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Topic Closed15th century Ming military

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Kastrophylax kai Tzaousios

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Direct Link To This Post Topic: 15th century Ming military
    Posted: 02-Apr-2006 at 17:00

My question kind of got lost in the interesting hypothetical discussion on China's discovery of Mexico.  So now bringing it back to the realm of historical reality, I would like to pose a question for AE's Sinologists and Asian history enthusiasts.  It has to do with the explorer and admiral Zheng He and also with early modern Chinese military history in general:

What kind of military power did he bring along with him on the voyages?  I am not too well-versed in Chinese history, so what would a 15th century Ming soldier be armored and equipped with, anyways?

I read something recently (a set of lectures delivered by the Sinologist J.J.L. Duyvendak), and it said that Zheng He demolished a gate and part of the city walls of a city on the coast of East Africa.  The great ships were floating off the coast and firing their bombard cannon.  That is pretty much all it said about the fleet's armaments, except that the ships carried with them a 37,000 man army!

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02-Apr-2006 at 19:07

Military system

Under the Ming, military service became hereditary. A soldier and his family would be registered as a military household. Each of these military household's had an obligation to produce a young man to serve in the army. The hereditary system in it's early years had guard units numbering 5,000 men, further divided into battalions of 1,000 and companies of 100. Later, the number of soldiers in a guard unit was increased to 5,600 men, comprising of five battalions of 1,120 men, with each battallion divided into companies of 112 men. In total, the Ming army in the late 14th century numbered approximately 1.2 million hereditary soldiers. During the reign of Yongle (Zhu Di) three training camps were established, which troops were sent to in rotation. The first specialised in infantry warfare, the second in cavalry warfare and the third in artillery. While this worked very well at first, it stagnated after 1435 and had to be revived in 1464 by the Chenghua emperor.

I will cover the infantry, cavalry and artillery of the early Ming army individually.

Infantry

The standard company numbered 100 men in the years before Zhu Yuanzhang established the Ming in 1368. Each 100 man squad consisted of 40 spearmen, 30 archers, 20 swordsmen and 10 men operating firearms. Later, the army was reorganised and the standard company increased in number to 112 men, though they were likely similarly equipped. These soldiers undertook a sophisticated training program, whereby infantry were well trained for maneuvering around the battlefield and performing specific drills in the heat of combat, much like the training system of the European renaissance.

Chinese armies of the Ming period used a wide variety of spears. All were generally quite long and tipped with a socketed, tapered steel blade. Some types had downward curving hooks projecting from the blade that were designed for dismounting horsemen. Tridents and more exotic designs existed, but it is doubtful that they were used in large numbers in the army.

Ming archers were armed with long composite bows and various types of arrows, including specialised designs tipped with deadly poison .The most interesting of these designs was the rocket arrow. The rocket arrow was said to have great range and power, piercing through iron breastplates and hardwood planks. But was apparently almost impossible to aim with, for this reason rocket-arrows were usually released in massive swarms. This greatly demoralised the enemy as they would be unable to predict the point of impact. Crossbows were also used in large numbers and probably employed in much the same way as during the preceding Yuan and Song dynasties.

Chinese swords of the Ming period had their origins in central Asian sabres. Ming infantry swordsmen usually carried a goose-quill or willow leaf sabre. The former being comparitively straighter and more suitable for thrusting than the latter, which had a deep curve and was primarily a slashing weapon. Sabres were often used in combination with a shield by special fighting squads.

In the late 14th and early 15th centuries. Chinese firearm technology was the most advanced in the world. The most widely used gun weighed roughly 5lbs and was attached to a long wooden stock which was tucked under the arm or placed over the shoulder before discharging. Ammunition came in the form of both arrows and solid balls. During Yongle's second campaign in Mongolia, a Chinese army used arrow-firing guns to smash the Mongol cavalry in battle. In his fifth campaign, the emperor ordered his men to first attack with firearms and then to follow up with bows and crossbows--indicating these early guns must have been reasonably effective. Indeed, firearms were instrumental in the Ming conquest of Dai Viet, and proved decisive in a number of battles. However, for the most part it was artillery--not handheld firearms, which gave early Ming armies an edge.

Cavalry

Cavalry were a minority in the Ming military. However, they were still an essential component of Chinese armies. Yongle once said "Horses are the most important thing to a country.", while he may have been exaggerating, it's clear that the cavalry was highly valued.

Ming cavalry were divided into two types--lancers and mounted archers. The former were equipped with helmet, armour and sabre, as well as a long spear and round shield. The latter were also armoured and carried a sabre, but the primary weapon of a horse archer was his composite bow. Lancers typically charged after the enemy had been softened up with missile weapons, as they proved unable to face spear-armed infantry and artillery bombardment directly. Whereas horse-archers were often the first into battle, meeting the enemy with arrows before the rest of the army engaged in hand to hand combat.

Time and time again, Chinese horsemen proved their worth on the battlefield, though generally when fighting nomads they needed support from infantry. In 1365 Li Weizhong of the Ming defeated a Wu army with a cavalry charge which he led in person. Later, Zhu Di's succes against both imperial forces and Mongol nomads was due in no small part to his strong cavalry. In 1422 Zhu Di led 20,000 elite cavalry and infantry into Manchuria and won a string of victories over the eastern Mongols.

In the later stages of the dynasty. Chinese cavalry severely declined and proved unable to stand up to nomads. Qi Jiguang had to develop specific tactics to ensure success when fighting on the northern border. His armies were infantry and dragoon based, using wagon laagers mounted with light cannon to protect against cavalry charges. This proved succesful--the Mongols sued for peace with the Ming soon after Qi Jiguang was put in charge of the border defence.

Artillery

Chinese armies of the Ming period made wide use of artillery. Both on the field as well as for the siege and defence of fortifications. It would seem almost every military expedition had a substantial artillery train. This undoubtedly contributed to the success of early Ming armies against Mongol nomads and rivals.

Chinese cannons were cast with both bronze and iron. Ammuntion came in the form of stone, iron and lead balls, or large steel-tipped "arrows" with leather fins. Grapeshot was also widely used. Early Ming cannons usually have thickened walls around the explosion chamber, as well as reinforcing rings cast along the length of the barrel. Weight and calibre vary widely, though Chinese cannons seem to have been much smaller than European bombards. Firearms were produced in very large numbers, from 1380 onwards 1000 bronze cannons were manufactured a year, in 1465 alone 300 very large artillery pieces were manufactured. And in 1537 soldiers in Shanxi were supplied with 3000 brass cannon. In the late 14th century, each warship was armed with 4 cannons, 20 fire lances, 16 handguns, and large numbers of grenades and fire arrows.

Several field pieces are illustrated in Ming sources. From 1350 onwards, one of the most popular designs was the "long range awe-inspiring cannon", this weighed in at 160lbs and could fire a 2lb lead ball hundreds of paces, grapeshot came in the form of 100 small pellets held inside the same bag. A more interesting type is the "Crouching Tiger Cannon", a small bombard weighing 47lbs and carried on the shoulder, it had two "legs" for elevation and was stapled onto the ground with iron pins before firing. these designs continually advanced over the next few hundred years, and indeed the latter remained in use until the 18th century. Many other artillery pieces existed, but we need not cover them here.

Artillery seems to have performed well when it was used. In Yongle's Mongolian campaign of 1414, the Ming army arrayed cannons in front of cavalry units and obliterated a Mongol cavalry charge, killing "countless" Mongols and terrifying the enemy horses. In the conquest of Annam, the Chinese used artillery to great effect in the field, on water, and in sieges.

Though effective in the field, early artillery was probably more effective in the defence and siege of fortifications. In 1412 Yongle ordered the stationing of five cannons at each of the frontier passes. Gunpowder weapons had almost completely replaced trebuchets in sieges. During the siege of Suzhou in 1366, large earth platforms were built and "bronze general" cannons placed on top of them to batter the walls, trebuchets were used to launch diseased corpses into the city rather than attacking the walls directly, and thousands of rocket-arrows were fired to set Suzhou alight.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02-Apr-2006 at 19:10
Hi Folks:

More information regarding Ming's military technology...! cool.gif

Chinese Military Technology and Dai Viet: c. 1390-1497

Sun Laichen

Pre-European Asian gunpowder technology has received insufficient attention and the transfers of firearms from Ming China to Dai Viet (modern northern Vietnam) and their implications are a case in point. On the one hand, this paper demonstrates how the Vietnamese acquired gunpowder technology from the Ming from the late fourteenth to early fifteenth centuries. It thus solves an old issue regarding the invention and borrowing of gunpowder technology between the Chinese and Vietnamese. On the other hand, it shows the Vietnamese also contributed some superior techniques to Chinese military technology. The paper argues that the utilization of Chinese gunpowder technology by the Vietnamese had profound implications for the history of mainland Southeast Asia. This technology empowered Dai Viet to defeat its age-old foe Champa (modern central and southern Vietnam) in 1471 and as a result the political geography of eastern mainland Southeast Asia changed permanently.

http://www.ari.nus.edu.sg/pub/wps2003/abs011.htm
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04-Apr-2006 at 20:52

Wow, BigL, where did you find this?  I have been searching for some books on the Ming military and mostly what I could find has been on the modern Chinese army.  I have found some interesting journal articles on the Ming navy, however.

Originally posted by BigL

The standard company numbered 100 men in the years before Zhu Yuanzhang established the Ming in 1368. Each 100 man squad consisted of 40 spearmen, 30 archers, 20 swordsmen and 10 men operating firearms[...]These soldiers undertook a sophisticated training program, whereby infantry were well trained for maneuvering around the battlefield and performing specific drills in the heat of combat, much like the training system of the European renaissance.

It would be interesting to see how similar or how sophisticated these manuevers were compared to the battlefield tactics that the Swiss pike/arquebus squares carried out.  Have you ever seen these drills described anywhere?

Originally posted by BigL

Several field pieces are illustrated in Ming sources. From 1350 onwards, one of the most popular designs was the "long range awe-inspiring cannon", this weighed in at 160lbs and could fire a 2lb lead ball hundreds of paces, grapeshot came in the form of 100 small pellets held inside the same bag. A more interesting type is the "Crouching Tiger Cannon", a small bombard weighing 47lbs and carried on the shoulder, it had two "legs" for elevation and was stapled onto the ground with iron pins before firing. these designs continually advanced over the next few hundred years, and indeed the latter remained in use until the 18th century. Many other artillery pieces existed, but we need not cover them here.

This is very interesting.  Europeans had names for the different sizes of cannon in their artillery trains.  They often corresponded with the barrel and shot sizes, such as "saker" and "falconet" for the small ones, on up to "culverin" and "bombard" for the larger pieces.  The "Crouching Tiger" cannon sounds similar to the saker and falconet, used primarily as an anti-infantry weapon.

Originally posted by BigL

Though effective in the field, early artillery was probably more effective in the defence and siege of fortifications. In 1412 Yongle ordered the stationing of five cannons at each of the frontier passes. Gunpowder weapons had almost completely replaced trebuchets in sieges. During the siege of Suzhou in 1366, large earth platforms were built and "bronze general" cannons placed on top of them to batter the walls, trebuchets were used to launch diseased corpses into the city rather than attacking the walls directly, and thousands of rocket-arrows were fired to set Suzhou alight.

The evolution of fortifications both to accomodate gunpowder artillery as defense weapons and to defend against cannon is a fascination of mine.  Did the Chinese develop different types of fortifications, such as artillery towers and angle bastions, like the Italians and other Europeans did in the Renaissance?

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05-Apr-2006 at 02:49

http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/index.php?showtopic=9217&am p;st=0

I didnt actually write this first article is was written by conan the destroyer from the chinese history forum ,he is the expert on Ming military especially.His informatation is sourced and very reliable ,i have learnt alot from him.I would be very interested in the Tactical information about the chinese armies, however most accounts are Imperial acconts,and tactical information was either kept secret or was commonly known so not worth saying.However there is one general Qi qiguang ,

i think thats his name, he taught the peasants on the west coast formation to defend thereselves agains Samurai Pirate,this formatation was highly specialized one which taught the peasants how to fight the lightening fast slashes of samurai with minimal training.Its Called the Mandarin Duck Formatation,He also developed a waggon lagger formatation to defend against the Mongol cavalries.

About the Fortififation of Ming china,during the Ming dynasty the Ming reconstructed the great wall to its extent today,most of wat u see today was built in the ming dynasty,Qi Qiguang designed alot of it.There are watchtowers a cannon shot distance from each other along the wall,the watchtowers are made to house cannons, the walls in some sections are designed to create killing zones at which to fire at the enemy from 3 directions.The chinese fortifacation didnt change due to Gunpowder as the walls have always been built very thick with a core of pounded earth which absorbs shock from missles.Apparently in WW2 japanese had great difficulty bombarding these walls with modern artillery, and there was even a battle fought at the great wall.

Im dont know that much about the swedes or fortifcations of europe maybe you could start a new topic so i can learn

 

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05-Apr-2006 at 23:38

Originally posted by BigL

this formatation was highly specialized one which taught the peasants how to fight the lightening fast slashes of samurai with minimal training.Its Called the Mandarin Duck Formatation

Mandarin Duck!?   That is an awesome name!  I wonder if there are any illustrations of it extant?

,He also developed a waggon lagger formatation to defend against the Mongol cavalries.

Their use of wagons sounds similar to what the Hussites used against the German and Prussian cavalry.  Lines of wagons mounted with small-caliber cannon and supplemented with arquebusiers on the sides.

There are watchtowers a cannon shot distance from each other along the wall,the watchtowers are made to house cannons, the walls in some sections are designed to create killing zones at which to fire at the enemy from 3 directions.The chinese fortifacation didnt change due to Gunpowder as the walls have always been built very thick with a core of pounded earth which absorbs shock from missles.

It would be interesting to see the design of the artillery towers and how they compare to the ones the Japanese built around the same time.

The walls you mentioned sound like the angle bastions that the Italians built.  The idea was to trap besieging infantry in the spacious middle in a crossfire of cannon and arquebus shot.  Sometimes they built little pillboxes for arquebusiers at angles in front of the walls to keep the enemy artillery back out of range of the walls.

Perhaps both the Japanese and the Chinese received this technology from Jesuit missionaries or other European visitors and mercenaries.  I am interested to see if they perhaps developed the technology independently of the Europeans.

Im dont know that much about the swedes or fortifcations of europe maybe you could start a new topic so i can learn

Actually, I did start a thread on the subject a long time ago.  Only a few people posted in it and it died out!

http://www.allempires.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=3874

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06-Apr-2006 at 01:27

Yes most Chinese formations have cool names Yes there are military manuals about the mandarin duck formation with pictures,i will try and scan it onto computer.Although its a formatation used by quickly trained peasants and not used by the main military.The use of wagon lagger formation is very similiar to the hussites,armed with various gunpodwer weapons like rockets then switchinh to crossbows and halberds at closer range,before swordsmen would charge out once the cavalry charge was broken.

Japanese are alot different from chinese fortifactions,and japanese would be mainly influenced by korean mountain forts,as the japanese tried invadin korea in the late ming dynasty but were pushed back by korean guerilla resistance and a Ming army,This was long after the ming Great wall was built.

Jesuits came to china alot  later then when the Ming Great wall was built.The watchtowers were built by and invented by Qi qiguang the military genius as to house troops and fire cannon and giant crossbows from.Below  the walls there was landmines and a Sand ditch to warn defenders of enemy spieng at nighttime,due to the footprints left in the sand. Apart from the great wall chinese cities were fortified with much larger walls than the great wall. There were also forts one being in the desert of mongolia/northern china.This fort was designed with walls within walls,made in a maze like structure,if the enemy managed to breach the first wall they would continue to be shot at  whilst navigating through many twists and turns.

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06-Apr-2006 at 19:50

Originally posted by BigL

Yes there are military manuals about the mandarin duck formation with pictures,i will try and scan it onto computer.

Cool, it would be interesting to see Mandarin Duck in action!

The use of wagon lagger formation is very similiar to the hussites,armed with various gunpodwer weapons like rockets then switchinh to crossbows and halberds at closer range,before swordsmen would charge out once the cavalry charge was broken.

Switching weapons is a good tactic.  My guess is that the cavalry would get tangled up in the wagons and would become easy targets for the halberdiers.

Apart from the great wall chinese cities were fortified with much larger walls than the great wall.

Taller, greater thickness, or both?  Man, those walls must have been like the walls of Babylon!

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26-May-2008 at 06:34

I'd like to think that the true Chinese civilization lies within the Han realms prior the both the Mongolian and Manchurian invasions. I think these two invasions have damaged both the Chinese techonology innovasion and cultural identity. I sometimes wonder if China is really a continuous civilization since some of the most distinct cultural forms of East Asia is not found present or of little presence in Chinese society but instead we are able to find them in neighbouring countries such as Japan. For example the clothing and some cultural customs that originated in China have been preserved in Japan as a result of the geographical isolated Japan has which prevented them from being conqurered by other non sinic peoples like the nomadics people from the steppes. The same with Korea, many Confucian traditions are kept sacred in Korea while China itself, being ruled by a progressivly modern thinking Communist regime has been working to undermine many fundamental elements of Chinese society, or should I say the East Asian cultural sphere as a whole.

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29-May-2008 at 16:25
For a real performance of Ming's military machine, read about the war between Ming/Korean and Japanese. It kind sucks BTW Ouch
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06-Jun-2008 at 09:31
I got this from an old simple book I had..       
He was an experienced general by that time, and he had already taken part in many campaigns against the Japanese pirates. During that time, he had to face constant incursions made by mounted mongolian soldiers when he served in Jizhou as a garrison commander. He gave orders to build special wooden boxes fitted with special steel wheels and flint stones, which would create sparks when stepped on. When the mongols came to attack again, they trampled on the boxes, setting off the burried charges. They eventually came to a conclusion that General Qi Jiguang had the service of 'underground demons', which were actually the earliest mines in the world. Ming general Qi JiGuang used workable explosive mines 300 years before thge Europeans did.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06-Jun-2008 at 11:20
For more information abour Ming Dynasty Gunpowder weapons and their use in combat, you can check on this first:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huolongjing.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02-Jul-2008 at 09:40
At Zheng He's stage the Chinese gunpowder weapons were still on par or slightly better than the European counterparts. after that though not much changed until near the time of the Imjin war. the contact with Wo Ko and Portugese expeditions quickly upgraded the Chinese gunpowder arsenal again (and Jesusits)   
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02-Jul-2008 at 17:13
Originally posted by RollingWave

At Zheng He's stage the Chinese gunpowder weapons were still on par or slightly better than the European counterparts. after that though not much changed until near the time of the Imjin war. the contact with Wo Ko and Portugese expeditions quickly upgraded the Chinese gunpowder arsenal again (and Jesusits)
 
I was going to welcome you to All Empires but it seems that you have been here since 2005.  At any rate, welcome back! Big%20smile
 
Are you talking about Chinese artillery on ships, on the field, or both?
 
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04-Jul-2008 at 03:30

Zheng He's voyage started at the height of Yong Le's reign, which was almost half a century before the fall of Constaninople. and almost a decade before the battle of agincourt.  Ming's early era military tech was pretty much all done by this point (and unfortunately, won't change much until much later) while in Europe gunpowder weapons were still at it's begining stages.

A shortwhile after the voyage started, Yong Le offically formed the Shen Ji Yin, or God's machine's battlion. this was basically the first gunpowder based battalion in human history. it consisteted of 25,000 soliders and was considered the elite forces of the Ming (other battlions had gunpowders too, but this one was based almost purely on them) . they were probably using early Arbeques and lots and lots of Cannons and explosives.

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22-Jan-2014 at 04:37
I disagree about the "uselessness" of the Ming cavalry in the late years of the Ming dynasty. The Guanning Heavy Cavalry(關寧鐵騎/关宁铁骑)made by the famous general Li Chengliang was the most elite cavalry group in China. It was able to fight face-face against the Mongolian nomads and the Manchurian Army. It was also armed with firearms too!
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