vesicles
Colonel
I would suggest you stop right there!!! If you have nothing to contribute, then don't!!!
Last edited:
Alexander VS Qin dynasty
- Thread starter handifei880210
- Start date
I would suggest you stop right there!!! If you have nothing to contribute, then don't!!!
Subedei
Banned Idiot
that's not an argument.
a correction, as requested would have taken that form, not an imperative.
nevertheless, as you presume authority here, i'll leave you to your historical fantasies.
exercise whatever authority you choose.
vesicles
Colonel
I am not claiming to be an authority of anything, simply trying to stop you from stepping into a sensitive and dangerous territory. Making fun of the name of a nation and name of a people might be considered insulting to many. I don't want to be insulted and I don't want you to do the insulting. If you had no idea what you are getting into, then you probably shouldn't have said it in the first place.
I have not touched anything fantasy. I have only been citing historical facts. I back up my points with references. Please point out anything you feel is fantasy. Don't make up stuff simply because you have nothing better to say.
Subedei
Banned Idiot
making fun?? who's making fun?
fyi, i'm an ethnographer by discipline, and ethnic by birth, so my sensitivity to ethnic issues derives from processes of enculturation, acculturatrion, and education.
i don't make fun of folks ethnic identities. it's not in my dna.
therefore, i reject being held accountable for your misattribution of my intentions.
conversely, both misinterpreted, and alternately interpreted facts, are in fact, expected in intellectual discussions, and misinterpretations are correctly accommodated by offering alternative, better informed interpretations.
but, hey, i'm accustomed to participating discussions in which all participants know what they're talking about and in which the intention is to learn collectively, and not to assert dominance and win the argument. thus, i'm obviously out of place here!
sensitive and dangerous? okay, but only, in my experience, to those who are incapable of more mature and reasoned responses.
but, hey, that's your taboo!
mine is allowing emotional sensitivities to hinder the pursuit of knowledge.
did macedonia ever engage in war with the qin? if not, then an analysis of what might have happened is a counter-factual analysis, actually, a counter-factual post analysis, that is, an analysis of something that did not happen and can not happen. in other words, fantasy!
all counter-factual arguments are based in fantasy, or, if you prefer, supposition. this particular counter-factual post analysis doesn't even qualify as theoretical supposition as the subject event can't possibly happen.
yeah, it might be fun, but as Kurt's already said:
i notice that Kurt has abstained from posting in this fantasy forum since making that observation.
i'm well inclined to following wise examples.
have fun!
Last edited:
vesicles
Colonel
Have I ever talked about Macedonian vs. Qin? I have been focusing exclusively on discussing China's history and paid special attention not to discuss any potential conflict between Macedonian and Qin. That's why I said I only talk about facts, no fantasy. So if you want to make fun of someone, at least find the right target.
It doesn't matter what your education is. All I know is I am offended by your comments about my heritage. And your comments got dangerously close to how Chinese Americans have been and still are being ridiculed in the US. So yes, I am offended by your comments. plain and simple.
Subedei
Banned Idiot
well, emporer, as my experience is invalid to you, then yours is to me, as well.
anyone can take offense at anything, whether or not offense is intended.
as i've said, i reject the responsibility of your interpretations of intent.
i'm placing you on ignore as i've nothing objective to learn from you, and your subjectivities hold no significance to me.
have fun!
I don't see how this is relevant, Alexander was at the start of the Macedonian empire, Qinshihuang was at the end of the Qin empire. Qin was established ~800 BC and ended in ~200BC; this is very similar to the entire existance of the Macedonia, 800 BC to 200 BC as well. I mean, if the name "China" is derived from the word "Qin" how long and how many humans are currently influenced by Qin compared to Macedonia ;P ? I just find this to be a very moot point.
I think you need to read more into Chinese history, During the warring states, Chinese states were fielding armies in the field for 4 years or more. Where Greek armies of the time were more concerned about returning each fall for the harvest.
The numbers game is true to the the Greeks as well, If Imperial Rome can only field ~35 Legions of ~4000 men each at its maximum capacity with a population triple to quadruple the size of Macedonia, how many men can Mecedonia actually field? 50,000 men?
What are you talking about? China took Xinjang which is central Asia -> that is 1.6 million square km. The idea of conquest is different as well. China traditionally just wants tributes to be paid and not necessarily territory to be gained. Some times you have to ask if there is things worth conquering, everyone was poor next to the then qin state; unlike the riches of india or persia that poor Macedonia can see.
Mmmhmmm, I think you are looking at it from a very clouded view. The fact is China kept growing in size and was pushing SEA back and kept holding onto most of it's processions. The Russian Empire, USA-Empire and Chinese Empire are the only empire in history to hold onto their territorial gains; all other empires lost their gains after their initial success - Including the Macedonian Empire.
Following your logic, you would think that the Roman Empire was militarily weak as Rome lost several major frontier wars? like repeatedly against Germania, Gaul? These are the Romans whom gave the Macedonian a hard spanking.
Actually,
I find this statement to be funny.
If you are from Southern China, you will find that people refer themselves as Tang people
If you are from Northern China, you will find people refering to themselves as Han people.
But if we take the word "China" to be a definitive of "Qin" as many scholars believes, then I assure you there are many people in China whom refer to themselves as Chinese; and therefore as Qin.
Alligence is an issue that Macedonia faced as well, right? If a credible Army is at the door step of Macedonia, are you so confident that the Persian subjects, Indian Subjects, Spartans, Athenians, Ionians will not rebel?
If you want to setup a lopsided war which all luck is in Macedonia's favor, then there is no longer a discussion. If you assume the Macedonian Aux will remain loyal and the Qin ones will turncoat.... well, sure, macedonian will win.
That I agree, it is just a big question mark as with all hyper-hypothetical wars.
Kurt
Junior Member
The Greek numbers are twisted in specific ways:
On the own side only heavy infantry and cavalry are counted - omitting very many light infantry and very many servants.
On the opponents side every being with two legs in the enemy camp is counted as an opponent and if convenient multiplied with a more propagandistic number.
That's why our data on the Macedonian army of Alexander is in fact quite reliable - they had a combined arms approach and counted the irregular light troops as well.
The Chinese system is clearly geared towards mobilization with spears and crossbows - you expect them to use large numbers. But I'm simply not sure that these reported numbers are true.
The Byzantines did research on maximum army size due to battlefield communication limits and arrived at 120,000 soldiers in an army as the maximum that could be operated in a controlled fashion. Either the Chinese had them as successive waves of independent armies, some tremendous battlefield communication ideas that none outside China adopted or inflated these numbers for various reasons. It is possible that Chinese armies did have a very high percentage of combatants and not servants as in Western armies due to their good mobilization concepts (the Macedonians under Alexander had regulations for tremendous low percentages of servants in a Western army). On home turf or close the Chinese system could mobilize quite outstanding numbers on short notice, but armies in the field all year must have been of a more limited nature than the translated reports on these wars in China suggest.
It's true that China could play the ethnocracy card against the Macedonians as well as the Macedonians could have played it during the Warring States era or shortly after before the cultural identity (Han) and not just politico-military (Quin) unification happened. Were the Warring States a civil war or a war between different tribes - I think the answer lies somewhere in between. The Han did seemingly not play the ethnocracy card against Bactria that rested on the tiniest percentage of Greeks and for this reason adopted a unifying religion. Why the Han did not establish control over this part of Central Asia that always was the key to good commerce with its silver mines is in my opinion inadequately explained by them having no interest to settle there. From the treaties it seems deductable that, like every empire, they had reached a limit of capability to conquer and occupy.
My starting point was, that in the field of weapon systems the views expressed were not well informed about the Macedonian military of that age. It was a system still very much in flux and if you look close, many aspects were not that different from the systems used in China because both had similar goals. They were about quickly mobilizing a population with long spears and easy to learn ranged weapons.
After experimenting with the then strongest handheld crossbows available (stronger than the HANDheld Chinese versions and necessarily slower), the gastraphetes, the Macedonians opted for staff slings (much cheaper weapon and munitions) and had the crossbow as a specialist weapon. What Greek science did produce, always lacking in China, were torque spring weapons that outrange all other ranged weapons (but expensive to afford). These ballistae and later sprignals always competed with crossbows in the Western military traditions (including Christian and Muslim).
The Macedonian spears became a pike (sarissa) that could be disassembled into two spears or javelins (Thracian influence) and using javelins in massed formations is the typical Western way of war of that time (the West is javelin country). Massed javelin formations can have outstanding success against crossbow armies as was attested in wars of China against their infantry neighbours. That's a note on my part to caution on the devastating effects of massed crossbow formations. The known wars in East Asia showed that they could be defeated by different ranged combat armaments. That doesn't mean javelins are superior to crossbows, but that a general ranged combat supremacy of one side did not exist. This supposed ranged combat supremacy has been one of the key arguments for Quin success.
Both the Chinese and the Macedonian military system had started from similar premises of rapidly arming the populance of a country with something affordable.
In the Macedonian army, during the long conquests without leave, these men became very professional - long time under arms and always outnumbered in their fights. The Macedonian armies of the diadochi revert to mobilization of lesser trained men again, but do keep the Macedonian+Greek ethnocracy at the expense of manpower to replace losses. That's the key difference between the systems. The Macedonians made themselves a tiny elite (with a wider cultural impact), but this was a 180° turn from the trend Alexander wanted to establish. I say Macedonians, because they did not even consider Greeks their equals. These were Macedonian kingdoms over barbarians that "protected allied free" Greek cities (often planted military colonies with an official alliance treaty to supply manpower). The Macedonians were the military elite, while the Greeks provided the culture and additional renown soldiers.
The Quin seem to have considered themselves not like the other Chinese states and were as much the outer barbarian land as Macedonia was for Greece. The Quin needed a replacement for a different kind of unity that did not delve in the military prowess of one tribe that intentionally eliminated the warriors of the defeated tribe. These were simply bad politics for having anything, but a Quin tribal (not national) ethnocracy - things get worse due to the higher mobilization degrees in these wars. After the Quin conquest, things were not stable - one of the reasons for starting the great wall with forced labour. I agree with you that the relation of the Quin to the other Chinese is rather like Macedonians to the Greeks and not a divide like Greeks and Persians or Egyptians with each a much longer history of cultural distinction. However, the core region of Asia Minor and the Fertile Crescent are culturally no less intertwined than the Warring States were - this was the core of the Persian Empire and the Persians were from their point of view a more remote barbarian people who re-united them all (happened many times before).
This is my argument to caution on the other part of supposed Quin supremacy, numbers. It will be hard to judge nowadays how much enticement for a revolt Macedonia under Alexander (not his successors) could have provided. If the revolt could be made to happen, then it's in the realm of the possible to win and conquer. This template of Alexander using warfare and politics gets recycled by Pyrrhus, Hannibal and Scipio Africanus, illustrating the varying degrees of success achieved by imitating Alexander. These politics are a most important part of Alexander's campaigns and in the context he operated, these politics were closely connected to religion - making Egypt such an easy case.
I hope that these two issues, technology and politics, are sufficiently explained, because without them Alexander's military gets misjudged.
The connection in name Quin - China relatively recent in the West and not reflected in Hellenistic and Roman sources, who called them Serians (renown for their steel after they introduced iron).
After the Peloponnesian War Greek armies were professionalized and freed from the agricultural cycle. Mercenaries were even supplied with armour - eroding the property qualifications for hoplites and making the distinctions between regular heavy and irregular light troops one of capabilities and not wealth.
On the own side only heavy infantry and cavalry are counted - omitting very many light infantry and very many servants.
On the opponents side every being with two legs in the enemy camp is counted as an opponent and if convenient multiplied with a more propagandistic number.
That's why our data on the Macedonian army of Alexander is in fact quite reliable - they had a combined arms approach and counted the irregular light troops as well.
The Chinese system is clearly geared towards mobilization with spears and crossbows - you expect them to use large numbers. But I'm simply not sure that these reported numbers are true.
The Byzantines did research on maximum army size due to battlefield communication limits and arrived at 120,000 soldiers in an army as the maximum that could be operated in a controlled fashion. Either the Chinese had them as successive waves of independent armies, some tremendous battlefield communication ideas that none outside China adopted or inflated these numbers for various reasons. It is possible that Chinese armies did have a very high percentage of combatants and not servants as in Western armies due to their good mobilization concepts (the Macedonians under Alexander had regulations for tremendous low percentages of servants in a Western army). On home turf or close the Chinese system could mobilize quite outstanding numbers on short notice, but armies in the field all year must have been of a more limited nature than the translated reports on these wars in China suggest.
It's true that China could play the ethnocracy card against the Macedonians as well as the Macedonians could have played it during the Warring States era or shortly after before the cultural identity (Han) and not just politico-military (Quin) unification happened. Were the Warring States a civil war or a war between different tribes - I think the answer lies somewhere in between. The Han did seemingly not play the ethnocracy card against Bactria that rested on the tiniest percentage of Greeks and for this reason adopted a unifying religion. Why the Han did not establish control over this part of Central Asia that always was the key to good commerce with its silver mines is in my opinion inadequately explained by them having no interest to settle there. From the treaties it seems deductable that, like every empire, they had reached a limit of capability to conquer and occupy.
My starting point was, that in the field of weapon systems the views expressed were not well informed about the Macedonian military of that age. It was a system still very much in flux and if you look close, many aspects were not that different from the systems used in China because both had similar goals. They were about quickly mobilizing a population with long spears and easy to learn ranged weapons.
After experimenting with the then strongest handheld crossbows available (stronger than the HANDheld Chinese versions and necessarily slower), the gastraphetes, the Macedonians opted for staff slings (much cheaper weapon and munitions) and had the crossbow as a specialist weapon. What Greek science did produce, always lacking in China, were torque spring weapons that outrange all other ranged weapons (but expensive to afford). These ballistae and later sprignals always competed with crossbows in the Western military traditions (including Christian and Muslim).
The Macedonian spears became a pike (sarissa) that could be disassembled into two spears or javelins (Thracian influence) and using javelins in massed formations is the typical Western way of war of that time (the West is javelin country). Massed javelin formations can have outstanding success against crossbow armies as was attested in wars of China against their infantry neighbours. That's a note on my part to caution on the devastating effects of massed crossbow formations. The known wars in East Asia showed that they could be defeated by different ranged combat armaments. That doesn't mean javelins are superior to crossbows, but that a general ranged combat supremacy of one side did not exist. This supposed ranged combat supremacy has been one of the key arguments for Quin success.
Both the Chinese and the Macedonian military system had started from similar premises of rapidly arming the populance of a country with something affordable.
In the Macedonian army, during the long conquests without leave, these men became very professional - long time under arms and always outnumbered in their fights. The Macedonian armies of the diadochi revert to mobilization of lesser trained men again, but do keep the Macedonian+Greek ethnocracy at the expense of manpower to replace losses. That's the key difference between the systems. The Macedonians made themselves a tiny elite (with a wider cultural impact), but this was a 180° turn from the trend Alexander wanted to establish. I say Macedonians, because they did not even consider Greeks their equals. These were Macedonian kingdoms over barbarians that "protected allied free" Greek cities (often planted military colonies with an official alliance treaty to supply manpower). The Macedonians were the military elite, while the Greeks provided the culture and additional renown soldiers.
The Quin seem to have considered themselves not like the other Chinese states and were as much the outer barbarian land as Macedonia was for Greece. The Quin needed a replacement for a different kind of unity that did not delve in the military prowess of one tribe that intentionally eliminated the warriors of the defeated tribe. These were simply bad politics for having anything, but a Quin tribal (not national) ethnocracy - things get worse due to the higher mobilization degrees in these wars. After the Quin conquest, things were not stable - one of the reasons for starting the great wall with forced labour. I agree with you that the relation of the Quin to the other Chinese is rather like Macedonians to the Greeks and not a divide like Greeks and Persians or Egyptians with each a much longer history of cultural distinction. However, the core region of Asia Minor and the Fertile Crescent are culturally no less intertwined than the Warring States were - this was the core of the Persian Empire and the Persians were from their point of view a more remote barbarian people who re-united them all (happened many times before).
This is my argument to caution on the other part of supposed Quin supremacy, numbers. It will be hard to judge nowadays how much enticement for a revolt Macedonia under Alexander (not his successors) could have provided. If the revolt could be made to happen, then it's in the realm of the possible to win and conquer. This template of Alexander using warfare and politics gets recycled by Pyrrhus, Hannibal and Scipio Africanus, illustrating the varying degrees of success achieved by imitating Alexander. These politics are a most important part of Alexander's campaigns and in the context he operated, these politics were closely connected to religion - making Egypt such an easy case.
I hope that these two issues, technology and politics, are sufficiently explained, because without them Alexander's military gets misjudged.
The connection in name Quin - China relatively recent in the West and not reflected in Hellenistic and Roman sources, who called them Serians (renown for their steel after they introduced iron).
After the Peloponnesian War Greek armies were professionalized and freed from the agricultural cycle. Mercenaries were even supplied with armour - eroding the property qualifications for hoplites and making the distinctions between regular heavy and irregular light troops one of capabilities and not wealth.
Last edited:
solarz
Brigadier
That is just categorically wrong.
Alexander's army:
20,000 peltasts
22,000 heavy infantry
5,000 cavalry
Alexander's army:
13,000 peltasts
22,000 heavy infantry
5,850 cavalry
I challenge you to provide a single credible source that backs up your assertion that Chinese historical texts included camp followers in their count of army sizes.
Then again, you have the habit of making completely unfounded claims and ignoring posts that call you out on those claims. So I'm not holding my breath.