1.2 - further and farther, the Qin Dynasty??

**Connacht** · 08-03-2008, 19:23

Originally Posted by MeinPanzer

You seem to be a bit confused. I'm not discussing "huge armies entering the steppes for an invasion of a whole continent" (which continent, by the way? Is China not a part of Asia?),

Only a part of Asia doesn't mean the entire Asia, otherwise going from Hong Kong to Teheran or to Omsk would be the same as going from Madrid to Istanbul. Then we have also to consider Europe as a possible region to expand towards, during the game, since an hypotetical faction that can occupy territories in the Mid-East could also go further - as the Seleucians, for instance, in EB might do - but this is "A bit too far" (half-quote)...
The same thing would be applied to a western country or to a Eastern/Eastern Greek faction, since trying to conquer China isn't the same thing as conquering Persia or the whole Mediterranean shores. ;)

I'm discussing Chinese armies using the path that extends from the western portion of the great wall through either the north or south of the Tarim basin into the west- a route which Chinese armies historically took during the EB timeframe.

And what will be the destination of those armies? Transoxiana? Persia? Then even further? As said, it would be a suicide for armies sent there to fight and conquer. ;)
And attacking those lands would be a thing that no one in the far east would have even tried to think, because of the far distance and the low knowledge of what was there: even with some trading contacts, those were lands that the 99% of the people who heard about them only knew for light filtered echoes and didn't care much (and it's for these reasons that many myths grew amongst people in the corners of the Eurasian supercontinent about "the far exotic East/the far exotic West"), imho it's not very much for taking in consideration a conquest somewhere over there.

Which Chinese ruler would say "let's send an army west of the Tarim basin" for some lands that were almost unkown to the majority of the people in the east, except for some old merchants (and not all of them: trading routes could be also a web of connections between cities and places, with goods passing in the hands of many traders before reaching the west)? Why sending huge armies so far, if there were REAL targets in the neighborhood (and just occupied lands that needed to be garrisoned) as Korea or Indochina?
Why should a monarch think to invade really distant places which he only vaguely heard about, instead of leaving them alone and worrying about more closer, concrete, pressing troubles?
Why should a ruler summon thousands and thousands soldiers from more relevant provinces and send them to places that he hasn't any interest for, except for letting traders travel freely travel there through years? This last one is also the reason for the expedition against the _nomads_... and it would also deny any attempt to declare war against any kingdom there, since they wouldn't more establish trading relationships: why disrupting possible trading routes for waging war against somebody?
Well, which general would not consider a campaign like that just a completely crazy project?
I repeat again, an Eastern empire would mind its own businness without caring about what happens near Ekbatana/Palmyra/Persepolis and without thinking of conquer these lands; so a Western empire would mind its own one without caring about what happens in Mongolia, near the Yellow River or in Tibet. ;)

Only one army sent to fight nomads would be a thing, but a campaign with many armies for the conquest of the second half of actual EB map is another thing. It would be only a fabulous dream where mighty armies fight in the nobody's land without any really reasonable aim.

That comment was in response to this, especially the bolded part:

The only thing the country did was sending an army to defeat the steppe nomads, but the Chinese couldn't do anything else. The Romans, instead, with Traian were able to reach today's Iraqi-Iranian border and had even a possibility to go further, while the Seleucids had an empire that stretched from Asia Minor to current Afghanistan.

Your line of thinking here is clear: the Chinese couldn't do anything else other than send armies against the steppe nomads, while the Romans and the Seleucids controlled huge empires. My post was just to show that this isn't true- the Qin and Han empires expanded hugely during the EB timeframe, just like the Romans and the Macedonians. I'm just arguing that China was expansionist during this timeframe and had the capability to reach the west, but that they were not so inclined, in much the same way that Mediterranean powers could have invaded Scandinavia or the Baltics (areas which were about as accessible to and had about as much contact with the Mediterranean powers during the EB timeframe as China did with the easternmost EB factions), but they were not inclined to do so.

Nope. Read again the post. The topic was the expansion in the Mid-East, the region from the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea to today's Iran. My sentence was referring to that.
While the Seleucids and Romans could expand there for some reasons, the Chinese couldn't. Nobody said that China didn't conquer anything east of the Tarim Basin. Nobody said that the Chinese weren't expansionist. And these things are irrelevant, since we were precisely talking about a conflict between West and Far East, a conflict that can't be done for many reasons and that the Chinese never attempted to engage, since the only thing the country did westward was sending an army to defeat the steppe nomads (which was not a preinvasion-of-the-West campaign nor could have forced the Chinese to consider a similar opportunity). ;)

Yet the Sabaeans are included in EB.

In fact IMHO I would have replaced them with factions like Numidia or Pergamon, leaving the southern part of Arabia only to Eleutheroi.

**MeinPanzer** · 08-03-2008, 22:14

I think this debate can't really go anywhere, as most points have been made at this point, but I just want to reiterate a few things.

Originally Posted by Connacht

And what will be the destination of those armies? Transoxiana? Persia? Then even further? As said, it would be a suicide for armies sent there to fight and conquer. ;)
And attacking those lands would be a thing that no one in the far east would have even tried to think, because of the far distance and the low knowledge of what was there: even with some trading contacts, those were lands that the 99% of the people who heard about them only knew for light filtered echoes and didn't care much (and it's for these reasons that many myths grew amongst people in the corners of the Eurasian supercontinent about "the far exotic East/the far exotic West"), imho it's not very much for taking in consideration a conquest somewhere over there.

Which Chinese ruler would say "let's send an army west of the Tarim basin" for some lands that were almost unkown to the majority of the people in the east, except for some old merchants (and not all of them: trading routes could be also a web of connections between cities and places, with goods passing in the hands of many traders before reaching the west)? Why sending huge armies so far, if there were REAL targets in the neighborhood (and just occupied lands that needed to be garrisoned) as Korea or Indochina?
Why should a monarch think to invade really distant places which he only vaguely heard about, instead of leaving them alone and worrying about more closer, concrete, pressing troubles?
Why should a ruler summon thousands and thousands soldiers from more relevant provinces and send them to places that he hasn't any interest for, except for letting traders travel freely travel there through years? This last one is also the reason for the expedition against the _nomads_... and it would also deny any attempt to declare war against any kingdom there, since they wouldn't more establish trading relationships: why disrupting possible trading routes for waging war against somebody?
Well, which general would not consider a campaign like that just a completely crazy project?
I repeat again, an Eastern empire would mind its own businness without caring about what happens near Ekbatana/Palmyra/Persepolis and without thinking of conquer these lands; so a Western empire would mind its own one without caring about what happens in Mongolia, near the Yellow River or in Tibet. ;)

I don't know how many times this has to be mentioned, but Han forces did invade Ferghana. Here's a basic outline:

Han dynasty in the second century BC had a difficult time keeping the Xiong-nu at bay. They waged a pretty much constant campaign against the nomads to the northwest and struggled to push back incursions. One wing of this campaign involved the easternmost opening of the Tarim basin, which had been under the control of the Xiong-nu prior to 108 BC, when Han forces captured the city-states in that area, including the largest one in the region, Loulan.

Now, a major facet of the conflict against the Xiong-nu for the Han was a search for good steeds, since those of the nomads were far superior to those of Chinese stock, and in order to combat them properly, the Han needed well-mounted cavalry. After Zhang Qian's embassy to the west in the 120s BC, the Han became aware of a source of "heavenly" horses in a prosperous region they called Da Yuan (Ferghana). The emperor Wudi wanted these horses very badly, and so he commissioned an expedition to go and ask for them, but the king of Da Yuan refused (obviously because they were a precious resource), the embassy left unhappy with this news, and the king for some reason became angry with their response and had them killed on their way back.

Wudi, realizing that the horses wouldnt be gotten so easily, had a military force organized for the dual purpose of punishing this offending kingdom and getting those horses. While this took place, a diversionary attack was made against the Xiong-nu to keep them distracted from this interference in their former western possessions. This expedition took the route to the south of the Tarim basin.

The force organized included something in the region of 30,000 troops, including 20,000 or so conscripts, 6,000 local cavalry, and 3,000 crossbowmen. This was obviously pitifully small, and they were unable to even strongarm local cities in the Tarim Basin into providing them with supplies, so that by the time they reached Da Yuan, they were just a fraction of their previous numbers. They besieged the first city they encountered in Ferghana and were defeated.

Surprisingly, the commander of the military expedition was allowed to undergo a second expedition. This time they learned from their errors, and he was given a force of roughly the same composition as before (border conscripts, local cavalry) but numbering 60,000 men and a huge supply train, including 100,000 head of cattle, 30,000 horses, and other pack animals (donkeys, camels) to the number of around 10,000; food in copious amounts; and plentiful "weapons and crossbows." When he reached Ferghana, he had about 30,000 men left over (many, perhaps most, of the other half were lost, but many were split off into forces that stayed behind and guarded positions along the route they followed).

The army faced off against the Da Yuan troops, defeated them, and forced the population to retreat to the capital. A detached force captured, with some difficulty, the border town which the first expedition had tried and failed to capture. The main body of troops laid siege to the capital, and after 40 days of siege, the outer walls were taken, with the rest of the defenders falling back to the citadel. They killed their king and offered to negotiate with the Chinese, who accepted a gift of 3,000 horses.

Only one army sent to fight nomads would be a thing, but a campaign with many armies for the conquest of the second half of actual EB map is another thing. It would be only a fabulous dream where mighty armies fight in the nobody's land without any really reasonable aim.

Nope. Read again the post. The topic was the expansion in the Mid-East, the region from the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea to today's Iran. My sentence was referring to that.
While the Seleucids and Romans could expand there for some reasons, the Chinese couldn't. Nobody said that China didn't conquer anything east of the Tarim Basin. Nobody said that the Chinese weren't expansionist. And these things are irrelevant, since we were precisely talking about a conflict between West and Far East, a conflict that can't be done for many reasons and that the Chinese never attempted to engage, since the only thing the country did westward was sending an army to defeat the steppe nomads (which was not a preinvasion-of-the-West campaign nor could have forced the Chinese to consider a similar opportunity). ;)

The inhabitants of Ferghana were neither nomads, nor did they live on the steppe. Nothing in the abovementioned expedition involved the steppe. The inhabitants of Ferghana were sedentary agriculturalists who lived in walled cities and were keen traders. They may even have included some Greeks. If you want a simple scenario where Han China could have been motivated to conquer Ferghana and head eastward, then perhaps the emperor required broader stocks of horses to equip the army, and so felt that it was necessary to secure this source (in much the same way that the Ptolemies felt it necessary to secure a source of elephants to equip for war, and the Seleucids the same in Bactria), and so sent another expedition this time subjugating the region and, in typical Chinese practice, securing the cities and settlements in the surrounding region to establish vassal states to defend this new holding (as they did with the Tarim basin city-states).

**satalexton** · 08-03-2008, 22:52

MeinPanzer, u missed several details, but most importantly, the Han envoy was robbed and killed, not merely 'left unhappy'...

**MeinPanzer** · 08-03-2008, 23:15

Originally Posted by satalexton

MeinPanzer, u missed several details, but most importantly, the Han envoy was robbed and killed, not merely 'left unhappy'...

Obviously I'm not going to relay all the details of the story, since that would take too much time. I just tried to summarize it here for the debate at hand. I left out some of the details which were irrelevant to the discussion (like the Xiong-nu shadowing the second expedition, which doesn't seem to have had any outcome) or the agreements with allies on both the Han and Xiong-nu sides (which resulted in no action, as none of the allies joined either side in combat).

But you misunderstand what I wrote in the second part. I don't think I was quite clear in my writing:

the king of Da Yuan refused (obviously because they were a precious resource), the embassy left unhappy with this news, and the king for some reason became angry with their response and had them killed on their way back.

What I mean here is that the king of Da Yuan told the embassy that they couldn't have the horses, and the embassy reacted unhappily to this news, which made the king of Da Yuan angry. The embassy left the king's residence, but made it only to the border of Ferghana, where they were killed and robbed by agents of the king because of the king's anger at their reaction to being rebuffed.

**Sir Edward** · 08-04-2008, 02:17

Guys really you got your response from the EB team that under no situation would they include the Qin dynasty in EB with the TW engine, why is this argument still going on? It's pretty obvious that no one is going to be changing their mind in this thread. Just accept that an alternate history there is really an infinite number of possibilities for outcomes. Maybe the Chinese and Romans could have had a military impact on each other but we will never know since if you change one factor there will be a ripple effect. If chinese soldier went west whats to say they wouldn't come close to rebellion and the army would have to turn back (a la Alexanders macedonian army at the indus), it just can't be known since there are too many variables.