Alexander VS Qin dynasty

[Raptoreyes]

going in from southwest, from india, he'll have to climb some of the highest mountains in the world, and travel across the tibet plateau...which means a huge chunk of his men wont make it and/or they get lost and starve to death,even if the army does survive there will be no logistics available for them. going in from afghanistan means they'll have to walk through the desert of Xinjiang and then Qinghai, which means a huge chunk of his men wont make it and/or they get lost and starve to death,even if the army does survive there will be no logistics available for them. even if they get through those they'll be fighting in Sichuan, which means they'll be fighting in mountains, alexander's phalanx and calvary will be useless...on top of that he is fighting against roughly a million men. the only good thing about this is that if he makes it through all those terrains, he is pretty close to Qin capital because back then Qin capital is in what is now Xi An. which is pretty close to those moutain areas in Sichuan. so if i knew China and i was alexander's advisor i'll likely recommend against invading China...though he'll prolly cut my head off and the western historians later on will describe me as a coward...so actually i'll not tell him everything and laugh when his army gets owned lol.

A mountain range and two desserts. No wonder Alexander tried for India first. One could not ask for terrain more favorable to the defense then about a thousand miles of trackless dessert and mountains. Well you know what they say... good fences make good neighbors. Its a wonder enough cultural transmission happened between the Hellenistic world and China to see Greek style statues with Chinese features. I guess artists and merchants can be more bold then warriors under the right conditions a map or two of a less desolate wrote through the merciless wilderness. Likely as not the cultural transmission of Greek artistic styles even briefly to China took place via India.

 

[crobato]

Alexander if he has to go through the deserts in the northwest, will have to deal with proto-Hun tribes which will eat them alive.

 

[pla101prc]

Alexander if he has to go through the deserts in the northwest, will have to deal with proto-Hun tribes which will eat them alive.

yes if he has to go through the "alleyway" of the northwest, which is modern day Xinjiang he'll be running right into Xiongni territory. but assume that he does not, he'll be trying to do what hannibal did.

 

[handifei880210]

some relic of roman troops were found in GanSu province, China. these soldiers fled to China after defeated by Parthian troops. most important, this small troop fight with Han dynasty's army, they were entangled into the Huns and Han dynasty's conflict. i'm wondering, no Alexander's soldiers fled to China when they camp in India?

 

[getready]

i remember reading a few good threads about this hypothetical confrontation a few yrs back in chinahistoryforum.com, but iirc, the discussion there was whether Alexander could theorectically invade china.

let me see if i can still locate that thread.

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i think i found it

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basically according to the resident expert Borjigin Ayurbarwada (formerly warhead) whom i respect greatly as a knowledgeable poster, it would be strategically impossible for Alexander to invade china.

however since this thread is not about Alexander and his army marching towards china, for the sake of discussion, i believe, unlike in the chf thread, we can ignore the need for a secure base of operation and the logistical impossibility of his army reaching china.

 

[Spike]

Personally, I believe that the chinese numbers may be a fair bit inflated.
I do not see a difference between contemporary European chronologists claiming that "one Million Persians attacked Greece" and Chinese Historians claiming "450.000 Zhou troops were killed in one battle".
I mean, the Chinese Historians is propably less far off (because at least the manpower was available, the logistics? URGHHH, you are talking about supplying armies larger than the Grande Armee in sometimes not healthy terrain with Iron Age technology! A seemingly impossible feat imho).

I believe the PVA during the Korean war was supplied mostly by animals and porters transporting supplies in baskets on foot, in the winter (with Siberian winds). Communications were done with bugles, whistles, gongs, and runners. There was the odd radio and truck but they were vastly insufficient. Nevertheless, it's not impossible to think that Chinese states were able to support large armies on their home territories.

 

[Mightypeon]

I think that you significantly underestimate the PVAs logistic abilities if you compare them with the logistic abilities of the Qin dynasty, which propably were quite formidable too.

Secondly, lands did, on average, get richer in the last 2000 years.
Supplying 200K troops in modern day Korea would be significantly easier than supplying 200K troop in Korea 2000 years ago.

 

[zraver]

It was only later on, after the invention of the stirrup did heavy cavalry forces make their appearance.

Incorrect, the Macedonian Companions were lancers including some who used the 18' Sarrissa pike and they did it without stirrups. The shock of being hit with shock cavalry (lancers) and later ongoing Hellenic heavy cavalry is directly responsible for the development of the Parthian Cataphract.

 

[FriedRiceNSpice]

Incorrect, the Macedonian Companions were lancers including some who used the 18' Sarrissa pike and they did it without stirrups. The shock of being hit with shock cavalry (lancers) and later ongoing Hellenic heavy cavalry is directly responsible for the development of the Parthian Cataphract.

No, Macedonian Companions did not charge into battle. The only reason they had to use such long spears is to maintain distance between them and enemy infantry in order to compensate for their inability to charge into enemy infantry formations. Charging with a 18' pike would dismount the rider: the Companions only charged to close the distance between enemy forces so that they could avoid fire from enemy skirmishers and missile troops. Furthermore the Companions were not noted for being heavily armored.

 

[zraver]

No, Macedonian Companions did not charge into battle. The only reason they had to use such long spears is to maintain distance between them and enemy infantry in order to compensate for their inability to charge into enemy infantry formations.

Source? because your claim would make no sense given what we know of the formations they used- the wedge and diamond/rhomboid. If they suddenly stopped the bulk of the formation would be out of contact while only an extremely small part of the formation could clumsily stab at the superior numbers and more mobile infantry.

Period tomb art

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and a Roman Mosiac

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Both clearly show the lance being used to deliver a charge.

The Alexander sarcophagus shows much the same. while it would have been suicide to charge a group of organized hoplites, the same cannot be said of light infantry and tribesmen.

Charging with a 18' pike would dismount the rider:

Source?

the Companions only charged to close the distance between enemy forces so that they could avoid fire from enemy skirmishers and missile troops.

The evidence does not support that claim.

Furthermore the Companions were not noted for being heavily armored.

100% disagree, while they had to provide their own armor so the amount of protection could vary, the Macedonian companions did not use shields and instead relied on body armor. From 60 pound plus Bronze to laminate styles like the Linothorax all of which were quite capable of good protection. For example, Alexander's personal armor stopped an arrow that would have otherwise killed him from a recurve horn bow.