1.2 - further and farther, the Qin Dynasty??

[keravnos]

Tellos, there were no infantry one-on-one duels. There were chariot duels during the much earlier period of the Eastern Zhou dynasty, but chariots by the EB time frame are on the decline, it's role being filled by cavalry introduced by the Zhao state's "Hu Fu Qi She" (literally means dressing up as a nomad and practising horse-riding and shooting from horseback) reform. Chariots then were largely used to serve as a mobile command post for generals, signalers (drums and large horns), while the rest are put onto the 2 flanks.

The Qin putting on obtaining the enemy's 首级 (roughly translates to 'head') was to encourage the men to fight more ferociously when the charge (300 yards while taking at least 3-4 vollies of bolts) was ordered. The head lopping bit comes when the enemy is breaking, where the Qin soldier would literally drop his Ji, draw his sword, and start chasing to nearest routing chap for his head. In a battle between Qin and Chu during 224BC, when the Chu decide to retreat to a better position to fight the Qin after a long stalemate, the Qin ordered an advance all of a sudden and turned what was suppose to be a tactical retreat into a rout.

@Satalexon, Thank you for an amazing insight on the army of Qin and Han. Very much appreciated.
First off, even if Qin never makes it to EB (which I would personally love to see), here are some pictures based on the terracota army to better visualise what Satalexon is talking about.


and

and

and

this,

a diagram of its operation in chinese,

and a bronze crossbow replica of the period, found in a grave,


The crossbow of the Han was superior to range and penetrating power to all bows of its time. It would be only later with the asymmetric composite bow (Turkic bows' ancestor), developed by either the Yuehzi or Wusun, or better yet the HsiongNu that the HA's would gain an advantage. In the period of EB, though and for a good time yet, Qin/Han crossbow would outshoot all bows.
After those guys would be done shooting and the opposition would be reeling from its wounds. In that semi-paralyzed army would the pikemen (holding their "Pi" pike with both hands) would run into. They had no shields because they would need none (first ranks were pretty well armored in their lamellar bronze cuirasses and a lot of padding underneath). Their flanks would be protected by HA "dressed in the nomad manner"-basically unarmored as S. very well put it. Chariots would be used by the leader to survey the battlefield and/or give commands to his runners (who would be mounted and follow the leaders' chariot). There would be also a backup chariot on standby should the primary "Comand and control" chariot fail for any reason. This would be quite a formidable army to go up against, and I am not so certain that a manipular formation, a typical Pahlavan mounted army (9HA/1Cataphract) a hoplitic phallanx or a pike phallanx, even backed by hetairoi and flanked by hypaspistai would fare so well fighting them. Like I said, I don't have the qualifications to go further into that hypothesis as to what would actually happen. This would take a military expert (as a judge), and 2 dedicated historians of the time, who (knowing all the strategies and stratagems that the two opposing armies had used-that we know of), might be able to use them on one another, in a pseudo-battlefield. Even then, this would be a reconstruction, NOT an actual encounter.

Han was nearly identical to that of Qin in fact, the only real difference really is that the source of motivation is no longer the threat of execution (they prefer the idea of 'court martial', seems more 'fair' when it's a bunch of your peers judging ya death huh?) and lobbing others' heads off to prove u got a kill. It worked mainly because the military is now under the hands of relatively more lenient regime (tho still using Qin constituitions and laws), a much larger territory, and a much larger population. The latter is particularly important because, despite every adult male are still technically considered as reserves, many people may never see military service in their life time. Thus the Han army is more professionalized and take up a smaller proportion of the total population.

Oh it also helps when ur no longer fighting a civil war, but 'defending' your self from the XiongNu, punishing 'rebellious' IndoGreeks and defending the Silk Route while making a fat load of cash in the process.

That is very interesting, including the fact that the country Han attacked was called "Da Yuan" or "Great Ionia", meaning the larger of the two states. This can mean that the Greeks of the Ferghana valley, were either a state of their own or in someway different to "Ta Yuan" or Bactria. It was also called "Da Xia" if memory serves right. Anything you can dig up for them would be nice to know.


Let's also tackle the "lost romans in China" subject. Is there is a description of the Han army fighting those "Yuan"?. They were on foot, and wearing "fish scales" or something (they would be the perceived "Romans" that Han fought). Since you are more or less our resident expert on ancient chinese, could you perhaps dig out that info and tell us more on the Baktrians/IG/Romans that the Han army faced?

-On another note, I have always considered that the King of the Ferghana city under assault by the Han was a Tokharian/Yuehzi in a Tokharian/Yuehzi controlled city. While this has to be the case, it could be that the King was an overlord, allowing the local city to maintain its independence. Also, reading more on the way the siege/countersieging was conducted, it has to have been led by a greek captain. There is no doubt about it, in my mind. The amount of expertise Greeks had on sieging/counter sieging, can't be discounted here, nor the actual methods used. From the accounts of the battle I have read, to counter the undermining of the first walls, the engineers of the besieged city (Kyropolis according to Tarn) built a second wall inside the first one. Hence they were able to withstand a dedicated Han assault and then negotiate a settlement which did make them a subject of the Han, but the Han were so far away, they might as well have been independent. (Exactly like the Bactrians did when Antiochos III besieged Baktra for two years). Again, this is my take on the whole situation, I may be wrong.

Anyways, as this seems likely to be the 2 only likely encounters of EAST VS WEST that we know of, all we could have on them would be absolutely great.