Chinese Military Conduct Against Steppe Armies

i'm a chinese !

Originally posted by kurt Of all the civilizations which had to deal with steppe armies, the Chinese produced the most effective resistance. Only Persia and Russia had to deal with steppe armies as long and as frequently as China had, yet China was only subjugated to steppe warriors once, in two successive conquests, the first of which was conducted by Genghis Khan against the northen dynasties and the second by Kublai Khan against the southern dynasties.   So I'm wondering, why were the Chinese so effective against what are generally regarded as some of the fiercest warriors of their time? Persian and Russian history was almost cyclic with nomadic subjugation, and the Indians were conquered a fair few times, yet the Chinese fell only once, and almost nobody had to deal with the steppe warriors for as long as they did.   Although I'm aware diplomatic and other measures were a pretty big part, I'd particularly like to learn about how they fought them militarily.

Edited by Shield-of-Dardania - 26-May-2010 at 00:10

And comparing feats further:
Battle of Tours and Battle of Talas were fought at the same period, both against Muslim forces and outnumbered more than 2:1.  The Franks feared Muslim cavalry and had to hold on top of a forested mountain to win, using both factors to negate Muslim cavalry advantage; the Tang forces dared to come out in the open and battle with their equally powerful cavalry and even more deadly archery fire.  In the end even though Tang lost due to 1/3 of their force changed side and hit them in their back, but the amount of loss sustained by Abbasid suggest it would be a clear Tang victory just like previous engagements between Tang and Central Asian forces.  

Originally posted by Omnipotence I think I've went over this. When one is strong the other is weak. This has been repeated over and over in steppe/Chinese history. They cannot both be powerful at the same time merely because the powerful one always uses its resources to fracture the other one. When steppe armies are strong, Chinese states are weak and thus can be overran. When Chinese states are strong, steppe armies are weak and can thus be overran. There is no one-sided contest, but a tug of war that have only stopped recently. There is no quality over quantity argument, as steppe warfare emphasize speed. Speed, not population size, means the ability to have numerical superiority at places that matter. This is why northern Chinese armies were always crazy for horses, and why dynasties who let their horse population dwindle could only hold onto the South were steppe warfare would be unsuitable to the terrain. This isn't something I pulled out of thin air, this is said by Han dynasty bureaucrats themselves. Speed is the key to numerical superiority when in the plains. When the horse supply on both sides are great, generally the one who attacks would have numerical superiority. Rarely would a sane general attack when he knows he is outnumbered(there are exceptions such as Huo Qubing, Ban Chao or Esen Tayisi, but I'm not sure Huo Qubing was sane given the circumstances. But no matter, his thinking worked). The wise choose their battles.

Really, steppe empires can't compete with Plains empires if both were strong militarily, it has been the consistent pattern in history. The former simply lacks the resource to conduct a war of attrition. This is noted by a number of Mongols scholars such as Dardess as well as Inner Asian scholars such as Perdue. Dardess explained that the reason Kublai could overwhelm his brothers in Mongolia was precisely because he could utilize the resources of China, and the same reason explains why Kang Xi was able to defeat Galdan. The same is true of earlier states as well. In all of the instances where both sides where powerful militarily the empire centered in China won.

Edited by honeybee - 08-May-2010 at 23:20

"""I gave the example of these Manzhu emperors to show that they were very sinicized, yet they regarded themselves as Manzhu. """

Edited by honeybee - 08-May-2010 at 22:06

Originally posted by Sarmat [  Well. It's an interesting perspective Yin. But I didn't mean to say that Russians were somehow superior to Chinese.   I was trying to say that it hardly could be the fact that the Chinese armies historically were "the most succesful" against the steppe armies compare to other armies that faced the steppe warfare in different historical periods.   Perhaps, the argument "who was the most succesful" deserves some more time and consideration. But as you pointed out, apparently, "the overall superior performance of Chinese armies" over the steppe warfare is a non-existent assumption.

Edited by honeybee - 08-May-2010 at 20:31

Originally posted by Sarmat Originally posted by honeybee In case you haven't read my last post, “Mongol Russia” was referring to the entire Golden Horde, for the second time in two consecutive posts. And if that is still confusing to you, let me quote the exact passage for you from "Mongol Manpower and Persian Population" p. 278;  “The population of the Golden Horde numbered around 850,000, in addition to that, there were some 2,150,000 Russian subjects to the north...” So nice try with playing semantics. But because you never read the material, you still lost in the end. All you've succeeded in accomplishing is bore me with 4 misinterpreted redundant posts that never needed to appear if you simply humbly asked for the source. I am very aware you repeated it several times and it bores me each time since you never explained what this imaginary territory of yours include that is beyond what I described. You didn't even know the existence of the Kirghiz steppe and its uninhabited environment, so where did you come up with the figure? And even now you still can’t provide a single source to back up your nonsense figure of 10s of millions of people. So let me ask you again, where did you get that source or do you just admit you don’t have one?     You're simply lying. I explained to you many times what are my "imaginary territories". And repeat again that Golden Horde included Crimea, Caucasus, and Central Asian territories which were more populous than the Russian lands. Russian territories formed only a smaller part of the Horde. I gave you the names and even referred you to the fact that it was Urgench in Central Asia that was the biggest city under the Hordes control. Lands that had been a part of the Horde and later became Astrakhan, Kazan Khantates never were historically Russian territories and were conquered by Moscow only in the 16th century and Crimean Khanate only in the 18th century. All of those had large populous cities Like Bulgar, Sarai, Sudak, Urgench etc. cities under Golden Horde control in Caucasus like Derbent were very ancient urban centers from the times BCE. And those lands were actually more developed and populated and much more important for the Horde that their vassal Russian states. That's why you can't calculate all the population of the lands under the Horde control only by referring only to the Russian principalities and nomadic Tatar population. It's incorrect. You still don't get it?

No offense, but you have a big mouth for someone who never even read the book and incredibly you even have the naiveness to tell me I'm lying when I own that book and its currently right in front of me now. And ironically you are using my own terminologies(Mongol Russia) against me? You are a joke buddy. If you think its lying, the solution is simple really, look it up in your own local library for the book. And I suggest any forum member here do that to see whether I'm lying, or you were simply a loser who can't come up with any better argument when you were proven wrong. The territory I spoke of includes the entire golden horde. The book estimated the population of the entire golden horde, its even listed under the subsection of the Golden horde. It even broke down the sedentary and steppe population of the horde and specifically stated that the steppe territory of the Golden Horde had 850,000. Face it you were wrong. The Golden horde had an inferior population as well as horse reserves than the hordes of Mongolia.

Edited by honeybee - 08-May-2010 at 22:47

It is all about the cavalry!  Chinese Liao cavalry could beat Jurchen horsemen despite a crazy numerical disadvantage!

On a side note, Chinese tactically bested Steppe horsemen with only infantry several times, I can count three, they are Li Lin of Han Dynasty, Ran Min of "Five Barbarian Incursion", and Yue Fei of Song Dynasty.

Originally posted by Yin To this end, things like Catherine the Great being German probably did get used as evidence that Russians were inferior to Germans - the Nazis, for example, believed whole-heartedly that the Nordic Aryan was a master race by virtue of having produced so many great men, whereas the Slavs were an inferior, slave race that the Germans could "justifiably" exploit.

Originally posted by calvo From the little Chinese history that I read (and learned from this forum), Li Yuan, the founder of the Tang, was of Sinicised Xianbei stock. You have to remember that the Sui and Tang dynasties were born directly after the age of barbarian invasions and great fragmentation (somewhat comparable to what happened in the same period in Europe); and during that time the Han Chinese were heavily mixed with Xianbei (proto-Mongol), Xiongnu (Hun), Tocharian, and Xiang (Tibetan) peoples; and ethnic boundaries might not have been clear. Many so-called "Han Chinese" might have lived under heavy steppe influence, and other people of barbarian descent could have lived under heavy Han influence. Therefore, putting nationalists sentiments aside, praising a "mestizo" Chinese emperor for his accomplishments against steppe nations isn't necesarrily belittling the Chinese nation. In the same way, by attributing Catherine the Great's German background in her imperial conquests isn't necessarily stating that Russians are inferior to Germans.

Ah, but that is exactly what the age of ethno-nationalism (which we have yet to really move beyond) is all about: the concept of "blood" and "genetic ancestry" associated with notions of superiority and/or inferiority. To be sure, this sort of thinking has always been a part of human nature ("he is of noble blood," etc.), but it has become especially relevant in the age of ethno-national states due to the ideological substitution of class by ethnicity. Whereas before, the rulers of a state might consider themselves superior by blood to the commoners, now that privilege is extended to the entire nation - but not to other nations - and that's why we have the controversies that we do over ethinc history, today.

To this end, things like Catherine the Great being German probably did get used as evidence that Russians were inferior to Germans - the Nazis, for example, believed whole-heartedly that the Nordic Aryan was a master race by virtue of having produced so many great men, whereas the Slavs were an inferior, slave race that the Germans could "justifiably" exploit. One would like to think we're over all that, today, but this is not so; that's the point of my earlier post - you might not think you're denigrating the Chinese nation by alleging that the great Tang emperor was Xianbei, but people inevitably do interpret it in such a fashion, as a cursory glance around the web can tell you. So-called "Altaic" netizens (really Koreans, Turks, and Mongolians), in particular, love to use such arguments to denigrate Chinese.

Towards this end, you have to understand why the Chinese are protective of their history. It's not so much that the facts are offensive, but that the insinuations can be. Somebody always finds a way to argue, through history, that some group is superior/inferior and that's why people are so attentive to historical revisionism. Unfortunately, people do still view others in terms of their group identity, so anything that detracts from one group's identity is inevitably going to be intensely (and perhaps unfairly) scrutinized and criticized by that group. It's a form of self-defense, in some sense, though one could hope that in the end, the facts, and only the facts, would triumph. One could also hope that evidence of the multi-ethnic and interconnected nature of human history would bring us closer together, rather than drive us further apart... But maybe that's too much to hope for.


Edited by Yin - 12-Jun-2009 at 22:10