The Military of Southern Song

Just my own personal thoughts:

I think the Mongols gained a lot of advantage after conquering Jin, due to siege weapon technology and Chinese commanders that knows siege warfare.

Mongols changed their method after conquest of Jin so that surrendering commanders and their areas of command were spared.

There are quite a bit of Chinese commanders/troops willing to switch allegiance or be bought off. In fact I think the general who wiped out the last Song fleet came from Song Dynasty.

Presence of Chinese commanders and artisans probably means that technology wise, the mongols are not that behind, just that they focus on different aspect of warfare.

Song commanders are defensive and would not go out on the offense like Yue fei, so they were eventually wore down.

Song is economically and technologically advanced and rich in resource, but little means of utilizing them effectively for war.

Look at it this way.

Cavalry provide troops with great mobility. The Song military commanders actually won around 70% of battles against foreign invaders. However they are not able to capitalize on their success. When they fail, however, the results are often catastrophic.

Originally Posted by siegecrossbow

Look at it this way.

Cavalry provide troops with great mobility. The Song military commanders actually won around 70% of battles against foreign invaders. However they are not able to capitalize on their success. When they fail, however, the results are often catastrophic.

Yes, that is the argument. However, it doesn't take into account the huge disparity in resources between the two civilizations. The Song outnumbered the Mongols at least 100 to 1, and pushing north would have taken them into well settled lands. The advantage of cavalry lies mainly in field battles. The infantry of Song could have taken advantage of the existing fortifications of the north, and add their own to it to cut down the maneuvering field of the Mongols. It's a tactic that was espoused by Yuan Chengzhi against the Qing, except that Yuan wanted to do it beyond the Ming borders, where logistics and supply would have been more difficult.

So was it simply because the Song rulers did not think this way?

Originally Posted by no_name

Just my own personal thoughts:

I think the Mongols gained a lot of advantage after conquering Jin, due to siege weapon technology and Chinese commanders that knows siege warfare.

Mongols changed their method after conquest of Jin so that surrendering commanders and their areas of command were spared.

There are quite a bit of Chinese commanders/troops willing to switch allegiance or be bought off. In fact I think the general who wiped out the last Song fleet came from Song Dynasty.

Presence of Chinese commanders and artisans probably means that technology wise, the mongols are not that behind, just that they focus on different aspect of warfare.

Song commanders are defensive and would not go out on the offense like Yue fei, so they were eventually wore down.

Song is economically and technologically advanced and rich in resource, but little means of utilizing them effectively for war.

Yes, you are right of course, but why didn't the Song push to reclaim their lands when Genghis Khan began attacking the Jin? They just sat there and allowed Mongol troops to conquer the entire northern China.

Originally Posted by solarz

Yes, you are right of course, but why didn't the Song push to reclaim their lands when Genghis Khan began attacking the Jin? They just sat there and allowed Mongol troops to conquer the entire northern China.

Again my personal opinion:

-They didn't expect mongols to be so effective.

-What happened to Yue Fei set a bad precedence and the military and imperial court becomes even more divided.

- They figured that if Jin couldn't take over them, the mongols couldn't do so easily either, and the subsequent fight with mongol was still a long hard one.

-They didn't expect mongols to bypass by going after sichuan first.

Originally Posted by solarz

Yes, that is the argument. However, it doesn't take into account the huge disparity in resources between the two civilizations. The Song outnumbered the Mongols at least 100 to 1, and pushing north would have taken them into well settled lands. The advantage of cavalry lies mainly in field battles. The infantry of Song could have taken advantage of the existing fortifications of the north, and add their own to it to cut down the maneuvering field of the Mongols. It's a tactic that was espoused by Yuan Chengzhi against the Qing, except that Yuan wanted to do it beyond the Ming borders, where logistics and supply would have been more difficult.

So was it simply because the Song rulers did not think this way?

The Mongols and Jurchens have everything to gain by conquering the wealthy Southern China. What does China have to gain by campaigning against the Northern Barbarians???

Originally Posted by siegecrossbow

The Mongols and Jurchens have everything to gain by conquering the wealthy Southern China. What does China have to gain by campaigning against the Northern Barbarians???

Not being annihilated, for one.

For the other, they wouldn't be campaigning against norther barbarians, they would be campaigning to reclaim their lost territories, including their source of horse production.

Originally Posted by no_name

Again my personal opinion:

-They didn't expect mongols to be so effective.

-What happened to Yue Fei set a bad precedence and the military and imperial court becomes even more divided.

- They figured that if Jin couldn't take over them, the mongols couldn't do so easily either, and the subsequent fight with mongol was still a long hard one.

-They didn't expect mongols to bypass by going after sichuan first.

Yes, it does seem like a certain degree of myopia was involved. Still, Southern Song's repeated reluctance to reclaim its lost lands is rather strange. No matter how effective the Mongols were, they still took time pacifying the Jin. During this time, the Song could easily have sent forth legions and started fortifying.

But then, if the Song had actually done that, would they have been successful? (Assuming leadership by a competent general.)

I suppose staying down south too long spoils you, like today SK will find it hell of a lot work to rebuild NK.

Also I think we need to see history as written from the view of the elites, rather than the commoner (though they try sound like as if the two equates one another ). We need to ask that if a different ruler, even if one of a different ethnicity takes over, does that really change significantly the life of a normal farmer, especially back in the days where the the world is not as interconnected? Of course, the elites have everything to lose, but they would just have as much to lose to another competitor of the same ethnicity.

Also, the early Yuan were less corrupt than the late S.Song.

In my opinion, it's about the politics. If you notice, there had been so many powerful states rising in the north in the Song dynasty. This had never happened before or after the Song dynasty. It was the weak song govn't that allowed the rise of all those northern states. This all originated from the founding emperor of the Song dynasty. As he was a commanding general in the late Zhou empire and later rose against his lord, he naturally distrusted his generals. He was seriously worried about one of his generals would follow his example and kicked him or his offsprings off the throne (in fact, his own brother did exactly that). Additionally, the mighty Tang dynasty before him fell because of powerful warlords. So he deviced a system that would weaken the power of those generals stationed near border. These generals had to do a 3-year rotation. This means the longest time a general could spend in one location was 3 years. Then he had to move to elsewhere. This system means no general can stay in one place long enough to establish his influence and his power base. Although this system worked as designed, one side effect of this is that the commanding generals usually had little clue of the capabilities of the generals under his command, no clue of the condition of his troops, no clue of the terrain he was in. Clueless generals =weak army near border = weak border. Without the strong Song army to hold down those minor states, like what previous dynasties did, these minor states got the opportunity of their life and began to grow stronger. This would be the source of all sorts of trouble that Song dynasty had to face throughout its existence.

If Song allowed its generals stationed along its northern border to develop its military like all the previous Chinese dynasties, like Han and Tang, Liao would not be in existence, Jin would not be in existence, Mongol would still be scattered tribes.

Someone might point out that China had always been troubled by its neighbors in the north since its first existence. Yes, that is true. The nomad tribes in the north had always annoyed China. However, they mostly stayed as annoyance, nothing more. The northern nomads were mostly like ants in your backyard. They bite you and make you itch and you hate them. But you never have to worry about them destroying your house and endanger your life. This is because you hire people to apply pesticides in your backyard all the time. It was the Song dynasty policy to have unstable and weak border military that gave them a chance to multiply into a plague that ultimately consumed China.

To continue what I left off above, the Song dynasty always distrust its military. No general in Song dynasty was allowed to develop his army and complete his mission. As soon as he was a little successful on the battlefield, he was either removed from his post (if he was lucky), or he ended up like Yue Fei. All this distrust came from the founding emperor of the song dynasty. All the following emperors faithfully followed their ancestor's advice and simply refused to give any chance to any capable generals. That's why they could not capitalize on their success. Once a battle was won, the general was immediately ordered back so that he could not gain too much influence and respect and admiration from the military and the populace. Just like Yue Fei, he was ordered to pull back his army when he was called back to the capital, giving up ALL the lands he had won during all the successful campaigns. Then the Jin army simply marched back and took the lands back without even fighting. That was why Song dynasty could never capitalize on their success. Tis was all because the emperors were worried about losing control.

So do you think that if South Song had the political determination, they could have pushed north against the Mongols?

Originally Posted by solarz

So do you think that if South Song had the political determination, they could have pushed north against the Mongols?

Yes, I think so. Like you said, the resources that the Momgol had was simply no match to the Chinese. And the Song army was winning 75% of the battles with the Mongolians. If the song dynasty gave them the political support, the song army would no doubt prevail.

Someone might think otherwise because the Mongolians were unstoppable in Europe as well. Well, Europe was divided and scattered and leaderless. It was and still is full of small independent nations, which, individually, was no match to the Mongolians who was by itself larger than most of the European states. And they stayed divided throughout the period. China was different. It was HUGE, financially, socially and militarily.

Just think of all the political and social support the PVA had during the Korean war, which was a huge reason that China could fight the Americans to a stalemate. The CCP leadership was determined to fight the Americans. They threw everything they've got into the fight. It's this support that ultimately won it for the Chinese. Imagine what the song army could do if they had similar support. Yet, what the Song generals got was their emperors doubting them, distrusting them, and wanting them all dead, all at the same they were trying to save the empire... How can anyone win with this political nightmare?

Of course, there is many tactical issues that prevent people from agreeing with me in that Song army could beat the Mongolians. The first if such issues would be the horses. Well, the northern nomads had owned the chivalry advantage over China for over a thousand years before Song dynasty. That never prevented the previous Chinese dynasties from effectively keeping the nomads outside of China. Additionally, the rebellion, mostly farmers, led by Zhu Yuanzhang (the founder of the Ming dynasty) was much poorly equipped than any of their Song army predecessors. Yet, they were able to push the Mongolians out of China and keep the entire state of Mongol under control for hundreds of years.