Here's a site for some Chinese swords for the different dynasties... http://thomaschen.freewebspace.com/ - http://thomaschen.freewebspace.com/

If they had any? Grrr...

Hey Tobodai,

    That's nonsense, everybody knows that the Chinese invented the most powerful mao bi.  Oh, wait, that's the caligraphy brush.  Nevermind.

Peace,

Michael

8-20-2004

actually the crossbow's not  medieval at all, it is in europe, but not in china. The crossbow was around since the Han dynasty.

Calm down buddy, it was meant to intregue you to post No offense intended

EDIT: BTW, did Chinese had flamethrowers? 

The Chinese were using Greek Fire (naphtha) in naval warfare by the 10th century, about 300 years after the Byzantine Empire discovered it. What I'd be interested to know is whether this spread to China from the West, or was developed indigenously.

Demon, you'll recall from an earlier discussion on CHF that I believe that the Korean 'Gema' armoured cavalry (which is actually the Korean pronunciation of the Chinese 'kaima', meaning armoured horse) were adopted by the Chinese from the Xianbei nomads slightly before the Koreans adopted it (i.e. in the 4th century AD).

Also, babyblue says that the crossbow was around in China since the Han dynasty, which is still understating it. In fact, the crossbow was developed during the Warring States period.

Hey Yun,

    What is "kaima" in Chinese script?

Peace,

Michael

8-23-2004

"In fact, the crossbow was developed during the Warring States period."

Thats still an understatement, its been around since the spring and autumn period.

Even in the Three Kingdoms period their are legends of them having machines that spew fire.

Well, that's a hard call, becasue Koguryo had a different mechanism of creating iron compared to rest of China.  Maybe they immitated their armor but didn't copy exactly.

   well...i believe it's "kai" as in "kaijia" or "hoikap" and "ma" as in horse

Military formations of ancient China.

Could i just ask you, where did you get this information from as to where the chinese were using greek fire, because i do not recognise any of those information from what i have seen previously out of my sources, so could you give sources as to where the chinese were using greek fire, i mean the first REAL! gunpowder that was used was in china way earlier than that of the western couterparts. Forgive me for interrupting your comments and im not changing the subject at all, im just saying that everyone knows that the earliest fire weapon was used in china, whether its flame thrower or gunpowder.

Well , yes but the Greeks and Romans were the only ones useing Greek Fire that I know off...  Thus name Greek fire!

“actually the crossbow's not medieval at all, it is in europe, but not in china. The crossbow was around since the Han dynasty.”

“A modern flamethrower? No. A device that spews flames yes.”

Actually, the Romans had A modern hand held flamethrower, 2000 years before WW1. They even had Death Rays!

"Well , yes but the Greeks and Romans were the only ones useing Greek Fire that I know off...  Thus name Greek fire!"

No, the Byzantines were the first to use real Greek fire. Then it's the Indians and Chinese a little bit later, as the book states.

LOL! Dude and how less do you think how we get are history.

Dude I did not say “actually the crossbow's not medieval at all, it is in europe, but not in china. The crossbow was around since the Han dynasty.” did you see that I quoted!!

Umm dude, western history has many records as well!!

Ever herd of woodchips that the Romans use to rite on! Historians fine them and some still have ink on them. But some do not have ink, because the ink faded away so they take infrared pictures, and you CAN READ WHAT THE ROMANS OR GREEKS OR WHO EVER ROTE ON THEM!!! There are records that are out there to fine, and there ARE records that had bin pass down from the past! ( Why do you think we still have Roman alphabets and we can read Latin!) As for Western experts they too said stuff about the Romans, they thought that the Roman can not main as DEEP as modern mariners until they fond 16 big  Roman WHEELS that went deeper then some modern mariners! (They thought the mineing wheels were a “myth.” The same they said about the Trojan War and that is a good example how records are passed or survived!).  Dude I can keep going on so I’m going to stop. And if I said any thing rong then sorry I’m human as well as those Historians experts. But I’m rite about them haveing the death rays, crossbows, and hand held flame throwers.

And are you shore the Romans did not have Greek fire?

Dude I did not say “actually the crossbow's not medieval at all, it is in europe, but not in china. The crossbow was around since the Han dynasty.” did you see that I quoted!!

The first sentence of crossbows not being in China is blatantly wrong. As for the second sentence, crossbows were around since the late Spring and Autumn, not the Han dynasty.

And are you shore the Romans did not have Greek fire?

What's all this about how great Rome is? Greek fire was invented by the Byzantine empire. You're getting a little too excited when you said Romans had death rays . They did use mirrors to burn ships(actually that's the Greeks).

Rome had a crossbow called a Gatastraphae but it really wasnt very effective thus the romans dont mention it in battle often.

Other ancient chinese weapons include Giant crossbow,trebuchets,Mustard gas.

Ancient means Qin and Han Dynasty? How come I didn't notice any Cavalry (I just see Chariots and Infantry). Very cool graphic!

I've been scouring the web for historical/ancient Chinese Army information (uniforms,  Army/troop structures, troop types/weapons, high level military history etc.) so I'm considered "green" when it comes to learning my cultural roots! So much Chinese/(East) Asian history I don't and didn't know! Learning a lot here!

In fact, most of the info on historical Chinese Army uniforms I found here(thanks to Poirot (....and courtesy of Ospray?)!

Anyway, I'm more into wargaming miniatures painting/collecting, not so much as a historian so I'm just searching for general knowledge to add a certain level of authenticity. I realised that there isn't so much popularity/information on historical chinese armies as compared to say the Romans, Greeks, Alexander the Great, Napoleonics(huge wargaming base!), European Medieval knights(one of most popular), American Civil War, American Independance War, Musketeers and the very famous Mongol campaigns/invasions (high awareness level in Western countries as evidenced by the number of miniature collections) as compared to Chinese Armies! To most people, the most that comes to mind about Chinese forces are:

-  the "Chinese Boxer Rebellion"(due to no small part of western military involvement of course)

- Marco Polo's visits to China;

- Qin Dynasty (first empire);

I hope that the historical Chinese military history will be more publicised and more knowledge will be "unearthed" (like the fantastic "Terracotta Warriors") just like any mighty army in the ancient/medieval world!

But I wonder for the "Rectangle formation" :

1.what does "...exaggerate power" mean? If one were to stand on same level, one cannot see the soldiers behind unless we were to stand on a higher ground, say a hill etc. It only projects (if that's what's meant with "exaggerate", or did they mean "under exaggerate"?)

2."Less soldiers in centre"...what benefit is that? I can only think of "under exxagerate" or deceive the enemy (ie.show less troops than what you got).

Hehe...and by the way, my first post! (will update a little about myself in introduction section later, if got such section).

For now: Hello everyone and nice to meet you!

 "Aquatic deployment is the means to inundate the solid" any more info on this formatation.

+ What formatation does the terracotta army use.

Unfortunately the details are not clear on the definitions of all the formations. My source is Ralph Sawyers book "The Complete Art of War" which includes the works of Sun Tzu and Sun Bin.

China has some fairly large rivers, the Yellow and the Yangtz, I'm assuming that the reference may be directed twords a specialized marine fighting division of the army. Maybe not a actual formation that was used by deploying troops on land? (still just speculation)

No i think it means a formatation which is used to dissolve a solid formation ,thats why its called Aqautic because like water it dissolves solid objects ,its most likely a skirmishg formatation in order to disorganize the solid formatation of the enemy.

 "Aquatic deployment is the means to inundate the solid"