Greatest warriors of ancient China

vesicles

vesicles

Colonel
Kurt said:
and Viking elite Ninja killing Spartans.

Roland, Achilles, Hector and Horatio Cocles are fictional characters like Rambo, Terminator and Riddick.

Let's do it systematic. What does define a great warrior and who are then the greatest warriors? Some names you heard in a fairy tale or read in the tabloids?
So what must a warrior do to be great?
Is a warrior great because he has outstanding physical abilities or is a warrior great because he trained to acquire these?
Is a warrior great because he has physical abilities or is he great because he pushed his acquired high abilities to the limit?
Leading other warriors requires lots of training, constraint and and logistic calculations to then motivate them to achieve something extraordinary.

Alexander the Great for example was by no means the greatest nor the sole great warrior in the West, rather he had an outstanding army with even more outstanding logistics that included various necessary items, but hardly much beyond necessary means and valuable plunder. The Chinese clashes with the Greeco-Bactrian kingdom do by no means count as invasions to Europe's door, nor are the connections between the Hsiung-Nu and the Huns clear. It seems a few people left the Eastern part of Eurasia and moved West, but never a people as large as the whole Hsiung Nu or Hsiung Nu at all. The Huns were rather some hardheads who wanted to continue their way of live by living of others' toils and thought the West a suitable playground. If they had not impressed others to join them on their plunder tours they would hardly have been worth more than a sidenote and that's why their federation so easily broke down.
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Well, the statement I made was "Huo Qubing chased the Huns out of Asia"; and "Chinese army went as far as east Europe and central Asia". These are historical facts with archeological evidence to back it up. And about Huns, that fact is they DID impress others to join them, which says something about their political skills. And the woulda, coulda, shoulda are meaningless since the fact is fact. E Huns did terrorize Europe for hundreds of years.

No one questioned the military ingenious of Western commanders. This is NOT the topic of this thread. We are discussing CHINESE warriors, not comparing Chinese warriors with western ones.
 
Kurt

Kurt

Junior Member
vesicles said:
Well, the statement I made was "Huo Qubing chased the Huns out of Asia"; and "Chinese army went as far as east Europe and central Asia". These are historical facts with archeological evidence to back it up. And about Huns, that fact is they DID impress others to join them, which says something about their political skills. And the woulda, coulda, shoulda are meaningless since the fact is fact. E Huns did terrorize Europe for hundreds of years.

No one questioned the military ingenious of Western commanders. This is NOT the topic of this thread. We are discussing CHINESE warriors, not comparing Chinese warriors with western ones.
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Where is the evidence for a connection between Huns and Hsiung Nu? So far it was just based on names sounding similar while the Hunnic material culture showed they came from somewhere else in Central Asia.
Chinese troops in Eastern Europe? That sounds nuts. The Journey to the West by was peril enough, except if you count two soldiers arriving there as an army or do you mean the Mongol raids? Otherwise the Chinese were able to claim Samarkand in Central Asia for a few centuries.
 
L

Lezt

Junior Member
Kurt said:
Where is the evidence for a connection between Huns and Hsiung Nu? So far it was just based on names sounding similar while the Hunnic material culture showed they came from somewhere else in Central Asia.
Chinese troops in Eastern Europe? That sounds nuts. The Journey to the West by was peril enough, except if you count two soldiers arriving there as an army or do you mean the Mongol raids? Otherwise the Chinese were able to claim Samarkand in Central Asia for a few centuries.
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I am not sure if any Chinese army made it to Europe, but then again a Roman Legion might have made it to China. Rome had an embassy in China in 166 AD. I don't know.

I mean, we are looking at a generation of soldiers who were dedicated and professional; The journey may be perilous, but by no means impossible. Hannibal lost ~20K men across the alps, Mao lost 70K men in the long march. Both Mao and Hannibal brought men on foot a long distance, Mao maybe around 5000 km, Hannibal, around 1500 km. Technically the Edge of China to the Edge of Europe is around 1000 km and the marches each commander made is through hostile country with treacherous landscape. It is entirely conceivable that a sizable force may have transited through central Asia in ancient times. Central Asia is too fluid to really know what have happened over that piece of land.
 
vesicles

vesicles

Colonel
Kurt said:
Where is the evidence for a connection between Huns and Hsiung Nu? So far it was just based on names sounding similar while the Hunnic material culture showed they came from somewhere else in Central Asia.
Chinese troops in Eastern Europe? That sounds nuts. The Journey to the West by was peril enough, except if you count two soldiers arriving there as an army or do you mean the Mongol raids? Otherwise the Chinese were able to claim Samarkand in Central Asia for a few centuries.
Click to expand...

Well, Mongols definitely went to Europe. No doubt about that. About the Han dynasty army, there are records of Han Chinese army fighting the Roman legions. There is actually an ancient village in China composed of almost entirely Caucasians in the modern-day Shanxi province. Even now-a-days, people living around the area have Caucasian traits. These evidence suggest that China and Romans met and fought. These Caucasians living in China might be POWs captured by the Chinese in battles against Huns. It was suspected that some Roman mercenaries joined Huns in Central Asia and consequentially fought the Chinese. So Chinese did fight the Huns. Also, Huns and Xiong Nu are the one and the same. And it was the Chinese who pushed Huns out of Central Asia.

Here is a piece suggesting that the lost Roman First Legion might finally settled in China because they became POWs in battles between the Chinese and Huns who joined forces with the Legionnaires.

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Here is another discussion on the topic in Chinese. Of course, as you can see, this hypothesis is very controversial. However, no one doubts that fact that Chinese fought and defeated the Huns.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
 
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D

delft

Brigadier
"Ceasar was the greatest warrior. He said so himself"

What kind of evidence do we have to compare these warriors?
 
solarz

solarz

Brigadier
delft said:
"Ceasar was the greatest warrior. He said so himself"

What kind of evidence do we have to compare these warriors?
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None whatsoever, of course. The question is loaded to begin with and cannot be answered if you just stuck to reality. In the end, the Spartans were wiped out by the Persians, and the Vikings were driven off by the Amerindians.
 
Kurt

Kurt

Junior Member
vesicles said:
Well, Mongols definitely went to Europe. No doubt about that. About the Han dynasty army, there are records of Han Chinese army fighting the Roman legions. There is actually an ancient village in China composed of almost entirely Caucasians in the modern-day Shanxi province. Even now-a-days, people living around the area have Caucasian traits. These evidence suggest that China and Romans met and fought. These Caucasians living in China might be POWs captured by the Chinese in battles against Huns. It was suspected that some Roman mercenaries joined Huns in Central Asia and consequentially fought the Chinese. So Chinese did fight the Huns. Also, Huns and Xiong Nu are the one and the same. And it was the Chinese who pushed Huns out of Central Asia.

Here is a piece suggesting that the lost Roman First Legion might finally settled in China because they became POWs in battles between the Chinese and Huns who joined forces with the Legionnaires.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!


Here is another discussion on the topic in Chinese. Of course, as you can see, this hypothesis is very controversial. However, no one doubts that fact that Chinese fought and defeated the Huns.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
Click to expand...

That story is about Roman POW being transferred east by the Parthian victors after the debacle of Carrhae
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. It's not about any Han army marching to Rome. The contact between Rome, Byzantium and China was diplomatic and there were some failed concerted alliance ideas to fight the Muslim caliphate that had expelled the Han from their Central Asian holdings. Military contact between Chinese and European combat concepts was limited to the Chinese raids of the Graeco-Bactrians and the aforementioned Roman POW.

Let's get back to the ancient great warriors of China. I had this discussion because of the constant mispresentation of Western and Southern Eurasian military history in order to make a point about Eastern Eurasian military history. The guys in the middle, the Parthians for example, were impressed both by Roman as well as Chinese arms and armour that their military elite of heavy cavalry employed.
How do you define a great warrior? What must he have achieved in order to be ranked among them?
 
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vesicles

vesicles

Colonel
Kurt said:
That story is about Roman POW being transferred east by the Parthian victors after the debacle of Carrhae
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
. It's not about any Han army marching to Rome. The contact between Rome, Byzantium and China was diplomatic and there were some failed concerted alliance ideas to fight the Muslim caliphate that had expelled the Han from their Central Asian holdings. Military contact between Chinese and European combat concepts was limited to the Chinese raids of the Graeco-Bactrians and the aforementioned Roman POW.

Let's get back to the ancient great warriors of China. I had this discussion because of the constant mispresentation of Western and Southern Eurasian military history in order to make a point about Eastern Eurasian military history. The guys in the middle, the Parthians for example, were impressed both by Roman as well as Chinese arms and armour that their military elite of heavy cavalry employed.
How do you define a great warrior? What must he have achieved in order to be ranked among them?
Click to expand...

I never said anything about the Chinese marching to Rome. All I said was some roman mercenaries joining the Huns in fighting against the Chinese. The point I am attempting to prove is that Chinese fought the Huns. I was responding to your argument that the Huns and Xiong nu were different people and the Chinese never met Huns. The archeological and genetic evidence show that Chinese did fight the Huns.
 
D

duncanidaho

Junior Member
Kurt said:
The contact between Rome, Byzantium and China was diplomatic and there were some failed concerted alliance ideas to fight the Muslim caliphate that had expelled the Han from their Central Asian holdings.
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During the reign of the Han, no muslim Caliphate existed in the world.
 
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