kush entered China, the Silk Road where Persian arts and horses entered China, or through the influx of Buddism from India, and the entry of Jews and even Nestorian Christians to China. The concept of the highly revered Buddist saint Guanyin (in Japanese, Kannon) came from images of the Virgin Mary brought by Christians along this route. The Song Dynasty's greatest poet was a man born in Central Asia.


5. The so called Ming fleet was actually built during the Yuan, Admiral
Zheng He was a Hui in former service with the Yuan.


Wrong. Zheng He was born long after the Yuan Dynasty was gone. In fact, like six generations passed.


6. The Ming, in my opinion, did not move China forward, it moved it backward.
It's failure to incorporate the Northern Yuan as well as it's failed policies
in Manchuria led to it's eventual demise.

r's
Clive

The Ming had many failings indeed, but the Qing Dynasty made it even more backward. For example, despite his military successes that brought China to its greatest extent, Qianlong Emperor's fascination with swords and hand combat, retarded China's early lead in gunpowder development in favor of returning to classical arms like swords. Surely, the swords made during the Qing Dynasty were among the best ever made in China and in fact around the world, prized by collectors, but at what price? China was decisively overtaken by the West in firearms development.

During the Imjin wars, the Ming cannons were superior even to the Portugeses muskets and artillery that were supplied to the Japanese. You can see that from this period, the Chinese were still superior in firearms development. By the time of the Opium Wars, steam powered British gunboats were outranging the warjunks in cannon fire.

[cliveersknell]

Hi Crobato
Thanks very much for your replies:
1. At least now we are in agreement that the Yuan used artillery, albeit
with shorter range than the Ming.
2. The battle of Tumu really happened and the Ming emperor was a prisoner
of Esen Hongtaiji, Khan of the Oirads. Many history books cite this, my
favorite is Empire of the Steppes by Rene Grousset. Most public libraries
have this .
3. The Tang only traded with Middle/Near east the Byzantine empire, and
India. After their defeat by the Arabs in the Talas River, they were driven out
of Central asia, the Yuan on the other hand had links all the way to the
golden horde in Sarai (present day Saratov near Volgograd).
4. The Qing empire, was the only empire 2nd to the Yuan that effectively had the present day PRC borders as a subset. Xinjiang, Tibet, Inner/Outer Mongolia, Jilin/Liaoning/Heilongjiang , Yunnan, Qinghai , and Gansu and territories near Vladivostok and Tajikstan were firmly under Qing control.
No other dynasty except the Yuan had such extensive territories as the Qing.
5. Therefore the 2 greatest dynasties of China were not of Han origin
but of Mongol (Yuan) and Manchu ( Qing). Many historians in China,
and some in the west like my good friend Dr. Pamela Crosley ( author of
"The Manchus") are beginning to accept the Qing as a legacy of the Yuan.
After the death of Fuyin, Kangxi's dad, the dynasty was ruled by a Mongol
Keerqin woman named Buumbutai or in pinyin , Xiaozhuang. She brought
her grandson to be one of the greatest emperor's of China in the same league as Khubilai, but not in Chinggis' league.
r's
Clive

[crobato]

Hi Crobato
Thanks very much for your replies:
1. At least now we are in agreement that the Yuan used artillery, albeit
with shorter range than the Ming.
2. The battle of Tumu really happened and the Ming emperor was a prisoner
of Esen Hongtaiji, Khan of the Oirads. Many history books cite this, my
favorite is Empire of the Steppes by Rene Grousset. Most public libraries
have this .


Yes, but Esen Taiji in turn was defeated by General Yu Quan.


3. The Tang only traded with Middle/Near east the Byzantine empire, and
India. After their defeat by the Arabs in the Talas River, they were driven out
of Central asia, the Yuan on the other hand had links all the way to the
golden horde in Sarai (present day Saratov near Volgograd).


Except that Yuan links to the West did not give much to China since every thing was Mongol controlled, and gravely damaged Middle Eastern cultures. Name me any significant cultural and religious contribution that came out of it.
Links between the West is not as rosy as you portray it to be, because of the rivalry among fellow Mongol hordes.

Name me any significant cultural interaction. I can name several from Han to Tang.

1. Roman Empire getting silk from China.
2. China getting Arabic steeds from the Middle East.
3. Arrival of Buddism from India to China.
4. Judaism coming to China.
5. Nestorian Christianity coming to China.
6. Introduction of Greek art into China.
7. Song's greatest poet was from Central Asia.


4. The Qing empire, was the only empire 2nd to the Yuan that effectively had the present day PRC borders as a subset. Xinjiang, Tibet, Inner/Outer Mongolia, Jilin/Liaoning/Heilongjiang , Yunnan, Qinghai , and Gansu and territories near Vladivostok and Tajikstan were firmly under Qing control.
No other dynasty except the Yuan had such extensive territories as the Qing.


That is not true. The Yuan does not control territories belonging to other Mongol Khanate.


5. Therefore the 2 greatest dynasties of China were not of Han origin
but of Mongol (Yuan) and Manchu ( Qing). Many historians in China,
and some in the west like my good friend Dr. Pamela Crosley ( author of
"The Manchus") are beginning to accept the Qing as a legacy of the Yuan.
After the death of Fuyin, Kangxi's dad, the dynasty was ruled by a Mongol
Keerqin woman named Buumbutai or in pinyin , Xiaozhuang. She brought
her grandson to be one of the greatest emperor's of China in the same league as Khubilai, but not in Chinggis' league.
r's
Clive

The two greatest dynasties of China was the Han and the Tang. Both dynasties have territory almost the size of current China, including as far west as Afghanistan, and far north as north of Korea.

Yuan offered little in technological innovation compared to what happened in the Ming for example. The giant Yongle bell for example, a massive 14 ton bell, is swung around a metal pin only a few inches wide and a meter long. And its been doing that for centuries. Which Mongol happen to provide the kidn of metallurgical technology that is almost right up to today's aeronautical standards.

The Yuan is among the shortest lived of dynasties. It is true that Yuan did a lot of work to improve China, but much of it, like the cultural contacts, has already been by the Sui and the Tang and furthered in the Song. Of the emperors, it seems only Kublai and the Renzhong Emperor are the only ones that are truly competent and sincere in improving the country; the rest are pretty much corrupt and incompetent. After only a century, the Yuan was overthrown, and in 1388, Chinese armies invaded Mongolia, won a massive decisive victory with 70,000 Mongols captured, and Chinggiz Khan's capital Karakhorum, razed to the ground completely.

The last Khan of the Mongols would fall to Huang Taiji, who would establish the Qing Dynasty.

As for the Qing, the Qing is among the worst militarily despite the achievements of the Qianlong Emperor. In any dynasty, China was never the technological inferior of its neighbors or of the West. But in the Qing Dynasty, you are marked with serious cultural and technological decline.

[cliveersknell]

Hi Crobato,
At least we come to some agreement:
1. The Battle of Tumu did happen in 1449, it was a severe defeat for the Ming - 500,000 KIA or captured including YinZhong. Good thing was the evil
eunuch wang was among the killed.
2. Esen Hongtaiji, went over his head when he decided to go for Beijing.
He allowed Yu Qian to reconsolidate, and strenghten Beijing's defenses.
He also did not have proper siege equipment , and Beijing's walls are strong
and thick. Furthermore, the Ming also had heavy artillery.
3. Contributions the Yuan brought to China from the West :
a. Catholicism came to china - Links made with the Pope in Rome
b. Superior mechanics and hydraulics from Persia - if you notice, the
mangonels of the persians have one thing superior to the chinese one's
, they have reduction gears . Hydraulics was also used to irrigate land
from lakes thousands of feet above sea level, biggest accomplishment
was in Yunnan, when a middle eastern governor brought by Kublai made this happen.
c. Astronomy , algebra, optics, from the Middle east and Persia - Alhazen
discovered the laws of reflection and refraction centuries before Isaac Newton.
d.Metallurgy , particularly damascene technology developed in Damascus
, Syria for the creation of stainless steel blades and swords.
e. Architechture- The city of Beijing or Dadu was designed by an Arab and
Nepalese named Alginger - the big white dagoba in Beihai park, is his tomb.
f. Some aspects of western architechture also was brought into China,
recent excavations of Kublai's old summer capitol in Shangdu or Xanadu,
showed these. In Kharakhorin, there was a water fountain made from
gold which sprouted wine made by a Frank. Marco and Nicolo Polo
also brought Italian artists to China.

The Qing was not aware of the big revolutions in physics , chemistry,
and mathematics occuring in the west during the 16-19th centuries.
They did not know Newton, Laplace, Lagrange, Gauss, Volta, Joule,
Nernst, Lavosier, Faraday, etc..
They were too involved in looking inward and rested on their laurels.
A significant thing was brought up by Dr. Crosely:
1. The Qing defeated the Russians initially
2. They sent an embassy team to visit St. Petersburg and onthe way
back Constantinople. This was during the reign of Czar Peter the great,
they created the wrong and false conception that Constantinople was
the most advanced city in the West, they were not aware that the Ottoman
Empire was also undergoing stagnation.
3. When MacCarthey visited China, the Qing showed no interest at all
in studying the steam ships that took him to China
These led to the Qing demise in the 19th century
r's
Clive

[cliveersknell]

Hi Crobato
On the Yuan being short lived -"a flicker of light " .
The word Yuan seems quite appropriate - means "new beginning", I assume
you are chinese so correct me if I am wrong.
It was short lived for the ff reasons:
1. Khubilai made one big failing after unifying China - he failed to call
a Khuriltai inviting everyone to see where the next direction would be.
He may have been interrupted with his ongoing conflict with his brother
Arik Boke, but as soon as this was resolved, a Khuriltai needed to be called.
2. Khubilai did not have a good adviser and prime minister like Yeliu Zhucai
who served Chinggis and Ogodei well. Instead he was saddled with Achmet
who was corrupt and self serving, he was at the heart of economic disaster
that would follow later.
3. From my own personal readings and investigations, I personally believed
the fall of the Mongol Empire began with Ogodei's death, he died a very sad man.During his last years he took to alcoholism and died quite young. He
was a man who kept to himself most of the time, he was chosen by Chinggis
because of his intelligence and calm countenance. But for every positive thing there is a negative thing, the inner stresses and conflicts began to show
later, and he took to drinking as an outlet. After his death, his wife appointed
a central asian muslim as chief minister, Abdul Al Rahman, he was pretty
much like Achmet, and he almost ran the empire dry. Guyuk , Ogode's son
was a great soldier , but a poor administrator, so his mother and Rahman
ran the empire. After Guyuk's short reign, he too died young, ( xcessive
alcoholism) , Mongke took over, but by force. ( members attending his
Khuriltai were armed, they killed the Guyuk faction , and arrested and later
killed Rahman and others). This set the trend for a "Khuriltai by force".
However, I think many historians in china are reevaluating the Yuan,
and now see the Yuan as a truly new beginning for a multi ethnic China,
not just Han but including other races. Han by itself is no longer pure, but
mixed with many other races.
It may seem short, like the first German Me262's in the last 2 years of
WWII, but like the Me262, which is a forerunner of modern jet fighters, the Yuan became the forerunner and catalyst for a new evolution in China's history, the Qing is a legacy of Yuan, Ever since
the Yuan, China had a permanency that would live on despite troubled times
like in the last years of the Qing and the Republic. Many are silently
agreeing , even the famous English historian Prof.John Man, that the present
day PRC, a world superpower is a legacy also of the Yuan.

r's
Clive

[crobato]

Hi Crobato,
At least we come to some agreement:
1. The Battle of Tumu did happen in 1449, it was a severe defeat for the Ming - 500,000 KIA or captured including YinZhong. Good thing was the evil
eunuch wang was among the killed.
2. Esen Hongtaiji, went over his head when he decided to go for Beijing.
He allowed Yu Qian to reconsolidate, and strenghten Beijing's defenses.
He also did not have proper siege equipment , and Beijing's walls are strong
and thick. Furthermore, the Ming also had heavy artillery.
3. Contributions the Yuan brought to China from the West :
a. Catholicism came to china - Links made with the Pope in Rome


That's because of Marco Polo. Nonetheless, these links were not strong enough, until reestablished by the Portugese (Jesuits) with the Ming Dynasty.


b. Superior mechanics and hydraulics from Persia - if you notice, the
mangonels of the persians have one thing superior to the chinese one's
, they have reduction gears . Hydraulics was also used to irrigate land
from lakes thousands of feet above sea level, biggest accomplishment
was in Yunnan, when a middle eastern governor brought by Kublai made this happen.

I don't know. I clearly doubt the Persians have better hydraulics and mechanics than China at that time, considering that Persia never had the immense irrigation projects China had.

I remember the TV show Building an Empire, where it featured China. It showed an irrigination project where engineers manage through a system of water drawn wheels and pumps, to irrigate land weel above sea level. Guess what, the system was made in the Qin Dynasty, long before what you were describing.


c. Astronomy , algebra, optics, from the Middle east and Persia - Alhazen
discovered the laws of reflection and refraction centuries before Isaac Newton.


And long before anyone else, the Chinese knew the exact reasons what caused an eclipse, and created huge intricate highly precise mechanical spheres to model the skies and track the stars.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_astronomy


Before the Greek Hipparchus created the first star catalogue of the Western world during the 2nd century BC, the 4th century BC astronomers Shi Shen and Gan De were the first in history to compile a star catalogue. Publishings of the two were known as Star Manual of Masters Gan and Shi (甘石星經), the world's first star catalogue. Although this catalogue in full was eventually lost over the centuries, luckily part of its content was referred to and used by other Chinese documents such as [Treatise on Astrology in the Kaiyuan Regin] (開元占經) during the reign of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang (712 - 756 AD). After analyzing and providing summary on the work of Gan De and Shi Shen, Tang era astronomers mentioned the names of more than 800 stars that were found, 121 of them marked with positions. [1]

Another Chinese classic is the Star Manual of Master Wuxian (巫咸星經). Its authorship is still in dispute because it mentioned names of Twelve Countries, which did not exist in the Shang Dynasty, the era of which it was supposed to have been written. Moverover, it was customary in the past for the Chinese to forge works of notable scholars, as this could lead to a possible explanation for the inconsistencies found.

The Han Dynasty astronomer and inventor Zhang Heng (78 - 139 AD) not only catalogued some 2500 different stars, but also recognized over 100 different constellations. Zhang Heng also published his work Ling Xian, a summary of different astronomical theories in China at the time. In subsequent period of the Three Kingdoms (220 - 280 AD), Chen Zhuo (陳卓) combined the work of his predecessors, forming another star catalogue. This time 283 constellations and 1464 stars were listed. The astronomer Guo Shoujin of the Yuan Dynasty (1279 - 1368 AD) created a new catalogue which was believed to contain thousands of stars. Unfortunately, many of documents at that period were destroyed, including that of Shoujin. Imperial Astronomical Instruments (儀象考成) published in 1757 containing 3083 stars exactly.


[edit] Star maps
The Chinese drew many maps of stars in the past centuries. The most famous one is perhaps the map found in Dunhuang, Gansu. Uncovered by the British archaeologist Marc Aurel Stein in 1907, the star map was brought to the British Museum in London.

The map was drawn on paper and represents the complete sky with more than 1,350 stars. Though ancient Babylonians and Greeks also observed the sky and catalogued stars, no such complete record of the stars may exist or survive. Hence this is the oldest chart of the actual skies in the present.

Stars appearing on the chart were marked with three colors: black for the stars of Gan, yellow for the stars of Shi, and white fore the stars of Wuxian.

According to recently studies, the map may date the manuscript to as early as the 7th century AD (Tang Dynasty). Scholars believe the star map dating from 705 to 710 AD, which is the reign of Emperor Zhongzong of Tang. Some experts from the West think the chart may be a copy of an earlier existing document. There are some texts (Monthly Ordinances, 月令) describing the movement of the sun among the sky each month, which was not based on the observation at that time.


[edit] Lunar and solar eclipses
The ancient Chinese astronomer Shi Shen (fl. 4th century BC) was aware of the relation of the moon in a solar eclipse, as he provided instructions in his writing to predict them by using the relative positions of the moon and sun.[1] The 'radiating influence' theory for a solar eclipse was proposed by the Chinese philosopher Wang Chong (27-97 AD), but he admits in his writing that it was nothing new. The Chinese astronomer and inventor Zhang Heng (78-139 AD) wrote of both solar eclipse and lunar eclipse in the publication of Ling Xian(靈憲), 120 AD (Wade-Giles):

The sun is like fire and the moon like water. The fire gives out light and the water reflects it. Thus the moon's brightness is produced from the radiance of the sun, and the moon's darkness (pho) is due to (the light of) the sun being obstructed (pi). The side which faces the sun is fully lit, and the side which is away from it is dark. The planets (as well as the moon) have the nature of water and reflect light. The light pouring forth from the sun (tang jih chih chhung kuang) does not always reach the moon owing to the obstruction (pi) of the earth itself—this is called 'an-hsü', a lunar eclipse. When (a similar effect) happens with a planet (we call it) an occulation (hsing wei); when the moon passes across (kuo)(the sun's path) then there is a solar eclipse (shih).[2]


Equipment and innovation

[edit] Armillary sphere (渾儀)

A method of making observation instruments at the times of Qing DynastyThe earliest development of the armillary sphere in China goes back to the astronomers Shi Shen and Gan De in the 4th century BC, as they were equipped with a primitive single-ring armillary instrument.[3] This would have allowed them to measure the north polar distance (去極度, the Chinese form of declination) and measurment that gave the position in a hsiu (入宿度, the Chinese form of right ascension).[3]

During the Western Han Dynasty (202 BC - 9 AD) additional developments made by the astronomers Luo-xia Hong (落下閎), Xiangyu Wang-ren, and Geng Shou-chang (耿壽昌) advanced the use of the armillary in its early stage of evolution. In 52 BC, it was the astronomer Geng Shou-chang who introduced the first permanently fixed equatorial ring of the armillary sphere.[3] In the subsequent Eastern Han Dynasty ( 23-220 AD) period, the astronomers Fu An and Jia Kui added the eliptical ring by 84 AD.[3] With the famous statesman, astronomer, and inventor Zhang Heng (78-139 AD), the sphere was totally complete in 125 AD, with horizon and meridian rings.[3] It is of great importance to note that the world's first hydraulic (i.e. water-powered) armillary sphere was created by Zhang Heng, who operated his by use of an inflow clepsydra clock (see Zhang's article for more detail).


[edit] Abridged armilla (簡儀)
Designed by famous astronomers Guo Shoujing in 1276 AD, it solved most problems found in armillary spheres at that time.

The primary structure of Abridged Armilla contains two large rings that are perpendicular to each other, of which one is parallel with the equatorial plane and is accordingly called “equatorial ring”, and the other is a double-ring which is perpendicular to the center of the equatorial ring, revolves around a metallic shaft, and is called “right ascension double-ring”.

The double-ring holds within itself a sighting tube with crosshairs. When observing, astronomers aim the star with the sighting tube, stars’ position can be read out at the dials of the equatorial ring and the right ascension double-ring.

A foreign missionary melted the instrument in 1715 AD. The survived one was built in 1437 AD, and was taken by Germany and stored in France Embassy in 1990 during Eight-Nation Alliance. Under the pressure of international public voice the German returned it to China. In 1933 it was placed in Purple Mountain Observatory for preventing it being destroy in war. In the 1980s it had already been eroded seriously and was nearly destroy. To deal with it Nanjing government spent 11 months to repair it.


[edit] Celestial globe (渾象) before Qing Dynasty

Celestial globe from Qing DynastyBesides star maps, the Chinese also make Celestial globes, which show stars position liked a star map and can present the actual sky in a specific time. Because of its Chinese name, the Chinese always make it up with Armillary sphere, which is just one word different (渾象 vs. 渾儀).

According to records, the first Celestial globe was made by Geng Shou-chang (耿壽昌) between 70BC and 50BC. In Ming Dynasty, celestial globe at that time was a huge globe, showing with the 28 mansions, celestial equator and ecliptic. But just like many other equipment, none of them survived.


[edit] Celestial globe (天體儀) in Qing Dynasty
Celestial globe was named 天體儀 in Qing Dynasty. The one in Beijing Ancient Observatory was made by Belgian missionary Ferdinand Verbiest (南懷仁) 1673 AD. Unlike other Chinese celestial globes, it employs 360 degrees rather than the 365.24 degrees (which is a standard in ancient China). It is also the Chinese-first globe which shows constellations near to the Celestial South Pole.


[edit] The Water-powered Armillary Sphere and Celestial Globe Tower (水運儀象台)
Starting designed by Su Song (蘇頌) and his colleagues in 1086 AD and finished in 1092 AD, this large instrument was made up of an armillary sphere (渾儀), a celestial globe (渾象)and a mechanical chronograph . However 35 years later the invading Jurchen army dismantled the tower in 1127 AD. The armillary sphere part was brought to Beijing, hence the tower was never successfully reinstated.

Fortunately two versions of Su Song’s book survived so studying the mechanism is possible. For further please see Su Song.



d.Metallurgy , particularly damascene technology developed in Damascus
, Syria for the creation of stainless steel blades and swords.


Sorry but it was the Chinese who discovered making steel and using blast furnaces first, centuries before the Middle East. This includes the creation of forged steel, laminar steel and stainless steel and the use of differential heat treatment. The Chinese were also the first to use single edged steel swords centuries before the Middle East.


e. Architechture- The city of Beijing or Dadu was designed by an Arab and
Nepalese named Alginger - the big white dagoba in Beihai park, is his tomb.
f. Some aspects of western architechture also was brought into China,
recent excavations of Kublai's old summer capitol in Shangdu or Xanadu,
showed these. In Kharakhorin, there was a water fountain made from
gold which sprouted wine made by a Frank. Marco and Nicolo Polo
also brought Italian artists to China.


The ancient city of Kyoto in Japan, is modeled after the ancient city of Chang'an, now Xian, in China.

Beijing itself had many architectural characteristics from Chang'an, one which even the Arabs were deeply impressed with when they reach to the eastern end of the Silk Road.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chang_An

Chang'an in the Tang Dynasty (618 - 907) was, with Constantinople (Istanbul) and Baghdad, one of the largest cities of the world at that time. The Japanese in 794 built their ancient capital, Heian-Kyo or Kyoto, modelled after the Tang Dynasty capital, Chang'an. As a result, the modern Kyoto reflects some characteristics of Tang Chang'an. Similarly, the Korean Silla dynasty modeled the layout of their capital of Gyeongju after the Tang capital.

http://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/cities/china/xian/xian.html

"end of the Tang period, when the empire was in disarray, the "enormous size" of the city impressed an Arab visitor. The Tang period was one of the most noteworthy ones for the impact of Western products and fashions on Chinese elite culture, and the teeming markets of the capital played a significant role in the dissemination of such goods. Among the dominant figures at least under the early Tang (in fact their presence in China can be documented from several centuries prior to that) were Soghdian merchants from the region of Central Asia which encompasses today's Samarkand."

Overall, while Yuan had its contributions, it is hardly the most important Chinese dynasty, compared to the cultural, technical, artistic and military contributions by previous dynasties. Its main contribution was seating Bejing as the capital, but it had many negative effects as well. Beijing is far from the main Chinese proper, closer to Mongolia than the center of China. With the creation of palaces like the Forbidden Palace, the Emperor becomes isolated from the people, leading eunuchs to run the country. With that, corruption and arrogance set in.

[cliveersknell]

Hi Crobato
Some points of disagreement here:
1. Look at the maps of the dynastic empires in Chronicles of Chinese emperors,
the Yuan and Qing stand out as the largest. The book is available in most libraries.
2. After every dynasty prior to the Yuan, there is a breakup into several
smaller kingdoms, however beginning with the Yuan, we have a "phase transition", wherein the breakage never occured again.
3. Even in the worse period of empress Yehonalla of the Qing, the empire
still was one piece despite the small concessions and Hong Kong.
4. Have you heard of Prince Sengkelinqin of Keerqin, he is my wife's direct
ancestor. He defeated the British heavily in the Taku forts. A remarkable
achievement for a technologically backward dynasty.
r's
Clive

[crobato]

Hi Crobato
Some points of disagreement here:
1. Look at the maps of the dynastic empires in Chronicles of Chinese emperors,
the Yuan and Qing stand out as the largest. The book is available in most libraries.


True but does not change the fact that the Han and the Tang are probably the best dynasties in terms of the formation of Chinese culture and identity. The Qin takes the third for starting the concept of China in the first place, and the Yuan takes the fourth in my view because it laid the foundations for post 13th century China.

The Yuan's greatness lies only with one distinguishible emperor, Kublai Khan, plus one other competent emperor. The rest are corrupt and incompetent.

[cliveersknell]

Hi Crobato
The topic of this discussion , is which dynasty is military strongest.
1. If the Ming were militarily stronger than the Yuan and Qing, then why
did they not conquer the northern Yuan?
2. What do we define as "chinese"? My wife is a Kharachin Mongol, yet she
has a chinese passport. In my simple mind, as a foreigner who dealt with China
for quite a while, I am of the opinion, that China is very much like the US.
A multiracial country. If the Han and Tang formed the chinese culture
then many would be left out. I think they formed the Han culture.
Think about it , the Han at present is very different from the Han during the
Han and Tang dynasties. The present day Han has many different minority blood
in their veins:
1. Northern Hans- have mongol, manchu, turkic, siberian, etc..
2. Southern Hans- have Khmer, Malay, etc..
The pure Han that existed during the Tang and Han periods do not exist anymore.
r's
Clive

[crobato]

Depends on how big the so called "Northern Yuan" is. Remember, the Ming razed Genghiz Khan's capital to the ground and turned into a lost city.

The Ming also fought way too many wars. Just remember they were also fighting the Vietnamese and the Japanese in Korea. During the Ming period, Vietnam was heavily under Ming control. On the other hand, attempts by the Yuan to invade Vietnam ended in failure. Against the Japanese, the Ming and the Koreans were able to decisively hold them back.

If the Yuan is so strong, why did it lose to a peasant revolt?

What do we define as "Chinese"? I don't know. I've seen many Chinese babies before that have what is doctors called Mongolian blue spots. These blue spots were first identified with northern asians. Eventually these spots disappear.

During trips to China, I've met Chinese people---they speak mandarin fluently and all that---that acknowledge they are of Mongolian or Manchurian heritage. But life in the north is pretty tough, so they move down south to Shanghai or Guangdong to find jobs.

Was there every a true "Han" after all? The Han dynasty was named after a valley named Han, which was given by the Qin Emperor to Liu Bang, who became in essence, the Duke of Han or Marquis of Han.

There is no place called "Han' where all Chinese people emerged. What should have been caleld the Liu Dynasty was called the Han Dynasty, because Liu Bang is the Marquis of Han. No relationship to the Kingdom of Han which is the first state absorbed by the Qin during the Warring States period (different character).

What is Han is when Chinese people emerged with a conscious national identity, and they prefer to associate themselves with the Han Dynasty, rather than the Qin (which is where the word China came) because the Qin was tyrranical but the Han was glorious. Some Chinese people also associate themselves with the Tang.

One Fujienese expression I heard is when they refer to the homeland they call it "Teng Soa". This means Tang shan or Tang Mountain, a reference to the homelands of the Tang Dynasty.

1. Northern Hans- have mongol, manchu, turkic, siberian, etc..
2. Southern Hans- have Khmer, Malay, etc..

Correct. However, with the fall of the Tang Dynasty, many Tang Chinese fled to the south, bringing their language and dialects. This led to formation of Fujienese and Cantonese dialects. The Tang has Turkish influences with them, so Cantonese and Fujienese have Western Han/Turkish/Mongolian mixture with southern Chinese/Malaysian/Thai/Vietnamese mixture.

[cliveersknell]

Hi Crobato
Therefore we are in agreement with the ff:
1. China is a multiracial/cultural state
2. The first time people of different nationalities in china got together
as one was during the Yuan. And a phase transition occured wherein China
did not fracture into many pieces. The Humpty Dumpty syndrome is no more.
3. Peasant revolts occured randomly and are almost impossible to quel
militarily, you need to know the root cause and deal with it from there.
4. Militarily the Yuan is still the strongest, because no power on earth
could best them militarily. The Yuan is pretty much like the USA today.
r's
clive

[crobato]

That's not correct.

The Qin is the first state that unified all the peoples together.

There is no phase transition with the Yuan. They were beaten militarily, but fortunately China did not fracture into different pieces.

It was more than a peasant revolt. It was a well organized uprising. Do you know why Chinese celebrate mooncake festival? Before the revolt that toppled the Yuan, the insurgency leaders maintained contact with each other by hiding messages inside cakes. During the full moon, the message to simultaneously revolt and launch coups were passed along through these cakes. So today, Mooncake festival is really about celebrating the successful revolt against Yuan.

Yuan wasn't that strong military superpower; they were unable to conquer Annam and the kingdoms down south. Even their hold on Southern China was pretty tenous. But then the USA also failed to defeat the country which descended from Annam---Vietnam.

[cliveersknell]

Hi Crobato
1. A phase transition still existed after the Yuan, neither the Ming, Qing , nor
Republic of China fractured. The Yuan did an excellent job in bringing all
the ethnic minorities and Hans under one central govt. in Beijing
2. Peasant happen too frequently and reflect a weakness of the monarchical type of govt. Everyone was affected , not just the Yuan.
3. Annam defeated the Mongols 2x , however, the losses it incurred were
quite considerable, this made the Emperor of Annam decide to pay tribute to Khubilai despite the victories. He was smart, he realized continued conflict
with the Yuan will eventually lead to dissolution of Annam in the long term.
During the 2 campaigns , the Mongols razed Annam's capitol to the ground
and killed millions of people. It is just too expensive to continue provoking the Mongols. Even the haughty japs, stopped piratical raids into Korea during
the Yuan for fear of Yuan retaliation. The last great attack on Japan
was defeated, not by the Samurai, but by mother nature. If you see
the progress of battle, the Mongols used artillery in big numbers, and were
annihilating the Japs on land prior to the Kamikaze.
The Qin state unified only the Han people, Manchuria, Tibet , Mongolia,
Xinjiang , Yunnan were still outside the reach of the Qin.
When ice becomes water, or vice versa, you cannot deny a phase transition occurred.
r's
Clive

[crobato]

what you said is true. Yuan added more peoples into the mix and transitioned into Ming without breaking up into several states. But Qin is what gave the identity that is Chinese. Chinese aren't called Qingese or Yuanese or Mingese for good reason.

[punkinhead]

Liberator is smart enough to avoid Yuan, but if it's included, I'll rate it above all. After all, nomads are the most destructive force in ancient times, the worst of which, Mongol, has conquered most of the worlds known to it, burned down cities after cities, and left no living things behind. The mobility of its troops wasn't rivaled by anything in its time. The use of canons made Mongolians invincible against the walls of European castles. Crossbows were just another nightmare of both the soldiers of the east and their western counterparts. So the entire world fell victim of this fearsome race growing up on horsebacks. The only eastern nation spared from this disaster is Japan, saved by Typhoon. Yuan definitely outpowered any nation in its time. However, if the naval force is under inspection, I'll vote for Ming, which held the strongest fleets before the rise of Great Britain. Though weak in land warfares, Ming has demonstrated its ability to lauch global expeditions and project troops to other parts of the world and its warships outclassed those of the West. In countless conflicts, Ming navy has proven as tough as it looks. Personally, I like Tang military the best not only because it performed some of the most incredible military actions (such as attacking a fortress hidden on the top of a snow mountain), also because it maintained a formidile regional influence from Xi'an to the boundary of Persia. I used to visit a ruin of Tang fortress in Xinjiang, which resides in the middle of two converging rivers. The fortress backed to the cliff faces the plain. If the troops were released, there would be nothing to stop them. This might explain why there are so many Tang relics on the land currently populated largely by Muslims. Tang's downfall is the result of its political system failing to adapt to the size of its territory, yet its military is definitely one of the best seen to China.

[crobato]

Tang is a very interesting dynasty because of its Turkish/Arabic influences. If you note many of the paintings and drawings of Tang women, many are wearing midrib clothing with their bellies exposed. or wear loose trousers. Some point in time from Tang to Sung, Chinese moved from sitting in the floor like Japanese did, to sitting on tables and chairs, which is from Middle East influence.

[sinowarrior]

What is the definition of strongest military? Do we use technology standard or victory records as the bases for comparison? If we use technology, well apart from Qing, all other dynasty enjoyed a technology advantage compared to their neighbors. As for military record, Han or Qin should be ranked as best, Yuan dynasty did not fought any impressive battles, and Genhis is Mongol and in that time, his achievement can not be treated as part of Chinese military achievement.

[Roger604]

My two cents.

The problem is that you are "averaging" the prestige of each dynasty over time and also among different categories. If you parse it out it's much better.

1) Tang was the most interesting in terms of culture, civilization, etc. Maps that don't show the tributary states paint a misleading picture because nearly all the kingdoms around Tang itself were tributary states. Tang's influence went far and wide.

2) Kublai Khan's Yuan was the most powerful China ever was. It was by far the most powerful part of by far the most powerful empire the world has ever seen, that towered over all others anywhere close to it in geography or time. Chinese should be proud of Kublai Khan.

3) After Kublai, the Mongols because more of an occupation force that milked China instead of gaining prestige for it.

4) Qing is just so-so all around. It's border victories are misleading because the nation paid an extremely high price domestically. The long term effect of which caused the Qin to be unremarkable just a few Emperors after the first. The most disastrous was the decision to forgo firearms, meanwhile Europe was blossoming.

5) Ming was great at first for all the reasons mentioned, including China's only real historical fleet. But China's long stagnation and decline was caused by Ming corruption, not by the Qing (though they keep getting blamed for it). The sinking of the Ming fleet was the beginning of the end, even though the process took hundreds of years.

Some point in time from Tang to Sung, Chinese moved from sitting in the floor like Japanese did, to sitting on tables and chairs, which is from Middle East influence.

WOW! I was not aware of this! Maybe that is why some Japanese say Japan is the true inheritor of classical Chinese civilization. They say classical Chinese civilization ceased upon Yuan. And yes, there is a clear break after Yuan.




A last point, nobody talks about themselves by referring to a dynasty. Like I'm ethnically Qin or ethnically Western Han or Sung! Some dynastic names are picked as representatives of the continuous civilization -- in particular, Han and Tang. And nowadays a lot of people are just mixed all over, north, central, south and west.

[crobato]

The Qing loved swords. In fact, there is no other time in history where China actually made better swords and they were even the equal to better of that of the Japanese and Middle East. Unfortunately this also caused China to regress in fire arms development.

The Ming is the opposite. Because of fire arms development, Ming sword quality actually declined, since priority is not there. To some extent some say a Ming general even imported lots of Japanese swords which he used effectively. Ming's firearms development was in fact, superior to the West at that time, and it had ships packed with cannon. Maybe the Zheng He treasure ships are overrated, we should look more into the Ming War junks as they are in fact, the true expression of Chinese naval power.

At one time, Koxinga had hundreds of war junks in his command, so the guy was literally a sea power of his own.

Japanese complain Chinese began adopting barbarian customs, and forsake their own culture. Chinese soldiers began wearing trousers at Warring States period, when King of Zhou copied Hun cavalry. But wearing pajamas and trousers become commonplace with civilian population around the Yuan, thanks to the Mongols who dont' dress up in robes like pre Yuan Chinese did.

Thus, Mongols have a major influence in the way Chinese dress, abandoning the robes style in the Sung or the arabic style from the Middle East worn popularly by the Tang.

Some trivia.

Characters in the Romance of the Three Kingdom books are often portrayed not in the proper historical costumes but in Ming Era armor, because the books themselves were written during the Ming period. Thus popular images of personages like Cao Cao, Guan Yu, and Lu Bu are not historically correct in the time period, since they are wearing Ming armor.

Another myth is the use of Chinese Da Dao sword, which is a broadsword. This sword is never used in ancient or medieval China, but in WWII when hacking Japanese. Still this sword is portrayed in movies, paintings and manhua.

Truth is, traditional Chinese dao looks like Japanese sword but straight up to the Tang period. The so called sabres we see in movies are actually introduced by the Qing, and used from that period on. So people in the Three Kingdoms period dont' wield sabres and broadswords.

It is so amazing to see how the media erroneously portray ancient Chinese warfare.

[cliveersknell]

Hi Crobato
Thanks for the interesting info.
Japs failed to see one thing though, the more mixtures a race have, the
more resilient it becomes. Like the USA.
This is why the Japanese had a very difficult time dealing even with Guomindang
CHina, which was considered weak. The battle of Taierzhuang was testimony to this.
In the olympic competitions, when the PRC came into the limelight, the Japanese
were beaten really badly.
The present day chinese , with many turkic/mongol elements in his or her
genes, particularly the northern ones, have developed a street smartness
that is as good or even better than the street smartness seen here in the USA.
One thing my dad used to tell me, was the Japanese never thought that we
could put B-25 bombers on carriers and launch an attack on Tokyo in
broad daylight.
If you follow through the battle of midway, we were almost beat from
beginning to near end, but Capt.McCluskey's Hell divers spotted
4 big Japanese carriers, and "scratched" them ! The fun thing, was the carriers
were in the process of preparing their planes for the next assault, their
decks were filled with aviation fuel, ammo, bombs, and torpedoes.
When Mao's red army fought the Japanese, the Japanese were literally beaten
especially in the campaign in Taihang Mts.
The Japanese thought they could fool the Mongols in Inner Mongolia to their
cause, but it was the strong street smartness of those mongols that spotted
the Japanese lying through their teeth, and eventually many left and joined
Mao's 8th route army under a Mongol general Ulanhu.
When Mao's Volunteers met our army in North Korea, we were suprised
about the way they fought. MacArthur claimed that China was a nation
of laundrymen, and had no fighting prowess whatsoever, how suprised was
he when he got beaten and was forced to retreat- the longest retreat
in US military history. My uncle served in Korea under MacArthur and Ridgway
and denied the stories about human wave attacks, the chinese executed
their attacks very cunningly, using great stealth and surprise. The ambushes
were well planned and superbly executed, were it not for our airpower,
we might have lost the Korean war altoghether. Tactics used by Mao or his
people's war concept, was not too different than tactics used by the Xiongnu and Mongols.
a. Feigned retreats to lure the enemy, and sudden counterattacks to catch him offguard.
b. close reconaissance and data gathering
c. hitting the enemy where he is weak - supply lines etc..
d. infiltration
e. effective ambushes
This was exactly the way, a Ming army of 500,000 was destroyed at Tumu.
The battle did not happen in one day, it took quite a while to cut up and destroy this army piece by piece.

r's
Clive

[goldenpanda]

Clive makes some good points. However I do not agree with the comparison with Mongols. Mongols excelled in the open plains, by using their superior mobility very well compared to any other army of that time. Korea was mountain warfare, which communists had practiced since 1934.

In my opinion the biggest thing ccp did for Chinese military prowness, was to instill incredible determination during the attack. GMT were determined defenders but could not sustain their attacks. CCP troops, when the objective had been chosen, would push forward without concern for their individual safety. This style is why we get stories about "human waves". But it is not "dumb" at all, because the collective speed and firepower is maximized through the soldiers' individual sacrifice. In fact CCP preserved its strength very carefully and used intelligent tactics as Clive described, but made maximum effort at critical junctions. Overall Chinese would suffer far less casualties than South Koreans, Indians, and Vietnamese (even in a sloppy war). Against USA the loss ratio was similar to Soviet vs German ratio, even though Chinese had no mechanization at all.

[crobato]

Mongol influence in dress also went to the Annamese, aka Vietnamese. This is what you popularly see how Vietnamese women are dressed, whereas their Malaysian and Thai neighbors dress remarkably differently.

Mongols and Turks didn't excel much against jungle and mountain warfare, and always had problem fighting southern peoples. Their cavalry advantage is negated in rugged terrain, and humid conditions play havoc against laminar constructed bows, because the glues tend to become soft at high humidity. They are also more vulnerable to tropical diseases, etc,.

As horseriders that eat a lot of meat, physique of northerners have problems against southern peoples, who have to rely more on their feet rather than horse. This forces them to become physically strong for their weight. Microevolutionary traits adjust physical stature of people living in warmer climates to be smaller, so they have a better surface to weight ratio, which allows them to cool their bodies better and suffer less from heat. Since they have less average weight, they also have stronger physical endurance in marching and climbing with less fat in their bodies (there is more fat in northerner bodies to keep the heat). One thing I learned about Navy SEALs is that they are physically not your Rambo type, but they have physiques more similar to marathon runners.

Thus when cavalry advantage is negated, the infantry advantage goes to the southern peoples. It took two generations before the Mongols conquered the southern Sung Dynasty, and had many reverses in Annam and Thailand. Even when "conquered" their hold in southern China was the most tenous, and southern China was the first to be lost by the Yuan. LIkewise, it took at least two generations before the Qing managed to subdue Ming strongholds in the south.

The crossbow invention of China had its roots in similar devices employed by southern tribes.

The war tactics and strategies of the southerners are no less embodied by the Art of War of Sun Tzu. Regardless of who in the Sun clan actually authored it, the Sun clan is prominent clan of the Wu kingdom, whose homeland is around the Zhejiang region, including modern Shanghai and Ningbo. Wu is regarded as "south", and you can remember this kingdom both in the Warring States and Three Kingdoms period. For that matter, Shanghai dialect is today also referred to as Wu dialect.

One can get the perception that guerilla war and tactics seem like a strategy bred to these peoples. Vietnamese themselves were descended from aboringines that once lived in Fujian province (Min peoples.) The word "Viet" came from the word "Yuet", which once described a kingdom south of Wu. Both Yuet and Wu battled for supremacy in the south, pulled every sort of strategy and tactics against each other. The Yuet extended all the way to Vietnam, and the word Vietnam is Yuet + Nam (south in Chinese). For this reason Cantonese dialect is called Yuet dialect and has sounds similar to the Austoasiatic languages.

From this legacy of history, southern peoples seem bred with guerilla strategies bred to their culture of warfare, with decided effects even in modern warfare.

Back in the Three Kingdoms period, the Wu kingdom were also water farers. Because of their amphibious skills, they were among the first peoples in the world to form the "Marines" concept. The original concept of a Marine is a soldier who is adept in fighting on ships and on the coasts. For that reason, Wu's Marines were conditioned not to be sea sick.

The dividing line between North and Southern China is the Yangtze river. The width of this river is so vast, its almost like a sea. One of the most decisive battles between the Northern and Southern cultures is the Battle of Red Cliffs also called the Battle of Chi-Bi. This took place in the Three Kingdoms period, and so remains highly memorable of the allure the Three Kingdoms period has with the peoples today.

Here, Cao Cao, leading the kingdom of Wei, prepares to mount an assault against the kingdom of Wu led by Sun Quan. The Wei has both the material and numerical advantages, since the Wei conquered much of the north. For this reason the Wei had peoples like the Xiao Pei, which is related to Jurchen/Manchu, or better yet, proto-Jurchen, and elite Hunnic or Xiong Nu (proto-Turkic, proto-Mongolic) cavalry.

The problem Cao Cao had, was to bring his vast army across the Yangtze. He built a vast fleet of ships, then tried to convert his army to a marine corps in such a short period of time. He then quickly encountered many problems. His army was quick to get sea sick and not just the men, but the horses too, which often panic.

The Wu on the other hand, were bred for fighting in the water. Wu commandos launched raids against the Wei fleet, burning many ships, thern harassed the Wei army all along the river's coast thorugh amphibious operations. Despite the Wu forces being vastly outnumbered, it turned into a nasty rout for the Wei. It became worst when Wei soldiers don't know how to swim, and so they drowned in large numbers. Disease didn't help things further.

The