China and the development of firearms

Originally Posted by yehe

Some of what you said I agree, some of it I dont, anyway, the much hated tribute to Jin dynasty hade its reasons, as I said before, its lack of trust of military commanders as the first song emperor was a general that did a coup, the military structure that disallowed personal/family loyal militia, persistent lack of calvarys caused the Song militarily weak, yet the fact is also that Song was a extremely rich dynasty, Southern Song especially, to most part, it could simply afford the tribute, to buy peace.

Also as I said before, a foreign ruled(by military conquest, fear and brutality) society tenders to be far more conservative, this will have a huge impact on science and social developement, this is what I am talking about of the mongols been the reason of China started to lag behind after that, not to speak of the fact that the mongols invasion directly and indirectly caused a population decrease to only about 30% of what it once was, so it wasnt just damage, it was a CATASTROPHIC nightmare!

Mongolians does not exclude the science and technology, they learn from China's military technology, the use of these technologies to attack Europe.
Gunpowder reached Europe by the Mongols.
Yuan is not a closed society.China lags behind the West, starting from the Ming Dynasty.

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Originally Posted by yehe

Are you even watching my post? Or you just choose to ignore the "relatively" word I said?

And pls, source for what? That the history books are mostly written in the way I said in earlier post in china? Not my problem that you cant read and also think at the same time. I read enough of history books to know it cant be fully trusted, I suggest you go read more as I did in this matter.

So in other words, you are just putting up your *interpretation* of historical facts, and trying to pass them off as "The Truth".

Are you kidding me?

We are talking about the scientific developement not the day-to-day tax collecting power here are we? When the church claim the earth is flat and you go claim the earth is round, the result is? The social, mental power the church have was by FAR greater than the chinese emperor， I dont know if you understand what the difference are between centralized power and absolute power, cuz I never talking about centralized power.

Likewise, Song IS a more open society than Ming or Qing because the power that the Emperor held was less absolute, doesnt matter if they still wielded it in the same feudal way or not.[/

Yes, because we all know how Song society, unlike Ming or Qing, didn't have foot-binding, polygamy, gender inequality, or the systematic repression of thoughts that ran against the confucian ideals.

Just exactly *what* is your definition of an "open society" anyway? How is Song any different from Ming or Qing with respect to your definition?

Chinese gunpowder weapons in the Song were leading,the Ming Dynasty were more widely used, due to geography, history, culture and political system of other reasons, Chinese gunpowder weapons to a standstill.
The late Ming Dynasty, the Chinese gunpowder weapons had behind the West, the West had created powerful cannon, the Ming Dynasty bought a batch of cannons from the Portuguese in Macao, these cannons deployed at Shanhaiguan. Ming Dynasty the generals Yuan Chonghuan in Shanhaiguan resistance Manchu army attack,He commanded the soldiers to use cannons counterattack, Manchu Emperor Nurhachi was killed by cannon.
This is called Hong Yi cannons.红夷大炮.
the Qing Dynasty, Chinese gunpowder weapons were even more behind.'

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From what I can see... when the Song Dynasty used firearms, this piece of equipment is among the most advance in the world... and there simply is no need to actually advance it further, because it is already leading the world... during the Ming and later Qing dynasty, huge number of canons are imported from places like Holland, Portugese etc. The Chinese only manufactured copies of these canons and never really place much emphasis in research and development of these firearms. Thus two hundred years of Qing rules... not much had been done to the canon design and manufacturing process.

This is the main reason why firearms began lacking behind as compare to the west.

that's my article, this guy add the silly link on it, he is playing.

Originally Posted by maozedong

that's my article, this guy add the silly link on it, he is playing.

Not saying me, are you?

Originally Posted by rhino123

Not saying me, are you?

no, the guy is jeanlee411, I just told you that he is playing, you don't need to talk to him.

A. The Chinese fought many wars like the Europeans:

Did they? espeically if we use the same purportion of population and landmass involved? The reign of emperor Wanli during the late 16th early 17th century saw roughly 6 major conflict through a 50 year reign, and that was considered one of the most serious warring era of the Ming, the Ming was roughly the size (and population) of Western Europe, tell me how 5 serious conflict in 50 year over the entire Western Europe would qualify as serious?

More over, did they really threaten the existence of the Ming? of those 5 conflicts, 2 were semi serious rebellions (one was a military garrision in Ning-Xia, the other was a local chief in the south western frontier who got too bold), 2 were half arsed border wars (one against the Mongols which they quickly sued for peace, the other was a invasion from Burma that was more of a joke as the Burmese were primitive at this time compare to the Chinese armies and was easily destroyed) , the Imjin war was pretty remarkable, but the scale wasn't nearly as large as you would imagine (in 92-93, the Ming roughly send in an army of little more than 40K , that was just a modest size army at best by Ming standards). The final was the conflict with the Machu taht would turn out disastorous, but in the begining they thought it was just some border tribes acting up.

B. The Chinese disueded military and preferred scholarship.

Did they? the one key assuption people are missing here is the nature of the Chinese empire, it was LARGE , most medieval European states were restricted to a similar geographic region , while often several state shared a similar geographic region, in China's case however, it was overlapping several geographic region by itself.

This may not seem like much of an issue to the eyes of amature, but it is vastly important in the development of social politics, how you operate a government changes dramatically when your messenger can reach the edge of your border in a day or in 2 month from the captial.

Almost all modern states have to deal with the issue of seperating their military from their administration, China however, faced this issue much much sooner, as soon as the Han dynasty was reformed into a real state (instead of the many fief states that existed in the Han in the begining), with a empire this large, your leader can not possibly hope to lead the forces himself or have his troops be all loyal to him personally like he would if he was operating out of a small region.

MUCH of what the Song / Ming did to regulate their military is EXACTLY what modern states do, things like seperating logistic and daily finance from the Generals themself, or have administrator overseeing their operations. or rotated officers with different men on a regular basis, these are all things that we take for granted in modern militaries, and something that really only happened in China and nowhere else until modern times.

The Chinese dynasties already overlapped several major geographic regions themself and was basically running up against insurmontable geographic obstecals on all ends (the Himalayas to the west, the Gobi to the North West, the Stepps to the North, the Pacific to the East and the Jungles of SE Asia to the South, only the North East end retained some possibility of expansion but the incentives wasn't particularly strong). Running such a large state require them to operate on different sets of rules than it would if they were a small European state. How do you ensure control to a area where if anything goes wrong it wouldn't reach you until a month or two later? How do you balance the need for defense with the potential for revolt? the easiest way is obviously to command all ur man personally, but that would be possible if you ruled one castle, or maybe a couple of county where your immediate family or associates can help out, but a vast empire?

C. The Qing dynasty relied on Chinese troops

They did, to some extend, but their core ruling policies did push for a nomadic originated army. instead of one based on Han Chinese, the 8 banner mans were basically a caste made up of mostly Machus and Mongols, and was suppose to be their primary force, they were given land and social benifits, much more so than the Green Banner did.

You also miss the point that the Qing emperor did not actually trust the han armies, during their early dynasty operations quiet often the emperor himself was leading the army, which dramatically lessens the complication of loyalty and control issues. but such a method can not be depended on for a large dynasty.

Also, the Red Cloth Cannon was relatively on par with European guns of the early half of the 17th century, but not after that. the fact that it was still the Qing's main gun by the 19th century (and in fact most armies had forgotten how to use them anyway) showed the key problem here.

Also, the economics of the Chinese dynasty also had much to do with this regional geographic issue. Due ot the unified nature of dynasties, they need to create a unified set of rules on things like taxes, yet not all regions were created the same, what may seem like light taxes in the Yangtsi Delta could be an insurmontable burdon elsewhere, yet the ability to micro adjust to such problems was nearly impossible before modern times. This included monetary. issues. when the Song was pressed south they were probably the only Chinese dynasty to have a relatively sustained and successful use of advanced monetaries (and it still back fired in the end).

The history text books might tell you that the Chinese were the first to invent paper money, it doesn't tell the second half of the story though, that most of the attempts to use these paper money ended up in failures, and the later dynasties basically gave up on it altogether ( Ming onward, the Ming's paper money basically failed by the end of their first emperor, and was given up on altogether mid way through, in fact the Ming and Qing were operating on NO offical money for most of their time.), traditionalist might explain this away with corruption or Confucian mind set, but the realtiy is hardly that. it had much more to do with the problem of attempting to insert unified rule over a large state without modern tools.

Thus it is much less surprising that the Song and the 5 dynasty /10 states era actually offered a better economic / social / technological development then later large dynasties. because the diversity of region they were ruling is more limited, thus more realistic laws and policy can be implemented effectively, the little noted Kingdom of Min in modern day Fujian actually had a pretty advanced naval commerce policy, why? because they were only in that region so they were acutely aware of their need, and would not end up sacrificing certain regions' interest supposedly for the greater good (see the Ming's sea commerce policy.. aka total sea ban)

Originally Posted by rhino123

One fair word to put in. Of course the collapse of a dynasty was not just due to mere corruption and incompetence of the government. But it actually contribute in a vast part to the collapse of the dynasty or empire or country or whatever you want to call it.

There are huge number of factors involved, factors that we might not see in history books, unless someone went deep into research, there are bound have some information out there.

What I can think of is:

1) Corruption and incompetence of the government
2) External Factors, like stronger and/or more aggressive neighbours or external forces
3) Natural disasters
4) civil war and revolution (which not necessary mean the current government are useless).
5) Peaceful evolution (not that there are many example, but we cannot deny its existence, can we?)

Of course there are other factors, and I believe these are factors that actually lead to downfall of some of the dynasties even in China.

when thinking about China, always think in terms of peasant question, when thinking about peasant question, always think in terms of land. that's the one million dollar advise i took from my mentor.

usually the state is weakened when for whatever reason (many of which you have enumerated) peasants lose their land, they move around and become "liu min". these ppl usually form the main body for uprisings. peasants with land usually like to stick to their land.

Originally Posted by pla101prc

when thinking about China, always think in terms of peasant question, when thinking about peasant question, always think in terms of land. that's the one million dollar advise i took from my mentor.

usually the state is weakened when for whatever reason (many of which you have enumerated) peasants lose their land, they move around and become "liu min". these ppl usually form the main body for uprisings. peasants with land usually like to stick to their land.

Interesting. Would you say then that the millions of migrant workers that we have in China today would be a potential source of problem?

Actually, I kind of support what pla101prc had mentioned. Historically, China is an agricultural country right up to Shang Dynasty... that say, most people in China are actually farmers. And farmers didn't care of whatever, all they care about is their land, in which they grow their crops.

And when we look at it this way, why do farmers or people wanted to grow crops? Not for the fun of it or neither was it their hobby. It was for survival... for food... and later on when trading become more common, they use their crops to exchange for money or other nessessity. So if there are no land left for these farmers for whatever reasons, they would lost their mean of survival and what was left was either to die or to rebel against the current government.

In today's society, of course we do not see much of this happening, even in China. There are a couple of reasons for it...

1) lesser farmers
2) farmers had food to eat and would not starve to death like in the past.
3) Other industries that had been developed
4) More money for everyone to spent.

And in recent decades, China had also slowly moved out from being a purely agriculture nation to a multi-industries nations. And their GDP is no longer just revolve around crops and vegetables, or animals.

Thus the word 'land' in this case can be swifted not only to meaning "plots of land physically where you build your houses and plant your crops" to "Social Security, food, money, health benefits, etc"

Chinese commoners or many other commoners in the world are actually quite simple... as long as they could survive and do not starve... then it is alright. And later on... as long as they have spare cash and that their life is taken care of, then it is okay...

I was searching for other stuff on the net and found this nice old threat.
Among all the arguments it seems to have escaped that early firearms were highly inaccurate, the smaller, the more pronounced that was. In Europe you had the advantage of infantry lines and blocks opposing each other long enough and thus enough targets to hit at a short distance with devastating effect. If Chinese opponents were not of the opinion to line up for lengthy infantry combat the personal firearms of arquebus style were rather useless. Usefull tools were only artillery and bombs among which the rocket arrows can be counted because of their peculiar engine. The famous rocket arrows do in the early times did not have conventional rocket engines, but are propelled by an explosive discharge with high speed over a short distance. This combination can be used for short range high intensity discharges of a rocket thrower or as modified arrows shot by conventional means with extreme penetration power due to terminal acceleration. A lasting influence of this Chinese approach was that Chinese rocket engines retained an explosive first stage that ignited the longer burning second flight stage. This is a sensible idea because rocket engine efficiency increases with speed and constructing an engine capable of take off without an explosive primer is more difficult. A different approach were short distance blackpowder projectile throwers. As far as I know, this was not solved with the invention of the pistol, but a multishot engine derived from early hand cannon models. That's a good solution if you take the application of firearms as clubs into account and the inaccuracy with increasing distance. That Europe developed pistols out of their hand cannons and China, that for long had known the pistol crossbow, didn't is an interesting, but minor fact.
There were very effective Chinese weapons against the threat environment they faced. That the arquebus could be improved into a breech loading rifle was no way evident from the start and for centuries China could praise themselves on having developed an efficient world class blackpowder warfare system. The problems start when it becomes evident that an infantry gunpowder weapon with long range accuracy is required and that more and more enemy ships came that carried an armament beyond the regular levels of the Western Pacific and previously Indian Ocean. This surprise at naval transported artillery from the seemingly more militant Atlantic waters, was a shock for everyone and China's not countering in equal terms has to do with the politics of keeping this nation occupied that is evident by the very different attitude of the native Ming dynasty. Why China could be conquered and occupied for so long, is an intriguing question, because they were no underdeveloped backwater. Chinese could then label themselves truly the greatest nation in population numbers and productive capacity with the quality of their products sought after and admired worldwide.

Kurt,

I do not like to view China as a continuous homogeneous country. China had until very recently been an empire; unlike the roman, Persian, Macedonian empires which disintergrated; China held on.

How this play into gun powder is; well china had very effective bombs, rockets and mines. China's enemies are generally nomadic, what is the point of having a rigid firing line? the Asiatic calvary will simply run away and return when your riflemen are tired lugging that piece of steel around. Hence, calvary is still considered useful in the Napoleonic wars.

China had a great assortment of grenades to be used against horses at medium ranges which mounted archers usually fight. They had incendiary bombs, fragmentation, smoke etc.

Why lug around / develop cannons which is hard to lug around in the swamps of southern china or the vast planes of northern China or the mountains of the west when your traction cataput is lighter, have a better rate of fire, is more accurate and can land high explosive shells which were generally more adequate for the task? The lost of the seige cannon technology line proved to be a huge set back; but it is perfectly understandably why it didn't catch on.

Naval wise, if the Ming did not neglect her navy and the Qing not so land minded, A chinese war junk is pretty formidable on the high seas. each traction catapult can launch projectiles at a much bigger arc of fire than cannons can. All wooden ships are vulnerable to HE shells and incidary shells as shown in the Russo-Turkish war.

I think it is just a different approach to explosive weapons.

I also think you should look closer at the waning years of the Ming, The Qing took China after the Ming was many years into a civil war/revolt; Infact, the Capital was lost to the rebels prior to the Manchu invasion.

The Ming in that state was not easily conquered as well, resistance was offered for an additional 40 years after the official fall of the Ming; most certainly not a cake walk.

Originally Posted by Lezt

Kurt,

I do not like to view China as a continuous homogeneous country. China had until very recently been an empire; unlike the roman, Persian, Macedonian empires which disintergrated; China held on.

This is something I disagree with you, vast majority of the Chinese for many hundreds of years, consider themselves to be one race which is unlike Roman, Persian and the Arab empires, they make clear distinction of the conquer race/class vs the conquered people, and never really made any effort in integrating them as well as China did. Even when China was at the most chaotic times in history, which was many, in the end, one power is still able to conquer and unite the fragmented people together, this is clearly NOT the case for Rome, Persian and the Arabs. After their empire break out, all the independent people never had any desires to form together. And during many times of China's chaos, it was just as bad as the post fragmentation of those other empires, but yet in the end, they still come together.

Maybe you want to argue that people all over China only until recently have many different customs or even languages, but this has much to do with the distance and lack of technology as anything else. But even then, people still have a strong identity that they belong to one race, that there is only one ruler under the heavens.

Or maybe you want to say that the Qing's acquisition of the Xinjiang or China's acquisition of Tibet make them an Empire, may that be so, but they represent less than 5% of overall China's population, vast majority of the Chinese today in China still hold very strongly that they belong to one race of people.