Alexander VS Qin dynasty

Kurt said:

There was most obviously a desire for expansion. Part of the answer is that China since the Han did not erect an ethnocracy like the Macedonians. This made their conquests longer lasting, but of compareable smaller scale.

Click to expand...

Hmmm, this would be the first time I've heard people claiming China being "small". How big was the entire Macedonian empire? One mistake you made was to use the current Chinese map and assume China had always been that big to begin with. Thus, they had not conquered much. The fact is China during Qin era was only about 1/4 of the size of what China is now. Only the most eastern portion of the modern China was considered to be Qin 2000 years ago.



Here you can find a map of Qin and compare it with the current China marked by the dotted line. Most of the yellow within the dotted line was conquered in Han dynasty.



Here is a map of Han dynasty. As you can see, Han dynasty almost doubled/tripled the size of China since Qin. The map also shows that Han dynasty pretty much conquered everything they thought was worth conquering: east -> all the way to the ocean; north -> near siberia (northeast) and to the edge of the big desert (due north); south -> to the ocean; west -> to the biggest mountain on the planet (Himalaya). Now, can you think of anything else to conquer if you were a Chinese and knew only what they knew back then?

I don't know about you, but that's BIG scale.

About central Asia, like Solarz said, Xin Jiang WAS and still is central Asian. The locals in Xin Jiang look Central Asian, speak the Central Asian language and believe the Central Asian religions. And it became part of China through conquests. Han sent multiple expeditions and conquered most of Xin Jiang as indicated by the map above. Unlike Europe which faces the fertile side of Central Asia, China neighbors with the desert side of Central Asia. So there was little motivation in conquering Central Asia except exterminating the annoying nomads and protecting the Silk Road, which was at the time of early Han was not as extensively developed as in Tang dynasty.



Interactive maps of Chinese dynasties.

waterbound said:

Actually there are many cases of this. General William Tecumseh Sherman led a 62,000 man union army with 35,000 horses and 2,5oo wagons through to Atlanta, Georgia. Then he marched to the sea living off the land. It was the most successful campaign of the US Civil War.
Hernan Cortez also lived off the land of his enemies when he landed at the port of Veracruz, Mexico. With hundreds of Spaniards he led thousands of anti-aztec natives against Aztec cities. With the aide of a legend, technology, diseases, beasts of burden and dissatisfied meso-americans Cortez conquered 11 million Aztecs.

Click to expand...

True, that's because most of the Southern states of America (Confederate) were rural and farm lands with already grown crops, therefore much easier for Sherman's army to forge on the land like corn and such.

Macedonia would be hardly visible on such a map, while the Han started after taking over the Quin Empire in a revolt. As such per person and resource available, the Han were very modest conquerors.
You are aware of the Chinese conquest and presence in the fertile Fergana Valley?
The attitudes reflected in these posts are perhaps the most informative part: "exterminate the nomads", "South East Asians were always vassals"
We do have testimony of Han armies fighting the Hellenistic Bactrians, who just happened to sit upon the vastest mineral mining resources of that age close to China? The Han, like all other conquerors, did meet the limits of their system and some things were beyond.
Part of our disagreement certainly derives from different educations=indoctrinations and it's pretty pointles to argue about such things.

Kurt said:

Part of our disagreement certainly derives from different educations=indoctrinations and it's pretty pointles to argue about such things.

Click to expand...

I agree with that with one caveat. True education allows us to acknowledge, and respect, that which we don't yet know, and have yet to learn and understand. It is indoctrination, which is ALWAYS voluntary (for no one can compel us to not think critically) that contributes to our inabilities to consider the value of unfamiliar intellectual concepts and contexts.

Kurt said:

Macedonia would be hardly visible on such a map, while the Han started after taking over the Quin Empire in a revolt. As such per person and resource available, the Han were very modest conquerors.
You are aware of the Chinese conquest and presence in the fertile Fergana Valley?
The attitudes reflected in these posts are perhaps the most informative part: "exterminate the nomads", "South East Asians were always vassals"
We do have testimony of Han armies fighting the Hellenistic Bactrians, who just happened to sit upon the vastest mineral mining resources of that age close to China? The Han, like all other conquerors, did meet the limits of their system and some things were beyond.
Part of our disagreement certainly derives from different educations=indoctrinations and it's pretty pointles to argue about such things.

Click to expand...

No one is arguing that China has limits to its military and political systems. What is ridiculous is your claim that Macedonian achieved a more enduring conquest in central asia than China did.

Our disagreement comes from the fact that you make these ludicrous claims and then put up straw men when called out on it.

Kurt, I'd really like you to address this most laughable of your claims:

Kurt said:

This is the important part, the Quin were an ethnocracy like the Macedonians and true unification beyond the ethnic borders was achieved by the Han, who created a better empire (and that's why most Chinese refer to themselves as Han and not as Quin). If the Quin faced capable foreign invaders, who were not just raiders for booty = the Macedonians, chances are that other Chinese tribes would have rebelled and aligned with Macedonia in order to settle their grudges with the Quin.

Click to expand...

You seem to completely ignore the fact that the Qin Dynasty only lasted 15 years, during which time Ying Zheng was busy consolidating his conquests. Meanwhile, the Han Dynasty had 200 years to build their empire.

More importantly, how can you possibly claim that the Qin never faced capable adversaries?

Lezt said:

Cortez, I'd rather view him as an Auxiliary to the Aztec internal issues than the actual main combatant; western versions on histroy often clouds our view of history; we really don't know how the Aztec fell.

Click to expand...

Ahhhh, someone's been reading critical historiography.

Nice!

Kurt said:

Macedonia would be hardly visible on such a map, while the Han started after taking over the Quin Empire in a revolt. As such per person and resource available, the Han were very modest conquerors.

Click to expand...

You cannot build your argument like that. Just because Qin was bigger than Macedonia to begin with, its achievement became modest? When was the starting time for you to judge both nations? Every nation, Qin or Macedonia, started from a single tribe. Should we start counting when both were a little tribe, or should we use a double standard and count Macedonia when it was a little tribe but count Qin when it was already a powerful nation? If we play it fair and start counting when both nations were small tribes, then I would say Qin and Han would be an AMAZING conqueror, being able to balloon into its size.

Additionally, can I say, if I start out homeless and finally got an efficiency, I would be considered to make a bigger achievement than Bill Gates who managed to ONLY double his estate in a few years' time? We are NOT comparing self-achievements? If you want to compare Macedonia before and after Alexander, yes, you would be correct in saying that Macedonia made a bigger improvement than Qin China had. Yet, we are comparing Qin and Macedonia. Then, it is the absolute achievement that matters. It's like comparing Bill Gates and me. Who has made a bigger achievement? I would think I made a bigger achievement if comparing with myself 10 years. But I am nowhere close if compared with Bill Gates in terms of absolute achievement.

BTW, it is "QIN", not "Quin". It is also fine if you want to use "Chin", but not "Quin"...

Kurt said:

This is the important part, the Quin were an ethnocracy like the Macedonians and true unification beyond the ethnic borders was achieved by the Han, who created a better empire (and that's why most Chinese refer to themselves as Han and not as Quin).

Click to expand...

I think you're missing an important fact that Vesicles hints at here:

vesicles said:

It is also fine if you want to use "Chin", but not "Quin"...

Click to expand...

Those who refer to themselves as Han Chinese are in fact, referring to themselves as Han Qinese.


Please correct me if my interpretation is incorrect.

Kurt said:

If the Quin faced capable foreign invaders, who were not just raiders for booty = the Macedonians, chances are that other Chinese tribes would have rebelled and aligned with Macedonia in order to settle their grudges with the Quin. As long as the transformation of China by the Han did not happen, it was no less vulnerable than Persia and her vast armies.
In my opinion, Alexander did have a political chance against Quin-dynasty, but not Han-dynasty China and this political chance opened the military chance. It could have worked, but could also have ended like Hannibal's campaign in Italy.

Click to expand...

OK, first of all, Qin faced much much stronger enemies than a few raiders for booty, for 500 years! For over 5 centuries, Qin, as a state, had been fighting other states surrounding it. Especially the last couple hundred years, all the states in China united and went up against Qin who was outnumbered close to 10:1. It was fighting non-stop against highly capable enemies for almost half a millennium. The entire Warring State period was almost Qin vs. everyone else. And these fightings were not some small scale skirmishes, but major battles consisting of hundreds of thousands of troops from either sides. After one brutally fought battle, Qin army captured 400,000 POWs. And in another battle, in which Qin actually lost, Qin lost close to quarter of a million troops. Then 2-3 years later, Qin went back with 600,000. That was the kind of battles Qin was fighting. "a few raiders for booty"

why do you assume that Qin's domestic enemy would align themselves with the Macedonians? The Greeks were vastly divided when the Persians invaded Greece. All the city states were fighting amongst each other to the death at the time. Did they immediately align themselves with the Persians? IF not, why would you consider the Chinese any different? China was in a civil war when Japan invaded China in the 1940's. Did any major factions in China align with the Japanese? Both the CCP and KMT stopped their fight and combined forces against the Japanese. This is the same Chinese as Qin.

One thing different between Qin-era China and Europe was that Qin or the Warring States before Qin had a concept of a central govn't, i.e. the Zhou emperor. Although the Zhou emperor was completely powerless at the time, Chinese people still saw themselves as having a single identity, citizen of Zhou, kind of like Athenians and Spartans both saw themselves as Greeks. This is vastly different from how other completely independent states in Europe saw themselves. Thus, it would not be hard to expect the Chinese, Qin or not, unite against a common enemy if that enemy comes. In other words, Qin might have survived and thrived if anyone actually decided to attack China. Its domestic enemies might be forced to unite and fight.