The greatest military strategist in Chinese history?

Who do you think is the greatest military strategist in Chinese history? By "greatest", let's consider not only their performance in a single battle, but rather their influence on the entire campaign or war, as well as the odds against which they were faced.

For me, two names come immediately to mind:

Mao Zedong: the founding father of modern China, love him or hate him, very few would deny that he was a brilliant strategist. He took the Chinese Red Army from a 5000 km retreat and built it into a fighting force that ended up destroying the American-supplied KMT force that outnumbered them 4 to 1.

Yue Fei: perhaps one of the most legendary figures of medieval China, Yue Fei single-handedly reversed the tide of war against the Jin, and might have recovered all of Song's lost territories had not the Emperor betrayed him.

What do you think? Who would you consider to be China's greatest military strategist, and why?

solarz said:

Who do you think is the greatest military strategist in Chinese history? By "greatest", let's consider not only their performance in a single battle, but rather their influence on the entire campaign or war, as well as the odds against which they were faced.

For me, two names come immediately to mind:

Mao Zedong: the founding father of modern China, love him or hate him, very few would deny that he was a brilliant strategist. He took the Chinese Red Army from a 5000 km retreat and built it into a fighting force that ended up destroying the American-supplied KMT force that outnumbered them 4 to 1.

Yue Fei: perhaps one of the most legendary figures of medieval China, Yue Fei single-handedly reversed the tide of war against the Jin, and might have recovered all of Song's lost territories had not the Emperor betrayed him.

What do you think? Who would you consider to be China's greatest military strategist, and why?

Click to expand...

Actually you have left out quite a number of brilliant strategists like - Bai Qi from the ancient Qin dynasty, the famous Sun Tze (he literally invented the art of war, a collection of strategies for use in battle), even Liu Ban who basically crushed both the Qin and the Chu to form the Han Dynasty.

Actually there is no such thing as the best or greatest strategists. They are from different era and different era required different sets of strategies and plans.

If you are looking at the most influencial person (in military), I would say it is Sun Tzu, due to his art of war. It was even used by many of the famous tacticians throughout history, not only in China but in overseas nations, and while we are on that, many of the tactics and strategies written in the art of war, we are even using them in other area and industries.

If you are looking at modern china, I would then say, the most influencial person is not Mao Zedong, but rather it is Deng Xiao Ping who actually open China out to foreigners and basically brought about what is modern China.

solarz said:

Who do you think is the greatest military strategist in Chinese history? By "greatest", let's consider not only their performance in a single battle, but rather their influence on the entire campaign or war, as well as the odds against which they were faced.

For me, two names come immediately to mind:

Mao Zedong: the founding father of modern China, love him or hate him, very few would deny that he was a brilliant strategist. He took the Chinese Red Army from a 5000 km retreat and built it into a fighting force that ended up destroying the American-supplied KMT force that outnumbered them 4 to 1.

Yue Fei: perhaps one of the most legendary figures of medieval China, Yue Fei single-handedly reversed the tide of war against the Jin, and might have recovered all of Song's lost territories had not the Emperor betrayed him.

What do you think? Who would you consider to be China's greatest military strategist, and why?

Click to expand...

Mao Zedong able to unify China must give most credit to Lin Biao. His successful northern campaign of capturing shenyang and wiping out of large number of KMT elite dividion was the catalyst for collaspe of KMT.

Yue Fei? I never heard he is regard as great strategist? To me, he is more like a Guan Yu.

But I think a Chinese Ming general was always overlook. Yuan Chonghuan who responsible for killing Nurhaci and stop the advance of Manchu advance with limited resources only to be maligned by evil enunch and executed by Emperor. His brilliant artillery warfare allow him to defeat foes which is superior in numbers

rhino123 said:

Actually you have left out quite a number of brilliant strategists like - Bai Qi from the ancient Qin dynasty, the famous Sun Tze (he literally invented the art of war, a collection of strategies for use in battle), even Liu Ban who basically crushed both the Qin and the Chu to form the Han Dynasty.

Actually there is no such thing as the best or greatest strategists. They are from different era and different era required different sets of strategies and plans.

If you are looking at the most influencial person (in military), I would say it is Sun Tzu, due to his art of war. It was even used by many of the famous tacticians throughout history, not only in China but in overseas nations, and while we are on that, many of the tactics and strategies written in the art of war, we are even using them in other area and industries.

If you are looking at modern china, I would then say, the most influencial person is not Mao Zedong, but rather it is Deng Xiao Ping who actually open China out to foreigners and basically brought about what is modern China.

Click to expand...

Deng Xiao Ping's contributions were political, while Mao Zedong was definitely a military strategist.

As for Sun Tzu, apart from his works, I am not aware of any battles or campaigns he led.

I know that different eras use different tactics, but that doesn't prevent us from comparing military leaders themselves. The sign of a brilliant strategist is not the resources at his disposal, but how he makes use of them.

I've heard of Bai Qi, but how would you argue a case for him, compared to say, Yue Fei? What would make him a more accomplished military commander than Yue Fei?

solarz said:

I've heard of Bai Qi, but how would you argue a case for him, compared to say, Yue Fei? What would make him a more accomplished military commander than Yue Fei?

Click to expand...

Why couldn't Bai Qi be compared to Yue Fei in term of being a brilliant strategist? He might not be a national hero like Yue Fei, but he is a brilliant strategist. He basically defeated the Han, the Wei, the Zhao and the Chu in the warring periods. The number of soldiers and land area at that time might not really be as large as what Yue Fei is used to command, but as I have posted before, this are different era and I believe if Bai Qi was put under the same era as Yue Fei, he would have performed as well.

You didn't really need to be leading a troop or a number of troops into real battles and campaign to be consider as a great strategies. If you compare Zhuge Liang and Zhou Yu, who do you think is a better strategist?

Subotai, who was Genghis Khan's general. He conquered more territory than almost anyone else in history. Depends on your view of Mongolia/China (I don't want to get into politics). But if I'm not allowed to include Subotai, then:

Lin Biao, Liu Bocheng, and Peng Dehuai for their astounding contributions to the Civil War and the Korean War. I can't really choose one, as I'm not educated enough about the Civil War to make a judgement.

Mao Zedong hands down. a lot of other ppl you guys mentioned are great but they are only experts in one specific field. Bai Qi and Lin Biao are tactician who are good at commanding large units, Sun Tzu's contribution is mostly theoretical, Yue Fei lacks the basic instinct for politics.
Mao is an all around expert, whether it be large unit maneuvers or guerilla warfare, political leadership or military strategy, military theory or practice...he champions them all. i dont think you can find a second individual in the history of mankind with such ability.

I was under the impression that Genghis Khan was his own best general. Tiemujin was great, and one has to wonder how he would've fared against Yue Fei.

pla101prc said:

Mao Zedong hands down. a lot of other ppl you guys mentioned are great but they are only experts in one specific field. Bai Qi and Lin Biao are tactician who are good at commanding large units, Sun Tzu's contribution is mostly theoretical, Yue Fei lacks the basic instinct for politics.
Mao is an all around expert, whether it be large unit maneuvers or guerilla warfare, political leadership or military strategy, military theory or practice...he champions them all. i dont think you can find a second individual in the history of mankind with such ability.

Click to expand...

How about Emperor Kangxi? He is a great military strategist, by that I mean, he knew what to do at what time, although it was his generals that led the Qing army to victories in all campaign, but he is the one who dictate what to be done at what time, with limited resources, which area to focus on, etc.

And also the third Han emperor (Han WuDi), he is the one who defeated the Xiongnu and created a Han Empire that is among the strongest in his era.

Mao Zedong, no doubt is a great leader and an all round expert, but I believe what he had accomplish could also be accomplished by most of the emperors that were credited to the creation of new empires (Tang Taizhong, Qin Shi Huang, Liu Bang, Han Wudi, Kangxi (actually Kangxi is not the first emperor of Qing Dynasty), etc)

Lion said:

Yue Fei? I never heard he is regard as great strategist? To me, he is more like a Guan Yu.

Click to expand...

What? Yue Fei and Guan Yu? This would be the first time I heard this comparison. First, Yue was never known for his individual fighting skills (although, in legend, he did win the "martial championship" at the end of Northern Song dynasty) and Guan was all about his individual fighting skills. In the novel, Guan's attribute was two: his loyalty to his blood brothers and his fighting skills although occationally he would use some brilliant tactics to win battles, but then again so did Zhang Fei...

Yue, however, has always been known in the ancient China to be a strategist who commanded his troops and used brilliant tactics to win battles and very seldomly we hear stories about Yue engaging in personal combat with his enemy. In fact, many scholars actually think Yue was more like a scholar-general, which means he himself can't kill a fly but his use of military strategies allowed him to win battles.

Ever heard of phrases like "Yue's army" compared to "Guan Dao". For Guan, his own fighting skill is famous, thus his weapon, "Guan Dao" was a symbol of invincibility. Yue was a general who commanded an army, so he's famous for his ability to train and use his army.

In other words, Yue vs. Guan, bad comparison...