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xi_tujue View Drop Down
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Atabeg

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Posts: 1919 		  Quote xi_tujue Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: chinese
    Posted: 08-Aug-2006 at 13:00
Was or were the chinese or the chinese army of I don't know It doesn't matter outnumberd did they ever fought with less men.
 
When and why (sircumstances)
I rather be a nomadic barbarian than a sedentary savage
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Posts: 494 		  Quote Omnipotence Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08-Aug-2006 at 13:14
Can you fix your sentence? I don't understand.
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Posts: 1919 		  Quote xi_tujue Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08-Aug-2006 at 13:30
Were the chinese(all chinese empires of anytime) ever outnumbered
 
did they have less men than there enimies
I rather be a nomadic barbarian than a sedentary savage
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Posts: 55 		  Quote Shapur II Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08-Aug-2006 at 14:05
i dont think so. from what i understand, battles in the west paled in comparison to battles in the east. the chinese always had battles consisting of 100,000 men or more.
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Posts: 494 		  Quote Omnipotence Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08-Aug-2006 at 16:46
That by no means mean the Chinese always outnumber his foes. There were plenty of times they were outnumbered. Look at the achievements of the Tang in Central Asia, in which it turned back alliances made up of Tibetans, Uighers, and Arabs combined. Or look at how Huo QuBing was able to defeat XiongNu armies with merely 800 cavalry. There are just as many instances that China outnumbered its foes as much as that its foes outnumbered Chinese armies. The idea that China can only win through sheer numbers is a massive stereotype.

Edited by Omnipotence - 08-Aug-2006 at 16:47
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  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08-Aug-2006 at 19:07
The most well-known one I can think of was the Fei River Battle (FeiShui) where an Eastern Jin army defeated a northern army led by "babarian" tribesmen ruling northern China supposedly more than 10 times its own size . . . a quick lookup shows 80k vs. a million man army. . . so they say . . . in 383AD/CE.
 
The "babarian" leader was supposed have boasted that he could stop the Yangtse river flow by ordering his cavlary to throw their whips into the river.
 
Some of the numbers in the old texts are suspect, to be honest . . . I always have difficulty believing the Zhao army at the Battle of Changping actually numbered 400k, all to be buried by the Qin general . . . it's just a wee bit mythical to me.  400k, that's the size of armies engaged in campaigns in the late 1940's Chinese civil war; that's after two millinia's worth of agricultural advancement.  How in the world could the Zhao city state (not even the size of today's Shanxi province) be able to afford the upkeep to maintain that many men and horses in the field without railroad transportation or at least potatoes for easy starch storage ;-)   When Wallenstein raised a 200k army in the 30-years war, the army had to be kept marching around just to find new foraging and stay alive; the huge army had to be disbanded shortly due to the cost of maintenance.  


Edited by brightness2 - 08-Aug-2006 at 19:28
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Posts: 58 		  Quote Genghis_Kan Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 11-Aug-2006 at 09:32
Originally posted by brightness2

 
Some of the numbers in the old texts are suspect, to be honest . . . I always have difficulty believing the Zhao army at the Battle of Changping actually numbered 400k, all to be buried by the Qin general . . . it's just a wee bit mythical to me.  400k, that's the size of armies engaged in campaigns in the late 1940's Chinese civil war; that's after two millinia's worth of agricultural advancement.  How in the world could the Zhao city state (not even the size of today's Shanxi province) be able to afford the upkeep to maintain that many men and horses in the field without railroad transportation or at least potatoes for easy starch storage ;-)   When Wallenstein raised a 200k army in the 30-years war, the army had to be kept marching around just to find new foraging and stay alive; the huge army had to be disbanded shortly due to the cost of maintenance.  

yeah I agree. But dont forget that in the Chinese always boast the number of soldiers they have to frighten the enemy. Whenever they send their army out, there ar two number of how many soldiers they have. One is the actual and the other one is the "called number" (the boasted number. This usually is 10 times more than the actual number). For example, if they have 10K they called the no of soldiers as 100K. So I think in ancient China, the no of soldiers in a battle is much less that we thought today. Coz the number of Chinese people at that time is not very big.
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Posts: 31 		  Quote Toluy Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13-Aug-2006 at 09:21
Originally posted by Genghis_Kan

[QUOTE=brightness2] 
Some of the numbers in the old texts are suspect, to be honest . . . I always have difficulty believing the Zhao army at the Battle of Changping actually numbered 400k, all to be buried by the Qin general . . . it's just a wee bit mythical to me.  400k, that's the size of armies engaged in campaigns in the late 1940's Chinese civil war; that's after two millinia's worth of agricultural advancement.  How in the world could the Zhao city state (not even the size of today's Shanxi province) be able to afford the upkeep to maintain that many men and horses in the field without railroad transportation or at least potatoes for easy starch storage ;-)   When Wallenstein raised a 200k army in the 30-years war, the army had to be kept marching around just to find new foraging and stay alive; the huge army had to be disbanded shortly due to the cost of maintenance.  

yeah I agree. But dont forget that in the Chinese always boast the number of soldiers they have to frighten the enemy. Whenever they send their army out, there ar two number of how many soldiers they have. One is the actual and the other one is the "called number" (the boasted number. This usually is 10 times more than the actual number). For example, if they have 10K they called the no of soldiers as 100K. So I think in ancient China, the no of soldiers in a battle is much less that we thought today. Coz the number of Chinese people at that time is not very big.

I agree too. But I think there is another reason why the No of soilders wo read is so incredible to ours nowadays except the boasted factor. It is because the ancient social system of that era was different from the one nowadays. Qin for example was a slavery society before it unified other six states. I mean many soilders of Qin is actually slaves and they would cultivate in fields and fight in battlegrounds. And they even eat the captives when it is necessary. So the ancient proportion of soilders to population is naturally higher than now.



Edited by flyingzone - 13-Aug-2006 at 12:19
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Posts: 31 		  Quote Toluy Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13-Aug-2006 at 09:23
BTW, Genghis khan, do you know CHF(Chinese history forum)? I encountered the same ID there.
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Posts: 58 		  Quote Genghis_Kan Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14-Aug-2006 at 06:56
yeah i know CHFand that ID is me. But i didnt write much in there or here coz im lazyEmbarrassed. Btw even though there is slavery there cant be possibly that much slaves. Well slaves ar still people so i dont think it would make much different to the no.  I think boasting is the main reason anyway boast is an art of war.
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Posts: 379 		  Quote Evrenosgazi Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14-Aug-2006 at 10:33
Chineese armies were the greatest armies in soldier number, their land was vast but again they usually outnumber the nomads. The nomads were better in quality as soldiers.For example at the song dynasty reign they could afford nearly one million soldier
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Posts: 58 		  Quote Genghis_Kan Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16-Aug-2006 at 06:19
Originally posted by Evrenosgazi

Chineese armies were the greatest armies in soldier number, their land was vast but again they usually outnumber the nomads. The nomads were better in quality as soldiers.For example at the song dynasty reign they could afford nearly one million soldier

Evrenosgazi thats not true. The Chinese did not always outnumbered the nomads in battles. U must understand that maintaining a huge offensive forces outside its own border is very difficult and required a lot of resources. Supplying is especially difficult. So not all the time when the Chinese is attacking the Nomad, they outnumbered them, eg during the period of Han Wu Di. Furthermore its not always because the nomads have better quailty soldiers (but it is the case during the Song). The most important reason for their victory over the CHinese is because of their mobility (which the CHinese has not got due to lack of horses). The nomad can easily disrupt the supply line of the huge Chinese army in the Steppe and then the Chinese army can be easily defeated due to lack of supplies.
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Posts: 817 		  Quote BigL Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17-Aug-2006 at 19:07

Its a matter of leadership .Training and Morale
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Posts: 58 		  Quote Genghis_Kan Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18-Aug-2006 at 05:24
Originally posted by BigL

Its a matter of leadership .Training and Morale


Even the best trained army with high morale and good leadership cannot fight without food or water. More importantly they cannot fight well without weapons. So maintaining supply to an army is important. A well trained army can with stand lack of supply for a while but cannot hold forever. Soldiers may be tough but they ar still humans.

Edited by Genghis_Kan - 18-Aug-2006 at 05:26
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Posts: 735 		  Quote The Charioteer Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25-Aug-2006 at 20:54
Battle of Feishui is very good one, as impressive as to Alexander's Gaugamela victory IMO.
 
 
 
 
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Posts: 817 		  Quote BigL Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26-Aug-2006 at 00:47
There are countless timesreally its 2000+ years of history really we could not count the times the northern steppe armies have also defeated larger chinese armies too.
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Posts: 735 		  Quote The Charioteer Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27-Aug-2006 at 13:44
Originally posted by brightness2

 
Some of the numbers in the old texts are suspect, to be honest . . . I always have difficulty believing the Zhao army at the Battle of Changping actually numbered 400k, all to be buried by the Qin general . . . it's just a wee bit mythical to me.  400k, that's the size of armies engaged in campaigns in the late 1940's Chinese civil war; that's after two millinia's worth of agricultural advancement.  How in the world could the Zhao city state (not even the size of today's Shanxi province) be able to afford the upkeep to maintain that many men and horses in the field without railroad transportation or at least potatoes for easy starch storage ;-)   When Wallenstein raised a 200k army in the 30-years war, the army had to be kept marching around just to find new foraging and stay alive; the huge army had to be disbanded shortly due to the cost of maintenance.  
 
 
Zhao sent 200k army for annexing Zhongshan kingdom. Its not unbelievable Zhao should double the size of their army when facing much stronger enemy like the Qin, especially Qin is well prepared for the war and is putting some 600k men into the field. Zhao is said to have 600k soldiers.
 
Supply is huge and difficult for certain, thats why Zhao king wanted Lianpo to win the war quickly, despite Lianpo tried to avoid Qin army by holding Zhao position behind nets of forts, for 3 years Qin cant do anything. Then they tricked Zhao ruler into believing they fear Zhaokuo, Lianpo was replaced by him, Zhaokuo was defeated at Changping. This actually reflected that Zhao kingdom is under obvious pressure when it comes to supply problem.
 
After king Wuling of Zhao's reform, Zhao became one of most powerful state at the time, it annexed Zhongshan kingdom, as well defeated "barbarians" to the north, extended its influence to inner-Mongolia. Afterwards, Zhao even wanted to become dominant power in central plain,  reflect how confident and strong they were.
 
Even after the blow at Changping, with 400k soldier been killed first then buried by Qin, which made Zhao never able to fully recover, nevertheless, it still can fend off later attack by Yan army of 600k.
 
Zhao population is estimated between 3-4 million. Qin 5 million, Qin used 1 million men to fight the Chu kingdom, 1/5 of its population. With this ratio, 3 million would be 600k. Taken into account the army left at Dai didnt join Changping battlefield, 600k total army number is there, which is accordant with historian's record.
 
 


Edited by The Charioteer - 27-Aug-2006 at 22:01
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Posts: 735 		  Quote The Charioteer Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27-Aug-2006 at 21:51
Originally posted by Omnipotence

The idea that China can only win through sheer numbers is a massive stereotype.
 
in ancient world, China was one of the most developed nation, thats why it always had large population. keep emphasizing sheer number of ancient China, only makes this simple fact more evident.
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Posts: 580 		  Quote Siege Tower Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04-Sep-2006 at 09:16
according to Chen Tang(Chen Tang (Chinese:陈汤; Wade-Giles:Ch'en T'ang), born in Jining, Shandong, was famous for his battle at Zhizhi in 36 BC, and quote 夫胡兵五而当汉兵一 "a single soldier of Han is equivalent to five Central Asian soldiers".), who i think was the ambassader of han to the central asia,
but in charge of leading the foreige troops against the Huns
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Posts: 494 		  Quote Omnipotence Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04-Sep-2006 at 22:26
According to Chao Cuo during the Han dynasty, nomadic soldiers have better toughness, their horses are tougher as well. This means nomadic armies are more mobile and have better resistances to the elements. However, Chao Cuo also said Han soldiers have better discipline(such as not breaking ranks, fighting in formations, etc...) and better equipment.
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