Feudal Japan and Dynastic China: The military

[sapi]

Does anyone know of any good sites (actual source evience/translations if possible) on this time period relating to the military's role in society and in war? The period i am interested in is from the Xia dynasty in Chinese history (best timeframe i know that encompasses this) to the 1900s.

I'll have the most common sites (thank god for google) but i'd like to know if there's any hidden gems that the historians here might know better than the search engines.

To make this clear and stop me looking like a fool, i'm looking for obscure but useful pieces of primary sources that can be quoted, information that the people over at the Org who enjoy/study history are likely to know, as well as websites that have such information. I'm not asking you to do work for me; i just want anything that comes to the top of your head when you think of Feudal Japan and Dynastic China that can't be gained with a simple google (i'm not one of those people who expect other people to do work for them).

The piece i want this information for is a comparison piece between China and Japan, focusing on the military in society and war. What i need help with is quotations and obscure facts that i probably wouldn't find without help, as well as any authoritive books on the subject.

Thanks in advance,
sapi

[edyzmedieval]

I'm a huge addict of Feudal Japan(I'm so addicted, that I've started learning japanese )... Try some history books, check the 2 threads that are related to the online history resources and books....Leave google and other stuff....They really don't help... Also, for Feudal Japan check this site:

www.samurai-archives.com

It also has a hugely visited forum, post your questions there and you'll surely get the answers...

Cheers,
Edward

[sapi]

I learnt japanese for a year and decided that i didn't like it - i was really bad at the scripts....

Thanks for the help, i knid of figured that google wouldn't help as it ranks sites by links from other sites (among other things), so really authoritive sites wouldn't get there.

sapi

[nokhor]

have you looked at some of the pre-Han dynasty literature like the 'Spring and Autumn Annals' and the 'Record of the Warring States'?

[RollingWave]

Open online sources in english are few, there is a decent english online forum on chinese history though. www.chinahistoryforum.com

But the information ur asking for is way too vast and hard to give anything but grand generalizations.... Xia dynasty is a semi mythical dynasty that according to ancient history text was probably around 2000.bc - 1600 b.c

I can give you very grand generalization on the different phases of chinese military.

around 1600-1000b.c Shang dynasty. their army is a mix of feudal warriors and slaves, well developed broze weaponaries and helmets (no broze armor as far as i know), main shock weapon was chariots.

1066 b.c - 771 b.c western Zhou dynasty: height of the chinese feudal period. military system was much like the Shang but better developed, without the slaves.

771.bc-221 b.c Eastern Zhou dynasty, Spring and autumn (771-475bc)+warring state (475-221b.c): the developing era of Chinese warfare, although still based mainly on feudal chariot warfare, the appearance of iron weapons and crossbows, new type of warfare such as calvary and more reliance on infantry, Sun Tzu was also written during this period, with war swiftly parpelling from fedual and ritualistic towards total mass warfare.

221b.c-206b.c qin dynasty:contination of the warring states, chariots light calvary and mass infantry with various weapons.

208b.c-220a.d Han dynasty: the phase out of chariots and brozne equipments. the first strong united dynasty of China. due to the mass warfare with nomads in the north saw the strong development and stress of light calvary to fight the nomads on even ground.

Age of fragmentation: (including the 3 kingdoms era, between Han and Tang) 220-618 a.d: this era saw the rise and dominace of heavy armored horsemen, possibily influenced by the persian they were clad in very similar fashion to byzantian / persian cataprhcats. but towards the era's end they began to fade out of use.

Tang dynasty:618-907 a.d : change back to lighter calvary based army, mobility was much stressed and often even infantries traveled around on horses.(and due to it's strong diplomatic situation had sufficient access to horses to afford such luxeruy) with the development of large new style of polearms and anti horse strategies. the strongest era of chinese history.

Sung dynasty:960-1260 a.d :the completion of cold weapon chinese warfare, with starting developments in gun powder based weapons. although weapon technology reached it's height, the military power declined vastly due to self constrain to prevent the military from overthrowing the government. (something that happened during the Tang)

Yuan dynasty 1271-1368 a.d :Mongolian dynasty, with the main arrmy as the mongol style warriors supported by Chinese infantry.

Ming dynasty 1368-1677 a.d:development of firearms, but after early part of the dynasty. long peace and self closure began to see a stall and back track of military development. military equipment wise began to see less reliance on armor as gunpowder base weapon began to grow in ever importance.

Qing dynasty: 1677-1911 a.d: the semi nomadic machurians of north eastern china established their own dynasty as the Ming fell from internal rebellion and eventrually secured themself as a minority dynasty. their military was more based on Monglian influenced horse archery style warfare, although they opened to the west briefly after their rise (a continuation from the late ming dynasty) they eventurally closed themself again and again saw a long period of relative peace, and they continued to stick to their tradition. so when the west came knocking in 1850 they got into a lot of trouble (even their original military and deterioted vastly from long peace)

[sapi]

Wow!

Thanks, RollingWave, that was a lot of what i was looking for.

In response to your comment about the Xia Dynasty, i was just using it as an example of the time period i'm interested in (Xia-Qing in China).