Alexander VS Qin dynasty

solarz · Apr 29, 2013

Kurt said:
Let's try to find some details, how could 600,000 men communicate to do something in an organized manner?

For one thing, a single pitched battle with more hundreds of thousands of men on each side is a rare thing even in Chinese history. The numbers cited are the troop strengths for a *campaign*.

Look at this list:

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You will see that most battles that are documented feature strengths in the tens of thousands.

And indeed, communication and organization problems do arise in poorly commanded humongous armies. There are quite a few instances in Chinese history, the most famous of which is probably the Battle of Fei River, where an army in the hundreds of thousands is defeated by an enemy 1/10 of its size.

Medieval European campaigns were fought over single kingdoms or even fiefdoms. Not since the Roman Empire and not until Napoleon did a general try to take on the entire continent. The entire kingdom of France, for example, is the size of a Chinese province, and is far less densely populated. That means much fewer strongholds and garrisons to hold.

That said, we have pretty recent evidence of large armies maneuvering. Take the Korean War, for example. The initial Chinese push consisted of hundreds of thousands of troops, but they were spread out into numerous spearheads all attacking simultaneously. Though they had radio, communication still relied largely on ancient methods such as bugles. The PVA compensated with iron disicipline and a strict adherence to commands and timetables. I.E. if the general orders 2 armies to sweep through enemies and meet up on a certain date, then those armies *will* meet up on that date, even at the cost of huge casualties.

Lezt · Apr 29, 2013

Kurt said:
I make no claim on training standards. Take a different perspective, training for violence can start in early childhood and exclude other specializations. That's quite typical for a nobility of warriors, be it Spartans, later day samurai (not ashigaru), Spartans or European knights (not sergeants). There are full time specialists, ther are trained specialists and there can be little trained supporters.´The Spartan army consisted mostly of light armed helots who supported the Spartans, perioici and later mercenaries or freed former helots.
In Eastern Asia the Chinese early on invented the wheelbarrow. It's logistics that make or break army size and in Europe you have to take into account the prodigous amount of grain consumed by riding and transport animals during a campaign. This results in a corresponding army size and campaign structure. Reduce per one horse and kep in mind that a rider needs several horses and you get at least 4 infantrymen per horse, not even conting all the mules and donkeys. Thus a typical European army that was heavily dependent on equids could more than quadruple with Chinese wheelbarrows.
It's likely that there exist wrong self perceptions and prejudices on all sides of this landmass.
Let's try to find some details, how could 600,000 men communicate to do something in an organized manner?
How did they feed? The handcart idea was tried in the American West as well and did not convince. View attachment 7778
I do still have doubts that the mentioned numbers of Chinese armies ar accurate. Can you please show some real research on how they handled maneuver and communication? From European experience they must have operated as several smaller independent armies in one theater of operations, but they might have pulled it off by having "their battles" as close as possible. Other people did the same by dividing forces under independent commanders.
Before this discussion turns into a bashing contest of nitwits, look at Portuguese Macao. How were the early Portuguese able to acquire and hold the harbour when China was still perceived far from inferior to Western Europe? What impact did this exchange have on China? Compare it to the older accounts of contact between China and Rome, the Byzantine Empire and Rome and the Muslim conquerors and Han China.

Kurt, your questions are well justified. but you only need to look at more modern wars, to see how they are could be supplied.

look at

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the interesting thing is, the PLA in this campaign, have basically minimal trucks etc. But read it up, the PLA mobolized 5 million civilian labourer to support an army of 600K regulars + 600K irregulars.

Similarly, the Tet offensive of ~500K men is supported, fed, and munition carried on foot over the hochimin trail, by 3 million civilian laborers.

A bit earlier the Taiping Rebellion, the Qing field the 8 banner army (ethnic Manchus, 250K), Green standard army (600K) 3X ethnic armies (Xiang, Hui and Chu people, total 200K). These numbers are supported by western mercenaries in Qing China; and they are supplied by... foot/horse.

Or, lets remember, Napolieon's Grand Armee; 685K french troops... that invaded Russia, is mainly supplied by horse drawn wagons...although poorly and that this is before the time of radios,

This is inline with Qin documentation, IIRC, they mobilized 3 million civilians to logistically support an army of 600K; during the Qin-Chu wars, so if modern Vietnamese and Chinese can do it on foot, why can't the ancient Chinese?

Macao...

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Portugal didn't actually win against Ming China, they were exterminated in Macao, and Portugal had to pay tribute to China to rent the Macao; untill late Qing dynasty.

delft · May 5, 2013

Kurt said:
I make no claim on training standards. Take a different perspective, training for violence can start in early childhood and exclude other specializations. That's quite typical for a nobility of warriors, be it Spartans, later day samurai (not ashigaru), Spartans or European knights (not sergeants). There are full time specialists, ther are trained specialists and there can be little trained supporters.´The Spartan army consisted mostly of light armed helots who supported the Spartans, perioici and later mercenaries or freed former helots.
In Eastern Asia the Chinese early on invented the wheelbarrow. It's logistics that make or break army size and in Europe you have to take into account the prodigous amount of grain consumed by riding and transport animals during a campaign. This results in a corresponding army size and campaign structure. Reduce per one horse and kep in mind that a rider needs several horses and you get at least 4 infantrymen per horse, not even conting all the mules and donkeys. Thus a typical European army that was heavily dependent on equids could more than quadruple with Chinese wheelbarrows.
It's likely that there exist wrong self perceptions and prejudices on all sides of this landmass.
Let's try to find some details, how could 600,000 men communicate to do something in an organized manner?
How did they feed? The handcart idea was tried in the American West as well and did not convince. View attachment 7778
I do still have doubts that the mentioned numbers of Chinese armies ar accurate. Can you please show some real research on how they handled maneuver and communication? From European experience they must have operated as several smaller independent armies in one theater of operations, but they might have pulled it off by having "their battles" as close as possible. Other people did the same by dividing forces under independent commanders.
Before this discussion turns into a bashing contest of nitwits, look at Portuguese Macao. How were the early Portuguese able to acquire and hold the harbour when China was still perceived far from inferior to Western Europe? What impact did this exchange have on China? Compare it to the older accounts of contact between China and Rome, the Byzantine Empire and Rome and the Muslim conquerors and Han China.

A bit OT.
In 1973 at a symposium commemorating a battle in 1673 in which the Dutch fleet beat the combined English and French fleets I met a professor in military history from Utrecht University, an army man ( Lt.Col. ret. ), so I asked him an army question: how was the supply of the French army organised that attacked The Netherlands in 1672 and was withdrawn in 1678. That army came by way of the Rhine and not the Meuse as French armies later generally did. Well, he had never thought about it.

I have now beside me a book about the "logistics and strategy of the Allied and especially the Dutch army during the War of the Spanish Succession in the Netherlands and in the Holy Roman Empire ( 1701-1712 ) - in Dutch ( Olaf van Nimwegen - De subsistentie van het leger - Amsterdam 1995 ). It says that most transport was by water and that the largest amount was fodder for the horses, mostly hay and straw for the draft horses as well as rye for bread for the men and oats for the cavalry horses. That needed to arrive in the base camps and part of the bread had to be baked early enough for the Dutch and British armies to take the field in the Spring before the French. The strategy followed from the logistics.

Phead128 · May 17, 2013

All I know is that ancient Chinese civilization successor state(s) has exceeded ancient Greek/Roman civilization successor state(s) in longevity. Sure the Alexander, Mongols, British, and Americans have strong military, but can they keep it for the long term like China? Pfttt... nope.

vesicles · May 19, 2013

China did not start out as this gigantic nation that it is now. Like any other nation on this planet, it started much smaller. Even after the Zhou dynasty and at the beginning of the Han dynasty, China was only, at the most, about a quarter of the current size, mostly in the eastern part of china and north of the Yangtze River. Then it grew to its current size. So as anyone could imagine, no one can "grow" to this gigantic size without a super powerful military. And certainly, no one can sustain and maintain the gigantic size of China without a super powerful military. So I don't know why people keep thinking Chinese are soft. Additionally, just look at the diaries of those western soldiers who first encountered any eastern Asian opponents on a battlefield. You will see that a universal impression is that the Asians were tough as nail. In most situations when a western opponent would have surrendered, the Asians would keep fighting to the end. Even when they realized that they could not win, they would choose suicide over surrendering. This is true throughout eastern Asia. And this kind of thinking cannot be taught in a short time period. it has been part of culture that has been drilled into people's heads for a lomg long time after many many battles fought. surrendering is shameful. and honor, your personal honor and the honor of your family, is way more important and valuable than your life. That's called tough in my book.

Quickie · Jun 7, 2013

Kurt said:
]
I do still have doubts that the mentioned numbers of Chinese armies ar accurate. Can you please show some real research on how they handled maneuver and communication?

Regarding the means of (long distance) communication in ancient times, I can recall quite a few in the case of ancient Chinese military. Examples are floating lanterns (for night time use I guess or even daytime if it's brightly coloured), kites, whistling arrows and even fireworks. During the time of Sun Tzu, war drums and flags were already commonly used for battle formation maneouvres.

Ben0 · Aug 25, 2013

pla101prc said:
well ummm you do realize the Qin army is like 10 times bigger than the macedonian army right? but not all of them are professional though.

Qin's bow will give them an early advantage, but if the Macedonians have enough soldiers left to get close, than its hard to tell.

you have to remember Alexander has a really good calvary as well. but again Qin's bow can take em out at a pretty far range and calvary werent that effective without stirrups.

in Shi Ji it is recorded that Wei had the best armour and prolly a pretty good phalanx as well, but they were still no match for Qin's army. so i guess Qin must have something that can defeat those phalanx.

overall in real life Qin would obviously win but if you have the same number of troops from each side then its hard to tell.

Has anyone heard of the gastraphetes? (heavy Greek crossbow) or the manuballista? (light Roman crossbow) or the scorpio? (heavy roman crossbow).

All were in use at the same time the Chinese "invented" the crossbow!

As a matter of fact there was a primitive non-mechanical crossbow (drawn string held by a notch & released by pushing with thumb) in use throughout the near east thousands of years before Qin!

And since there was vigorous trade between all these nations I doubt that anyone honest could say that anyone "invented" the crossbow!

Lezt · Aug 25, 2013

Ben0 said:
Has anyone heard of the gastraphetes? (heavy Greek crossbow) or the manuballista? (light Roman crossbow) or the scorpio? (heavy roman crossbow).

All were in use at the same time the Chinese "invented" the crossbow!

As a matter of fact there was a primitive non-mechanical crossbow (drawn string held by a notch & released by pushing with thumb) in use throughout the near east thousands of years before Qin!

And since there was vigorous trade between all these nations I doubt that anyone honest could say that anyone "invented" the crossbow!

Read the comments earlier, the Gastrapetes had been debated to death.

The cross bow is widely used and described in the time of Sun Tze; thats 500 BC. The first bronze cross bow trigger was discovered, 600 BCE, and "some" historian believing peices of bone being fashioned as cross bow mechanism as early as 2000 BCE; if the later is true, then would place cross bows well before greek and therefore roman times.

Who invented cross bows is not much of an issue, what is important is who fielded them; Qin and Han armies have cross bow regiments firing lines as in musket firing lines.

Simply, the Macedonian army does not have something similar to answer.

Ben0 · Aug 27, 2013

Lezt said:
Read the comments earlier, the Gastrapetes had been debated to death.

The cross bow is widely used and described in the time of Sun Tze; thats 500 BC. The first bronze cross bow trigger was discovered, 600 BCE, and "some" historian believing peices of bone being fashioned as cross bow mechanism as early as 2000 BCE; if the later is true, then would place cross bows well before greek and therefore roman times.

Who invented cross bows is not much of an issue, what is important is who fielded them; Qin and Han armies have cross bow regiments firing lines as in musket firing lines.

Simply, the Macedonian army does not have something similar to answer.

And since Qin destroyed all documents prior to his reign (as did all subsequent Chinese rulers to modern times) and had hundreds of scribes rewriting "history" I doubt that any "legendary" rulers/generals existence can by taken as anything but apocryphal! (like Bible stories).

And your assertion that to be a crossbow it must have (mass production excepted) a bronze trigger, then the gastraphetes must be a crossbow, just like the Persian model it was fashioned after (before 500 BCE) and later the Roman crossbow (at the time of Qin/the Punic wars/republican period) that had an iron trigger.

Also this harping on the antiquity of China "China" was brought into existence in the second century BCE by Qin! Prior to Qin all there was were little kingdoms, fluid borders and constant skirmishes, I hear endlessly about "5000 years of Chinese history" when the earliest traces of writing do not go back that far, and other absurd puffery like "iron crossbow bolts" think about how precious refined iron was and why would you give it away to your enemies to make arrow heads, knives and axes, etc with?

And didn't 60 minutes run an article about the schools in China teaching that the Chinese were a (separate) line than the rest of mankind?

It's all about writing your own history! We da biggest, we da bestest, we da firstest!

The truly ancient (triggerless) crossbow was still a crossbow.

solarz · Aug 27, 2013

Ben0 said:
And since Qin destroyed all documents prior to his reign (as did all subsequent Chinese rulers to modern times) and had hundreds of scribes rewriting "history" I doubt that any "legendary" rulers/generals existence can by taken as anything but apocryphal! (like Bible stories).

And your assertion that to be a crossbow it must have (mass production excepted) a bronze trigger, then the gastraphetes must be a crossbow, just like the Persian model it was fashioned after (before 500 BCE) and later the Roman crossbow (at the time of Qin/the Punic wars/republican period) that had an iron trigger.

Also this harping on the antiquity of China "China" was brought into existence in the second century BCE by Qin! Prior to Qin all there was were little kingdoms, fluid borders and constant skirmishes, I hear endlessly about "5000 years of Chinese history" when the earliest traces of writing do not go back that far, and other absurd puffery like "iron crossbow bolts" think about how precious refined iron was and why would you give it away to your enemies to make arrow heads, knives and axes, etc with?

And didn't 60 minutes run an article about the schools in China teaching that the Chinese were a (separate) line than the rest of mankind?

It's all about writing your own history! We da biggest, we da bestest, we da firstest!

The truly ancient (triggerless) crossbow was still a crossbow.

Did you even bother reading Lezt's post? Let me quote it for you again:

Who invented cross bows is not much of an issue, what is important is who fielded them; Qin and Han armies have cross bow regiments firing lines as in musket firing lines.

We have archaeological evidence, not just historical writings, that the Qin fielded entire armies with highly advanced and powerful crossbows:

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Alexander VS Qin dynasty

solarz

Brigadier

Lezt

Junior Member

delft

Brigadier

Phead128

Captain

vesicles

Colonel

Quickie

Colonel

Ben0

Just Hatched

Lezt

Junior Member

Ben0

Just Hatched

solarz

Brigadier