Chinese Military Conduct Against Steppe Armies

Actually, I don't recall the chokonu ever being used against the steppes during this period. The ChoKoNu was given a lot of emphasis from the West(I think ever since AgeOfEmpires2 came out), but in reality most Chinese crossbows work like... the stereotypical crossbow: You draw it, you shoot, you reload. It tends to be slow as hell, but it tends to outrange/outpower most bows.

Originally posted by The Charioteer Originally posted by Xianpei Liubang was surrounded by Xiongnu army and got very very dangerous situation.  If Liubang did not take the urgent plan recommended by his "staff" ChenPing to "please" & "corrupt" the Xiongnu Zhenyu's wife, who made significant influence to her husband to retreat his army,  this part of history would have been re-written.    Hence, we cannot over-jump to the conclusion that Liubang was not defeated in this battle of BaiDung.  Here, I want to disclose another half story.   Actually, the Shiji has no record of this,   "匈奴围我平城，七日而後罢去"   it simply says Xiongnu encircled the Chinese army at Pingcheng for seven days then they retreated. thats it. http://www.guoxue.com/shibu/24shi/shiji/sj_008.htm   the later history work the Hanshu(book of Han) has no record of such plot either,   "遂至平城，為匈奴所圍，七日，用陳平祕計得出" http://www.guoxue123.com/shibu/0101/01hsyz/002.htm   "arriving at Pingcheng, the Chinese army were surrounded by Xiongnu for seven days, then they were relieved by using Chenping's stratagem."   Its only from later paraphrase by Yingshao(who lived during the late Eastern Han period) did someone give some "details" regarding so called "Chenping's stratagem".   應劭曰：「陳平使畫工圖美女，間遣人遺閼氏，云漢有美女如此，今皇帝困厄，欲獻之。閼氏畏其奪己寵，因謂單于曰：『漢天子亦有神靈，得其土地，非能有也。』於是匈奴開其一角，得突出。」 http://www.guoxue123.com/shibu/0101/01hsyz/002.htm   According to Yingshao:"Chenping sent painting of beauty to wife of Xiongnu chief, and told her that the Han emperor want to offer such beauty to the Chanyu in order to relieve himself from Xiongnu's encirclement. The Xiongnu queen was afraid that such beauty could threaten her position so she urged the Xiongnu chief to let Han emperor go, hence Xiongnu let the Chinese army go."   but another paraphrase noted "應氏之說出桓譚新論，蓋譚以意測之，事當然耳，非紀傳所說也" what Yingshao says is derived from a "new theory" by Huantan(who also lived during Eastern Han period) which was surmised by himself rather than been recorded by any history works.   So first of all dont treat "this part" as a piece of history other than a story, because its not recorded by any legit history works, least to say making claims like  "history would be re-written" which is based on that piece of groundless "history".   besides to believe the Xiongnu sold its military upper hand to a woman's jealousy is just devaluating the quality of the Xiongnu chief.   The reality is we dont know what exactly happened, anything beyond original history records on the event are nothing but speculations, soLiubang was only surrounded(as thats what the history records say) but not defeated.(no direct evidence to suggest such)

This was the Battle of BaiDung (or Pencheng, present day DaTung of Shanxi Province of China) that Han took the initiative to deploy a large army including most of Han's elite troops (if my memory is right, it is of 400,000 in number) in a bid to crash XiongNu thoroughly at one time.  So that Xiongnu would not always "disturb" Han's northern provinces.  However, XiongNu got preparation and set up battle tactics to "attract" Han army to get into the extreme danger of being surrounded by their mounted archery forces.   The Xiongnu eventually ceased the surroundings and let the  Han army and her Emperor run away back home southwards.   In terms of this battle's objectives and the results,  the losing side is Han.  After this battle, until HanWuDai times, there were no more peoples of Han Empire dare to initiate and implement an assault plan on Xiongnu.  After this defeat, the strategy of coping with Xiongnu by Han before HanWuDai period has been changed.
About Shiji ( it is one of the greatest chronicle) record on this battle, one would understand why it was not spoken out for the reason of return of the Han army (as it was gloom that LiuBang, the founder of Han, needs to rely on some bad tactics targeted on the enemy King's woman  to "win" the Xiongnu's release of Han's encircled army, instead of fighting to death!).  
Above all, it is logical and natural for us to think about: why the Han army get return?   And also that if Xiongnu army did not let LiuBang go and made a final decisive assault on the Han's forces, (who were now of low morale, short of supplies, and lack of IMMEDIATE and FAST reinforcement coming to save them  swiftly),  the history of Han would have been just the same like now?  I really doubt that.
Of course, it is not uncommon that this kind of thing is really hated by those  narrow-minded Pan-Hannism peoples.

Edited by The Charioteer - 10-Apr-2008 at 12:56

Originally posted by Xianpei I would not object it if you see you are one of the Pan-Hannish peoples, as I am not writing that sentence targetting on you.

Edited by The Charioteer - 10-Apr-2008 at 16:36

To what I know and remembered, it was invented in about 3rd Century AD, the early period of Western Jin Dynasty.  But there are also people saying that it was invented by steppe peoples in the 3rd Century.
I also heard of saying that it was invented by Smartian in more earlier period, and they wandered and travelled to the Eurasian Steppe and brought to some other nomad tribes and brought into China.
These are what I know.  I  am not sure. So Julius Augustus you raised a question that I also wanted to ask.

Originally posted by Xianpei To what I know and remembered, it was invented in about 3rd Century AD, the early period of Western Jin Dynasty.  But there are also people saying that it was invented by steppe peoples in the 3rd Century. I also heard of saying that it was invented by Smartian in more earlier period, and they wandered and travelled to the Eurasian Steppe and brought to some other nomad tribes and brought into China. These are what I know.  I  am not sure. So Julius Augustus you raised a question that I also wanted to ask.

just call me Julius Xianpei, used this name because someone registered Julius already...

didnt know an Iranian people could have invented the stirrup, samarthians, it always made me wonder what if all the tribes of Iran were one. it will never happen though.

I love how the Chinese invented a lot of innovations during the ancient world, song had muskets, water mills, clocks and etc, amazing...

Originally posted by Sarmat12 Saddle and stirrups were not invented by Sarmatians.   Those innovations were first brought to Europe by Avars, who probably copied it from Rouran or Turks, who in their turn copied it from Chinese.   It gave Avars an enormouse advantage in Europe.

I stated could have, there are a lot of possibilities if their isnt a direct link to the possibility of its creation. same with Xianpei who stated a possibility and a few do share this as a possibility. though modern archaeologist date the first stirrup like innovation to the Indians.

Now with the statement that the Chinese invented the Saddle, this could be countered, the Assyrians of 8th century ad were using this innovation already, 200 years later the Scythians developed  improved it then the Samarthians.

the avars though had an advantage in cavalry warfare, their impatience led them to defeats to the byzantine empire.


Edited by Julius Augustus - 11-Apr-2008 at 06:16

correction, that's the earliest archealogical finding of Bonze stirrup, found in a tomb dated approximately  between Liaoning province and inner Mongolia, possibly owned by a Xianbei noble man named Feng SuFU冯素弗of Northern Yan dynasty.

Originally posted by Omnipotence There were times when China wasn't successful against steppe armies, and there were times when they were successful. Generally, when at the height of their power, dynasties would have enough resources to launch periodic raids against steppe armies, and to forge alliances in order to keep nomads from uniting under one banner. Thus any strong tribe with the potential of turning the plains into a formidable fighting force would be elimitated by either the Chinese frontier armies or rivaling steppe alliances against these stronger tribes. However, when the times get tough, usually due to internal corruption, not only would the frontier armies degrade, but the steppe armies would be united into a powerful military machine, as in the case of Genghis Khan.

There were many occasions when China fought united Steppe empires. The Han against the Xiongnu, The Wei against the Rouran, the Zhou-Sui-Tang against the Tujue. The Ming against the Mongols. Although divide and rule is a common policy, it wasn't an unilateral action and often failed in the process. Direct miltiary campaign had to be applied, and usually weakening the nomads after a war of attrition.
China fared better for two reasons: its bureaucratic administration and its large population which gave it a larger resource base and better organization than Russia and Persia.

Originally posted by Sarmat12 Weird, the Manchu army which invaded China in 1644 was nothing less than a "steppe army." In fact, Chinese army was dealing very ineffective against the Steppans. China was able to conquer other steppe people only with the hands of other steppe people. That was during the Tang conquest of the west, that was also during the Manchu Qing dinasty expansion to the west. China was conquered by the steppe people many times before Mongols and Seko already mentioned Toba Wei and Jin dynasties actually there were also others.

Thats a big misconception. The Manchu army(and the Jurchens of the Jin) was not a steppe army at all. Manchus lived in forest lands and lived off of hunting and agricultural, not pasturalism. And they do not live on the steppe. In addition, they had a Chinese modeled bureaucracy that governed their state. Again, Toba Wei and all the other kingdoms of the post Western Jin period were all rebels within China, not invaders from outside.