If Alexander Invade China

modern day's fascism

Legalism has some concept that is similar to modern day rule of law, especially under Shang Yang’s equality before the law, and the concept of legalism from Shang Jun Shu is the law is the ultimate governing concept, and in this respect it is very similarly to European theory of law. Shih: Power and position Shu: Administrative techniques and methods components in the Legalism changed the entire concept, since it places the King as the ultimate manifest of law, in this respect the king is virtually the God, and the very grund norm of the law. Therefore this system is not different from the Greek concept of law, only the origin of law is different, one is based on constitution another based on the king, but the concept of rule of law is nonetheless the same. The closest comparison to legalism is Niccolo’ Machivaelli and his concept of rulership in The Prince

Come on, when did I say "Hitler's intellectual comrades had ancient China in mind"?

What I said is "equivalent to", and you seem even not to understand what "Legalism" means in Chinese history.

sinowarrior said:

Complex weapon system can not be learned overnight, metallurgy can not be improved in short time span. Most importantly the Art of War despises the open ground battle, so before Alex had a chance of battle, his supply deport is likely to be razed to the ground, his army harassed and ambushed numerous times and even if an open battle is fought, he would nonetheless face arrows that will give him and his army a really good shade to fight under.
Persian army was routed because they haven’t fight any major battles and are recruited from various little kingdoms within the empire, but Alex in China will face Qin’s army who had been fighting total war for years, and its soldier are disciplined under the Legalist principles its general trained under the art of war

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No but they can be captured, thier base of manufacturing secured, the those trained in thier use recruited (Alexander was remarkably effective in recruiting locals). Alexander was a military genius who beat every type of army thrown agaisnt him from massive Persian slave armies, Greek city states, wealthy Indian Empires, Barbarians, Scythians, Afghans (Bactrians) everyone failed, why would China be so different vs a literal god or war?

Generals may have been trained in the art of war so what, that worked real well vs the Japanese in 37 or vs the Colonial powers, or vs Russia, or vs the Mongols. Alexander understood the art of war to his very bones. His core troops were uber elite who had more experiance fighting more and different types of foes than any other army in history excpet the Mongols.

If China was so unbeatalbe was has it bene beaten by so many different powers? China is a great power and a pillar of civilisation but it most definately is not the middle kingdom.

zraver said:

Generals may have been trained in the art of war so what, that worked real well vs the Japanese in 37 or vs the Colonial powers, or vs Russia, or vs the Mongols. Alexander understood the art of war to his very bones. His core troops were uber elite who had more experiance fighting more and different types of foes than any other army in history excpet the Mongols.

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You really don't understand that Japan fought with China many times, and only gained up hand once. Hun was defeated by Chinese but destroyed Roman.
Bulk of Mongal troops were Chinese since at the time of Mongal rising, China was splited already.

Alex even couldn't cross India, let alone came to China. And his troops would be piece meal for Chinese. Qin's troops easily defeated Hun, but it took Han 100 years to achieve that.

Read history of Battle of Baekgang


That single battle subdued Japan for 1000 years, there is no western battle that achieved this kind of overwheleming.

zraver said:

No but they can be captured, thier base of manufacturing secured, the those trained in thier use recruited (Alexander was remarkably effective in recruiting locals). Alexander was a military genius who beat every type of army thrown agaisnt him from massive Persian slave armies, Greek city states, wealthy Indian Empires, Barbarians, Scythians, Afghans (Bactrians) everyone failed, why would China be so different vs a literal god or war?

Generals may have been trained in the art of war so what, that worked real well vs the Japanese in 37 or vs the Colonial powers, or vs Russia, or vs the Mongols. Alexander understood the art of war to his very bones. His core troops were uber elite who had more experiance fighting more and different types of foes than any other army in history excpet the Mongols.

If China was so unbeatalbe was has it bene beaten by so many different powers? China is a great power and a pillar of civilisation but it most definately is not the middle kingdom.

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Ancient China was NEVER conquered by any foreign power until Kublai Khan (only to become a major Sinophile himself). Not even Chinggis Khan himself was able to conquer the Song Dynasty, which was considered a militarily weak dynasty. It finally took his grandson to do it, and even that was lost in a generation. You cannot say the same with Greeks, who eventually lost to the Romans.

And no, Alexander didn't conquer the Indians either, other than some local warlords.

@fishhead: my post was about european history and not about China, nevertheless I wanted to make you aware that people in the west and especially in the US have some dangerous misconceptions about China just because they know so little about chinese history and philosophy.

Introducing a specific term (for 20 th century totalitarism) to the discussion like ´facism´or ´nazism´is counterproductive since most educated westerners are not aware of the chinese historical background but much more about selective parts of 20th century european history. Consequently they will get the ´story´wrong and could eventually come to the conclusion that China is the millenia old cradle of totalitarian ideologies and a grave danger to ´their´ strain of civilization. (Obviously that outcome serves only a ´clash of civilization´theorist...:nono: )

After all some of your arguments are certainly valid as the fascist rule of law does indeed mean that the law serves the synthesis of people and state (´peoples-state´ - ´peoples-society´) and that the state embodied personally by the leaders of the state is at least in certain cases ´above´the law. This kind of ´relativism´was already fully developed under the rule of Qin Shi Huang but you will find similar basics in the works of Macchiavelli almost 1800 years later.

Violet Oboe said:

@fishhead: my post was about european history and not about China, nevertheless I wanted to make you aware that people in the west and especially in the US have some dangerous misconceptions about China just because they know so little about chinese history and philosophy.

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I understand your concern and as a Chinese myself I have no intention to increase that misconceptions. But since we talk about academic stuffs so I really care very little about the "political correctness" but only fact.

The nature of Chinese "Legalism", was very similiar to modern day European fascism, the major difference is that Chinese Legalism had no racial elements in it. The common point is that the goal of the state is survival and conquering, the goal of the individual is to contribute to the state, and nothing else. Legalism even thinks commercial trade, art, academic research, philosophy are not useful things for that goal, and should be eliminated.

The Legalism achieved the stunning victory in China, unified the country but fell quickly. Since Qin dynasty nobody in China ever tried to restore that idea, that's the fact.

fishhead said:

You really don't understand that Japan fought with China many times, and only gained up hand once. Hun was defeated by Chinese but destroyed Roman.
Bulk of Mongal troops were Chinese since at the time of Mongal rising, China was splited already.

Alex even couldn't cross India, let alone came to China. And his troops would be piece meal for Chinese. Qin's troops easily defeated Hun, but it took Han 100 years to achieve that.

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Alexanders troops wouldn't cross india and he died early. That is ahuge differance from COULDN'T. Alexanders troops made it to the border of modern day China when the conquered Bactria. If his troops had been willing he could ahve gone on, he wanted too.

Alexander like Sudedei and a few others were without peer when it came to war. To think that mere average or even good generals could have stopped these types of men is insane. They were never stopped not by anyone. Like a hurricane or typhoon they were a force of nature that goes wher eand when it wanted.

zraver said:

Alexanders troops wouldn't cross india and he died early. That is ahuge differance from COULDN'T. Alexanders troops made it to the border of modern day China when the conquered Bactria.

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It's simply NOT the fact. The fact is that Alexander did invade India and fought quite a few battles there. But their troops stopped at the Beas River and refused to go, they knew it's not a vacation.

He couldn't.

Alexander's war was simply not camparable to Chinese at that time. His troops numbered always around 50k. But Chinese warfare was million soldier level. Qin could mobiliz 600,000 men at one time, and one war could last 2-3 years. Alexander's troop was simply piece meal in Chinese eyes.

You got to note that Hun never invaded China during Chinese warring state period, everyone was war-hardened. Their military was even stronger than the unified Han dynasty.