Did Ancient China have a good Army

    i don't think u know much about china

1 the war china(han) vs hun:
who was the loser in the war?of curse,hun lost their land near to Huang river,but china lost half of its population at all!when both han and and hun were exhausted in the stupid war,another nomadic power arose--sabir people.it was sabir drove hun westward,and conquered north china for nearly 200 years.sabir was a turk/mongolian group.

2 the war china(tang) vs turk
do u think tang is a pure chinese dynasty? absolutely wrong. the ruler of tang dynasty had more turk/mongolian blood than chinese.for instance,the ruler of the peak time of tang was Tangxuanzong,he at the most had 1/8 chinese blood. china ruled turk 50 yeas,but before that tang china had to tribte millions of silk rolls to turk(turk sent'em to roma for profit).and after that 50 years,when turk reestablished their empire,china was forced to tribute more.once,tang dynasty even sent all the female chinese in its capital Changan ,today;s Xian,to turk to ask their support.

3 in history,north china was conquered by nomadic people many times ,such sabir,hun,sato turk,kitay,jugen, mongolian and mancu.chinese army was not only defeated by arab and mongolian,even korea and negal beated chinese army,not to mention those strong nomdic tribes.when mongolians ruled china,chinese were regarded as the lowest ethnic group compared with arabs,persians,turks,koreans and europeans.during the mancu's rule,all chinese were forced to keep pig-tail,which was a big insult in chinese culture,for 300 years.

@vivicum your perspective and tone reminds me of some ultra Korean nationalist dayanhan that i have encountered on AE earlier.

Originally posted by vivicum     i don't think u know much about china 1 the war china(han) vs hun: who was the loser in the war?of curse,hun lost their land near to Huang river,but china lost half of its population at all!when both han and and hun were exhausted in the stupid war,another nomadic power arose--sabir people.it was sabir drove hun westward,and conquered north china for nearly 200 years.sabir was a turk/mongolian group. 2 the war china(tang) vs turk do u think tang is a pure chinese dynasty? absolutely wrong. the ruler of tang dynasty had more turk/mongolian blood than chinese.for instance,the ruler of the peak time of tang was Tangxuanzong,he at the most had 1/8 chinese blood. china ruled turk 50 yeas,but before that tang china had to tribte millions of silk rolls to turk(turk sent'em to roma for profit).and after that 50 years,when turk reestablished their empire,china was forced to tribute more.once,tang dynasty even sent all the female chinese in its capital Changan ,today;s Xian,to turk to ask their support. 3 in history,north china was conquered by nomadic people many times ,such sabir,hun,sato turk,kitay,jugen, mongolian and mancu.chinese army was not only defeated by arab and mongolian,even korea and negal beated chinese army,not to mention those strong nomdic tribes.when mongolians ruled china,chinese were regarded as the lowest ethnic group compared with arabs,persians,turks,koreans and europeans.during the mancu's rule,all chinese were forced to keep pig-tail,which was a big insult in chinese culture,for 300 years.

All three of their points have faults.

The Battle of Talas in CE 751 was a conflict between the Arab Abbasid Caliphate and the Chinese Tang Dynasty over the control of Central Asia. The Chinese troops were led by Gao Xianzhi, who had been successful in battles in Gilgit and in the Farghana region. But his success did not carry over, as the Muslim armies were victorious. The Muslims chose not to pursue the Chinese into central Asia. Chinese infantry were routed by Arab cavalry near the bank of the River Talas after Qarluq mercenaries supporting the Chinese defected to the Abbasids and cut off the infantry from the rest of the Chinese troops. The commander of the Tang forces, Gao Xianzhi, noticed that he is in a disadvantage and escaped with his few Tang regulars, and abandoned the mercenaries. Gao personally ordered the Tang to slay any mercenaries that blockade their retreat. Gao was able to rebuild his forces within months, however, he never again gained the confidence of many tribes residing in the area.

The exact location of the battle has not been confirmed but is believed to be in Kyrgyzstan, southeast of Taraz (once named Zhambyl) in present day Kazakhstan.

The battle of Talas stopped chinese expansion westwards.
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First Western Campaign

Gao became famous by fighting the combined forces of Tibetans and Muslim Umayyad Caliphate. Defeating a combined attack from Tibet and Saracen in 747, he led his army on a massive counterattack, pursuing the foes across the Hindu Kush and Pamir Mountains, submitting local Hindu and Persian kingdoms of present-day Afghanistan. As the result of Gao's first campaign, Tang Dynasty started to have a hostile relatiohship with Umayyad Caliphate and Tibet; however about 72 local Indian and Sogdian kingdoms became Chinese subject. For a few years he was the Tang's counsler of Central Asia, controlling Tokmak, Kucha, Kashmir, and even having an outpost at Kabul, Afghanistan. Many other generals hated him for the superior record.

Second Campaign and Battle of Talas

In 750, Gao led another campaign against Sogdian kingdoms, conquering Tashkent and sent surrendered king to Tang capital Chang'an. However, when ignorant Chinese civilian officials executed the king of Tashkent, outraged Sogdians and Turks of Central Asia largely defected to newly-established Abbasid Caliphate. Arabs, supported by local Persian kingdoms, attacked Chinese territories with almost 200,000 men. Gao led his forces of 70,000 men to Talas, in order to confront Arab advance.

Edited by dej2 - 25-Jul-2006 at 11:08

I way say that when we exclude all comparisons of power except that of the individual soldier, then to me the Age of Fragmentation would be China's military height. The stirrup at this time is a new technology that havn't spread across the world as of yet. Thus, this technology is limited only to China and its neighboring countries. It is the stirrup that caused infantry formations to become less fluid and more tightened(stirrup introduced heavy calvary in China), while the crossbow, although lessening in importance for a time due to the onslaught of stirrup technology, jumped back to one of amazing importance once new designs/strategies were made to counter these new heavy cavalry(sadly this only started by the Song though). Thus, we can rightly assume that by the Age of Fragmentation, China was the only nation with a stirrup based heavy cavalry, while previously heavy cavalrymen could only settle for being tied to the horse with ropes, and horse archers would have an even harder time trying to shoot backwards while riding at full speed(which is nxt to impossible without stirrups, though the nomads were able to do this feat; how they did this without the stirrup is beyond me).

Edited by Omnipotence - 27-Jul-2006 at 19:11

The answer is yes of course. It takes no less than a simple glance at the maps of the Han or the Tang dynasties to prove it.

Correct me if I am wrong.
The Han based dynasties had good generals and in the case of
1. Qin
2. Later Han under Wudi
3. Tang
Had good armies , in case of Tang complemented with
Turkish cavalry.
However, they lack leaders with the foresight of
Chinggis
Ogodei
Khubilai
Huangtaiji
KangXi
QianLong

r's
Clive