What were some significant military advancements in medieval and ancient China?
- Thread starter solarz
- Start date
You mean in ancient times? In ancient times, all of the armies in China is very discipline (at least in the beginning) and they do have standardised arms and equipment, like the ge, crossbows, swords, etc (example - look to the Qin army, they have their own special force, crossbow men, horse and chariots and very specific and tight formations, they use joint arms, etc). They do have standardised artillery pieces and the such.
Although they do not function like Napoleon troops, that is mainly because the strategies used are different, the culture are different and the landscape that they fought in are different.
TerraN_EmpirE
Tyrant King
A army is the product of its host government, national technology level, region and who it is targeted against. The training and equipment of said force is based on who it has faced and who it potentially will face. In order for the imperial Chinese army to have been trained and equipped like a Napoleonic army it basicly would have had to either trade with or be conquered by France.
the Chinese were in the wrong place to have a Napoleonic army.
the Chinese were in the wrong place to have a Napoleonic army.
shen
Senior Member
That's true. One problem with imperial China was always the central government was almost never able to tax sufficiently or efficiently, on a scale necessary to raise, equip and supply a powerful national army the size of Napoleonic armies. The Confucian bureaucrat gentry class, with their laissez-faire minimal taxation ideology mostly resisted imperial efforts to levy the resources necessary. Confucians argued with the rhetoric of humanism but actually safeguarding their own class interests (they were the main landowners). Example, burning of Zhen He's fleet. Even when the nominal tax rate was high, the limitations of technology (mainly transportation and communication), the vastness of the country (which amplified the technological limitations), limited the ability of the central government to collect taxes efficiently. One example, an accurate census was absolutely necessary for efficient taxation. It took several decades to conduct a complete countrywide census. It wasn't practical to conduct census more than once each dynasty at the founding of the dynasty. Usually by the time a census is complete, the information is already outdated, and if the dynasty last several centuries, well, you see the problem. With inaccurate census, the government can't adjust tax burden the areas that had significant population movement (due to natural disaster or conflicts), leading to more rebellions and falling income.
I really don't think it was possible to govern a country the size of China with the efficiency of Napoleonic France without 19th century technologies like telegraph and railroad. And even with the right technologies, China would still need something like the Meiji Restoration to smash the power of the gentry class and to have a powerful centralized government.
I really don't think it was possible to govern a country the size of China with the efficiency of Napoleonic France without 19th century technologies like telegraph and railroad. And even with the right technologies, China would still need something like the Meiji Restoration to smash the power of the gentry class and to have a powerful centralized government.
One simple question.
Are we talking about ancient China or China as of now? I mean... if we are talking about ancient China as of from the Qin era onward... say Ming Dynasty... all these occurs wayyyyyy before Napolean. So you are comparing a more or less more modern military to an ancient one. You might as well throw in Germany in Second World War and wonder how Napoleon army could reach the standards of German army in Second World War.
And if we are comparing China's old imperialistic military like in the Qin dynasty to the Ming or even early Qing Dynasty, you will find that she was not half as bad as any of the military in that time period... and maybe better in many cases.
shen
Senior Member
You are right. I overgeneralized. Chinese history is so long, what I described is not applicable to all the dynasties. Tang political organization was very different from Ming for example. I guess my last post is most applicable to the Ming dynasty, when the Confucian bureaucrats were most influential.
I wasn't directly comparing Napoleonic armies to much earlier Chinese armies, of course. My point was that even if China had Napoleonic era military technologies, the government institutions necessary to command the resources necessary to raise and support the vast armies (in proportion to population) of Napoleonic era didn't exist in China until the 20th century. Gunpowder was expensive, muskets and cannons and warships as well, not the mention the thousands of big cavalry mounts that took a lot of grain to feed. In other word, in order to have armies that operated at the efficiency of Napoleonic era, you needed a government (and economy) that operated at the efficiency of Napoleonic France.
China was simply too vast, too many people distributed over too large an area, to governor at that level without modern technologies.
about Qin army, yes, it was very powerful for its time. But remember how long, or rather how short Qin lasted. Qin levied far higher taxes than Ming or Qing, around 10% land tax (which is not high by modern standard, but remember the inefficiencies) compare to 3 to 4% in the Ming and Qing. The very short rule of Qin was used as an example by later Confucians that level of taxation (necessary to support the Qin army) wasn't sustainable.
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TerraN_EmpirE
Tyrant King
Its not just size that would have played against China in the late 18th early 19th century having armies like the grand armies of the republic, the French revolution had caused massive changes in the organization, strategy and doctrinal concepts of the French army as royal and noble heads rolled in the streets. Remember a lot of those Nobles had been top leadership so the French army was reorganized massively to make up for that loss the result was both good and bad but eventually much of the cream rose to the top. For example the young French republic during the early Napoleonic conflicts had the first black General officer, Cavalry General Alexander Dumas, who commanded French cavalry in the Egyptian expedition.
That said Napoleonic France was far from being the great nation its often romanticized into, the French had a poor navy, the wars sapped the French coffers which ironically had started was the actual cause of the French revolution in the first place. Par of the reason for the french expantion lead by the General was to fill the french treasuries with war bootie. The expeditions to Malta the Egyptian campaign were financial missions for gold and wheat. Napoleon though remembered for his great code of law stripped the rights of French blacks, he also played a key role in helping maintain French Haitian sugarcane plantation slavery which was a structure even more barbarous then American southern cotton based slavery. The Haitian slavery was they key money maker for France. Sugar was the 18th centuries oil. But Haitian uprisings constant fighting and the major European powers would end the great empire penny less with a population decimated and starving.
That said Napoleonic France was far from being the great nation its often romanticized into, the French had a poor navy, the wars sapped the French coffers which ironically had started was the actual cause of the French revolution in the first place. Par of the reason for the french expantion lead by the General was to fill the french treasuries with war bootie. The expeditions to Malta the Egyptian campaign were financial missions for gold and wheat. Napoleon though remembered for his great code of law stripped the rights of French blacks, he also played a key role in helping maintain French Haitian sugarcane plantation slavery which was a structure even more barbarous then American southern cotton based slavery. The Haitian slavery was they key money maker for France. Sugar was the 18th centuries oil. But Haitian uprisings constant fighting and the major European powers would end the great empire penny less with a population decimated and starving.
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Shen clarified the points I was trying to get at but hadn't spelled out in specific detail. In a way things seem to indicate how much the issue of organization affected Chinese military effectiveness compared to European armies of the same period during the 19th century compared to earlier periods regardless of availability of modern arms tech.
shen
Senior Member
Able men always rises to the top, especially in times of social chaos. Ancient China had plenty able generals, but no great man can overcome the far more powerful forces that governed his place and time. At best, able men can latch onto the prevailing tread and do his little bit of service to march of history.
Great men are just pawns of history.
Strategy, tactic, doctrinal change can't change history either. Remember the Ever Victorious Army of Chinese soldiers armed with Western weapons and trained in Western drills? I've heard many fanciful stories from my American friends (even professors of history) about the adventures of Charles Gordon, the savior of China from the Taiping. The truth is Ever Victorious Army was a tiny footnote in the Taiping Rebellion. Like the movie Sand Pebbles.
None of those mattered in the long run.
Revolutionary France certainly wasn't a great nation, but it was very good at mobilization its national resources for to wage wars. I thought that's what we are discussing. My argument was that pre-modern China didn't have the institutional structure necessary to raise that kind of resources, and social geographic situation of China precluded that level of governance until modern communication and transportation technologies became available.