The Military of Southern Song

vesicles said:

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.

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The difference is, the Han, Sui, and Tang dynasties *did* have sources of horse production, even if it's less than those of the nomads. The South Song dynasty, on the other hand, had a severe shortage of horses and had to rely almost exclusively on infantry.

As for Zhu Yuanzhang, there are two key differences. During his rebellion, the Yuan Mongols had been thoroughly corrupted by their comfortable existence in China, and their discipline and skill, while still significant, was not comparable to their forebearers that rode with Genghis and Kublai. Further, Zhu and the other rebel leaders were able to mobilize almost the entire Han population, instead of South Song who had to work with only half a kingdom.

I believe Ming also had significant difficulties with the Mongols.

siegecrossbow said:

Solarz I think you are underestimating the logistic difficulties of mounting a major strike up North.

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By "north", I don't mean north of the Great Wall. I meant north of the Yellow River.