China military history

How reliable is chinese military history, though that there has been historians from the han dynasty, but can we count on it that it really support the right figures for battle and etc. Also, how well can we trust chinese stories about war during ancient times?

 

About as well as we can trust any ancient records - take as a useful guideline, and trust more if other (neutral) sources back it up.

As an example of why to be careful -

Pharoh Rameses of Egypt had a big building made, covered in carvings / writing depicting his great victory over the Hittites.
Unfortunately for him, archeologists have also discovered the treaty arranged with the Hittites after this battle - basically Egypt gave the Hittites the territory of Kadesh and the Hittites agreed to leave Egypt alone!

 

Yes, it's funny how Ramses and his Egyptian bureaucrats turned the story of that war around. I remember reading a record of the battle that seemed to be based entirely on Egyptian propaganda, and being confronted later on with a more historically correct version.

The propaganda version included Ramses himself heroically fighting off thousands of Hittites alone after most of his army had fled; in the end the strength given him directly by Amon saved the day for the Egyptians and the Hittites were routed.

What really happened was that most of the Egyptian and Hittite nobles just rode their chariots across each other picking each other off with their bows for days on end, literally, until the battle was concluded with a truce by mutual consent.

Anyway, when talking ancient military history - divide by ten.

 

How about some battles, like during the waring states period and the three kingdom period?

 

I once saw a documentary about the Mongols, entitled "Storm From the East". It detailed, among other things, what the Mongols did to the Chinese, which amounted to turning them upside down, inside out, and every which way but loose!

 

Man i must admit i dun get what you mean mate

 

I reckon he's talking about the military defeats suffered by the Chinese at the hands of Mongol armies in the 13th century. I don't know anything about these battles however...

 

YEa i know...But the Mongols took like 13 years before decisively defeating us HAns....

 

True, but they did manage it, which no one else can say.

 

That's true,but give us some credit for resisting such a long time eh?lol....

 

Oh, very well, if you insist.

 

WHOA I found this site :
Chinese Siege Warfare Mechanical Artillery & Siege Weapons of Antiquity
- An Illustrated History

Well they kicked the s&%# out of us Europeans every time they came around, even whit small detachments. So 13 years of resistance against the bulk of their forces isn't bad at all.

 

Just read the site on previous link.
Man when us Europeans strugled with first artilery Chinese were building first hand held racked launchers (RPG's ) and MLRS (Katyusha) style weapons, not to mention two stage naval cruse missiles (Huolung Chusui), and first balistic misiles (Shenhuo Fei Ya - rocked propelled glider - OK they had range of 800ft but you have to start somwhere :smok: ).
Man were we behind Hans in those times.

 

That remained true until about 1500, when European culture began catching up to that of both China and the Muslim Empire.

 

Many of today's historians would argue that Europe didn't surpass China until the 19th century at the earliest, with the advent of industrialization and steam power. Just about everything the Europeans invented before this was already done earlier by the Chinese.

 

Pay attention, Roel; I said that Europe *began to catch up* to China around 1500, not that Europe had surpassed China.

 

It's hard to say, as up until the late 18th century Europe was truly a backwater of the world. But indeed, Europe began to catch up in terms of urbanization and culture in the 14th century (don't believe anything you hear about the Renaissance, it was just fashion ).

 

Besides, the Renaisance was actually mostly looking backwards to Rome/Greece, rather than looking forwards.

I should point out that in some things, Europe was ahead. For example, while the Chinese made the first gunpowder, Europe had cannon first (although it is probable that we pinched the idea from the Muslims).

 

Are you sure about that?
My idea of the 14th century is quite opposite....
For example in France through ther combined evil of 100 years war and epidemies,the population and urbanization dropped sharply.
Historians estimate that in 1325 France had a population of 22 million.
In 1425 it war around 16 million....
It would take 400 years for the country to have the same number of population again as in the early 14th century.
Even today, some towns do not have the same nimber of inhabitants they had before the 100 years war....

 

After the disastrs of the fourteenth century, that is. And for France stuff took a little longer because of the Hundred Years' War. I am therefore mostly talking about the cities of Flanders and Northern Italy.