Ancient-imperial chinese armies

[Inuyasha12]

I dont know why but its really hard to find good wesites with lots of info on the ancient chinese. I m basically looking for info on their armies, weapons, and soldiers. I get a lot of general history but not much military. I can barely find anything, to say the least about pictures. I am very interested in this topic, but cannot seem to pin down good websites, sources.

[RollingWave]

www.chinahistoryforum.com is probably the best place where you might find something or at least have people answer some of ur questions. the other way is acturally learn chinese

[sapi]

learning chinese?

I for one find learning asian languages impossible for some reason (complex script i guess)

[RollingWave]

learning language (espically when not living in that enviornment) takes quiet a bit of talent and dedication, not everyone can do it... but many can do it surprisingly well.

[Inuyasha12]

thank you so much wave

[Fragony]

learning language (espically when not living in that enviornment) takes quiet a bit of talent and dedication, not everyone can do it... but many can do it surprisingly well.

It isn't that hard for us europeans, our languages are pretty similar. I find it pretty amazing how asians learn english, since these languages couldn't be more different.

[Inuyasha12]

because the western languages is easier to learn, to write at least.

[The Wizard]

Because the European languages are true civilization, not barbarian tongues like in the rest of the world!



~Wiz

[AquaLurker]

I think it's because of the comercial value of these languages that drives asians to learn. That is why more europeans are taking up asian languages now. Money is the real influence.

[Marquis of Roland]

Chinese infantry wore what amounted to be approximately scale mail. The used a lot of polearms as well as more ubiquitous weapons like the sword and shield and spear. They put a large emphasis on archery, and had many different kinds of missile artillery, both personal weapons and ones that required more than one person to operate.

Chinese cavalry horses were brought from Persia to be bred with native horses of China (probably steppe ponies). Consequently, their horses had a good balance of stamina and speed. Their horse archers were well armed for melee and could be used as effective medium cavalry.

This would be the armies of Chou, Qin, and Han dynasties. Kinda general, but...

[RollingWave]

A bit too general acturally ;)
Chinese armor in more specific classification would be called lamellar armor instead of scale, the difference is that scale tend to be mental plates attached on a leather peice, while lamellar is plates (the plates can be made from either metal or other materials) that are laced together (usually with leather.. but could use other material too)

Lamellar tend to be a flexible army that is very good for covering a large surface for a realtatively cheap cost and it is easy to repair or make improvments to, making it a very efficient all around armor. it's protection quality would really depend on individual quailty and the different improvements placed on it. (for example, the classic medieval Chinese armor the Ming Guan, had large metal plates over the top torso areas on top of the normal lameallar)

Chinese native horses were mongolian breed, but because of the setiment enviornment of the area they were originally not as good as the mongolian horses that would later go conqure much of euroasia. which explains why early chinese used chariots very extensively (As it has a much lower requirment on the horse's strength and stamina) and only later begin to turn to calvary. (chinese only started to use calvary by around 300-400 b.c, while they only started to become the most essenstial part of hte army by around 100-200 b.c)

The later horses were indeed a cross breed of central asian horses (modern day race horse) with monoglian breeds. pretty much any real horse archers in history were melee capable that's nothing special, by the 3-4 century a.d the Chinese began to use cataphract style like cavlary armed with bows lances and other weapons.

Chinese military is a developing process, the very fact that Chinese history is very long and continuious makes studying it rather problematic as people often confuses various periods and assume that past or future periods were simliar, when in fact it often isn't

[Inuyasha12]

Thx again Rollingwave

The problem is that there is no main website on military chinese history-in english. I mean there are general databases with good info. But still, there is no "romanempire.net" for china. Makes it really hard to find anything. I will try to buy some of the osprey books on chine, they look promising.

[Pindar]

This might be a little beyond the scope of your interest but: Medieval Chinese Warfare 300 - 900

[Marquis of Roland]

I stand corrected, Rolling Wave!

If you're in Taiwan, do you recommend any books on the subject, I'll have my relatives buy it for me

I'm not to fast on reading Chinese so if there's an english translated version that'll be even better.

This has also been a great interest to me for awhile I just can never find any information on it living in the U.S.

[RollingWave]

Unfortunately i have yet to come across good books on general chinese military development, i have a good one of the development of weapons and other tools of war, but it is not easy to draw out a very clear picture with that alone either. most of the things i gathered from various sources online or in books and try to put them together into something slightly more clear

[Watchman]

I feel "ancient Chinese" is more than a bit too vague - China has a ludicrously long history, and whther they liked it or not every successive dynasty tended to do things a fair bit differently than the previous ones in response to changing circumstances and technological and social developements.

Case in point, there pretty much was no native Chinese cavalry (steppe mercenaries and the like obviously don't count) before the 7th to 8th century AD or so (when the stirrup was introduced) - they had war chariots instead. Some dynasties tried to get even the infantry armoured with semi-decent cuirasses (leather, lamellar, coat-of-plates...), at least for parts of their reign, while others dispensed with such niceties altogether and left the footmen to rely primarily on weight of numbers and logistical excellence more than anything else (Confucianism doesn't hold soldiers in high regard, and often the army was the final refuge of all manner of flotsam and jetsam that couldn't cut it anywhere else...). The cavalry ran the gamut from spear- and halberd-toting shock troops in ankle-lenght lamellar hauberks to entirely unarmoured horse-archers with pretty much everything in between being tried at one point or another. The missile weapons ranged from the ubiquitous composite bow through crossbows (repeater and not) to various grades of firearms. Siege engines included various breeds of giant crossbows (some with more than one shaft and naturally rather complicated string arrangements), trebuchets, flamethrowers, poison gasses, gunpowder bombs, Greek Fire (the formula apparently aquired from distant Middle East through - get this - Vietnam), cannon...

[DemonArchangel]

7-8th century AD?

Yea right Watchman.

[Watchman]

The stirrup, you mean ? Well, by what I've read it was hauled into Europe and Middle East by the Avars who turned up there around something like the 700s or 800s after getting chased off from the steppes near China by a subject tribe who'd eventually be known as Turks; given that it usually seems to have taken a migrating nomad people about a century or two to cross the steppes to the Black Sea region, that'd put the introduction of the stirrup around China into the 600s - 700s bracket. Plus the Chinese records apparently stop mentioning the Jwen-Jwen (Juan-Juan, various other variations of the theme), identified as the ancestors of the Avars, around the period.

If I recall correctly the first archeological evidence of Chinese cavalry, in the form of statues, miniatures and horse equipement (incl. stirrups) dates from around that period too.

But it's kinda late and I *really* don't feel like digging out the books to start checking the dates and so on, you know...

[DemonArchangel]

No, I meant cavalry. They appeared much earlier, as the Chariot was falling rapidly out of use by the time the Qin Dynasty ended.

And the first pair of functioning stirrups was found in the tomb of a Jin (Jin=Northern Chinese Kingdom) horseman in 322 A.D

The Avars appeared around the 620s A.D after the Chinese drove them off.

[DemonArchangel]

http://www.silk-road.com/artl/stirrup.shtml (sorry for DP, but look here)

[RollingWave]

Calavary use were around since at least about 300 b.c in China acturally..... as modern day study have already shown although stirrup fundementally changed how you ride a horse, one could easily ride without it given the proper technique. (and horse.. obviously ur unlikely to get on a large horse while clad in armor ... case in point the native mongolian breeds of China are small horses, and the Macedonian breed is also smaller than what we commonly think of when we think about war horse)

Chinese started out first using their own calavary acturally, although they did later use quiet a bit of Xiung Nu mercenaries and auxillary during the Han. Chinese were using Cataprhact style calavary by around 4th to 5th century a.d and IIRC that was also around the time of stirrup innovation.

Some dynasties tried to get even the infantry armoured with semi-decent cuirasses (leather, lamellar, coat-of-plates...), at least for parts of their reign, while others dispensed with such niceties altogether and left the footmen to rely primarily on weight of numbers and logistical excellence more than anything else (Confucianism doesn't hold soldiers in high regard, and often the army was the final refuge of all manner of flotsam and jetsam that couldn't cut it anywhere else...).

That's really way too generalizing and conclusion drawing, until the end of the Song dynsasty soliders were always as well armored as the government can afford to. lightly armored or unarmored armies only came in times of chaos when the armies can't afford to get the armors. Chinese armor in general are quiet easy to produce and repair, so those circumstances were rare.

Later dynasties such as the Ming and Qing did not give average foot soliders armor simply because of the developments of gun poweder warfare, making armors simply rather redundent and ineffective overall.

As for the Confucion effect and view on soliders, i find that to be a major myth in Chinese history made up by early 20th century historians to serve the needs of the polititions who were trying to reestablish a new China, the only dynasty that have some decent evidenace to back up this claim would have been the Song dynasty who really did intentionally limit their own military, but even then it was far more out of cocerns of military coups and decentralization that had ruined the Tang dynasty than out of any pure Confucion ideals.

[Watchman]

I checked them books again, and yes, the beginning of the 300s is where the first stirrups can be reliably dated to. So much for that, then.

As for armour, well, there's some pretty decent reasons why the mass of infantry never ever anywhere wore good armour anywhere else than on thier bodies and heads plus maybe some auxiliary pieces on the limbs - weight. The cavalry can get off with pretty damn heavy harnesses on the simple expedient that their mount is the one that actually hauls it around; footmen carry it themselves, and are thus under markedly more severe logistical weight constraints.

Infantry also usually had bigger shields than cavalry, making the armouring of the legs (or at least upper legs) that much less important.

But to reiterate the point, some dynasties (mainly the earlier ones) issued even the infantry (or at least the close-combat "heavy" troops) with body armour, while others (mainly the latter ones) didn't. Dunno about the Ming, but by the 1800s the Qing had dropped body armour even from the cavalry (who incidentally fought with composite bows).

Although given how crappy Chinese firearms were still by the end of the Ming (the beginning of the 17th century), I sincerely doubt if they had any relevance to the use of armour or lack thereof. Their guns were still at the primitive bottle-like "handgonne" level that the Europeans and Middle Easterners had dumped as totally obsolete by the early 1400s if not earlier, and as might be imagined this put them at a disadvantage when they were confronted with the up-to-date European-derived Japanese arquebuses in Korea at the end of the 16th century.

[RollingWave]

Where do you get that the Qing did not arm their calavry in armor?
AFAIK the 8 flags unit which were the predominent source of Qing dynasty horse archers were clad in armor similar to those posted in this thread.
http://www.chinahistoryforum.com/ind...showtopic=4608

The predomantly Han chinese infantry green camps were intentionally poorly armed, mostly out of fear of rebellion, they did use siginificant firearms near the start of the dynasty but during the relatively long peace period their fire arm ratio dropped significantly as they were really no immediate need for them.

By the late ming dynasty China was importing and reproducing mass muskets and cannons much like the Japanese did in their warring states period. in terms of ratio from what i have read over half the men in late Ming army were operating gunpowder based weapons. (and much like the Japanese after reaching sustained peace combined with self closure these weapons were much disgarded and the technology to produce them did not advance) which would certainly justify the lack of armor. as against such large number of explosive armor were quiet redundent, in fact the founding father of the Qing dynasty died from wounds sustained from Ming cannons.

[Watchman]

I said late Qing. Pay attention. I know quite well their heavy cavalry went around in full lamellar coats when they rolled up the Ming, and given that they'd gotten their adminstration and military on a by far better organized basis than any nomad empire before them (discounting the parts of the Mongol empire that co-opted Chinese adminstrators) large parts of the lighter cavalry may also have worn some assuming a tactical need was perceived. Given that by the late Qing period both they and their enemies had reasonably up-to-date guns in abundance there's some fairly sound tactical and logistical sense for them to have mostly dropped off body armour by that point.

As for the Ming, by what I know of it by their last leg (ie. the end of 1500s; the Qing demolished them pretty soon after that, didn't they ?) they were still playing at "isolationism" and using badly outdated firearms - although in artillery both they and the Koreans had a virtual 100% superiority over the Japanese, who in practice had none at all (but whose well-honed military was in most other ways frightfully superior).

Both the Ming's and the Koreans' heavy close-combat cavalry wore armor, but the infantry none at all (some individuals might, but they don't really count in armies numbering in the hundreds of thousands). The Japanese and Europeans of the same time period, for their part, used both advanced firearms and armoured infantry in large quantities, so the two are in no way mutually exclusive.

[Watchman]

As for those pictures, take heed that there may not be much *any* actual armour plates in many of those fancy studded duds some of the guys wear. I happen to know they took into the habit of manufacturing "fake" brigandine suits with just the gilded rivets and no iron for ceremonial wear...

As for the rest of them, well, there's nothing to say they might not have a mail shirt of lamellar or brigandine cuirass under their coats (I know 1700s European cavalry usually had a steel breastplate under their jackets, and it doesn't show in paintings at all unless the buttons are open), but...

[gie]

have in the next osprey books

from japan

Samurai 1550–1600
Samurai Heraldry
Early Samurai AD 200–1500
The Samurai (Elite 23)
Samurai Armies 1550–1615 (Men-at-Arms 86)
Ninja AD 1460–1650
Ashigaru 1467–1649
Japanese Warrior Monks AD 949–1603
Japanese Castles 1540–1640

Chinese
Imperial Chinese Armies (1) 200 BC–AD 589
(Men-at-Arms 284)
Imperial Chinese Armies (2) 590–1260 AD(Men-at-Arms 295)
Medieval Chinese Armies 1260–1520
(Men-at-Arms 251)

others

Siege Weapons of the Far East (1)
Siege Weapons of the Far East (2)
Fighting Ships of the Far East (1)
Fighting Ships of the Far East (2)

[gie]

Han army

[RollingWave]

By the Han dynasty i didn't think they used much Chariots, espically after the first 4 emperor or so...

Also, I am not so sure about the depiction in that picture of the chariot, Han chariot shoulda been pretty close to Qin/Warring States chariot, which we know for sure had 2 horse for 3 men on the chariot, why would Han use a 4 horse for 2 men that doesn't make any sense.

I said late Qing. Pay attention. I know quite well their heavy cavalry went around in full lamellar coats when they rolled up the Ming, and given that they'd gotten their adminstration and military on a by far better organized basis than any nomad empire before them (discounting the parts of the Mongol empire that co-opted Chinese adminstrators) large parts of the lighter cavalry may also have worn some assuming a tactical need was perceived. Given that by the late Qing period both they and their enemies had reasonably up-to-date guns in abundance there's some fairly sound tactical and logistical sense for them to have mostly dropped off body armour by that point.

As for the Ming, by what I know of it by their last leg (ie. the end of 1500s; the Qing demolished them pretty soon after that, didn't they ?) they were still playing at "isolationism" and using badly outdated firearms - although in artillery both they and the Koreans had a virtual 100% superiority over the Japanese, who in practice had none at all (but whose well-honed military was in most other ways frightfully superior).

Both the Ming's and the Koreans' heavy close-combat cavalry wore armor, but the infantry none at all (some individuals might, but they don't really count in armies numbering in the hundreds of thousands). The Japanese and Europeans of the same time period, for their part, used both advanced firearms and armoured infantry in large quantities, so the two are in no way mutually exclusive.

Machus weren't really nomadic, like the Khitans and Nuchin before them they were acturally settled people with some of their northern tribes (which were relatively small in numbers) that live a semi nomadic lifestyle.

The Ming were using Western Cannons by their late days, bought from the Portugese / Dutch and reproduced / remodeled some themself (Reproduced first Portugese Cannon in 1524, and got later models from the Dutch and were producing in scale by 1629). it was same for the western firearm, after their contacts with the west and Japan, they were also using western style firearms. it was call Niao Tong. (Bird shooter, first reference was 1548). The writings by the famous Ming general Qi Ji Guang (1528-1588) already had half he's men operating gunpowder weapons. The Founder of the Qing dynasty died from wounds sustained when he's position was bombarded by Ming troops.

[gie]