Chinese Battles

I found it odd that there are far fewer decisive battles in China throughout ancient to medival history as compared to the multitude recorded in the West. They were constantly engaged in wars with each other as well as different attacking nomads.

 Is it because warfare was more guerilla style, wasn't recorded or what else? If you know any with recorded numbers and other statistics please post.

It depends on how you define the word decisive.  If it means the complete destruction of one faction by another faction, then perhaps.  Here is my theory:

A.  There may have been more decisive battles in the West in terms of complete eradication of one faction by another than in China because in ancient China, nationalism and complete political-religious alligence to one particular faction was not inbred into the population.  Unlike Medieval Europe and the Near East, religious alligence did not approach the level of fanaticism and intensity that characterized crusades and jihads.  In addition, relative homogenity of the population meant less mutual antagonism than that exhibited amongst populations in the Ancient Western World.  With the exception of the wars against nomads to the North, most Chinese wars were civil wars, political struggles of opposing leaders utilizing the same population and military as their power base.  In many cases, the various factions that engaged in warfare in Ancient and Medieval China employed the same soldiers.  Generals and armies exchanged alligences often. 

One of the most illustrative examples of this situation is the Three Kingdoms Era, where three Han Chinese political entities fought constantly against one another, recycling troops captured from the enemy and often experiencing generals switching sides.

B.  Logistics.  In Medieval times, the population and economic base of China was significantly larger than that of any Medieval state.  Thus, while a single battle may involve and destroy the entire military and economic base of a Medieval state, the situation rarely happens in Medieval China.  Oftentimes, the defeated faction of a battle would simply conscript more civilians into the military and raise another army.  For example, the resounding defeat of Cao Cao in the Battle of Chibi did not shake his powerful economic and military base in Northern China, and Cao Cao continued his campaigns to the South and West two years after Chibi, and formed the foundation of a Wei state with 300,000 regular troops.

As to guerilla warfare, it was rarely used by government troops in Ancient China.  Guerilla warfare, by its nature, is usually the tactic of the less institutional against the institution, and usually utilized by rebel forces, and often, by the Vietnamese against the Chinese posted in Vietnam in Medieval times.

The first hypothesis is good, i like it, but that can explain why the factions survive not why the western enemies die. I think, if we search in the chinese history can get many factions absolutelly destroyed by the other chinese faction, i'm remenber the Qin wars.

But i can't agree with the second hypothesis: first it ignore (sorry) the nature of the medieval western states; between V and X centuries, in a dull period for the europeans, very few battles were absolutelly crucial. Since XI century to XV century, only one or two, because the highl political, social, economic and military level of the european society (increased between those dates). The process was deeped by 1530, when after a time of short wars originated with the fire weapons, the europeans turned to the long and pirric wars with the italian trace.

My hypothesis is exactly the opposite to the basis of this thread: the importance of the chinese battles are decreased because are not well known, and the western battles are overvalued because are excesivilly known, by many time we put our attention in the battles, and not in the war.

Reading the opinions of chinese and western that know well the warfare in Middle Age, both think that the war was a question of siege and waste, more than an epic battle. The question must be why in determinated examples western and eastern had long or short wars, crucials or unimportant battles.

bye

Yes there Are very  Decisive battles in chinese history,there is alot of them though,what dynasty do u want to know about?

Ok mongols invasion of china,the mongols think that there most desivive battle in their history was the battle of beaver peak hills.

Battle of Huan Er Tsui

Battle of Huan Er Tsui is perhaps the most important victory
in the history of the Mongol empire. In the secret history it
was their greatest accomplishment, and the Moslem historian
Rashid ad-Din writing over a hundred years later, declared the
Mongols still regarded it as one of their greatest victories.
This battle secured Mongol supremacy, enabled later
conquests and marked the begining of Mongol expansion.
Yet ironically, it it very little known to Occidental sources
which seem to concentrate on the Mongol's western
campaigns which in reality was much less important as the
Secret history itself indicate by the much more information
on the East.

The numbers of this battle are debated. According to Yuan
Shi and Meng Wu Er Shi, the number was 300,000. In the
Xin Yuan Shi and Yuan Chao Ming Cheng Shi Liao, Biography
of Mukhali, it was 400,000. Yet this number is much less
unlikely. In reality the number of 300,000 probably included
logistic support and the effective force of the Jin was probably
more around 150,000-200,000. Genghis's force is unkown, but
taking account of the invading force and those he despatched
for patrol, it is more or less around 100,000. The Jin army is
composed of Jurchen and Khitan cavalry and Han infantry.
The cavalries were the elite of the army and were in the front
and wings. While the infantry was placed closely behind.

The two armies were separated by some 15-20 miles. In Yuan
Chao Bi Shi, the earliest record, it merely say the Mongol
army of the center clashed and defeated the main forces of the
Jin. The Yuan Sheng Wu Qin Cheng Lu has a fuller account.
According to it "After the Jin army had reached the Ye Hu Ling,
two Khitan officers of the staff came to Shi Zong and said:
"Since the capture of Fu Zhou, the Mongols are grazing loose
near town, so if we now attack them with our cavalry they will
be unprepared and we shall win a decisive victory". Shi Zong
however, disagreed and suggested to attack the next day with
combined cavalry and infantry.

When Genghis heard the Jin army was approaching, he
ordered his men to prepare for action and move toward Huan Er
Tsui. The two armies then met at that place. Apparently the
Jin emperor deployed his Khitan and Jurchid horseman on the
front and wings of his army and the infantry behind. The former
were immediately attacked by successive waves of Mongol
light troops, and evidently with too little space in which to
maneuver, at length faltered under the storms of arrows poured
into their ranks. Seizing the opportunity, Mukhali delivered a
tremendous assault, his troops charging lance in hand. This
was supported by the Guard(Keshik) under Genghis Khan, and
the Khitan and Jurchid cavalry was hurled back upon its own
infantry. With no chance to reform and no room to maneuver do
to the packed formation, they trampled the soldiers and involved
the whole army into confusion, the battle lasted half day and by
noon the disordered Jin was driven from the field. The Mongols
pursued the Jin through Huan er Tsui to the valley of Yang below,
the Jin suffered tremendous losses, but at Hui He Bao, part of
them under the emperor rallied and joining Wan ye Hu Sha,
turned to fight a second battle. Hu Sha was proceeding towards
Ye hu Ling when he heard the Mongol were coming through the
ranges. Surprised, he retired to Xuang Ping. The officers begged
to make a stand but he only thought of retreat. But he was slow
and at Hui He Po he was first overtaken by the Jin emperor and
then by the pursuing Mongols which pursuited relentlessly
without rest. Although his troops were more fresh, Hu Sha was
alerady in a panic and when he gave battle he was routed and
escaped to Xuan De Zhou which he abandoned later and fell to
the Mongols.

Meanwhile the emperor who saw the day lost fought his way off
the field with 7,000 picked troops, fled to the Sang Kan River.
There on the opposite bankof Hu lai He, Ye Lu Tukha of the rebel
khitans came up with 3,000 cavalry and he was forced to fight
another battle, the battle lasted a whole day until the exhausted
Jin finally gave up and fled.

This battle destroyed the core troops of the Jin and paved a way
for Mongol conquest.

The main cause for Jin's defeat in the decisive battles of Hu Er
Sui, Wu Sha Bao, and Hui He Bao is because the Jin did not
utilize the mobility of their cavalry as they had in their early
conquests and used a tightly packed formation with the infantry
placed close to the cavalry letting little room for maneuver. And
when the decisive charge came, the cavalry was forced back to
the infantry causing chaos

China, like the middle east and Europe, during the medieval period, had it's share of battles and decisive battles.

A significant difference between the east and west is in the east they focused more on the overall aspect than individual battles.  It seems in the west you can read about battle "A" and battle "B" but there isn't much about what happened during the time between the battles.  In China the focus was more on the strategic aspect, instead of giving details of the battle the resulst's were more important.

A good example of this is comparing the info on the siege of Acre in 1189 CE versus the info on the siege of Xianyang and Fan-cheng around 1270 CE.  There is plenty of info on different things at Acre such as Turkish/Arabic kids wrestling with European kids and the parents of the loosing kid would have to pay a "ransom" fee.  There is mention of Turkish/Arabic soldiers playing chess with knights.  There is good info on several different battles, skirmishes in and around the area of Acre.  At the siege of Xianyang which laster longer (approx 5 years, siege of Acre apporx 2 years) there is mention of many heroic deeds but little description of anything else.  There are two accounts of a skirmish between Mongol boats and Song boats who were trying to break the blockade to bring supplies to the defenders.  There is also an account of several thousand Song troops trying to break out but they took heavy casualties and had to retreat back into the city. 

chris

The Tumu Crisis (Chinese: 土木之變; pinyin: Tŭm� zhī b�an); also called Crisis of Tumubao (土木堡之變; or Battle of Tumu (土木之役, was a frontier conflict between Mongolia and the Chinese Ming Dynasty which led to the capture of the Zhengtong Emperor on September 8, 1449. This outcome was largely due to the Chinese army's remarkably bad deployment. The Ming expedition is regarded as the greatest military debacle of the dynasty.

In July 1449 Esen Tayisi (也先 of the Oyirad Mongols launched a large-scale three-pronged invasion of China. He personally advanced on Datong (in northern Shanxi province) in August. The eunuch official Wang Zhen, who dominated the Ming court, encouraged the twenty-two year old Zhengtong Emperor to lead his own armies into battle against Esen. A huge army (perhaps as many as 250,000 men) was hastily assembled. Its command was made up of twenty experienced generals and a large entourage of high-ranking civil officials, with Wang Zhen acting as field marshal.

On August 3, Esen's army crushed a badly supplied Chinese army at Yanghe, just inside the Great Wall. The same day the Emperor appointed his half-brother Zhu Qiyu as regent. The next day he left Beijing for Juyong Pass. The objective was a short, sharp march west to Datong via the Xuanfu garrison, a campaign into the steppe, and then to return to Beijing by a southerly route through Yuzhou.

Initially the march was mired by heavy rain. At Juyong Pass, the civil officials and generals wished to halt and send the emperor back to Beijing, but their opinions were overruled by Wang Zhen. On August 12, some of the courtiers discussed assassinating Wang. On August 16, the army came upon the corpse-strewn battlefield of Yanghe. When it reached Datong on August 18, reports from garrison commanders persuaded Wang Zhen that a campaign into the steppe would be too dangerous. The "expedition" was declared to have reached a victorious conclusion and on August 20 the army set out toward Beijing.

Fearing that the restless soldiers would cause damages to his estates in Yuzhou, Wang Zhen took the decision to strike northeast and return by the same exposed route as they had come. The army reached Xianfu on August 27. On August 30, the Mongols attacked the rearguard east of Xianfu and wiped it out. Soon afterwards, they also annihilated a powerful new rearguard of cavalry led by the elderly general Zhu Yong at Yaoerling. On August 31 the imperial army camped at the post station of Tumu. Wang Zhen refused his ministers' suggestion to have the emperor take refuge in the walled city of Huailai, just 45 km ahead.

Esen sent an advance force to cut off access to water from a river south of the Chinese camp. By the morning of September 1, they had surrounded the Chinese army. Wang Zhen rejected any offers to negotiate and ordered the confused army to move toward the river. The Mongols attacked in force and destroyed the Chinese army, capturing large quantities of arms and armour. All the high-ranking Chinese generals and court officials were killed. According to some accounts, Wang Zhen was killed by his own officers. The emperor was captured, and on September 3 was sent to Esen's main camp near Xianfu.

The entire expedition had been unnecessary, ill-conceived, and ill-prepared. The Mongol victory was won by an advance guard of only 20,000 cavalry. Esen, for his part, was quite unprepared either for the scale of his victory or for the capture of the Ming emperor.

At first, Esen attempted to use the captured emperor to raise a ransom.

"Well have any one hared of the coulter revolution in China? The Red guard distorted lots of Chinese History!! "

They never tried to destroy Chinese history, they did try to destroy Chinese culture, which didn't work out. If anything, modern versions of the "peaceful" Chinese is pretty distorted. Animals such as the rhino and elephant went extinct because of Chinese wars.